Magical Mystery Chair

This particular story has two parts.  It begins two years ago when my husband surprised me with a dining table for my birthday.  It's made from reclaimed railroad ties and I absolutely love it.

It was quite a splurge, so we didn't get dining chairs.  I loved the idea of collecting different antique chairs and thought we could build the dining set over time.  Flash forward two years later- we have one chair.  It makes dinner parties difficult deciding which person can sit.  We do, however, have four wood folding chairs from IKEA that we bought years ago for our patio.  These have been our lifesaver.

Part 2- I love Anthropologie.  Walking through the store just makes me happy.  And have you seen the catalog?  It's more like a book of art than a product catalog.  They could put a toenail in the catalog and I'd want to buy it.

So, when I saw this post from Apartment Therapy on how to upholster folding chairs- inspired by Anthropologie chairs- I decided to give it a shot.

I used my old wood folding chairs and some scraps of fabric I had.  I had to buy foam and Dacron.  And I made my own cording (trim) to cover the staples.  This was the end result.

Oh my goodness, this was not an easy DIY project.  Many staples were sacrificed in the process, much foul language was used.  Although they are definitely not perfect, I like how they turned out.  They will do the job until we can afford some Eames chairs :)

For the Benefit of Mr Moo

I recently left my job as a retail buyer to stay at home with my one-year-old, Max (Mr Moo).  This has given me the opportunity to try my hand at "handmade".  Coming from the girl that sewed her finger to her shirt in college, I thought I'd share my projects.

Here are some things I made over the holidays.

Orange Marmalade
It felt great to give these golden sugary gifts, and they looked so mod with the dot fabric.  The process isn't as difficult as I thought.

• Boil fresh squeezed juice and peels until soft, add the sugar and cook until it passes the wrinkle test.  
• Bottle them up (I used Ball Jars of course, ahem- Ball State alum!) and boil to preserve.

I think the packaging turned out cute too.  Inexpensive paper lunch bags with fun ribbon.

Pomegranate Jam
I tried this one too, pomegranates are a little expensive, but I thought it would be a great jam for Christmas gifts.  It was so hard to get the juice out!  You should have seen our kitchen...and I'm still finding red syrupy dots everywhere.  Finally I was ready to boil and I mis-read the instructions, I ended up with pomegranate hard candy!  If you would like a jar of pomegranate candy that won't even chip out of the jar, just let me know!  File this under not worth it.

Puppet Theater Curtain
I made this for my 3-year-old nephew Owen.  I liked this better than the tabletop puppet theaters because it's a total space saver.  I bought one of those adjustable curtain rods so it can be set up in any doorway and then put away after.  You can also adjust the height of the curtain as the child gets taller.

• Cut & sew a curtain to fit a standard doorway- hemming all edges and making sure the top loop is wide enough for the rod to slip through.  
• Cut the "stage" opening, mine was 18x18".
• Sew interfacing on the back around this opening for stability.
• For stage curtains cut a square that is about and inch larger than the opening, cut in half and hem the edges.
• Sew the curtains to the top back of the stage opening. 
• Sew 2 ribbons on the the back of each side of the opening to tie the curtains back for the show.
• Glue four pieces of ribbon on the front around the opening.

Silhouettes
I saw a post on designspongeonline.com with different ways to create silhouettes.  Instead of the standard black paper, the silhouette was cut from thin birch wood.  I mounted the silhouette on fabric and framed it.  I chose a conservative fabric, but it would be fun with something more poppy too.  This is a great inexpensive gift!

Sneak Preview

This is my next project, check in next week to see what it turns out to be...