Chair Makeover - Shabby Chic

Hello everyone! My girlfriend and I had a blast this holiday weekend. We ran around her little town on Saturday from morning until late afternoon shopping at all the yard sales. Every year her town has a day when you can't go down a street without yards full of treasures. The park even fills up with people who are on the outskirts of town wanting to sell their "junk".

I had specific things I was looking for, a chair for one of my craft desks, chandelier that I could alter for a Shabby Chic touch in my craft room, some doilies, and I am happy to say that I found everything I wanted. I also picked up some pink and white, striped wallpaper that I can use in my room and for craft projects. I haven't made any changes to my chandelier yet, but I did give the dated chair a shabby makeover and it turned out great. I draped some accessories on it that I got during our yard sale adventure too.

Nothing like redoing an old chair to make it look old.

I didn't mind the scratches, because I was going to make it look old and abused anyway. The first thing I did was remove the seat and paint the chair. I used a paint brush for all the nooks and crannies and then a small roller for a nice even coat on the rest of the chair. 

The vinyl covered cushion was damaged and dirty, but it is a very sturdy chair and worth the easy fix. 

The second thing I did was remove the old cover from the seat cushion. I have to say this part was quite nasty.

A friend of mine had given me some scrap material. I loved this material, but it was so small I wasn't sure what I would ever do with it. The beautiful pink and white material was sewn to an odd strip of red, black and white printed material. I'm not sure why, but it gave me the extra material I needed to be able to wrap my new chair cushion.

Craftaholics Anonymous has a great tutorial on upholstering chair seats if you've never done it before and the the same principles go for reupholstering. Before attaching the new covered seat I sanded the white paint on the chair frame to give it a worn, peeling paint look.

I love the material on this chair. It was the touch I was looking for.

Now I have a beautiful, Shabby Chic chair to add to my craft room. I can't wait until I'm done with my craft room and can show my chair in its new home.

Here is a sneak peak of another craft room project

Below is the chandelier I picked up for $5.00. I can't wait to start working on it and most importantly to remove the yellowed, ugly ceiling fan that's currently in my room.

I have big plans for this chandelier and love that there are hooks on the base to hang crystals. Stop back again and see the updates!

Happy Crafting!

Greeting Card - Butterfly Kisses

Hello everyone! 

We're having beautiful weather here in Pennsylvania for Memorial Day today. Nice of the sun to come out so I could take some photographs. :)

I'm still in the midst of a craft room makeover, but I had to fit a little crafting in since I'm really missing it. I'm finding some great little items to use in crafts as I open boxes I had stuck in a corner months ago. Many of the things I've found have inspired me to get back to doing some mixed media canvas collages, layouts, and altered items that I also miss doing. For today though, with my room still in disarray, I decided to do a simple card with my border punches.

I've never done a card before with just black and white. I always had to stick a little color in somewhere, but this time I decided to stop, and strangely I struggled with that a little. I used white card stock to punch the borders out and then placed them on a black card stock mat. I then attached the mat to a white base-card and used a border punch on the back page to give it some interest on the inside.

 

I used a butterfly stamp that I only applied ink to once for the darkest butterfly and then kept stamping to create ghost images so the sentiment would show up. One of these days I'm going to have to get all my stamps and ink out and start designing my own craft paper.

Materials:

1. Rangwer Archival Ink in black
2. Premium Cardstock by Core'dinations (Great white and Black Cat)
3. Martha Stewart Crafts Punch Around the Page - Double Arches
4. Martha Stewart Crafts Punch Around the Page - Blooming Vines
5. Sizzix Stamp and Die Cut - 657773
6. Fiskars Border Punch - Double Bubble
7. Spellbinders Nestabilites Eleven -S4-246
8. Fiskars Clear Stamps - Butterfly Magic
9. Ek Success Border Paper Punch - Pointed Flower

Happy Crafting!

Copyright © 2014 Angela Conklin - Heartedly Handcrafted

All Rights Reserved

Update 2: Craft Room Makeover Series

Hello everyone!

I've been very busy the past few days and have greatly missed blogging and seeing what everyone has been working on. It won't be long now, because I'm really trying hard to get my craft room done. It feels like I've been working day and night. Being able to craft again in a new, light and airy room has truly been a motivating factor to get finished.

I've spent most of my time painting and have some left to do, but I've also been trying to get my craft supplies back off the floor and into their new storage areas before I start stepping on them. Today I thought I'd post some photos to show how my craft room is progressing. Sorry about the dark photos (again), but I've been left taking my photos in the evenings when I can't get direct light in the window and at night. I've even had to resort to the flash on my camera. Oh no! :)

 Today

Before

Before and After

 

In the Before photo I was getting really tired of feeling like I was surrounded by junk. Nothing matched in color, all of my containers were different shapes, sizes and materials and there was no flow. In the After I streamlined my shelves with lace curtains to cover the plastic containers in the bottom and matching bins. I found cloth storage bins at Family Dollar (1 package of 3 bins for $6.00) so I bought four packages. To the right you can see what they looked like when I first got them. I loved the clean look of them, but they were just too plain for my girly room so I embellished them with lace, tags and the ones on the top shelf (not shown) with bows.

I also worked on another piece of furniture in my craft room. It was a queen headboard that I turned into a large desk. I like it much better now. Unfortunately I have so much stuff still on my floor I couldn't back up enough to get the entire furniture piece in the camera.

Today

Before

I gave my mason jars a makeover as well and bought a few baskets (also at Family Dollar) for $2.00 a piece.

I spray painted my desk organizers. I don't mind a little black or gray here and there, but these were an easy fix and they look so much better in the room. I laid the first organizer on its side to store some of my dies.

 I found the plastic casing of a vinyl window in the garage and the size was perfect to hold my Tim Holtz Distress Inks. I decided to glue lace on the front, because it was very scuffed up.

  I moved the pegs in my cabinet so the shelf would tip forward allowing me to not only see all of my inks, but easily access them.

Then I covered it all up with a curtain.

$$$ Spent

$3.44 can of spray paint
$24.00 Cloth storage bins

$16.00 small baskets

$12.99 Curtains (cut up to enclose bottoms of shelves and table)
$11.00 Satin finish white paint 
$12.00 Rugs

Total $79.43

You can find more information about my craft room makeover at the links below.

Update: Craft Room Makeover in Progress - Add Paint to Mismatched Furniture

Altered Vase - First Shabby Chic Decoration for my New Craft Room 

Decorating a Room Around a Few Pieces of Furniture - The Idea/Planning Stage  

Feminine Lampshade Makeover in 4 Steps

 Happy Crafting and Craft Room Makeover!

Copyright © 2014 Angela Conklin - Heartedly Handcrafted

All Rights Reserved

Feminine Lampshade Makeover in 4 Steps

Hello everyone!

Today I'm sharing a lampshade makeover that I did by just using items that were already in my craft room. I considered buying a fancy-shaped lampshade that I could add lace, fringe and pearls to embellish, but I like to upcycle and it seemed a waste of money and a perfectly good lamp shade to not just redo it. I didn't add fringe and peals to this lampshade since it has simple lines. I wanted to keep it clean looking. I also didn't want to block the wonderful lighting it provides now. I haven't decided what I want to do with the base, but the old stained shade had to go. 

I'll walk you through the steps I took.

In the first photo you can see I made a huge mistake. I tried washing my old lampshade and it just left it stained and ugly. I should have known better, but live and learn.

Step #1 Remove the old ugly fabric

I was more than happy to rid myself of the drab color that made the light a very yellowish-orange. Not good for a craft room. I started by removing the decorative strips from the top and bottom of the lampshade.

In the photo below the top strip has already been removed and I'm pulling the bottom one off. I was surprised how easily I could remove them and that they were just glued on. Note: I didn't pull the strips off while it was on the lamp base.

If I covered my lampshade without removing the old fabric it would just block more light and I was afraid the stain would show through. So I used my Xacto knife and a pair of scissors to get down to the bare bones of my lampshade. After cutting the material away I was a bit fearful of what I was going to do next. As usual I didn't plan ahead.

  

Step #2 Prepare your new fabric

 I found some taffeta fabric I had gotten from a friend. Just about any fabric can be used. This fabric tears quite easily once you make a small slit with scissors at the top. The sides of the fabric strips will fray a little, but I liked the fringe-like effect it gave. I also ended up with some webs of thread that I had to pull away. It was like working with hot glue and getting those little strings.
The first strips I made were too big and wouldn't lay well so I tore them in half which gave me 1 and 3/4 inch strips. They worked perfectly. I chose to do strips because it seemed to be the easiest route to take with the fabric I had.

Step #3 Hot glue your fabric to your lampshade skeleton and wrap

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of wrapping the fabric on the wire skeleton of the lampshade, so here I used a piece of card board to illustrate. First I used hot glue to attach the fabric to the top wire frame and let my fabric hang down the front. Then I went under the front bottom edge (wrapping) of the lampshade and slightly angled the fabric in the back so the next time I pulled the fabric down the front it would be moved over revealing half of the first strip.

I could have stopped here once I was done wrapping the fabric, but I wanted to personalize my lampshade. I wanted something feminine and not having the edges trimmed would have driven me crazy.

Step #4 Decide the theme of you lampshade and embellish

I chose the ribbon and laces I wanted to use and hot glued them on.

I also attached a lace flower I made.

Now I have a new lampshade that produces a soft white light, makes my room brighter and fits with theme of my new craft room.In the photo the shade appears shiner than it does in person as the camera picked up reflection.

 This is how my lamp shade appears when the light is turned on.

Happy Crafting!

Copyright © 2014 Angela Conklin - Heartedly Handcrafted

All Rights Reserved

Make Your Own Blog Photo Gallery in Blogger

Hello everyone! I'm very excited about my new Photo Gallery page!
You can find it in the top tab menu of my blog.

   I had put making my photo gallery off for a couple of months because it looked a bit overwhelming. Although it was time consuming going back through all of my posts, once I got the hang of it listing my projects went much easier. It took me a few hours from beginning (learning) to end (posting), but it was well worth it. Now that I'm all set up, posting future projects should be a breeze.  

I'm so happy that a visitor to my blog can go directly to the photo gallery and click on an image that will take that person straight to what he/she wants to see.

   Having a photo gallery is essential for craft blogs, because it provides easy navigation to all of your projects. I know when I visit blogs it can be frustrating to have to go through archive menus or page by page (older posts) looking for things I like. I have Popular Posts listed in the sidebar of my blog, but that just means many people may not see something they would really like.

   So here is a quick screenshot of part of my new gallery. I also have scrapbook layouts listed and will be adding new categories for other projects. One option I didn't use was cropping my photos to make them all the same size. I didn't like the idea of doing that for cards and layouts, but there is a way to make sure you don't end up with a large photo in the middle of a row of smaller ones and that can be done after you have placed them in your gallery. If you decide to make your own photo gallery please feel free to ask me any questions as I finally have the hang of it now.
  

 

The information I used to make my Photo Gallery can be found at Sweeter than Sweets

 Happy Crafting!

Update: Craft Room Makeover in Progress - Add Paint to Mismatched Furniture

Hello everyone!

The Painting in my craft room has begun

My mess of a craft room just got messier as I've been pulling everything down off the shelves and giving my room a makeover. I've had a room of mismatched furniture and storage bins that make everything feel cluttered and closed in, even though I've been organized. Below are photos of my progress. They're not the greatest quality photos because I've been doing much of my work during the evening and at night, but I think the difference in atmosphere, just by adding some paint and hiding all those paint bottles, really shows up. The before picture looks like an eye-spy photo.

I didn't paint stripes on the bottom portion of the shelves because I want to place my big ugly things in there and cover them up. I plan to paint many of my storage containers white or at least coordinate with the color scheme of the room to keep a light and airy feeling. The photo (left) shows the colorful plastic drawers that I took from the center of the two white shelves and replaced with a wine cabinet I use for my paper storage (right).

Making the old hidden wine cabinet a featured piece

The cabinet (pictured below) had very dark stained wood with a clear glass door. It had been sitting on the curb and I had no qualms about asking my neighbors for it last fall. Right now it's just primed. Painting will happen down the road since it is easily pulled out. A medicine cabinet sits on the top of it that I recovered from our garage. It's been wiped down and painted, but as you can see I have not cleaned the mirror yet.

  

Painting a flower motif

I've never painted flowers before, so I watched some one-stroke painting of flowers on YouTube. The people that do one-stroke painting are VERY impressive.

I lined the back of the glass with white, crinkle-cotton fabric and have begun to paint a flower motif on the front of the glass. Painting on glass is wonderful because if you mess up it easily wipes away. The paint can also be scraped off with a razor blade when it's dry. I did a lot of wiping away as I practiced using the one-stroke technique. I still have quite a bit of painting to do, but it's coming along. I used the leftover acrylic, craft-paint I mixed for painting the back of my bookcases so the color would be the same.

Removing the old shelves above the bookcases

I removed the black shelf that was once over the bookcases and found a piece of scrap plywood that I spray painted a turquoise color. All that can be seen of the new shelf is the underside over the medicine cabinet (pictured-right). There was also an ugly wood shelf above the black shelf so I painted it white and spray painted the brackets turquoise.

I wanted to attach molding to the top of my cabinets, but don't have the money for molding at the moment so I used a lace valance over the top of the shelves to soften their appearance. This is as good as it gets for now.

Making the stripes

I couldn't find any scrap wallpaper around the house and I didn't want to have to buy paint so I pulled out my painter's masking tape and my acrylic, craft paint. I had a large bottle of white craft paint so I used mostly the white with a mix of blues and some green to get the colors I wanted. I didn't want to have to use very much paint so I dabbed the paint onto the back of the bookcase with a dry brush. I like the texture I got.

I can only guess that there is something on the back of the bookcases, because even though I thoroughly cleaned them, they rejected the paint and made the paint splotchy in some places, but my daughter and I agree we like it and it just adds to the texture and character. Since the shelves break it up and there will be craft bins on the shelves it wasn't something to be concerned about.  

When my daughter saw the painted bookcases she told me that she wants striped bedroom walls. Hahaha! Being in the middle of this project I don't even have the energy to entertain the thought.

 Making my mismatched furniture more cohesive

Below in the next three photos, I painted white, the two cabinets that sit on my desk and weathered them with sandpaper. I used a sheer floral curtain I already had on hand to line the doors. The glass was missing from one door so I broke the remaining glass out and then placed white fabric behind the floral fabric to make the pattern pop. Glue guns are very handy for this.

I placed the cabinet upside down so it can sit on top of the other and the shaped wood looks kind of cute topping it off instead of hanging below. It's one of my favorite furniture pieces so far. Very Shabby Chic :)

When I broke the glass, I used a large piece of cardboard to protect the floor and make cleanup easy.

The cabinet that it sits on was another old medicine cabinet with glass shelves that I store my rubber stamps and ink in. I used cup hooks to hold a cafe, curtain rod on the front. All I had left was the bottom of the large curtain I had cut into pieces, so I turned the curtain upside down and it's now hanging from the hem. I roughly cut the curtain to size because I will be trimming it with thin lace. Fortunately the curtain was narrow so I don't have to do any sewing on the sides.

Fun with color
Months ago I picked up a small paint sample that was on clearance because I love the bright bubblegum-pink color. I had no idea what I would use it for, maybe crafts, but it was too good of a deal to pass up.To have some fun with a splash of color I painted the inside of my cabinet with it. The new fresh paint really beats the scratched up, dark stain that once covered the inside. I still need to take my razor blade to clean up the lines of the fabric that I glued on the doors, but right now I'm in a rush to get back to crafting, so it can wait.

The money I've spent
$$$
So far I've spent money on a can of spray paint. For everything else I've either used things I already had in my craft room, throughout the house or found in the garage. It feels good to do a craft room makeover and it feels even better to do it without spending a lot of money. I set myself a budget of $100.00 and I've spent $4.00. Not bad for all the changes I've made and I didn't even use an entire bottle of craft paint.

If you would like to challenge yourself to redo your craft room like I'm doing, please let me know. I would love to see how and what you do and feature your story and photos.

Happy crafting and redecorating!

Copyright © 2014 Angela Conklin - Heartedly Handcrafted

All Rights Reserved