Bookcase Makeover

If you are following my posts then you will know that my young 13 year old daughter now has her own craft studio for her to do her crafts. We have both been very busy the last few weeks getting the room sorted. This is a bookcase that I gave a crafty makeover.

For this makeover I simply sanded down the wood with sandpaper. Then gave a few coats of furniture paint. I used B&Q Made By Me make for this project. It looks lovely with the other painted pieces of furniture in the room. The room is nearly finished now, just a few finishing touches.

Cabinet Makeover

If you are following my posts and my daughter's posts you will know that she now has her own craft studio so we are all busy trying to furnish it and making everything look arty!  We bought this cabinet originally to use as a support for another desk but we haven't got around to that yet. It was cheaper to buy this second hand and paint it than it was to buy desk legs. Plus we get plenty of storage use from it. For now we are still using it as storage. She has placed all her lovely teacups that she has bought to make her candles and pincushions with.

We bought this for only £5 and used a tester pot paint for only £1 so the whole project has cost us £6 which is a real bargain.

If you have missed my previous posts or my daughter's posts below are some photographs. The one immediately below is a filing cabinet that I did a makeover on.

The photo below is a desk my daughter made using 2 old bedside cabinets she painted and a worktop.

My daughter made this arty desk from a bedroom dressing table that she painted.

Filing Cabinet Makeover

If you follow my daughter's blog http://www.slhcrafts.com/ then you will know she now has her own Craft Studio so we are in the middle of getting it all ready and furnished. One of the projects that I have done is transform an old dull filing cabinet into a bright arty design.

This was actually quite straight forward but gave a beautiful transformation.

Requirements:

Metal Paint, brushes
Sticky Backed Plastic.

Instructions:

Step 1: Clean the cabinet and prepare with primer if required. (I just cleaned)
Step 2: Paint the parts that you wish to paint, I did everything except the drawers. Allow to dry.
Step 3: Measure the size of the drawers and cut the roll as required. Place over the drawer carefully smoothing out gradually to avoid air bubbles.

You now have a transformed filing cabinet.

DIY Pinboard Tutorial

We have just had our Kitchen updated and I wanted to place a pinboard on the wall next to the kitchen door. The only problem was finding one the right size for the space! I decided that I should make one myself but with the least amount of work involved!

I had an old photo frame stored away and an old pinboard that we no longer used so decided to use them both to make one nice stylish pinboard that was the right size for the space on my kitchen wall.

Easy Steps:

Step 1:  I removed the back and the glass from the photoframe, I needed to dispose of the glass as it is not needed now.
Step 2:  I removed the corkboard from my larger pinboard.
Step 3: I cut the corkboard to the size of the photo frame, you could use the backing as a template!
Step 4: I placed the corkboard into the frame and re-attached the backing.

I now have the perfect sized and stylish pinboard in my kitchen now!

Reupholstered Dining Room Chairs Tutorial and More!

I recently bought some curtains from a Charity Shop / Thrift Store and the fabric was brilliant just what I needed for reupholstering my Dining Room Chairs.  I have never reupholstered dining room chairs before, but my friend did it recently and said how easy it is, and because my chairs were becoming very distressed that I thought I will give it a go!

My original chair fabric was blue but I really liked the rich colour of the curtains I found and thought the colour would match with some of the gold décor I have downstairs! Each curtain piece was 250cm drop and 450cm width! That is a lot of fabric!

I bought the fabric originally for my dining room chairs but had that much left I managed to also cover a living room chair and make 2 pairs of smaller curtains! I posted last week about the living room chair that I gave a makeover - photo is further below.

The photograph below shows the 6 chairs that I reupholstered and you can also see in the background one pair of the curtains that I made! I also bought a new wipe-down tablecloth with a similar colour in to make it more matching. I haven't got a photograph of the Living Room Curtains that I made, simply because every time I tried to take a photograph the sunlight ruins the photograph!

Below is the photograph of last weeks post - Chair Makeover using the same fabric: chair-makeover

Below is a short tutorial on this post, you can also find many online tutorials available on the internet. The only things that you require are a Staple Gun and a tool to remove old staples. Removing the old staples was the worst part and longest part of this project - everything else was so easy! There was a black cover on the bottom of each seat - which I then reused once I had recovered with the new fabric.

Requirements

• New Fabric
• Screwdriver
• Staple Gun
• A tool to remove the staples.
• Sewing machine (not always essential - if required for back!)

Easy Tutorial:

Step 1) Remove the seat and the back from the frame - most likely screwed together.
Step 2) Remove the old fabric from the seat of the chair and the back of the chair if it has fabric.
Step 3) Use this fabric as a template to cut out your new fabric
Step 4) Staple the seat fabric onto the seat in the same way as it was originally secured. You need to make sure you are stretching the fabric tight. The video link below shows you the best way to do this!
Step 5) Screw the seat back onto the frame.
Step 6) The seat back part involved sewing a slip on cover - which went over a piece of wood. A lot of seats don't have fabric on the back!
Step 7) Secure the back part fabric over the wood by stapling it tight. This was then secured to the chair using the original dowels and screws.

Here is a link to a brilliant video tutorial showing you how to do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtZdUeBzyqY

 Below are a few photographs I took whilst doing this project:

I am really pleased with the amount of projects I a managed to complete with just one pair of bargain find curtains!

 

Chair makeover

I managed to transform a Rocker Chair and stool with some lovely fabric I bought from a Charity Shop / Thrift store for a real bargain price! This chair used to belong to my grandmother and when she bought a new chair we inherited this one from her. It is a lovely chair but the fabric was a bit worn and didn't really match the décor.

I have actually been looking for bargain fabric for a few months to use for re-upholstering my dining room chairs, I couldn't believe my luck when I came across this fabric. Not only was it decent fabric (Laura Ashley Curtains) the size of the fabric was amazing! Each curtain piece was 250cm drop and 450cm width! That is a lot of fabric!

I bought it from a local charity shop which is much cheaper - it was slightly sun stained at the side but considering the width of the fabric that was nothing. I bought all of this fabric for only £7 if this was new you would be looking at a few hundred pounds.

I have already finished a few other projects with this fabric which  I will hopefully be posting shortly Insha'Allah.

All the pieces from this chair came apart and they actually fit on with press studs. All I had to do was use the original covers to make a pattern and stitch them up using sewing machine - this was actually fairly easy. I had to hand sew the ends close, but again this was easy considering the closures are not on display, so no need for perfect sewing!

The only piece that needed more attention was the stool cushion. Again this was just a normal cushion attached by Velcro, but I did hand sew the closure which needed to be neater. I could have added a zip to make it neater, but I just made it the same way as it was originally made.

The chair looks brand new now and fits in with the décor much better now, so I am really pleased with my find.  I can't wait to show you what else I made with all this amazing fabric! Keep watching.

Homeschooling - My New Journey

I am about to start a new chapter in my life - Homeschooling!  I already believe I am a part-time homeschooler as I already monitor my children's education and help them along the way with subjects they don't do at school or subjects they need a little extra with and of course great arty projects together! We will be starting once they have finished their current school term which isn't far away!

I bought some cupboards from the thrift store/ charity shop a few weeks back that I thought would be great to store all the homeschooling books. This is placed in the girls' bedroom.  The cupboards were made from different shades of wood but with a bit of sticky backed plastic the cupboards work really well together now!

I also used the same sticky backed plastic for other parts of their bedroom so that the cupboards blend in well with the rest of the room. It is hard to tell from the photo but the noticeboard hanging on the right also has the same sticky backed plastic placed onto the pinboard part.

The walls of their bedroom were all plain and I didn't want the cupboards to spoil the feel of the bedroom so we used some wall stickers on the wall to brighten the room up a little.

Sharing with you some other thrifty items I have bought recently which will hopefully be used for our homeschooling adventure:

 

This is a double sided board. Wipeboard and Blackboard! 

This is a laptop cushion holder.

 

I will hopefully be sharing some new craft adventures in connection with our Homeschooling.

Net Curtain design with Ribbon - Great Ideas

I added Matching Ribbon to the bottom of some Net Curtains. I have some peach coloured curtains in my bedroom and for privacy I also have a net curtain up at the window. I didn't want to buy anything to expensive but also felt the plain curtain was 'well too plain'.

I managed to find some ribbon which was very similar in colour to the curtains and bought 2 metres which was enough to cover the bottom edge.  The window now looks really nice with the matching net! A very simple and cheap solution to decorate the room!

There is no need for a tutorial on this as it is very straight forward. I simply ironed the ribbon to make a hem and placed the ribbon over the edge of the net curtain and straight stitched across with the sewing machine - very easy!

Entryway Storage Bench using a TV/Video Cabinet! - Great Ideas

I made my own entryway storage bench using an old TV/Video Cabinet! This was one of my thrift / charity shop buys!

All I had to do was take off the cabinet doors and make some fabric covers for some ordinary cardboard boxes! The padded cushion can be used as a padded seat to sit on when putting your shoes on. This was actually a lid from a large storage box! As you can see this was a really easy project and I am pleased with the results!.

DIY - Painted Jars Tutorial

DIY - Painted Jars - These are one of the easiest and cheapest things to make.

Instructions:

1) Find an empty Jar and remove any labels and clean it out thoroughly.
2) Find some suitable paint - (I actually used children's paint for this project!)
3) Place Jar onto some newspapers/paper so that paint doesn't make a mess.
4) Paint all around the outside of the jar. (You could also paint inside of the jar to deepen the colour!)
5) Leave to dry and if needed add extra coats. I had to do about 3 coats for this project as the paint wasn't very thick.
6) Optional - Decorate with ribbons/beads/permanent marker designs etc.

This is so easy, you don't really need a tutorial for this, but at least with a tutorial you can see for yourself how easy it really is!

I have this jar placed in my bathroom.

Storage Box Reupholstered Tutorial - For Prayer Mats

I recently just redesigned my Living Room to a gold/black design and had some spare fabric left to cover this storage box. This is kept next to the Living Room and keeps all our prayer mats and prayer hijabs in one clean place!

The prayer mats are kept in the main storage part and I have added a pocket to the lid so to keep the hijabs stored away neatly too!

This was a really easy project to do and to do this all I needed was the fabric and a staple gun.

Items Needed

• Fabric
• Staple Gun
• Screwdriver

Instructions:

1) Remove the fabric already on (if possible)
2) Remove the old staples (if possible) this makes it easier to re-staple
3) I unscrewed the hinges from the box and lid - then replace these once you have placed the new fabric on the box and lid.
4) Stretching the fabric around the box - slowly staple the fabric to the box - making sure it looks neat where people can see.
5) Cover the lid of the box stretching so the top looks nice and neat.
6) Cut out a piece of fabric - the size of the lid.
7) Place the extra fabric on the inside of the lid and then with folded edges staple the pocket to the lid - leaving the top edge open so that you can use it as a pocket. (if you can sew - you could sew the hems of the fabric pocket before attaching to make it look neater).
8) Once all fabric attached attach the hinges back to the box and lid.

Using the same fabric I reupholstered my Sofa too - here is a reminder if you missed that one: reupholstering-sofa-my-mini-tutorial

 

DIY Stylish Storage Boxes - Great Ideas

The photograph above shows some boxes that I covered with Sticky Backed Plastic. The photograph doesn't really do justice for them. The camera light is shining off the boxes but when you see them in my home they look perfect!

I just used some normal packing boxes that I got from a local shop (they would have just been thrown out!). I secured the sides with some packing tape and then I cut out some sticky backed plastic and covered all the outsides of the box. I also allowed some plastic to go over the top edge.

I now use these to keep some of my sewing projects in and to store some of my wool!

Reupholstering a Sofa - My Mini Tutorial

Above is the photo of my Sofa Makeover! I reupholstered my sofa and a chair all by myself - I have never done this before and I was really pleased with the results! I now have a new sofa nad chair and it cost me nothing!

If you follow my blog you might already know that I recently changed the decoration of my Living Room to a theme colour of Gold and Black. My Sofa and chair had seen much better days and they were quite damaged.  I was actually using throws over them to disguise the bad condition! I had some old gold coloured curtains that I no longer used stored away that I used for this project!

Below is a close up of the leather, as you can see it was worn and discoloured!

Buying new furniture was out of the question at this time (Have you seen the price of new ones!). I also really love these as they are really sturdy and have great room underneath where I can keep storage boxes hidden away and the sofa is large enough to use to sleep on for emergency visitors!I had quite a lot of gold coloured fabric in storage from some curtains I used to have so decided to make use of this to save me some money!

This was a fairly easy job for me because my sofa and chair have a wooden frame with removable cushions.  The only hard part were the arm rests, the easiest part was to make new sofa cushion covers.

Quick Steps on how I did this:

I removed the cushion covers from the cushions, some were slightly different sizes. I took the leather apart and made paper patterns for all the pieces. I then used the paper patterns to cut out new fabric. It is handy to take photos of each cushion and maybe label the paper patterns so you remember which piece goes where.

Once I had the fabric pieces cut, I stitched the pieces together to make a new cushion cover. I actually took the zips from the original cushion covers and re-used them again for the new covers as they were in decent condition! (Saved me more money!)

The arms of the chair and sofa came out and slotted back in. If you look closely at the shape of the arm rests you will notice the new ones are a completely different shape!  I decided to change them to a bolster cushion shape!  I had to use some extra wadding - which luckily I already had in the house.  (Again saved me money!)

I have never made bolster cushions before, so I copied an online tutorial to make these. I had to make sure I left some stitching open underneath the bolster cushion to attach them to the arm rest supports. Once attached I then had to hand stitch the gap that I had left. Then I placed the arm rests back in place. I much prefer the bolster look than the original ones.  Here is a great link to the tutorial that helped me: Youtube Bolster Cushion tutorial

I made some of the cushion covers from some other fabric that I had. The 3 centred cushions on the sofa were actually gifts from my family. I did spend some money and buy some of the other cushion covers to match with the sofa.

Below is an old photo of when this fabric used to be my curtains! PS: These were one of the first curtains I ever made when I first got my sewing machine! I took this photo as I had planned to sell my 'Gazelle' so needed a photo of it.

In case you missed my other post regarding the room re-decoration below are the photos: Black/gold projects