Pepper Window Painting

I have mentioned my amazing neighbors a few times on the blog.  I could go on forever about their amazingness but it's probably better that you just take my word for it, like Tony the Tiger, they're great.

So at some point in the past few years the above mentioned neighbors came back from a yard sale with a bunch of old window panes for me to paint on.  The windows were 'vintage',  kind of torn up and full of flavor, they made great canvases. 

Its been a while since I picked up a paint brush but I wanted to do something for my neighbors since they are always doing nice stuff for me.  I decided this is as good a time as any to start painting again.  Debby likes Fiesta dishes so she needed something bright to go with her bright kitchen.


Party in the kitchen!

I decided on a simple, pepper themed painting.  Debby's kitchen wall is a burnt sienna kind of color so you have to imagine it against that background.  When she hung it up I was pleased to see that the painted peppers cast a shadow, it gives it some nice depth.  One painting doesn't even begin to repay all the amazing stuff they have done for us but I was glad to be able to do Something.


Peppers on a pane

Memory Lane Day

I just parted with these old couches.  When Bryant and I first got married, we turned to Craigslist to solve our lack of furniture woes.  I don't have a picture of the couches in their original early 90's hideousness but lets just say they may or may not have seen better days, my guess is that they were even ugly in their youth.  My solution was to cover Everything.  The slip coveres were store bought, I had to alter the one on the smaller chair.  The pillows are all made by me,  I was able to recycle the stuffing and the zippers.  The brown ones are a chocolate microsuede.  The other big ones are grassclothish, mostly a tan color but have some green threads.  I also made some throw pillows, beacause I am obessed with patterns.  I can't say that I was terribly sad to part with these couches but I think my pillows and covers helped me to not throw up in my mouth everytime I entered my living room. 

I just learned to upholster.

I just came back from visiting my parents in their new home in south Texas.  It was a really fun trip and I picked up a new skill while I was there.  About 10 years ago my parents bought a new couch and matching chair.  The couch was made of a casual blue cotton and faded quickly in the California sun (my parents move a lot) so my mom bought a slip cover while they were living in Tennessee.  The chair however remained uncovered except for my moms very creative attempt at converting it to cowhide chair.

Moo chair

Pretty cool huh?  Mom is great.  She sewed it on there with raffia.  I don't know exactly how to describe her style but its something like 'contemporary rustic.'  Is that an oxymoron?  I think you can see from the picture that the chair has some stains and is quite faded and mom had a few yards of some really cool fabric so I decided to try to cover it.  I made some pattern pieces out of an old sheet but I could not win my game of fabric Tetris to try to get my pattern pieces to fit on the 3 yards of cool fabric.  The solution was to buy a complimentary fabric to make parts of the chair.  Here is the result:




Front o chair



Oh and there was an ottoman too.

Repurposed Skirt

I bought this skirt at an estate sale for fifty cents.  I don't think I would or should ever wear it in its current state but I think the print is really fun so I decided to take it apart and give it new life in my wardrobe.  I basicaly took apart every seam I could find and then put it back together to make this:



Voila!



What do you think?  I'm pretty pleased with my little expiriment.  I bought another skirt for the same price at that sale.  I am working on recreating it as well.  I'll let you know how it goes.  Here it is in its current state:

Phone Bench

My neighbors gave me a phone bench that was taking up too much space in their garage.  I want to give it a make over but decided to to do a quick mock up to see what colors I like best. 



I already purchased some Japanese fabric from Textile Fabrics to cover the cushion in.  Its called flower bed by Etsuko Furuya. 

Here are some ideas for the bench color:



Yellow

 

Purpleish

  

Black



Teal



   

 



 

  







Red



White

 

I'm thinking teal or some other greenish aqua color.  Now I just need to work up the guts to paint it, it seems like sacrilige.