"come and open up your folding chair next to me"

Happy Monday!

...seriously! I'm going to IKEA today. The place that dreams are made of.

Before I leave I want a chair a quick little makeover Rachel and I did the other day. We went hunting for a little something something to work on and she found an old wooden folding chair.

She already had this one that she had fixed up:

A little furniture polish, spray paint and new fabric it was good to go.

So we were happy to stumble on this little chair:

We stopped to pick up some fabric and got to work as soon as we got back to Rachel's. She worked on reupholstering while I dug out tacks and sanded down the frame.

We wanted to keep it authentic looking so we just sanded down the frame to smooth out any major dings and rubbed it with furniture polish, leaving it distressed.

We measured enough fabric and then stapled it to the seat. The existing batting was in decent condition so we kept it.

The top was a little bit trickier because it was curved and we had to do both sides, but we made it work.

First we stapled the front. Then, using the old vinyl as a guide, we cut a piece for the back and used an iron to give it crisp edges.

I was able to salvage the existing nail heads so I wanted to use those. We hot glued the fabric into place so it wouldn't move around on us then pounded the nail heads in.

We also reused the original tufting buttons. Using hot glue, we covered them with fabric. This is probably a pretty jenk way to do this haha but it worked!

We put them vertically instead of horizontally to change it up a little bit.

And the final product!

For some reason I completely forgot to take a picture of the nail head trim in the back! If you follow us on twitter I'll tweet a picture later so you can see!

I'll also be pinning my favorite things from IKEA. You can follow me/check out my boards on Pinterest here.

And! If you love Rachel's style as much as I do you can find other posts featuring Rachel here, here and here.

We also worked on a coffee table and a garden bench (both freebies) and I'll share those with you later this week.

I'm off to shop 'til I drop!

Sincerely,

Ashleigh
PS:

Juliana Santacruz Herrera

I found this artist, Juliana Santacruz Herrera a bit ago, but had to share her work with you all if you haven't seen her! She crammed all of this lovely fabric into potholes in Paris. What a great solution to adding a bit of color to an ugly eyesore that is a pothole. Also, I'm determined to learn how to knit this summer and her work and the colors in it have much inspired me. (I'll keep you guys posted on how it goes!)

Sincerely,

Sarah

DIY scarf

I was shopping in northern Michigan about 3 or 4 years ago and I came across the most unusual scarf, but it was about $80! I thought to myself, "why I could make that!" (Ashleigh and I, along with a lot of you readers must have the same thoughts every day!)

I tried to find a photo of a similar scarf to show you, but I couldn't. Essentially, it's just the fringe of a scarf exaggerated almost from edge to edge. I haven't seen this exact scarf anywhere else, just pieces of the idea. When choosing a fabric, make sure it's double sided, a little stretchy, and pretty neutral in color. (I wouldn't suggest too bold of a pattern because the fringes along with a pattern would be way too much.)Chose a desired length of how long you might like it to be.

Lay out the fabric, so that you can find the center.

Make sure to cut off the ends where you might be able to see the hems.

Now, cut the desired length of the fringes. In the end, I had about 3 to 4 inches in between each side.

I would cut all of one side and then flip to the other. Feel free to make the fringes longer after you finish. It would be better to have more space in the middle before, because you can't easily add it afterwards. Also feel free to mix up the lengths of the fringes from the one above!

In the end, it should look a lot like this! The best part about this scarf is that it's essentially fool proof! Any errors made are easily hidden in all of that texture!

Sincerely,

Sarah

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PS:

Show & Tell @ Blue Cricket Designs

An Amputee Chair Makeover

Craigslist strikes again!  You might remember some of these CL makeovers here and here. What can I say? I love Craigslist. I might be addicted. I might have a problem.

Anyway, I first showed you these chairs in this post. I couldn't wait to get home and work on them. I ended up only having enough time to get one done, but I love the way it turned out.

I call it an amputee because it has a twin. But the twin has arms. Lucky chair.

I took the seats off, made a few minor repairs and sanded them down.



I painted the frame in Martha Stewart's Heavy Cream and picked up this great coral fabric from Joann's. I'm hoping to have enough left to make a pillow.

I'm in love. I can't wait to finish his armed brother. (I'm not sure why these are boys, but they are.)

What do you think? Eh? Not half bad?

Sincerely,

Ashleigh

PS: PS: Don't forget to join our Follower Appreciation Giveaway here!

PPS: