not leaving, just moving

One of my (much) earlier white waxflower blog titles was "Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes" after everyone's favorite David Bowie song. Had I not already used it, that might have been the perfect title for this post.

My furniture-decor-party-refurbishing-graphic design, etc. business has grown from something I did on the side for fun to something that keeps me so busy I can barely keep up ... in a good way! I've loved blogging white waxflower, but I simply don't have time for it anymore. It only costs me $10 a year to keep this site up and running, so I'll leave it up for a year or so for those of you who might want to look up an old craft project or something:)

But as the title of this post says, I'm not leaving, just moving:) Check me out RIGHT HERE at my brand-new, not-even-close-to-finished business site, where there's already a fun and simple little craft tutorial:) See you there!

If I can make one, toucan make one, too!

Yikes. Sincere apologies for that pun, I don't know what came over me! Anyway ... I've proclaimed my love for Vera Neumann before, so I'll just skip over that part and go straight to the point of this post: I made a pillow, inspired by a Vera Neumann sketch of a toucan.

A while back, Anthroplogie did a Vera Neumann-inspired line of products, and the bird tray was my favorite of all the items. I've already copied that cute toucan once before ... 

I painted my own version of it and hung him in our very-hard-to-photograph downstairs bathroom.

And even though my pillow isn't 100% done (I'm having zipper issues), I thought I'd go ahead and post the how-to! Here's what you'll need:

• glue (I used a glue gun)
• sturdy fabric (for the pillow)
• three assorted fabrics (for the bird)
• about 4 squares of felt
• scissors
• embroidery floss
• fabric paint (optional)
• the normal pillow-sewing stuff

I cut my fabric squares 20"x20", and just used scraps for the bird. If you don't have any fabric scraps, you could always go buy 3 fat quarters.

I hand-drew the pattern onto the fabric for the sections of my bird, but I thought I'd do my best at making a pattern just for you guys! So don't go sayin' I never did nothin' nice for ya'll.

I made felt pom-poms for the corners of my pillow. There are already about a million tutorials online about how to make these, so I won't add another one to the mix, but basically I used 3 circles per pom, folded a strip of felt in half, doubled the circles over, scrunched them up and sewed them to the folded-over strip of felt.

My circles were about 3" across.

I painted a random square pattern on to the back of the pillow, and surrounding the bird on the front of the pillow.

I tacked the pieces of the bird down using a little hot glue, then hand-stitched around the edges using contrasting-colored embroidery floss for an extra-handmade look.

In hindsight I wish I hadn't used quite such a bold pink for the poms. I always get carried away when it comes to hot pink! But I'm still happy with how it turned out:) Now I'm hatching (pun intended) plans for a companion pillow or two.

Ta-ta for now! And wish me luck with that zipper.

laundry, lamps, linen, and line drawings

First of all, thank you from the bottom of my hardwood-floor-loving heart for all of the helpful advice I received in the comments of this post! 

Option A (our current home) won the votes in a landslide, and I think we're actually going with the votes on this one. On Tuesday we measured all of our "must keep" furniture, like our sofa and our bed, then went to the house and marked out with tape how much actual space in the rooms our furniture would take up. We were willing to part with more than half of it, but even putting less than half of our furniture in there would still make for a VERY tight squeeze. Like, turn-sideways-and-shimmy-across-the-wall-to-get-into-bed tight. And hearing so many of you say what a frustration it is having to go to the laundry mat definitely got me re-thinking giving up having a washer and dryer at home. So, long story short, we're going to pass up on this little place and pray that something else equally charming, old, and hardwood-floored comes along. Only this time an extra bedroom and laundry would be nice:) I can't say I'm not a little sad to let go of the idea of moving into that place, though. It was just SO DARN CUTE!

In other news, I recently realized that I never posted about that lamp makeover I mentioned! Well, it didn't turn out that great anyway. I started with the turquoise and floral lamp you see above, which was already a makeover of the original lamp.

I painted the base white and re-covered the shade in ikat, but I'm sorry to say that my lampshade re-covering skills are um .... improvable. I couldn't help but laugh at myself when I got it all finished and realized how horribly lopsided the fabric is. Why is it so much harder to recover a lampshade than anything else?

I'm lazy and I don't want to waste any more fabric, so it's staying as-is for now. Another little project I did recently is the art above the bookshelf.

All you need is scissors, a pencil, a marker, card stock, 8x10 matted frames, and a computer to look up Picasso line drawings to copy, and you too can have your own little Picasso art gallery:) I even forged his signature on them so they'd look extra official.

And one more thing before I go! I've been intending to blog about this forever ... check out this gorgeous mid-century chair my parents bought me when my family came out to visit for Easter! Isn't it fabulous? I can't wait to get it all fixed up.

I think I'm going to have it recovered in some sturdy white linen, to coordinate with our sofa. I just love the look of wood and white furniture, accessorized with colorful throw pillows or blankets.

The stain and finish are pretty worn, so I think I'll strip it and stain it to match my other mid-century chair.

I think that's all for today! Jemima says "hi"  :)

1 dress + 2 sisters = craftiness

A while back my sister and I came up with a fun idea for a crafty project we could do together, even though we live on opposite coasts! My mother no longer wanted this pretty floral maxi dress, so we decided to cut it in half, right up the middle, and not tell each other what we were making with our half until the projects were completed!

Jemima used to have an adorable little shabby chic bed, but after she totally ignored it for about 2 years straight, we finally gave it away. Naturally, she soon after started wanting a bed of her very own, and began curling up into small, dog-bed-esque things like this box top, as if she were a poor, neglected, bed-less creature that just had to do the best she could with whatever she could find.

I remembered seeing this vintage suitcase dog bed over at Houzz, but I didn't think Jemima would like it being elevated, and I couldn't bring myself to disassemble and drill holes in a vintage suitcase, so I decided to make a simpler, power tool-free version.

I already had this guy re-lined and cleaned up at home, so I decided to use it for my doggy bed. Click here to see the before pictures!

Before I started working on the bed, I threw the fabric inside the suitcase and patted it so Jemima could try it out. I figured I'd see if she'd even sleep in it before I went to the trouble of making it.

Sure enough, she hopped right in and slept for over 2 hours, only moving to switch positions! She just loves tight spaces.

When she finally woke up, I spread the fabric out to start cutting. As you can see in the photo above, she was still a little groggy from her nap.

First I made a little pleated skirt that was long enough to cover three sides of the suitcase. I was determined to make this a no-sew project, so I just pinned the pleats in place, secured them with hot glue, then removed the pins.

Then I glued the pleated skirt to a square of fabric big enough to cover the bottom of the case.

She seems to prefer sleeping on mostly hard surfaces, so I went very light on the fluff.

I covered the fluff in a square of felt.

Next I glued down the top square of fabric. Obviously substituting hot glue for sewing isn't going to make for the most long-lasting cushion in the world, but I figure since she's so tiny it should hold up pretty well, and by the time it starts falling apart it will probably be dirty enough to need to be replaced anyway. 

I used a shoulder strap from the dress to spell out her name on the top. I pinned the strap down to make sure I had it centered properly, then hot-glued it in place and removed the pins.

I was going to glue a square of ribbon around the center where the square meets the pleated skirt, but I decided against it because all the ribbon I had on hand was too wide.

She likes to take her naps at the bottom of the stairs, so that's where I put her new bed. She loves it!

I'll let Lizzie do the talking on her blog when it comes to the details of her project, but I don't think she'll mind me spilling the beans and telling you all that she made an ADORABLE little stuffed elephant for our niece that is expected to arrive at the end of June:)  Lizzie is far, far more accomplished at sewing than her big sister! She also made a precious little blue and white striped elephant for our nephew Connor.

And speaking of Connor, look who came to see me last Thursday:) More on that later!

get distressed (in a good way)

I've been intending to make a "How To Distress Furniture" tutorial forever, and I finally got around to it! Though I love making video tutorials, this one would have required a LOT of talking, and I (like most people I know) am not too crazy about the sound of my own voice. Listening to myself talking over and over while editing it may have driven me to insanity, so I've opted to make this one a readable tutorial.

Anyway, let's get started! First you'll need to assemble your supplies:

• Sandpaper - 100 grit
• Sandpaper - 220 grit
• Sandpaper-holder-thing (optional but oh-so-helpful)

• a piece of furniture to distress: preferably a piece that is made of real wood, and painted without much gloss.

quick side note: if you've freshly painted the piece of furniture, make sure it is TOTALLY dry. I would give it at least two days between painting it and distressing it, or else you won't get an authentic-looking result as the paint will just sort of scrape off.

Now start sanding!

1. Take your 100 grit paper and start working on the corners and edges, where furniture naturally gets the most wear-and-tear over the years. For the less square parts, such as these round little legs, it's not quite so cut-and-dry. I usually pick a few random spots to really sand all the paint away, and pay extra attention to the widest part of the curves, where the furniture would likely get scuffed most often. 

The 100 grit paper will get most of the paint off with just a few scrapes, but it will leave you with these ugly scratch-marks, which brings us to ....

2. The 220 grit! This will smooth out the scratchy look and make your furniture look more naturally worn. Start where you started in step #1, going over the corners and edges, extending out the sanded-ness (my new word I just invented) towards the middle, sanding less and less thoroughly as you work your way towards the middle of the area you're working on. 

3. This next step is so important that I'm putting it in bold! Sand the ENTIRE piece of furniture with the 220 grit. Even the places that you don't want to be "distressed". I always think it's kind of funny when I see "shabby chic" furniture where the piece has been painted in a pretty, glossy paint and then randomly sanded here and there, while the rest of the piece is left sparkly clean and freshly-painted. It looks strange and fake! The point is to make the piece look old, worn and ... loved? I was going to say abused, but "loved" sounds nicer;)

This poor little hutch. I really got carried away with my sandpaper. I was feeling inspired by this heavily-distressed chair from design*sponge:

But I think I took it too far. Oh well, that hutch will always be one of my favorite pieces of furniture in the house, no matter how much I torture it.

I hope that was helpful! It really is so simple and very hard to mess up, unless you tend to get carried away like I do;) 

Oh! And see the chair that the supplies are sitting in, up there in the very first picture? That's a little sneak preview of a super fun before-and-after I'll be posting tomorrow!

Copying Kate

I was doing a little shopping this weekend when I spotted these absolutely adorable flats in the window of Kate Spade. If you want the real thing they'll set you back $250, but I'm a bit on the short side (5'3'') and prefer to wear heels, so I began plotting how I could get the shoes, plus a heel, minus the hefty price tag.

I started with these basic tan pumps that I bought for $14.99 (originally $49.99) at Ross.

Then I headed over to Michaels for the following supplies, which cost about $20 

• small wood rectangles
• assorted clear jewels
• glue
• gold leaf
• wire

I painted the wood pieces and waited for them to dry.

Then I glued the wood to the shoes and secured them down with wire until the glue had dried thoroughly.

I used a spare piece of wood to plan my jewel-layout. I did the above design on the right shoe, and a mirror-image of the same design on the left shoe.

Et voila! I'm quite pleased with them. I was worried they'd fall apart right away and I'd be leaving a trail of bling behind me everywhere I went, but so far everything has stayed put! Now we'll have to see how they hold up after an evening of dancing out on the town with my husband:) That will be the real test!