Dining Chair Redo

*I've linked this post to That DIY Party on the DIY Show Off blog

The weather here in North Dakota is terrible right now and not springlike at all.  It makes me feel like Easter is never coming but I know that it is so I must press on with my dining set update.  This is part two of the project: the chairs.  You can see part one: the table here.  Here is what I started with.  My original thought was to stain them like the table but there was a lot of chipping of veneer on these chairs so I decided to opt for paint instead.  I kind of dug the vintage fabric but the colors were kind of clashing with my dining room.

I thought that I had come up with the perfect plan.  I would paint them grey since I still had grey semigloss leftover from the dining room walls.  I painted three of the chairs and ended up hating it.  The wall color has blue undertones and for some reason the color on the chairs was reading grey with green undertones.  I let the chair sit at the table for several days to see if it grew on me but I just wasn't satisfied.

So then it was back to the drawing board.  I decided to go with black and then I got the brilliant idea to add a stenciled patten on the fronts.

The process was the same as other furniture that I have painted.  Sand, prime, paint, then poly.  Pretty basic stuff.  I also reupholstered the seats with a purple velvety fabric to go with my Pier One chairs.  Reupholstering seats pads is a really simple process.  I used the old fabric to cut out the new pieces and then stapled them with my upholstery stapler.  I made sure to pull the fabric tight all the way around.

Now for a look at the stenciling process.  I actually used my Silhouette Portrait to make my own reusable stencil.  Silhouette has some new stenciling material that you can purchase here.  I didn't have any on hand though so after some research I discovered that you can use transparency sheets to make stencils.  Since I am a teacher I had easy access to transparency sheets so I picked a few up from school.  My original stencil idea was a damask pattern but it kept getting caught in the machine while it was being cut so I decided to go with the lattice design instead.  I set my Silhouette blade to 6 and set the machine at a thickness of 33 and a speed of 2.  My mat is getting old so I sprayed some Krylon adhesive on to help hold the transparency sheet in place.  

The stencil came out perfectly.  I used spray adhesive to hold it on the chair back as I painted.  I used a foam brush to apply the paint (which is Behr Suede by the way) to the stencil.  It took three moves of the stencil to fill the back.  I waited for it to dry to the touch in between so that made it take some time.  Later I went back and touched it up with some art brushes.  I wanted it to stay a little imperfect however so that I could get that Ikat look.  

After putting the chair seats back on the chairs look like this.

Here is a detail shot of the stenciling:

And finally here is a look at the chairs at the table:

At the end of the table you can see a peek at my next project: Easter/spring table decor.  Make sure to stop back in a week or so to check it out!

Handmade Baby Shower Gifts

I can't believe that it is March already!  This school year has been flying by. It will be Easter before we know it which means that I have got to get those dining chairs finished for when we host Easter dinner at our house. I painted 3 of them gray, the same gray that is on our dining room walls and I hated it so now I am going in a new direction and I am very excited about it.  I can't wait to share those with you but I have got quite a ways to go yet.

For now, I have some small projects to share with you.  Yesterday I attended a baby shower in Bismarck, ND and it was a blast.  I also had a blast making the gifts for the baby.  I gave a joint gift off of the registry with a friend but I also decided to make a few things as well.  

I made some onesies with fabric appliques using my Silhouette Portrait, heat transfer fabric interfacing and fabric scraps from my stash.  There are two types of heat transfer interfacing: one that is lighter hold that is used if you want to stitch around the edges of the applique and a stronger hold one that is made for just ironing on the appliques without using the sewing machine at all.  I had the latter kind on hand so I did not stitch around my appliques. The fox shape and North Dakota shape both came from the Silhouette online store.

The North Dakota one is definitely my favorite!

I also made a card to go with my gift.  The cut file was a freebie from this post from The Thinking Closet.  

Lauren used Silhouette's new washi paper for hers.  It is a really cute new product and I really want to get some eventually but I just used some cardstock that I had on hand instead.  I used a sketch pen to print the writing on the front.

And of course I had to throw in a set of burp cloths.  I should have taken a picture of the second one in the stack because it had cute jungle animals on it.  The theme of the shower was safari so it went perfectly with that.  

I hope you enjoyed my cute shower gifts.  P.S. I won one of the shower games by not saying the word cute during the gift opening.  That was no easy task my friends!

Refinishing a Dining Table

*I am linking up my table project to the DIY Show Off's That DIY Party

My latest project has definitely been a learning process.  This is project #2 from this post.  I knew that I have wanted to refinish this dining set since I bought it on Craigslist over a year ago.  The set is made by Basic Witz furniture company and I am guessing that it was made in the mid-1960's.  We bought the set for $200 and it included 3 leaves (2 were homemade and warped so we got rid of those) and 6 chairs.  The table was in extremely good condition with only a few water stains on the table top.  My cat added a huge water stain to the table top, however, because he has a propensity to knock over any water container in his reach.  The chairs have a little bit more noticeable wear especially in the places where the wood veneer is chipping off.

I loved the shape of the table but I wasn't a fan of the orangy hue of it.  I considered painting but after seeing several other bloggers strip and stain dining tables I decided to give it a go.  The first step was to strip the table of the old finish.  The table has a wood veneer but thankfully it is nice and thick.      I used Citristrip, some scrapers, steel wool, and a couple of old t-shirts for this step.  I'm not going to lie, it was definitely some messy business.

Then I hand sanded the whole table with varying grits of sandpaper starting with a coarser grit ending with the least coarse grit.  After that I cleaned the table making sure to remove all sawdust.

The next step was applying pre-stain wood conditioner.  This step helps raise the grain of the wood so that the stain will be absorbed better. 

Don't mind my palm sander in the pic above.  I did not actually use it because I didn't want to damage my table.  Then I applied the stain. I used Minwax wood stain in Espresso.

After 20 minutes I wiped off the excess stain with paper towels.

Then I left the table to dry.  At this point I hit a bit of a snag because after more than a day it was still tacky.  So I wiped the whole table down with mineral spirits which left the table a little lighter than I had originally intended but I was still satisfied with the results so I decided to leave it.

I decided to add a fun little detail to my table and taped off the bottom 10 inches of each leg, primed, and painted them with leftover Martha Stewart Vintage Gold paint from this project.  My final step was to apply a rub-on poly coat.  I did two coats total.  Here is what I ended up with.

One other thing that happened in the course of this project was a giant diy disaster.  I decided to refinish the table in the dining  room since moving the table would be hard and it is cold in North Dakota at this time of year so both the basement and garage aren't very pleasant options.  I put a tarp under the table but I am wishing that I had selected a bigger tarp.  I accidently tipped over the can of stain and watched a giant dark puddle ooze all over my hardwood dining room floor.  I was kind of in a paralysis for a moment and then I was frantically wiping up the puddle with anything I could find.  Thankfully, I opted to buy the large jug of mineral spirits because I definitely needed it.  My socks were covered in stain as was various spots on my body.  It was definitely not a shining moment in my diy career. 



I think that I am happy with the results.  I like the depth that the stain added to the tabletop even if the job isn't totally perfect.  My next phase of this project will be to redo all of the chairs that came with the set.  I plan on painting these because of the damage to the wood veneer on most of the chairs.  I am also going to be recovering the seats.  I ordered some fabric swatches a week ago and found one that I think will work perfectly so I am excited to get the fabric in and start on those.  Stay tuned for an update of phase two of this project later this month.

From Chaos to a Functional Closet

I have been busy making curtains for a friend's nursery but I wanted to share the results of project #1 from this post.  So here is a look at the chaos that I started with which was a completely non-functional closet for my craft supplies.

This quickly became more chaotic when I moved everything out of the closet into the room.

Yikes!  I can't believe all that stuff was crammed into that closet.  I knew that I wanted to put shelves up and decided to purchase some wire shelving from this website.  I liked that they charged by the foot and cut the shelves to custom lengths.  After installing the shelves the closet looked like this.

The best part about this is that I have maximized the storage space in the closet by putting shelves on all sides and I can walk into the closet to get what I need.  The after photo that I am about to show you can be more accurately described as an in progress photo.  I still have lots of things that I want to do but it is so much better already.

My favorite parts so far are the things that I have done with shoe organizers.  First I used a Closetmaid shoe organizer from Target for my fabric scrap storage.

I also use this same shoe organizer in my classroom for storing rhythm and melody flashcards and I love it for that purpose too.

I used an over-the-door shoe organizer for spray paint storage.  You can fit two cans in each pocket!  Now I need more spray paint.

I bought some plastic storage containers at the dollar store and still plan to add labels for the supplies in each one.

Finally, I used a cheap tension rod to store my supply of ribbon.

Well that is it for now.  As you can see there are still a lot of things on the shelves that need more organizing and I definitely need some sort of light in there but it is so much better than before.  I feel more motivated to do projects when I can actually find things.  Hopefully I will get in more than one post in February but we will see how things go.  I hope you enjoyed this post on my January closet organization project!

NYE Party

Well, this is my last blog post of my Christmas break.  I actually have an extra day tomorrow because of the extremely frigid weather in the Northern midwest. All schools in Minnesota, pretty much all of North Dakota, and some of South Dakota have been cancelled.  We are talking -40 to -60 wind chills. Crazy cold!  

Another cold night recently was New Year's Eve.  The past 3 years, my husband and I have hosted a NYE party at our house.  It actually would have been the last 4 years but a New Year's blizzard ruined our plans the first year.  Every year I step it up a little bit and this year was the best year yet.

I thought that I would write a post on the elements that made up our NYE party in hopes that it might inspire you if you plan one next year.  First up, the tablescape. 

Last year, I planned on writing a blog post about our NYE party but sadly I forgot to take a lot of pictures.  This year I made the table really pretty so I am glad that I remembered to take a ton of photos.

Here are a few pictures of the centerpiece.

For the centerpiece I used mostly items I had around the house.  That wood piece was something that I bought a long time ago that has sat on either my dining table or coffee table in the past.  It is usually filled with various types of decorative balls.  The sparkly pine cones were taken from my Christmas apothecary jar arrangements.  The rest of the stuff was clearance Christmas decorations from Target.  The bottles are from my antique bottle collection that sits on the chest on the porch.  The chevron straws are from Target.  The 2014 was made from glittery card stock that I cut with my Silhouette.

I found the gold table cloth from TJ Maxx for $25.  I will definitely use it for other occasions so I thought that it was worth the price.  I made the table runner from fabric that I purchased at Joann's.  I used the same mitered corner technique from the napkins in this post.  The sparkly black ribbon is from Hobby Lobby.

I also burned some candles in my Nate Berkus candelabra from Target which I placed on a gold charger that I bought a few years ago.  I decided to be fancy and make a little tower with the plastic champagne glasses in the corner of the table.

Now onto the food.

Here is the menu.  I have included links to recipes for the ones that I found on Pinterest.

Menu

Meatball sliders-recipes used are crockpot meatballs and 40 minute slider buns

Queso Dip

Deviled Eggs

Spinach Dip Wonton Cups

Bacon Cheddar Cheese Ball with crackers

Veggies with Dill Dip

Cowboy Caviar with chips (this is a must for New Year's with the lucky black-eyed peas)-my recipe is one that I got from my mom but there are many variations of this floating around the internet

Champagne Cupcakes with Cool Whip Frosting

Crockpot Hot Chocolate with various add-ins

All of the food seemed to be well received.  I always make a ton no matter how many people are coming.  In addition to the food, the party included playing some games and a new addition this year-a photo booth.

This was very simple to put together. I bought some more black and white chevron fabric and hung it from one of our curtain rods.  I made the props using my Silhouette and I bought the shapes from the Silhouette online store.  I also saw free printable props on Pinterest so if you don't have a cutting machine you could still make them.  I cut them out on glitter card stock which I purchased at Hobby Lobby.  I used the same black and gold chevron straws from the centerpiece for the sticks to hold some of the props.  I used my DSLR to take the photos but any camera would work.  It was kind of a last minute idea but everybody had fun with it.  

So there you have it.  That is how we throw a New Year's Eve party at my house.  Of course the evening included counting down until the ball drop and toasting the New Year.  So my last picture says what I would like to wish all of you.  Here's to a great 2014!