alive,a valentine, and some chairs

Hello, yes I am still alive. I have wanted to write many times. Have written posts in my mind. But when I sit down to actually write nothing comes. I am going to try to better, but I've said that before.....

All I can do is try, right :)

Aiden's Valentine this year. I attached a mustache to each card for his classmates. They were a big hit.

In fifth grade they do not do valentines but they do have candy grams. I asked Zach who he was going to send one to and he said "myself" :) I was secretly glad he wasn't sending any to girls, I'm just not ready for that yet. I told him his limit was $5. I should have specified total because his 10 year old brain interpreted it as per day. Ugg. Once I caught on I put an end to that fantasy but it wasn't until he'd spent about $10 in candy, luckily some did go to other people.

Here's a blast from the past, two projects I worked on this past summer.

First a little background...when we got ready to move we sold a whole bunch of furniture mostly because we wanted to move to a smaller house. Well we moved to a house with more SF plus a finished basement. With so much work to do on the house we didn't/don't have the money for furniture so I decided to shop Goodwill for some chairs and redo them myself.

Specimen #1:

Here she is straight from Goodwill (as a side note, errand days from this summer the car resembled a clown car all full of groceries, furniture, things for the house, two boys and me. I'm sure it was quite funny for people who saw us out and about.)

I bought this particular chair because she looked like an easy one to start with and she was comfortable but the fabric had to go. When my parents came to visit in August my mom and I went shopping for fabric and cushions and got to work. It was a bit of trial and error as this was a first for both my mom and I.

I also decided to spray paint the frame. So here she is in all her naked glory with just a coat of primer on.

After taking off all of her fabric I used the pieces as a pattern for the new pieces. For some reason the fabric looks really blue in this picture. In real life it is more of a dark tealish green. 

More like this picture. Here is the seat all done. It was my first time with piping too so I was super proud of myself. It certainly helped that my mom was with me to give me pointers and encouragement. Aren't moms great?!

Here she is all done. For now she lives in my craft room so I can have a guest. Forgive the mess the room is going through another reorganization, it's fourth since we moved in, and hopefully the last as I really need to be able to actually craft in there :)

Specimen #2:

Here she is straight from Goodwill. This one presented more of a challenge but I loved/LOVE her legs. They have such a great curve to them.

Isn't she purdy?

Here she is almost bare. Wowsa! She was a project and a half.

Finished product. She's not perfect but I still love her legs, I spray painted them an Oil rubbed bronze color and love it. She lives in the family room at the computer table and the boys love her so she is more bedraggled (spell check seems to think this is a word even though I'm not sure so I'm just going with it.) then she was when I first finished her. (She is missing some nailhead trim and her arm pieces.) After putting them back on numerous times I finally called it quits. Some day when the boys are grown and gone I might have her professionally reupholstered like a lady of her stature deserves but until then we will enjoy her cushiony softness for our buns.

**When I was working on these chairs I thought I was taking a bunch of pictures and it wasn't until I was writing this that I realized how spotty the pictures really are so I'm sorry about that....