Goings on Lately

Despite all my good bloggy intentions I seem to be leaving it longer and longer between posts. On the plus side, not having my laptop means that my screen time is significantly reduced :)

I have a few projects I have been working on lately, as well as a couple that Dave has worked on.

The first is another footstool. I picked it up at the local charity barn for around $3. It was slightly buried in a pile of stuff but i picked it out straight away.

I pulled off the old fabric and found some interesting retro fabric underneath. I also used the same fabric as my last footstool but they are totally different styles

And the finished result....

It still needs some feet on it but it is still functional as it is.

In other goings on I have started another quilt...

It is made of thrifted fabrics, a nice bright yellow tablecloth, a pink toned floral sheet, some white and a brown and yellow toned floral sheet.


And Dave's latest project was painting our huge hutch dresser we have had since we first got married. It was a light pine colour and housed our DVDs and bits and pieces but we decided to move it to our dining room and give it a new lease on life.

Here is how it turned out...

My sewing table also got relocated so now we have a bit of a theme going on in our dining room.
I know my photos aren't straight either but that section of our room is on a pretty decent lean from the earthquakes. So in real life the perspective looks a bit off too.

So things are all go as usual. My sonic blanket is getting closer and closer to being finished which is exciting too!

Plus we busted out the BBQ this afternoon and had a lunch in the sun. It has been dearly missed. (Both the sun and the BBQ)

Enjoy the nice sunny day and pretty blossoms!

Tutorial: How To Make A Sneaky Hole In A Book

 On an op shop mission a couple of weekends ago I found a beautiful set of books with pretty, ornate detailing. The set wasn't complete so I figured why not do a little crafty experiment with one of them?

I read a few things on the interwebs about the best way to make a secret hole in a book and this method seemed to be the most popular.

What you will need:

• 1 hardcover book
• PVA glue
• A sharp craft knife
• A clamp or two
• Good corner cutting skills

First cover the visible edges of the book with a decent layer of PVA glue. Fold back the covers so they don't accidentally get glued.

 Second, smear the glue on evenly.

Thirdly, use the clamps or clamp-type objects to hold the book together tightly to keep the pages from bowing out. Remember to keep the hardcovers away from the clamps.

Next, figure out what shape and size you want your sneaky hole to be and use your craft knife to cut through the first couple of layers of pages.

This gets harder as you get further down, which is where your good corner cutting skills come in handy. Things may get a bit messy so try and keep the angle you cut the same the whole way down.

 When you get to a depth you are happy with, stop cutting and tidy up the corners and tip out all the book shavings that may have accumulated.

Ta-da! One book with a sneaky hole for whatever you want to put in it. (I do not condone illegal activity by the way)

 So some ideas would be:

• Small treasures you don't want small hands to find.
• An engagement ring- (if a man needs a safe place to hide it before popping the question) 
• A smaller book.
• Non-perishable food

The list could go on!

Good luck with this, hopefully your corner cutting skills are better than mine!

Sonic Update and an Upholstery Fail

I am pretty excited! Well over halfway through my Sonic :)

I can get a couple of squares done during my lunch-break now and the last week has been spent joining all the squares together. 139 squares to go though. By the time summer rolls around Sonic should be all ready to be folded away looking toward next winter!

Now what is this upholstery fail you ask? Surely Amy can't have failed at something?
Well I know it may be hard to believe but I am not all pretty rainbows and sunshine.

After successfully upholstering this footstool I mentioned I might give an armchair a makeover.
Here it is:

Now this chair is part of two lounge suites we have in similar styles but we prefer the chairs from the other suite. It was given to a friend for his flat but somehow made its way back to us. Since we have no room for it in our lounge it was banished to the garage until I had the great idea of giving it a makeover.

I took up this challenge with passion and started pulling out the staples on the bottom piece of material to see how it would all come apart. I had my face up close as I pulled the fabric away...

...and this ginormous spider was in my face. Now those springs you see aren't small. That thing is at least a good 2 inches across. Also, that white dot underneath is that spiders legacy which is now hanging out in the vacuum cleaner bag. The spider got a decent spray with flyspray and was shown around before being thrown 'buried' in the garden.

So between the spider, the rusted bolts that I could not get undone, and the fact that I well underestimated how much fabric I would need (8m!) this project was put into the too-hard pile.

The chair (spider-free) is up for grabs if anyone wants it :)

More Sonic Blanket:
The Idea
The Beginning
An Update

Re-Upholstered Footstool

I picked up this spew-green velour footstool from the local recycling store for $25 a couple of weeks ago. A bit pricey as far as second-hand items go but I had a vision and some spare money in my craft budget.

This sucker is tufted with fabric covered buttons, new territory for me.

In any case, I did my usual business of pulling it apart mostly intact and copying the pattern.

I decided not to use matching piping around the edges and instead of putting in 8 buttons, I used 6.

The fabric I found was a serious bargain. I headed to Spotlight and checked out the clearance section and found some fabric I liked for $10 per metre. I looked up and saw a sign that said '50% off marked price' - SCORE! there was only 5m left on the roll so I bought the whole thing for $25! I have enough leftover fabric to potentially cover a chair I have lying around - stay tuned!

I also painted the footstool cream, with the same paint I used to re-style this desk.

Another thing I must mention is the fact that I needed an extra long needle to sew on the buttons, I asked Dave if he had anything suitable in the shed and he made me a needle out of a piece of steel. He MADE me a needle, crazy ay! He banged one end flat and drilled the 'eye' then got the grinder out and ground the other end to a point while it was rotating in his drill. I love that man.

Anyway, as usual I made a huge mess of the lounge when I was working on this project and only managed to take a couple of photos of the process so here you go:

The fabric cut to size

Checking out what it will look like

 And without further ado... here is the finished product!

Killer made an appearance in the photoshoot

Put to good use

What do you think of the fabric? I know it is a footstool and light fabric wasn't the greatest choice but I will enforce the 'socks or clean slippers only' rule. It was a bit of a step away from my usual Damask pattern I gravitate towards and Dave was a bit surprised but I had stripes in my mind when I first saw the spew-green footstool. 

I have well and truly got the upholstery bug so Cantabrians - keep an eye out for good bargains for me!

p.s I totally got the stripes to match! WIN!

Doily Art - Simple but effective!

This is a really quick and cheap way of making some pretty wall art!

Here's what you need:

Paper doilies (from $2 shops)

A canvas - mine is covered with some plain fabric

Spraypaint (any colour)

That's it! Follow the pictorial method above and you will be away laughing.


Handy Hints:

• If you don't like the slightly blurry look, try using a sponge to dab some paint on or a regular paintbrush instead of spraypaint.

•  Use a weight to hold the doilies down.

• If the edges of the doilies fan upwards, try turning them over before applying paint. Ah the joy of symmetry. 

• The beauty of this artwork is that it leaves a nice blank circular space in the middle to add some text or a picture.

Here is one I painted earlier

That's a bit of an inside joke between Dave and I, an adaptation from Winnie the Pooh.

I would love to see what you come up with , especially if you aren't boring like me and use nice bright colours, so make sure you link me a picture of your creations!

Owl Door-Stop Tutorial

Hello again bloggy-friends. Here is a wee doorstop I made the other day and I thought I would show you the basics of how I made it. (Be aware - basics! I didn't take any photos along the way so I did some handy line sketches)

You will need:

• Plain fabric
• Contrasting fabric or scraps
• Scissors
• Sewing machine
• Needle and Thread 
• Around 2kg rice/wheat

Here is the basic pattern I made, you can make these as big or small as you wish.

The rectangle is the base of the door-stop, and the triangles are the sides.

Here are some photos to give you an idea of how it is put together: 

1. Sew the front and back of your owl to the rectangle base.

2. Sew the triangle pieces to the rectangle base then, with right sides together, sew up each side of the owl.

3. Add any eyes, ears, beaks and feathers (could be easier if you did that first but hey, live and learn)

4. Sew up top of owl, leaving room for the rice to go in.

5. Using a funnel or similar device (I used a piping bag) fill the door-stop with your rice/wheat.

6. Slip stitch the gap closed and you are done!

More Creative Spaces HERE