Finishing Wax- Blue Hutch

When I first moved to Utah six months ago I called my best friend to complain.  That’s what best buds are for right? 😉  Actually they are there for helping you get out of your funk.  And that’s what my buddy did.  I whined about how my stuff didn’t fit in this house and she kindly listened.  Then she wisely said, “Why don’t you go buy a cool hutch and paint it a fun color. You are good at that.”   I looked over the wall where this future hutch would go, imagined it, and said,  “That is why you are my best friend!”

I started my search on KSL that day and found a hutch for $80.  Bought some paint.  Then…. let it sit in the garage for a month or three, lol, then got crack’n.

Half way into priming it I realized I didn’t take a “Before” picture…oops

I primed it with a gray primer I had left over from painting my kitchen cabinets in my CA house.  I used a regular wall paint brush to apply it.  This gave it heavy brush stroke marks, which I wanted.

Then I painted a blue over the top with a foam brush.  Foam brush does not leave marks.  But you could still see the ones underneath a little.  I put two coats of blue on.  Then….

I went crazy with my sander.

But after my craziness I realized I really didn’t like the light wood showing through.  So I stained it green.  I took green paint brushed it on, then wiped it off after a second or two.

I also willy nilly brushed on some color to different spots.  And then went over the whole piece with a navy blue glaze.

After I was done I decided to try using a wax instead of a polyurethane; which I usually use to finish furniture.

I loved it!  I will definitely be using it again.  Super easy.  Just get a rag, wipe it on.  Wait until it is no longer tacky to the touch and then with a dry clean rag, rub the piece till it shines just a bit.

This is how it turned out.

I am still trying to figure out what to put on it.  I want to get some fun frames and put our family pictures on it.  But for now, my parents grace the shelves.

I bought some fun glass handles from Home Depot for the doors.

It will all come together soon.  I hope

Leave me some comment LOVE

Rag Curl Tutorial

When I was little my mom put my hair in rags all the time.  I would beeeggg her to do it.  I loved how curly my stick straight hair got.  When I was old enough I learned to do it by myself. I did it for crazy hair day and even some school dances.  The other night I was going through my fabric and found some strips of fabric; which totally took me back to the “old days.”   Then thought how much fun it would be to try on Charlie’s hair.   She loved the rags in her hair too, she thought it was a fun way to sleep (kids are crazy lol).  And she was even more excited when I took the rags out to reveal her “Crazy curly hair!”    It’s easy to do.

-Rag Curls-

First cut strips of fabric 1 inch by 8 inches.  Depending on your hair thickness cut between 10-25.

Then get your hair wet.  Have a spray bottle handy in case parts dry while you work.

Then take sections of your hair and twist. I like to start when I would want my part to be.  Twist all the way to the end of the piece of hair.

Begin to wrap hair around the fabric rag.

Wind it up the head and tie in a double knot.

Sleep in  rags

And the next day….

Unwind rags

Now use a pick or your finger to pull curls apart

A whole lot-a curls!

Style your hair and waa-laa

Curls!!

Please leave me some comment LOVE on my blog!

I love to hear your thoughts and know that you stopped by

Upholstery Part 3- Buttons

I was a little worried about the buttons.  But, it was actually one of the easiest parts.

Here is the Chair before we started

Sorry it’s so small, pic was taken on phone.  These are my sister-in-laws chairs that we found on KSL.  She got them for 25 each and her fabric was free from a designer friend of her’s. There was a million upholstery nails and buttons on this chair. It took 6 hours to take the upholstery nail out of this chair.  Yikes!  Pay attention when you buy a chair to redo.  We were first timers. Also, we bought these from a super creepy old man who wanted to ask me on a date lol.  He could have been my dad.  CREEPY!  He told me he liked my freckles hahaha…eww

We bought some metal buttons from Jo-ann’s and covered them.  Using the existing buttons holes in the back, we mapped out the placement of the buttons.  Then started putting them on.

Used upholstery wax thread and a large needle.  Wrap the thread around the button shaft a few times.  Then pull needle again through to the back.

We then pulled as tight as we thought looked good and tied a knot in the back.  If we could get it tight enough we put a tooth pick in and twisted it till it matched the other buttons in the front.

Then place the backing on and finish up the chair

BUTTONS!!

The white paper is my “chair to do list”  Good to have one of those.

Done!

Upholstery Part 2- Tricks of the Trade

Are you feeling overwhelmed with that chair you bought that is still sitting in the garage?!  And the hubs is like, “Can we please get that piece of junk out of here.”  But then your like…”I have a dream for that ugly old thing.  I WILL make it new again!”

And then I say, “You GO GIRL! Get crafty with your bad self!  Yahhooza!”

haha, ok ok let’s get down to business.

When my mom and I were feeling a little stuck we called an upholstery shop.  Thankfully we got a hold of the SUPER nice gentle man who owns the shop.  We told him we were redoing some chairs and were having a hard time with a few things.  He told us to come on down to his store and he would show us what to do.  So kids and a DVD player in-tow, we headed over to the shop.  And these are a few of the awesome things we learned in about 10 mins.

Tip 1

When you are trying to end a piece of piping trim out the rope from the inside of the fabric cover.  This will help the piping to hide under the top fabric with out a bump.

See no bump!

Tip 2

Use finishing nails to hold certain pieces on to the fabric.  You will need a bit of card board behind the fabric, like in the arm end. (see picture below) Then use an ice pick or other sharp pointy poker to pull/pop the top of the fabric up around the nail.  The fabric will stay in place, but the nail won’t show.

I used a bead making tool to pull the fabric up over the nails (very poky tool).  This fabric is wrapped around a piece of cardboard to help it hold it’s shape and to help nail it into place.

Tip 3

Use cardboard to help keep bumps in fabric to a minimum.  It comes in handy if there is a lot of bulk, like batting, pipping, and fabric.

Tip 4

When you upholster you really need to pull the fabric tight before you staple it down.  In some places this can be a bit tricky.  You can sew a piece of thin pellon to the sides where you need something to pull.  Like in the picture below, see where the white fabric is sticking out?  That is where we pull and then staple that to the chair.

Here are some pictures of the arm as well.

inside of chair

outside of chair

You can see the white piece sticking out the bottom.  We didn’t pull it yet.

Tip 5

This one was and IS a life saver.

This metal piece is called plygrip.  It is used to clamp the fabric down around curves.  It is awesome!  Below are a few pictures from my phone when the upholstery guy was showing me how to use it.

This is the example the upholstery shop owner showed me.

The plygrip is like a clamp.  One side you staple to the piece and the other has teeth that hold the fabric in place.  Once you fold/push the fabric edge into the inside of the clamp and hammer it down, it makes a nice clean edge.

Tip 6

This metal piece is called tack strip.  You will probably see this in your chair when you are taking it apart.  You wrap it around the fabric (spikes going through the fabric) and pound it in to the wood.  It is usually on the back two sides.  It is the last step in putting together your chair!

Upholstery Part 1- Tools and Tips

Welcome to Lynn’s Upholstery Class!  Haha… I am definitely not a master of upholstery. But, hopefully I have some helpful tips for your project or can motivate you to try your hands at upholstery

This is one of my two red chairs.  I bought them on KSL for $40 buck-a-roonies.  Sweet deal!

This is what I turned this lovely find into.  Meet Mr. Blue Chair.

Here are the tools and tips that helped me get from red to “Mr. Blue”.

Tools!

Upholstery hammer

Rubber Mallet

Needle nose pliers

Flat head screw driver

Air compressor and an upholstery staple/nail gun

Tip! You can get a upholstery gun at Harbor Fraight  Tools starting at $50.  The best one you can get is called Rainco.  These are around $150-200.  This is the brand actually upholster’s use.   I HIGHLY recommend at least getting the $50 dollar one.  The staples are much better to use, especially if you mess up and need to take a staple out.  The guns/staples used for wood will be really hard if not impossible to take out.)

Staples and finishing nails

Upholstery tack strip (I’ll show to a picture of this below)

Plygrip (Picture of this above “tools list” and explained in Upholstery Part Two)

Roll of cardboard strip. (Can get at Jo-Ann’s)

Depending on chair- Sewing machine

Scissors

Pen- for marking old fabric pieces

First Step:

Getting Ready

My Tips-

1.  Before you take apart your chair, sit in it.  Does it feel comfortable?  Will you need more padding in certain areas?  How firm is the seat and the back?  Decide if you want to add more padding and where.  Write it down!

2. Set up a work station.  A place you can cut fabric, sew, a table to set the chair on, and to sit and breath

3.  Take a before picture.  You will want to show off your transformation!  And say, “Look what I did with my bad-self! Yooza!” ….yeah you know

4.  Buy some caffeinated soda.  I never drink caffeine, but I drink 1/3 of two cases of diet coke during this process.  

Second  Step:

Taking apart your chair

My tips-

1.  Just go for it!  But…be kinda gentle.  You want to take pictures along the way and keep all the pieces intact as best you can.  This will be your pattern for putting it all back together.

2.  Take note of the hardware that is coming off your piece and where it went.   In the picture above is a piece of tack strip.  You can buy this from an upholstery fabric store and sometimes straight from an upholstery shop (if they are nice and share that stuff).  It is usually a better price there than at a fabric store.  Jo-Ann fabric’s does not carry this stuff ladies. Call around!

3.  Needle nose pliers and your screw driver will come in handy here.

4. Label each piece as you remove it.  Keep notes of the order pieces are coming off.

Third Step:

Before you put it back together

My tips-

1.  If there is anything you want to change about the wood legs or arms, do it now.  Paint, sand and stain.  Do it before you start putting fabric back on

2. Get all the staples out that you can.  If you can’t get them out pound them in.  You don’t want any sticking out that could snag your fabric or poke you.

3.   Cut out your new fabric pieces and set them in a stack with it’s labeled old fabric piece. Watch which direction your are cutting your fabric, you will want it to all go the same direction.

4.  Add any padding you feel you need.  I added a little on the arms, the seat, and the back.  I bought some heavy quilt batting and used a glue spray to adhere it.

Fourth Step:

Putting it back together

My tips-

1.  Hopefully you took note of how it came off.  Check the last thing on your list and start there.  For me it was the arms and the wings.

2.  Lay your first pieces on.  Check how they are laying and make sure the direction of your fabric is the same on both sides.

3.  Start to staple!  Pull fabric tight!  AND be very careful!!!

4.  If something needs pleats/folds, make sure you are doing the same number of them on both sides of the chair.  Like the front of my chair arms.

There are a lot of tips to give! Yikes!  Too many for one post.  Sooo, to finish your chair click over to

Upholstery Part Two- Tricks of the Trade

to learn the rest.

Lynnie’s Raspberry Cheesecake Crumble

Sorry this post has been moved to my new blog.  Please click the image below to get to the recipe.

Walmart + Fashion (Can this add up?)

Can Walmart possibly have cute clothes?!  Why yes they can. And, thankfully, they do.

My mom was in town a week ago (Helping me reupholster some chairs which you will see soon!!! be excited!).  Her and I had to make a 10pm milk run to Wally World (Walmart).

When we got there we saw this Bella Bird brand of clothing.  I was kinda shocked that they had so many cute things.

The clothes are all from Walmart.  The shoes are from Payless and the belt is from the sale rack in Target.

The neckline was prefect too.  Not too low cut, but a nice scoop.  Just how I like it!

And nice prices too. Prefect for my new budgeting ways.  Good job Walmart and good job Bella Bird!

Look at me getting fashionable with my bad self … at Walmart of all places.

Freezing Cookie Dough and Making Pazookies

Finally Dev and I have found a chocolate chip cookie recipe we drool over!  Now we make it in a big batch and freeze the dough in balls, so that we can have them ready at anytime!

First make any recipe of  cookies you LOVE.

THEN- We use our handy cookie scoop and place them on freezer paper or parchment paper on top of a cookie sheet.

We slide that into the freezer to flash freeze for about 30 mins to an hour.  THEN we put them into a freezer ziploc for safe keeping back in the freezer.

We also use these handy frozen cookie balls to make pazookies.

We just take out 2 or 3 balls, put them in a little baking safe dish (like what you would make creme brulee in) at 350 for 10-15 mins. Until they are golden on top but still very gooey in the middle

Blue Dresser

My sister in-law and I have been working are to make our new houses our homes.  She had this dresser and armoire from when she was in high school and wanted to change it up.

We did mostly the same steps that are used on the TV stand I did earlier.  We used a 220 and 150 grit sand paper to rough it up.  Painted three coats of blue with a little sanding between each layer of paint.  We made a little diagram to remind us where the distressing would be and sanded those places extra well between painting.  We use a clear non-yellowing polyurethane to top coat it.

I forgot to take a picture of the armoire.  I’ll have to go back over to get one.  I will also post the paint color we used.

Condensed Milk into Toffee! And Banoffee Pie Review

In my resent blog searches I found this amazingly yummy looking pie.   A friend of mine tried it, then made it again, then share just how delicious it was- I had to make it.  It looked easy enough (usually the thought of making a pie and all the steps scares me).

One of the coolest things I learned during making this pie was how to make toffee out of a can of sweetened condensed milk.

All you do it boil a can for 2.5 hours.  Make sure you keep adding water so that the can stays covered.  But really that’s it!

It’s like magic in a can

I had another friend tell me she does this to make chewy caramel popcorn.  So there ya go.

As for my review on the Banoffe Pie.  It was A-MAZ-ING! I don’t have a picture of it because we ate it soo fast. It was THAT good.

Tastie tastie AND simple.  I’d make it again in a second.

Click here to travel over to Brooklyn Limestone’s fun blog for the this amazing recipe.  Thanks for sharing Brooklyn!

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