Orange Ya Glad Ya Grabbed That Stool?!

Orange ya glad ya don't hear puns like THAT everyday.. sheesh.





















Well anyway, it is hard rubbish pick up in our suburb at the moment, so that means I've been doing a lot looking around. Yes. I am one of thooose people. That pick up trash. Illegally! Come get me if you dare coppers but once you see what fabulous things I can create out of nothing you will not arrest me... except for crimes of fabulousness!
So I have a new children's desk for Lenny's room given to us by his Aunty Yol who inherited it from her Mum, Lenny's Grandma!
It's such a wonderful desk, but it needed the perfect stool. Ultimately I will win tattslotto and buy him a mini Eames to go with it, but until then this is what I did!
I saw a little teeny wooden stool all on its own out for hard rubbish, in the rain, because it always rains when hard rubbish is on. I stopped jumped out and picked it up.

Now I could have gone to Clark Rubber or somewhere and had custom foam top made for it but I thought it was worth a look at the op shops to see if I could find something that already existed. I did, a sparkly round cushion the perfect size and squishyness for this project!

I also found a Fireball Orange tablecloth at the op shop and headed home to get busy!

Now this is not my first Rodeo when it comes to reupholstering stools - I did Nan's old kitchen stool AND her old bathroom/dressing table stool so you could say I'm pretty darn experienced at stools.

Step one. Dry out completely soggy wooden stool over a heating duct. Done.

Take off legs and leg plates.




















Measure the top of the stool and measure fabric to cover stool and cushion and tuck under for fixing.

I cut the Orange fabric and tossed the excess and the cushion cover in my material box to live another day.

This stool was going to be as fancy as I could possibly manage so I decided to grab my trusty button collection (thanks Nan!) and find a big black button to go in the middle. Found one. Squealed in delight.

Tied a small white button to the back so I could get the right tension to pull the big black button in enough to make one of those big divots.

Laying the round cushion and material as neatly as possibly over the top of the stool pull the excess over and staple down. Staple the opposite side, then the two opposite sides - like N-S-E-W. Then all the excess around.

Screw the leg base plates back on at this stage as they also help to secure the fabric a little. 

For fancy I put some ribbon around the edge and then finished off with some upholstery tacks that I found in my husband's workshop a while ago.

And you're done! Very pleased with the result.

PS: I did this all in between cooking lamb chops and roast vegies for tea! So I don't want to hear people saying it is hard work or something!

I think it looks pretty darn cute there at the desk! And it was done with second hand and found items!

Even Prince's Like To Upcycle!

My darling boy Lenny loves to play and muck around and is impartial to some fancy headwear.

Adding to this is the fact that in the morning when I sometimes bring him for some quiet time in our bed (long after Daddy has left for work) I will pretend I am asleep and he will kiss me on the lips to wake me up. The first time he did it I was actually semi-sleeping haha, which made it even more gorgeous! He is only 16 months so I am unsure where he learnt that trick!

Whilst at Resource Rescue the other day I saw this pleather off-cut that looked like the ideal crown!
I have a growing collection of old buttons  - never throw away the ones that come with clothes and I inherited many from my Nan.

The spiky pleather didn't quite make it around my child's head (we are convinced that's because we passed down their 'big brain' genes) so I glued (super glued) some ric-rac to the bac so I could tie it. And that also means it will fit many a head!

I grabbed some ric-rac and my hot glue gun from my craft cupboard and set about arranging the buttons.

I sewed the buttons tightly to the ric-rac (wavy ribbon for the uninitiated) and hot glued the ric-rac to the pleather so that in the event the hot glue fails, the buttons won't end up as a choking hazard.

Now, seeing as I was one or two hands short I used a nearby vase to sit the crown on while I used my own two hands to glue.
















I added a gorgeously regal red bow to each end of the ric-rac and voila! A princely crown!

Lenny is so sick of me making him pose as you can tell from his haggard expression.

See what you can achieve with scrap and imagination!

Resource Rescue! A crafter's nirvana!

Despite the inclement weather, Lenny and I ventured out today to Bayswater where, nestled among the industrial estate of Hosie Road, we discovered the craft nirvana Resource Rescue!
Filled to the brim with the castaways and cutoffs from various industries you'll find everything you could ever need to create anything you could ever need to create!

From bottles, boxes and bollards to wood, fabrics and plastics. There is foams, rubbers, foils, various thingamabobs and whozeewhatsits.

I spent $8 on a bunch of boxes and bollards to help me present and mail out the garlands and present toppers I'm creating. Yep, all of that for just $8! Even if I filled up an entire garbage bag it would only have been $30!

I also spent $20 on two large wooden boxes perfect for display - they are actually wine storage boxes so maybe once I'm done presenting my wares I can use them for that.

The boxes I purchased aren't typically expensive at the Post Office but that's not the point. The point of Resource Rescue is to use up what already exists before creating something new. Considering there is so many perfectly good bottles, containers and boxes at Resource Rescue it really makes you think how many of the things we use at home could be used again instead of throwing away. Many people see the recycling bin as a get out of jail free card but the process of recycling plastics and papers into new plastics and papers has it's own cost to the environment.

Mostly, things can be reinterpreted. Take the the pleather off-cut I found amongst the treasures in Hosie Road that I knew was meant to be a crown for Prince Lenny!
It only takes a wee bit of imagination and you can make use of stuff that would otherwise go into landfill.
I loved my visit to Resource Rescue and would highly recommend it to anyone who is creating! Go to www.resourcerescue.org.au or like them on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/resourcerescuecraftsupplies

See my next blog for how I turned Lenny into a Prince!

Lenny's new Foxy friend!

At the Sisters Market a couple of weeks ago I couldn't go past Freddy Fox at Ladedah Kids stall. So gorgeous and brought back memories of Roald Dahl books, the Fantastic Mr Fox and Foxwood Treasure story books.

I finally placed him in Lenny's room and doesn't he just look dapper!
You can find all you need to know about Ladedah Kids via
ladedahkids.bigcartel.com or ladedah-kids.blogspot.com or www.ladedahkids.com.au/products or find them on facebook www.facebook.com/pages/La-De-Dah-Kids

Pot Luck!

One of my big year list items was to take a class in something and I have already posted about my Slow Clay pottery class being the best thing since sliced bread. Well here are some photos of the items I created in term 1. Term 2 starts Monday!

Upcycled Greetings gets social!

So I decided to get Upcycled Greetings online and up n running. Big commitment, I know, but I have nothing to lose and I'm very excited about it.
It's like going back to work but everything is mine. I will soon find out if working for one's self is all it's cracked up to be, won't I.
Upcycled Greetings now has it's own pages as listed below. If you follow my blog, please go to each and either follow or like accordingly.
In order to get started I called upon the talents of Branka Injac Misic, a former PhilipWebb Real Estate college, student of the highly regarded AWARD School for designers and a social media boffin.
She gave me some super helpful tips for posting relevent and engaging content and I have already picked up a few extra Twitter followers in the craft sphere. So a very big THANK YOU to Branka!
I guess only time will tell whether this kind of advertising and customer communication will affect the sales side of Upcycled Greetings. I guess the other side to social media is the spread of ideas. Upcycled Greetings is an idea that gift wrapping doesn't need to be wasteful.
Check out the links below, and be a good chap and like them *wink wink nudge nudge*

Facebook
Twitter
Tumblr
Posterous
Etsy

Easy!

Market Stall success

So I had my first market stall over the weekend and I am really happy with the response I received from customers. I sold items to 17 different customers, an even spread of my wares from the vintage cards to the garlands and toppers, and made a whopping $0! I have a long way to go before I start making money honey but the custom is there! So now that it was a success I will be booking markets for the next few months. I am sticking with one a month until I can be sure that I have enough time to replenish stock and sell enough to cover the cost of hiring a stall. I loved the company and atmosphere at the Sisters' Market but it was one of the more expensive ones going at an average of $80-$130 a stall... Hard to sell enough to cover costs!
I was positioned between the lovely Hannah and Matt from Beth Bernard Childrens Wear and Ladedah Kids crocheted chidrens toys. Both have been in the market biz for a while and were great company on the day!
I also must thank my sister-in-law Yolanda and her boyf Tim for babysitting Lennon at short notice and with the greatest of ease - considering they'd never babysat a child ever, in the history of ever! - and my friend Tash for coming and showing great enthusiasm for my range and dropping 20 big ones! She stays on my Christmas Card list another year that's for sure!
Anyway, onwards and upwards for Upcycled Greetings.

For my diehard followers I have included some further musings on my range below - could get boring so if you aren't interested see ya later for now!

The main thing I was keen to sell were my paper garlands and the present toppers made from pages of a 1994 melways.
The Little Golden Book paper garlands are paper circles in two sizes sewn together with two colours of cotton (yellow feed, turquoise bobbin) and they are all various lengths. I take care to cut the most interesting and colourful images and make sure that the two circles (a smaller circle upon a larger circle) are a good contrast. The effect of the garlands once strung up (en mass if you buy enough) is whimsical, intriguing and fun. I aim to expand this range as it garnered a lot of interested, however, customers had trouble envisioning the way they looked as i had no way to string them up. For my next stall i will have a way of stringing them up - saw a stall selling teatowel that were strung up between two wooden thingys... will need to get my husband onto it i think.
The present toppers were also a hit, however, there was one that fell apart in front of a customer. i remember using a different adhesive on one and will assume it was the one that fell apart and not use that adhesive again.

ummm and the vintage cards were great... especially the old ones sourced from etsy so i will grab some more of those. bought in large batches for around $20-30 and sold for $4 each not a bad earner!
anywho will keep pluggin away and try to keep you all posted!