Ugly chair gone byebye!

So remember this:

It's now this:

And a close up:

I love it. It's my first time upholstering and painting furniture. It has a few mistakes but ya know what? I'm extremely proud of it! It brightens up our drab dark BROWN living room. I look around now and wish we didn't have so many brown dark sad bookcases and black desk and entertainment center. Yuck.

The best part is this project helped me refocus on crafting. Now to clean up the craft room a bit and get back to work in there. :)

Ugly chair rehab part one.

So I have a chair addiction. I love chairs. I can't help but want them. There are three chairs on our porch that I pulled from the trash. I have now bought 4 chairs from thrift shops and 2 chairs from an antique shop (my smoked lucite chairs. LOVE!). Needless to say, they're ugly.

You see, I always see the potential and I have big dreams... but then I never follow through. I know, slaaaaacker.

Tonight I was a bit overwhelmed with the craft-a-thon so I was sitting in my ugly chair. We got rid of our couch a million moons ago so we really only have the chairs. I was zoning out to Anthony Bourdain when I decided to stop being a slouch. I went to the closet, got out of the tools and went to work.

Doesn't this look like a chair from a 70s doctor's office?

Goodwill usually marks up their stuff by a lot. I don't know how many 20 dollar Target bookcases I've seen there for 30 bucks! Sheesh! But, if you find something without a tag, they'll put a sticker on it for something incredibly low. This chair was...

And it's wood! It's totally coated but it is wood. I took my screwdriver and pried out a few of the plugs in the screwholes.

Then I ruined a few that didn't need to be taken out...

But I got it taken apart! YAY!

I busted out my birthday sander and got started. Went through one piece of sandpaper and barely made a dent in the side of the chair. EEP! Todd isn't thrilled that I continue to take apart my seating. hehehe... I also took apart our ottoman and haven't reupholstered it yet.

I'm thinking yellow and gray? Our apartment is so dark that I don't want another dark color. Maybe a gray and turqoise? Hehe... can't decide. I need David Bromstad! I need Genevieve Gorder!

13 days...

I have 13 days until I need to turn my application in for Renegade Craft Fair. I'm starting to doubt myself like crazy. I worry that it's not gonna be good enough. There are so many awesome people who enter these things.

But even if I get denied, at least I tried!

And what I still have left:

29 onesies still needing pretty stuff on 'em. Then I need to focus on bibs, burpcloths, stuffed animals and felt play food.... I wanna cry!

Onesie cuteness.

I've been hand painting onesies but haven't gotten around to actually seeing how well the paint holds up. So while a few of them are curing, I wanted to post my latest three onesies that I adore.

So if you don't know, I'm a HUGE animal lover. I believe in indoor only/no declawing/spay and neutering/rescue adoption/no breeding/high nutrition etc etc. It's no surprise that I had to do a few animal style baby gear items because I love 'em. These next two onesies are so cute! The first is a hand dyed onesie with pawprints. I used a regular stamp and stamped it but then it didn't stick so I filled in with paint with a tiny paintbrush. In 3 days I'll know whether or not it's okay.

This onesie is also hand dyed but I used fusible web to make an applique. I ironed it in place and apparently it should be fine but I reinforced it with a decorative stitch around the star.

I don't know why I can't get a good pic of this one! Also a hand dyed onesie with a whale applique. According to the family I nanny for, I'm the queen at drawing ocean animals. Todd has given me the challenge of a shark and dolphin. Eep!

I swear the purple isn't that faded!

So I'm gonna go back to crafting. I bought 50 bucks' worth of fabric for only 30. Yay for amazing JoAnn's deals.

I'm taking the 400 dollar plunge...

Remember how I quit my full-time job so I could craft more? Well guess what? My part-time "spending money" job has turned into a nearly every day job! lol. I've been over there yesterday, today, tomorrow and then Tuesday through Friday I'll be there in the night and THEN I'll be there Saturday and Sunday. I want a day off!

I have a lot of other stuff I haven't posted to etsy or even here because I've been slammed. Like my ravioli? I like it. It came out adorably. I made a "pesto" as well for them. So cute!

So I'm cranking out crafts as much as possible because I'm making a huge giant leap of out of my comfort zone: I'm applying for the Renegade Craft Fair in Austin, TX. I have until February 4th to take good, quality pictures of my stuff, make a flickr album and post up the 400 bucks. I have to try. I wanted to do this last year and never got the chance. After going to the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago I realized that I have quite a good shot at being accepted.

I love Albuquerque because they have this rich history of creativity. The Native American pottery, the southwestern artscapes but they don't have much of a niche for me. If it isn't turquoise or a horsehead, it can be overlooked.

I'm hoping to get people to think outside of the box when it comes to children's items. Gone are the days of boring pastels. Let's move away from lead covered toys. I absolutely love fabric toys. I can't help but want to buy them for myself! Felt food, soft blocks, squishy stuffed animals... they're so much more inviting than some hard plastic toy.

So I'm hoping I can convey that in my application and I pray I get accepted. If not, that's okay. We get back 375. That's not a bad gamble.

Good luck to me, right?

First Treasury Listing!

Happy New Year everyone!!! I can't wait to see what everyone will be creating this year. Last year all the stuff I found in blogland was unbelievably adorable.

I'm so excited because I was listed in a treasury. I've never been listed so this was really thrilling to me.

Treasury Link (hope this works!)

I've been busy cranking out bibs and washcloths. I bought some fabric to make more stuffies so once they're out of the wash, I'll get cracking on them.

Todd has given me a challenge to make a plushie KOS-MOS. Don't know if you've ever heard of Xenosaga or Xenogear games but that's where KOS-MOS is from. Todd has started collecting all the figures and has asked for a plushie version. I'm a bit worried as I've never attempted anything 3-D before. I think I have ghillie from craftster's poppet pattern that I may work from for the body. I know how I'm going to do the blue hair at least!

So I hope to post more often all the things I make! I've been a blogger slaaaaacker.