My DIY Chair Cushion Redo

Well I've not posted in a little bit and unfortunately it's not because I'm just slacking and doing something fun. I'm not saying I have been totally devoid of fun during the month of September, I have not. I have been however, really swamped in my office. I've had thoughts, dreams and ideas galore and no time at all to be a maker. Sadness.
I did however just this morning finish a project for my Mamcita. She's had these chairs in her living room for ages. I didn't know where she got them but we've been sitting on them for years. Apparently they are part of a Drexel Heritage dining room set that she gave to my younger brother when we were in our twenties and someone has the table and chairs but it's not my brother.
The original color was a vibrant emerald green metallic I believe which was then covered in a red velvet. My mom had a roll of vintage upholstery material that she wanted to use but to cover these but we deemed it too brittle after 30 years of sitting in her garage with very poor temperature control. So. We headed to JoAnn's and hit the discontinues/remnant rack and found this beautiful velvet type material with blues and greys in it. I grabbed a yard and a half to be on the safe side and blammo! It was on sale. I got out of there with a beautiful piece of upholstery fabric for four dollars and fifty cents.

I didn't go through the blow by blow in the diy process. There are enough of them out there. I did however want to say, when you are working on a chair bottom that has notches for the seat to fit around the pieces of the back, really think through how you are going to cut those notches. I struggled with them and the overall project was ridiculously simple. They were irritating.

In the picture above you can see how grey the material looks. In the photo below put back together and sitting happily in my mom's place it looks much bluer but the color is still subtle.

Overall, I'm really tickled with how they turned out. I didn't add any extra padding to the chairs and I think they could have used it but heck it's still a nice looking chair and still very comfortable.
So tell me, how did I do?

Card for the Birthday Boy

Today is my younger brother's birthday. Apparently I'm not allowed to call him my "baby" brother because that causes teasing and such over at his house with his kids. LOL. So, in honor of the younger bro, last night, we had a nice dinner with his family at my mom's. She pulled out all the stops and did a yummy dinner for us along with peach cobbler for after. And. As if we were not already stuffed enough, I made vanilla bean ice cream that was pretty darn divine to go with the cobbler.

Oh and a card, I did make a card.. He said  it was so nicely done that he almost thought it was store bought. Ha ha, it was not.

On the outside of the card I used all Close To My Heart BT Duo papers from the retired Dakota paper pack. Plus, the Cricut Artiste cartridge for the fancy label cuts the car is sitting on, and one of the stamps from the new Cricut Artbooking set that CTMH has. ( I was working my stash LOL) Oh and what else? Whisper card stock along with Pacifica ink.

I really loved how the whisper made the car look silvery. The car itself, arrows, and other embellishments are from the Hot Off the Press Vintage Car Dazzles. I mounted the car onto whisper card stock, cut it out used some gold and silver Smooch Inks for some of the cars details then I popped it up off the background with some foam squares from my stash. I'm not sure if you can tell in the photo or not but I achieved a pretty cool drop shadow effect from first stamping the card with the Indian Corn Blue ink and then stamping just off center with the Pacifica ink. Thank goodness for the clear My Acrylix Blocks that allow you to see where you are stamping.

I also did a bit on the inside, I think it make it look more finished. The inside also has a label cut from the Artiste cartridge as well inked with Indian Corn Blue pigment ink from the Enchantment mini pigment pad set and the (slightly crooked) bottom strip is one of the "innies" from the dazzle sheet.

Leave me a comment and tell me what you think, I'd love to hear from everyone. Talk to you soon.
And just in case he happens to see this. Happy Birthday JB.
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Paper Flowers for MAS

Well I'm back. Been on a little bit of a vacation with my husband and a bunch of my sister in laws. My husband is the oldest of 7 and his second sister (of 5) turned 40 and we took a little jaunt to Las Vegas to celebrate. We had a great time, with some yummy food, great laughs, a little gambling and some of the best summer weather anyone could ask for if taking a trip to Sin City. Although we really were not gone that long I didn't plan and schedule a blog post ahead of time.I am getting better about this stuff though.

Anyhow, I'm home and I've been making again. I guess the thing that I needed to kick me into gear for getting projects done is belonging to the great group over at Mini Album Scraps, MAS. It really is a great bunch of guys and gals over there and I have really been stretching my creativity doing things for the swaps I've been joining.
I just send off my contribution to the flower swap we had and well, the picture below just does not do justice to the flowers. I was tickled with how all of them turned out. I must admit though that I kinda went nuts with the Tim Holtz/Sizzix, Tattered Floral die.

I used it for three of my flowers and I have more incarnations of flowers planned. Muahahahahaha (sinister evil laugh echos through the craft room...) It is however one of the best and quickest ways to throw cute flowers together. The other thing is you can use different materials to get different kinds of flowers. I used mod podged burlap for the bottom center flower, an old book/pages for another and then coffee filters for one. I love them ALL. Top flower on that bunch is a simple ribbon flower. If you have any questions about how I threw them together give me a holler.
Also wanted to mention, I'm in a class over at JessicaSprague.com called "How to Bloom Your Blog." I'm learning some digital skills so I can update my blog and do some other nifty digital artsy things. So if you pop in and find it looking a bit different I'm working on the blog.
Talk to ya soon.