Page 188 – the long thread

March 24, 2009March 24, 2009

Chair Renovation

I have trouble with furniture makeovers. Well, these chairs with the rush seats (before, pictured on the left) were giving me splinters. So I decided to get some inexpensive jute webbing and cover the seat. I also painted them a dark taupe color, but now I think that I need to paint the kitchen table too!

My mother warned me that the jute would stretch and begin to sag, and guess what? She was right, as always. It’s not too bad, but we’ll see how long these last. I’m thinking of making some cushions with a thin wooden base to help keep them around a little longer. But I still think it’s an improvement!

You might be seeing the jute again since I have around 40 yards left over. Jute purses, jute tote bags, jute walls, jute shirts….

March 24, 2009

Cheesecake & Roses

I’m doing a lot of blog catching-up today. I hosted a wedding shower over the weekend and made these mini-cheesecakes. I saw this post at Skip to My Lou and had to buy these mini-cheesecake pans. I used a basic recipe from King Arthur Flour, but I added a tablespoon of lemon zest to the batter and spooned some lemon curd on the top. I also used a different crust with graham crackers and crushed almonds. Mine look much messier than those on the King Arthur website! I’d like to say that was due to the kids helping me (which they enjoyed very much), but really I’m just messy all on my own. This was such an easy dessert that I will definitely make again.

And here are some simple roses that I arranged in glass containers for the mantel. They are a really interesting greenish-yellow color that reminds me of new spring buds.

March 24, 2009

Sketch Box

sketch-box1

sketch-box2

Here’s a quick little gift that I made for a five-year-old budding artist. I used a plain wooden box and filled it with drawing materials. Some of you long-time blog readers may remember the Craft Can. I definitely like giving art and craft supplies to kids. Here’s a blank template for the sketch box. The background color is in fact a bit different from the image above.

You can print the design on sticker paper or card stock and affix with spray adhesive. For the corners, I used a corner rounding punch (my favorite new craft supply). In the box I included a sketch pad, colored pencils, graphite pencils, a compass and protractor, letter stencils, a pencil sharpener and a small wooden figure model.

March 24, 2009March 24, 2009