Our kitchen chairs needed a serious upgrade. The fabric was SO dingy, dirty and stained. Ugh. I have no idea why I don’t have a close up photo of them as I am positive I took one, but you can sort of see what I mean here.

Chace eats his breakfast at this table every morning and the spills and stains that come from a toddler to child have taken their toll on these little chairs. Time for a refresh!

The main thing I wanted here was a fabric that looked like an indoor fabric, but was really an outdoor one. I wanted something that could stand up to the dirt and spills that are inevitable with a five-year-old.

The winner? This amazing outdoor fabric called “Secret Gate – Pewter” from Tonic Living. It’s an awesome gray/cream lattice pattern – now the title makes sense right? I only needed one yard so at $15.95/yd this was an inexpensive upgrade. My favourite kind!

Now, the chairs look like this…

I had never reupholstered anything before but my friend Natalie had, so she came up to help me. It’s not an overly hard process but with the stapling and pulling the fabric taught that is involved, it’s great to have a second set of hands. Natalie’s help was invaluable! She’s got a really good eye too for keeping things straight and uniform.

First, we unscrewed the seats from the chairs. The screws were easily accessible on the bottom.

Then, we draped the fabric to see what layout we liked the best.

After we had decided on one, we used a few T-pins to hold the fabric in place. These will come out later.

Flipping the cushions over, we started with the corners, making sure they were pulled good and tight.

We used a staple gun to secure the fabric to the chair cushion base.

Then we continued around the cushion, pulling the fabric taught and securing it in place with staples.

When we were done, it looked pretty much like this. Not the prettiest ‘finish’ but since no one looks under a chair, I think it’s okay. I may try to finish it off a bit cleaner but to be honest, it’s been this way for a few months now and isn’t bothering me too much.

We removed the T-pins, and then draped the next cushion to match.

T-pinning that in place, we repeated the whole process.

We screwed the finished cushions back on to the chair frames and..

DONE!

I love how the chairs now look updated. The fabric is modern, fresh and fun. And stain resistant!

You would never know it’s an outdoor fabric by looking at it would you?

And it looks great when looking down on it through the glass table top too.

Overall I’m so pleased with how they turned out.

It’s amazing how a simple and inexpensive upgrade can yield such a high-end look. Talk about ‘bang for your buck’!

Have you ever tackled any reupholstering before? How did you finish the bottom of the chair if so? Any experience bringing an outdoor fabric inside?

    

Oh Autumn. How I love you so. You with your cozy lattes, crisp leaves and amazing colours. Let me celebrate by making you a wreath. And then keeping it for myself and hanging it on my door.

I made a wreath.

me no likey.

no thanks.

blech.

Sigh. I didn’t like any of them. Nothing was working for me. I didn’t have enough of the large flowers to make a nice full wreath and all the imbalanced designs just weren’t doing it for me.

So I decided to back to Michaels and bought another pot of the larger ones. They were still on 50% off but I was able to use an additional 25% off coupon that week. Nice!

To attach them to the wreath frame I simply glue gunned each one on. Here is a little animated gif of it all coming together…

After I secured both the large and small flowers on, I was done!

Here are a few close ups. I love the colours. Autumn has the best colour palette!

And that’s it! Easy and festive.

My love affair with Autumn continues.

Have you made any wreaths lately? What is your favourite season? Are you obsessed with Autumn’s colour palette like I am?

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends!

    

Chace’s bedroom (see it here) is in a bit of a transition. Although I love his current bedroom, he is growing faster than my dog runs when she hears her treat jar open (FAST!) so his needs are changing. And as with most rooms, space is at a premium.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I hope you all have a day that is filled with squishy sugar treats, an abundance of kisses and that you all get suffocated (in a good way) by warm hugs.

Now that that (slightly disturbing) wish has been thrown at you, let’s talk about the Big Day.

If you follow me on Facebook then you may have seen the photo that I posted of the little Valentine’s Day table setting that I left for my three Valentine’s this morning (Chef Kev, Chace and Belle).

But what you couldn’t see is that inside that ‘xoxoxox’ bag, there was a special mug that Chace made for his daddy…

That’s right. He made it himself ;).

Let me explain. It all started with this really cool ‘design your own mug’ kit that I stumbled across at Starbucks last week.

As you can see, the mug is a graphic black and white, and the style of the mug is big, straight, chunky and masculine. Hello perfect gift for Daddy!

The pen came with both a white and black tip, so you can doodle and draw to your hearts content (pun intended) on both the black and white surfaces.

Once your design is finished, you ‘bake’ the mug in the oven for 20 minutes (I think it was at 325° but don’t quote me on that). This sets the ink in place and the design is on the mug forever :).

So, earlier this week Chace got busy designing his mug before bedtime. He took it very seriously.

How awesome is it that he decorated the handle!? “Look mommy, I’m doing a pattern”. That’s my boy 😉

Chace went off to bed at this point, and I took care of baking the mug and setting the ink. Once out and cooled, we had this.

One side of the mug has his name on top, and a bike below.

The flip side boasts a heart (middle) and a flower.

And of course, the pattern detail. Love this.

I think we are going to have one happy daddy this morning… and one proud Chace.

Have a great Valentine’s Day everyone! xoxoxo.

We are fast approaching that big ‘ol love day. And who doesn’t like to give (and receive) some love?!

I remember being back in elementary school waiting in anticipation for my little Valentine’s mailbox. It was so fun to receive all the teeny cards my classmates would make and/or write. I also found it humorous how many ways you can spell ‘Elaine’ (apparently)… “Elan”, “Elinea”, “Elane”, “Eleanor”, “Eileen”… ah, good times.

Chace (my four-year-old) is in daycare with about 20 other little munchkins. I thought it would be fun to help him make some Valentine’s that he could hand out. It was also a nice way to talk to him about – and show him – a good example of friendship.

… But has anyone noticed how girly Valentines are? Not that there is anything wrong with that (Seinfeld) but it’s fun to have a somewhat boyish Valentine for my little BOY to hand out. I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about handing out a card filled with cupids, hearts, cute doggies and jellybeans. He’s been known to exclaim (in dramatic four-year-old fashion) “oh no, not agaaaain!” when “Sophia the First” or “Strawberry Shortcake” comes on TV. He makes a bee-line for his lego at that point.

So, I came up with a ‘beary’ cute boyish idea instead… black bears, and bear paws. Raaarrrr!

The first thing I did was design the header cards. On the front I wrote “I’m so BEARY happy that we are friends” and of course, have the bear image. On the back I wrote “Happy Valentine’s Day” and then had a blank spot that said “from your friend,” and had room for Chace to write his name. Across the bottom I put “Mom and Dads: These are ‘Dare Bear Paws’ and are peanut free!” just in case there were any allergies in the home.

I set the cards as ‘four-up’ on a page to make the most out of each sheet. I included crop marks (for cutting) and score marks (for folding guides). If you’d like to make you own, you can download a copy of this file here. Enjoy!

The first assignment in my sweat sweet shop was to unwrap all of the bear paws. I thought they’d look better out of the packaging, and in clear cellophane bags. You must have your tongue out in concentration for this step.

While Chace was doing this, I used my trimmer/scorer to score the header cards. Scoring creates an indent or depression in the paper that allows the card to fold easily. This is not a necessary step but I find it helps make the finished project look clean and polished. I printed my header cards on 100lb cover stock so they were pretty thick. Scoring the paper helps them fold easier. You can use a bone scorer, or even the backside of a butter knife along the edge of a ruler to achieve the same effect.

After I scored the cards, I trimmed them down.

Once the header cards were trimmed, Chace started writing his name on each one.

After he completed this step, we put two bear paws in each bag. The bags that I used were from Michaels. They are 4″ wide by 9.5″ deep. They have about a 2″ gusset on the sides (to hold the cookies). We placed the bear paws back-to-back so that the ‘good side’ faced out each side of the bag.

After that, I rolled down the top of the bag and gave them a quick staple.

I had some help with this step too.

Then I placed the folded header on each bag and added one more staple.

And with that, we were done!

Chace is really excited to hand these out at school next week!

What about you? Any childhood Valentines’ memories? Any fun projects for the kids planned? I have a few other little ideas planned for the big day but I will keep those a secret for now. I don’t want my Valentine to have any hints :).