Grain Sack Chair

Major props to The Graphics Fairy, a fantastic blog which provides free clip art, vintage images and ideas for projects that are so inspiring!

I had purchased a chair at an estate sale for $20, and wanted to cover it in something really cool. Thanks to the free ideas on The Graphics Fairy, I found an awesome grain sack image. Grain sack chairs being all the rage and all, score - but they can run you about $1500!

Here are a few examples:





With a little trial and error, I was able to recover the chair in unbleached cotton ($20) from Jo-Ann, applying the grain sack image using citra-solv to transfer the image, and apply nail head trim. Total cost - $60. What a deal!

Here are the steps:

1. Purchase a chair from a garage sale, estate sale, or antique mall. The uglier the fabric, the better.

2. Take off the old upholstery. I just used pliers mostly. To remove staples, use a staple remover. To remove nails, use the back end thingie on the hammer. Sure it has a name I just don't know it.

3. Check out the batting. That's the padding. If it is sufficient, as mine was, leave it be. If it is insufficient, buy some cotton batting from a fabric or upholstery store and pad 'er up.

4. Now cut out pieces of fabric that have at least 4-5 inches extra on all sides for each piece of the chair.

5. If you want to do an image transfer, print out the image on a LASER copier (not inkjet) or have a toner-based copy made. Then put the image face down on the fabric, and brush on some Citra-Solv. This is a cleaner and degreaser you buy at Whole Foods. Then use a spoon and sort of rub it in. That's called burnishing, I have learned. Take away the paper and there you go - a cool image on your fabric!

6. Then, pull and stretch the fabric and use a staple gun to secure it down. Then cut off the excess fabric.

7. Finally apply some sort of trim, which you will need to cover the staples and otherwise make the chair look finished. I used nail heads because I like that look. Buy nail head trim in strips where you only have to nail in every fifth one. Or you can use a ribbon trim or, if you are Bold and the Beautiful, you can do a welting cord.

Gray Dining Room

I love the look of gray dining rooms - super chic and I was pretty much over the red dining room we had in our old house. When we moved in, this dining room was pale blue. Very hard to match up with furniture unless you go all french country off-white. Seeing as though ours was a dark brown, and I wasn't ready to sell it, I needed to work it, as Missy Elliot said.

I painted the top part of the walls a deep gray, and painted the mouldings too. That was more laziness than design, but I think it turned out okay. The chandelier is Currey & Co., and the mirrored console is Zuo Modern. The china cabinet was purchased at an antique mall for...wait for it....$130. TA-dow.

The caped fiddler picture I did myself with gray and white charcoal on regular paper. I had done it for an art class back in college and finally put it in a proper frame. My friend Pritish should still have the only other art I have produced hanging in his living room.

Here is a full view of my dining room:

Here are some pictures of other grey dining rooms that inspired me!

Backyardigans Cake

In April, my daughter Audrey turned three years old. She wanted a Backyardigans cake. Well, the fancy cake places won't do a character cake because they "don't have copyrights" to the characters. I'm an attorney, so trust me, I get it, but that's just well, stupid. They're kids. It's a birthday party. Copyright Schmopyright.

Anywho, it forced me to face the alternatives laid out before me: (i) crappy grocery store cake with plastic figurines, or (ii) make my own. I chose the latter. Here is how it turned out. The kids loved it, and most importantly, when she saw the completed cake for the first time, her eyes lit up and mouth dropped open. As difficult to impress as her mother is, this was truly a proud moment for me.


The cake is two cake box mixes - any box mix is fine. I figure if you're going to spend this much time on fondant, screw it on the "homemade" part. They make boxes for a reason. Use them. Love them. We used strawberry for this cake. I used two tiers here, which is two 9 by 2 cake pans on the bottom and two 6 by 2 cake pans on top. Bake all four, and then shave off the "dome" part of the top of each cake. They do need to be level, or you will have a leaning tower o' cake. Stack all four, and insert drinking straws into the cake to hold it together in three or four places.

Then you need to ice the cake with regular icing. I used store-bought, but you can easily buy some buttercream from your local bakery place. Then refridgerate for at least two hours, because you need it to "crust over." Term of art there apparently in the 'biz.

After it is crusted over, you can apply the fondant. I purchased my fondant from Fondarific, which is a great (but pricey) company where the fondant actually tastes like the Skittles colors it comes in. Very tasty. See their website at www.fondarific.com.

I dyed the white fondant all the colors you see here, and then used a knife to make cutouts. In order to get the fondant to stick to other fondant, you simply brush the back with a small amount of water. I used one of my daughters' paintbrushes and dipped it in water, then just held the fondant piece on the cake and counted to five. Voila!






The finished product! Everything except the fondant was purchased at Michaels' or Hobby Lobby in the cake making section.