Happy Veteran's Day

Happy Veteran's Day to all those past, present and future who have and will have served our military.  To quote Mark Twain "In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."

To celebrate Veteran's Day, I trash-picked a beautiful metal milk jug, originally from "Supplee" dairy in Philadelphia.  This beautiful red "chippy" piece has an eagle with outstretched wings...nothing says American more than Philadelphia, veterans, eagles and milk :)

Thanks again to all who have served!

Vanity Chair Makeover - and a new venture

As I do every year as the calendar nears its end, I have reassessed my commitment to my jewelry business.  While I love the (the majority) of people I have met through "Basil the Cat" and I'm super proud of my original designs, I realize that the key element to my business, passion, has started to lack.  My creative eye has started to wander and I have fallen in love with refurbishing furniture.  While I intend to keep "Basil the Cat" open, I plan on scaling down my designs, especially my one-of-a-kind creations and focusing more on pieces that I can more easily reproduce.  The majority of my creative juices will now be cathected to housewares, as "Elie the Cat" is born.

A couple of months ago, my cousin was throwing out this vintage vanity chair:

Not being able to imagine this piece ending-up in a landfill, I decided I needed to rescue it.  It was in pretty rough shape, it has been repainted green (which has begun to chip) and the vinyl seat was stained when I used it as a step stool to strip my curio cabinet.

I decided it was time to make this piece over.  My first stop was Jo-Ann fabric where I found a gorgeous remnant of vintage fabric for $2.00.

I took the seat off and removed all the staples that held the vinyl on (which I don't believe was original to the piece).  I then used the vinyl as a template for my fabric.

Starting on one side, I stapled the fabric on in overlapping pleats

I continued this all around the chair, cut the extra fabric, and voila...the new seat looked amazing!

 

 

I then took the metal part of the chair outside to spray paint it.  I had originally purchased a blue color to tie-in a small bit of blue in the fabric but I decided on a more antique-y white.  I covered the chair in white spray paint

 



and then I took some wood stain in "Dark Walnut" and brushed it on with a sponge brush and wiped it off before it dried to give it an aged look.  If some of the spots looked too dark, I reapplied the stain (counterintuitive, I know) and wiped it off again.  The result is a subtle aged look which I am totally in love with.

Not feeling like the seat was finished enough.  I decided to add a dust cover to the bottom

The End