Not the best picture in the world, sadly, but I did like this colourful mural we saw in Dublin when we visited there in December 2013. This can be found at the junction of Fleet Street and Bedford Row (Dublin, Ireland).
Archive for May, 2014
Street Art #13
Posted in Street Art, tagged barfly camden, kraken, kraken rum, mural, nw1, street art on May 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »
An organised life
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged article, creating misericordia, guest post, list, organisation, organising on May 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Katy at Misericordia asked me to write a guest blog post about organisation – so I did! Click here to visit her blog and read it.
Sunday Sketchblog #103
Posted in Sketchbook, tagged art, brighton, deckchair, drawing, illustration, pier, sea, seaside, sketch, sketchblog, sketching, slush puppy on May 18, 2014| 1 Comment »
Wow. I can’t believe it’s been over a month since I last shared any sketches. I’ve done some, but they’ve mainly been ideas that I’ve been getting down on paper (and aren’t ready to share yet!).
I went to Brighton on Friday for a short (one night) break, and did do a little sketching while I was there. Not much as it was ridiculously hot and there’s very little shade to be found on the sea front, but here’s what I’ve got in my book.
There were also too many people. WAY too many people. I definitely prefer the seaside in the off season…
Wednesday WIP
Posted in General craftiness, tagged bookbinding, butterflies, butterfly, coptic binding, despicable me, handmade, inktense, knitting, minions, the big knit, work in progress on May 14, 2014| Leave a Comment »
It’s been a wonderfully creative week here. I’ve made an awful lot of books which are already for sale in my Etsy shop, I’ve made more jotter notebooks which will be added to the shop soon, I’ve made a start on tiny knitted hats for The Big Knit, and I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting…
Street Art #12
Posted in Street Art, tagged #codefc, acklam village market, art, code fc, graffiti, london, street art, W10 on May 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Take some old coffee sacks…
Posted in DIY/home decor, tagged chair, coffee sacks, DIY, footstool, hessian sacks, recycling, reupholstering, upcycling on May 10, 2014| 5 Comments »
… and some furniture that’s in need of refreshing, and what do you get? Well, lots of mess for a start (hessian sacks will shed lots of fibres when you’re cutting them), and also a deep sense of satisfaction when the job is done. Shall I start from the beginning?
Last week I ordered some coffee sacks from a seller on eBay. I could have gone to Brick Lane and picked them out myself but frankly it was a lot easier to just have a random selection delivered to my house!
The dog really wasn’t impressed. I was though, as some of the sacks were almost too pretty to use.
Not sure what I’ll use those for yet, but I eventually decided on this one for the job in hand.
It’s a little more subdued than the others, but the furniture in question is for our sitting room and I didn’t want anything too gaudy. First up we have a footstool which was actually ok, but I fancied a change.
See, it’s alright but a bit, well, dull. Anyway, on with the revamp. I took off the stud things (do these have a technical name? If you know what it is then please enlighten me!) only to find that there were loads of (of all things) carpet tacks underneath.
After I’d finally removed all the studs and tacks the rest of the task flew by.
I cut a piece of sack to size and used a heavy duty staple gun to fix it to the underside of the footstool…
…and it looked good, but didn’t seem quite finished. So I put the studs back on.
Perfect! The second piece of furniture was my desk chair. This was yet another chair I found in the street and I’ve been meaning to cover the seat ever since it came into our home.
This was a really quick job. I took the seat off and cut a few layers of black felt to fit on top as a bit of padding (I could have gone out and bought some proper seat padding but basically I’m too tight to spend that money when I’ve got perfectly serviceable felt going spare).
Then it was just a matter of putting some of the sacking on, stapling it in place on the underside, and voila!
Yes, I know I need to finish cleaning the chair. Just ignore the dust and paint and focus on the beautifully covered seat!
It cost me £21.90 for ten coffee sacks (£15 for the sacks, and £6.90 for the postage) and this project only used one side of one sack. Bargain! I’m chuffed to bits with this little project: it was quick, cheap, and the result is just how I pictured.
