Silk Flower Birthday Gift Wrapping

Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower Pillows

I am completely in love with the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower and the Chrysler Building, too.  I have statues and wall art and wood boxes all over the house with these images on them and I decided to update my bedroom pillows and quelle surprise, I turned to my love of these structures again, some more.

I made them using my trusty Citra-Solv transfer technique and I'm running out of that stuff and need to hunt some more down.

I found images for the tower, the statue and the skyline of New York in a google image search and then downloaded a bunch of different fonts for the printed elements and arranged it all on my fabric and voilà, new pillows.

I did not use zippers to make these covers, bad move, I know.  I'm living on the edge and will eventually curse myself for not using zippers but it was another one of those gotta make it now things and I had no zippers on hand.  I can install them later when they need a wash.

Refinished Antique Chair

I bought four of these chairs at a shop that refinishes antiques. It was going out of business and I found them in the basement for seven dollars a piece.  

They had four coats of paint in questionable colours, and it was a bitch to strip them down to the wonderful wood they once were over a hundred years ago.  The original seat would have been cane, but forms were cut from wood which were also painted crazy colours.

Anyway, I didn't take before shots because I just decided I had to refinish them right now and that means get right to it, so no before photos.


I stripped going the toxic chemicals route and used paint stripper, then applied two coats of chestnut stain and then water based sealant. I found the paisley fabric a while ago and used it on an antique rocking chair and love it so much that I decided to cover the seat using it again.