Category Archives: repurpose

Bella, the Antique Planter Chair

Posted by Leanne on July 25, 2012 4 comments

antique chair made into a planter chair! Because (I think) I Can blog

First of all, I know it’s Wednesday, when I usually do Pinterest Wednesday, but at 8:00 last night I thought I’d write up Thursday’s post first, as it would take longer…. little did I know 2 1/2 hours later I would finally be done. Seriously, I am having big problems with this blog. Don’t know where the problems are coming from, but it’s frustrating… so today you are getting tomorrow’s post instead!

So, how are you all doing?! First, I wanted to share something adorable with you… yesterday I had a little time to do something special with the kids, so we headed out to the zoo. Anna loves the porcupines as much as I do… check out this picture,

Anna specifically brought a Strawberry Shortcake book, to read to the porcupines! The porcupines weren’t outside, but were in their barn. I convinced her they would be able to hear her through the glass window, so she “read them to sleep”. It’s moments like these she melts my heart. She is so thoughtful and full of love.

Now,
When I found this beauty on Craigslist, I just about jumped out of my seat. I forwarded the ad to the hubby, got the okay, jumped in the car and headed out. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this beauty!!

antique chair with leather seat looking for a makeover

Gorgeous, right?! Can you see it?

amazing detail on the back - Because (I Think) I Can blog

That’s right!! Pulling off the leather, I found stinky, dusty hay! I’ve seen this on other blogs all the time, and this time it was my turn!

Of course, this project had me so excited, I forgot to take pictures of the process! What it entailed…

~ taking all the upholstery, hay, and upholstery nails off
~getting hubby to do the annoying and frustrating job of chiseling off the top of the seat, and then sawing a square hole in the seat, large enough to hold a 10″ potted plant
~giving the chair a good sanding and cleaning
~one coat of ‘heirloom white’ spray paint {one coat only because I ran out of spray paint and didn’t have a car to get more! It was my goal to have this chair seriously distressed with tons of the wood showing through, so I decided to take my chance and go straight to sanding}
~Sanding, sanding, sanding. And I LOVE the way it turned out!!
~3 coats of polyurethane protection spray.
~shopping for the perfect plant….
and ta-da!

What do you think?? I’m so in love with it. I have wanted to make something like this for quite some time, and love that I did. and that I love it

This Bella of a chair is currently sitting on my front porch, but is waiting for YOU to take it home! Check out my For Sale Page for more details!

Let me know what you think, and thank you so much for reading!!

It’s Time To Clean My House.

Posted by Leanne on July 17, 2012 12 comments

seriously. this house is a mess!! Today I spent all day on the kitchen, dining room and part of the living room. that’s only 1/4 of our house!

In 3 days it will be exactly a month since I went in for my lumbar puncture. It feels like yesterday. Although I feel 99% like my pre-lumbar puncture self, I was traumatized enough to fear doing something to bring that level of pain back. I never want to feel that again. And again, thank you all for your thoughts, love and prayers. One of my readers asked why I don’t blog about my personal life more often, and my response, after thinking about it, was that I feel bad when my loved ones find out what’s going on in my life from my blog instead of straight from me. But when I told this to one of my best friends, she thanked me for blogging about it…. we are all so busy in our little lives with our little kids and our crazy homes, we rarely have the chance to talk. Which is too bad, I know, but this is our friendship and we are okay with it. So, from now on, I will try to get a little more personal!

My whole lumbar puncture episode took about a week and a half out of my normal life. I knew I had a market looming that I needed products ready to sell. Praying I’d feel well enough to work it, I convinced myself I had enough product to pull it off (which I would have). But once I felt well enough, I couldn’t see things that way anymore! Wanna know what we did the last couple weeks???

Ready for it??

antique-pickin’

: pickin’-cleanin’

gross upholstry-tearin’

bathtub renovatin’ – ewwww before pic

custom table makeover deliverin’

3 nights of family campin’ and fire makin’

bird-watchin’ (this little bird house was above our cabin, and this little baby had its head out day and night, chirping away… we saw momma coming often to feed the baby, so cute!)

dirt-diggin’

football-playin’

frisbee-throwin’

tongue-stickin’-out (a family trait passed down to our children from my hubby’s side!)

running running running

s’mores-eatin’

sturgeon-fishin’ (okay, I wasn’t invited, but hubby and the men in my family went on my bro’s boat – the one in red – who is a fishing tour guide, went sturgeon fishing to celebrate my dad’s – the other guy – 65th birthday. the day before the market, I might add )

market set-up preppin’ in the carport

well, wouldn’t you know it, I can’t access my pictures right now. waitin’, waitin’…. I’ve been having serious issues with blogging since I’ve switched to this self-hosted blog. It’s very disappointing, and very, very frustrating, and extremely time-consuming. I love blogging, but it is getting easy to get discouraged, especially when I want to make a detailed post, like this one. Still brainstorming ideas… let’s try again…

yay, here we go! Market day!! the market was supposed to be outdoors, but the weather decided to turn bad on us. So we were nice and cozy indoors instead.

unfortunately the people weren’t there to buy. The vendor idea was new this year, and people didn’t bring cash. I sold 4 items, and I was one of the highest in sales. A little disappointing for everyone.

fortunately I was surrounded by fabulous vendors, many of whom I’ve been stalking for a while, admiring their work! And also met many great new people.

I created MANY new products for the show

it will take me forever to blog about all the new items I made, so if you see anything that interests you, Please Ask! Pictured here are some of the new magnetic boards I made.

…growth chart boards…

…a few masterpieces of my own

a gorgeous window frame with panes still in it (now on my mantle until someone snatches it away from me!) and some new “Keep Calm and Carry On” ‘s behind it

I’ll have a hard time when a buyer comes along for this antique chair planter (the same chair as the first picture!) it’s now sitting on my front “porch”.

Well, that’s it for today!! Have a great Tuesday, everyone!

and thanks for reading!!

xo, Leanne

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The Green Chair with a Story

Posted by Leanne on June 14, 2012 18 comments

Dunach, a school "where every child is important"

My son is loving his teacher this year. Which is such a blessing. This school year was a bit of a dreaded year when it began. {the chair "before", but after sanding}

I'll give you a wee bit of history... when it was time to find a school for Jordan for kindergarten, we searched high and low for a school we felt fit us. We live in a city where we don't have to abide by catchments, meaning we can choose which school we want our children in, no matter where we live.

When we found the school we chose, Dunach Elementary, we knew it was "it". Both my husband and I attended tiny country schools, and we loved the charm of this old building (with teachers that had been there for 20 years, and students that were 3rd generation students!), and the charm of the families that attended. {my first time spray painting. Loved it!}

Sadly, in the beginning of last year, the school board voted to close our school. We were all very, very, sad. It was breaking up a very tight family...

happily though, 50 Dunach students, including our son, chose another country school, to keep the family tightness, and to join another fabulous school, and 2 of our teachers were able to transfer over with us.

Jordan got the grade 2 teacher he was supposed to anyways! And he has excelled this year!

Because of all that history, this chair came about. Mrs. M gifted me with this old teachers chair, which had come from Dunach, and allowed me to do anything I wanted to do with it...

"throw it away if you want to", she said. Ya right, Mrs M.

This was going to be a Thank You for the hard year she had, but the great year she gave Jordan.

~the colors of Dunach, Green and Gold~

Dunach was a school that was alive and loved for 119 years!

~ the school building was actually the location of Abbotsford's first city hall meeting!~

~Dunach, a school "where every child is important"~

I wanted the chair to look like bums have been sitting in it for the past 119 years

I loved Mrs M's overwhelmed reaction when I delivered it to the classroom

and I really loved how each child in the class then took a turn to sit in it!!!

and I'll never forget this day, because it was the first time Jordan admitted I embarrassed him - because the pink shirt I was wearing was too bright!! LOL!

yesterday was Mrs M's birthday!! Happy Birthday Mrs M! And thanks again for making Jordan's grade 2 year a great year!

And thank all of you so much for reading!

xo, Leanne

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It’s Magnetic!!

Posted by Leanne on May 8, 2012 None comments

The weather here has been SO amazing the past 2 days, it has been almost shocking! People are out in droves trying to soak it all up. We have had so much rain here since last summer, we take advantage of every sunny day we can.

On Sunday we had a fabulous day taking advantage of the sun. We had a picnic on the beach at Harrison Hot Springs, went for a walk around the water (which takes incredibly long with 3 kids, loose shoe laces, runny noses, birds to chase, flowers to pick, and pictures to take). Did some “window shopping” at The Back Porch (coffee, antiques and collectibles), chased the chickens there and fed the goats, drove up to Hicks Lake and took a little walk, had dinner back in Harrison, and stopped by my parents for a quick visit and some ice cream! It was just so great to get out of the house for a day!

Today I want to share with you a personal favorite of one of my creations… you can find this beauty on my For Sale page, which I just updated yesterday, by the way!

A Magnetic Board!

Oh, I so love this one.

I don’t have a very good selection of pictures on how I did it, but here’s a small glimpse. If you would like a more descriptive idea, then my post of Turquoise Twins might help you out.

This is what I started out with:

this is what I started out with. I picked it up from a local thrift store. this was another one of those occasions when the cashier said "oh what a beautiful picture!!" When I explained what I was going to do with it, she didn't seem too impressed. :/

a close up of the frame...

I carefully took the whole thing apart....

...part of the process of taking it apart...

I used this little thingy to help pull the staples out...

... and the frame. I gave the frame a quick sanding a cleaning, then gave it one coat of graphite paint...

and that’s it for the “during” pictures… but I’ll try to explain my steps while you enjoy the “after” pics

...after my one coat of graphite, I noticed some of the original color was peaking through, and looked awesome. It didn't need any distressing, it was just perfect the way it was... I'm not sure if you can see it in this picture, but watch for it!...

the frame received a thin coat of clear Annie Sloan Wax for protection

for the inside of the frame, I cut a piece of sheet metal to size...

... measured the fabric an inch wider than the sheet metal... and this is where I began to mess up a little...

before realizing I was messing up, I carefully hot glued the fabric to the back of the sheet metal...

...when I turned it over to admire my work, I realized I hadn't removed the store code sticker from the sheet metal, and it showed through the fabric! Darn it anyways...

... I carefully pulled back the fabric, and began to try to peel off the sticker...

...luckily I didn't get too involved in this before I realized my other mistake...

and I clued in that I had fit the fabric pattern to run in the wrong direction!!...

... I was keeping the original hanging wire, so the frame was hanging horizontal... but at this point the fabric was vertical...again, a few curse words...

I ripped the fabric off, carefully started over again, checked it and double checked it before hot gluing the fabric to the back (which used to be the front, I remembered to turn the sheet metal upside down!)... I placed the sheet metal into the frame, and used the original picture, upside down, to fill in the void space. Taped it in place, and, sigh....

Ta-da!

…A gorgeous magnetic board, perfect for your kitchen or living room! Check the For Sale page for details, and otherwise, thank you SO much for reading!!

xo, Leanne (PS. Update: This item has been SOLD!)

Partying at: Not just a Housewife

Take 15% off The Super, Incredible Big Brother Personalized Book at ISeeMe.com with coupon code “incredible” at checkout. Expires 5/31/2012

Take 15% off The Super, Incredible Big Sister Personalized Book at ISeeMe.com with coupon code “incredible” at checkout. Expires 5/31/2012

Chevron Mirror – Redo!

Posted by Leanne on April 5, 2012 9 comments

That’s right! You read the title right, I redid my Chevron Mirror! This post was one of my most viewed, most complimented-on posts, and was even featured on 2 different blogs! Yet, I still didn’t like it.

This is what my Chevron Mirror (an IKEA wood framed mirror I painted, “they” call this an “Ikea-Hack”! Transforming something from Ikea into something even better!) looked like, when I was done with it before,

Chevron Mirror *before*

I just wasn’t crazy about it. Most of the compliments I received (and thank you SO much for all of them!!!) included the fact that it was soft and soothing… but my problem was that wasn’t what I was going for! To recap, this picture from Pinterest was my inspiration:

Source: etsy.com via Leanne on Pinterest

So, one evening when I just couldn’t handle it anymore, I got out my paints - I went for my blackest black and my whitest white, and painted right overtop of my last paint job. Honestly, even I thought I was crazy, but after repainting it, and some crazy sanding, I got this,