A little p-inspiration

I have discovered pinterest! Holy amazing wonderful place!!! I am so completely inspired to do all sorts of things.
For the past few weeks, I have been saving various pictures onto our hard drive of things I love and want to try. But to digitally create my own bulletin board with the pictures to remind me what I love AND the websites with directions, etc, how... how absolutely practical.

So, I've been poking around online, finding things to "pin"

I'm sure this won't be the last post on this newfound wonder. I will keep you up to date on what I find, how I recreate it, etc.

But for now, I am in the midst of a project. I am refinishing my sewing chair. The chair was repurposed from its place in our storage closet. And its so functional.

But now that my sewing table is SEW fabulous (ha, love puns):

The ole chair needs a bit of a makeover too

So, I have taken off the chair pad, added padding and new fabric and sanded down the chair to a raw finish.
I was originally thinking of staining the chair a dark dark brown finish. (Walnut it would be called, maybe?) But with the fabric on, there has been somce discussion around the house about painting the chair white insteead. I'm still stuck. What do you think?
New fabric:

Up against white paint:

up against a dark wood finish. I wouldn't go any lighter than this, maybe a bit darker...

I do see where white "matches" the fabric. But I don't want it to match. I want it to go together. And I suspect that with such a rich fabric (its kind of a velveteen finish) and an antique chair, a rich wood finish would "go" better. And I am not from the school all the furniture has to be the same finish to be in the room together.

So, I debate... with myself. And the chair sits unfinished in the garage. And I have taken a bit of a sewing hiatus with "nowhere" to sit. Oh... the tragedy ;)

Happy crafting!

Lia

Welcome!

I put together this blog to follow my creative endeavors through life. 

From early on, I was crafting. My mom was one that always had some project for us from the Family Fun magazine and we glued, sculpted, glittered, painted, colored, and beaded our way through the hottest days of childhood in the Mojave desert.

Through high school, I scrap booked vacations, school breaks, and special trips. I learned to crochet, but only in circles so I made almost every I knew a beanie.

In college, we began having weekly crafting nights hosted in my dorm room. And I came to have quite the collection of supplies toted around in a large rubbermaid tub.

I got married, we moved around a bunch, had a collection of jobs, and I didn't put a lot of time into projects. In fact, as we approach celebrating our fourth wedding anniversary, our wedding album is still... unfinished. Hardly started would probably be a more accurate description.

At some point, the rubbermaid tub was given away to a girl scout troop as I found it to full of things I had moved seven times and never used.

When we moved back to Colorado after a brief relocation to California, we had no furniture and very little money. We rounded up various free things that family and friends were getting rid of. 

So, suddenly, we had an apartment full of mismatched, not so attractive furniture. 

And that creative spark was lit once again. I learned to paint over furniture laminate, I made throw pillows... And as I sewed for the first time in years and gradually made our small shady apartment feel like home, I remembered what fun I had creating.

I asked for (and received) a sewing machine for Christmas. I made a bed skirt. I started planning our daughter's nursery around things I could make. 

But the having a baby part didn't go so hot. And I was left recovering from a cesarean with no baby to care for. So, I crafted. I refinished a couple of furniture pieces. I sewed... and sewed and sewed. I started reading all sorts of craft and decor blogs. I watched a ton of the DIY network. 

Through it all, I now realize the importance crafting plays in my happiness. I love to find something and then make it into something else. Or just make it prettier. 

So, welcome to the newest slice of my world. A blog devoted to the practical, the pretty, and the pretty practical world of creation.