Feelin' crafty

Every once in a while, I feel a little bit crafty. Please see: the scarf I've been knitting since 2003, the pillowcase I've been embroidering for a year, and all the various books I own on paper mache, knitting, quilting, and a zillion other things.

I painted my kitchen a few weeks ago, from a nasty light blue to a delicious dark red, and it looks awesome. But it really highlighted the fact that the chairs that were left behind by the previous owners? Yeah, they were ugly.

Chair one, on the left, is a perfectly nice wooden chair with a nasty yellow seat. Chair two, on the right, was a puffy disgusting mushroom coloured monstrosity that was gross, gross, gross.

So, what's a crafty girl to do?

Well, re-cover them, obviously.

I bought some awesome fabric on eBay, along with a staple gun, some upholstery foam for the seats and some black paint. Sorted!

I started with the ugly yellow chair.

And what happens when you're trying to take a photograph of a chair?

That's right. A cat jumps on it.

Turns out that these chairs are really cleverly designed and it's super easy to remove the seat. Once you get the cat off, of course.

Let the painting commence!

I decided to move into the living room, where the floors are newer and more expensive and harder to clean. And there's a TV to watch while I paint. Really, what would you choose?

I did put newspaper down. I'm not an idiot. Thank god Julia reads four hundred papers a day, so we had lots to use.

The chair already looked much less ugly when I finished the painting, which was pleasing.

Sadly, the staple gun I spent all of £3 on eBay wasn't up to the task of actually, you know, stapling stuff, so I had to get a replacement for £4 at Woolworths. God, what am I? Made of money?

The staple gunning was the fun bit. The realizing that I almost didn't have enough fabric wasn't fun. Stupid bigger-than-they-look seats.

Fortunately, I did have just enough to get both seat covers finished. Yay! And they look so much better now. It's almost like I went and bought attractive chairs. Clearly, that would be crazy talk, but it's almost as if I actually did that.

Again, taking a photo of a chair? A guarantee that a cat will jump on it.

"This chair is so comfortable and pretty! I wish I could stand on it all day!", is clearly what Lucy is thinking.

Go on. Try and tell me these aren't some fabulous looking chairs that look great in my new red kitchen.

Because I won't believe you.