Metal-ist

I did a post for Vivienne over at The V Spot back in July while she was on vacation.
In case you missed it, here it is again.

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Do you have a favorite metal?

Do you get giddy for gold?

Do you swoon over silver?

Maybe bronze makes your knees buckle, especially if it’s of the Oil-Rubbed Variety?

Could you be coo-coo for Copper?

We all have some type of preference when it comes to metal.

Do you prefer your metals shiny and bright, thankyouverymuch, or do you like the worn patina of time and use? Are you a closet member of the Brass Elimination Squad? Or a Flag-waving Brushed Silver or Die supporter?

Me? I am not such a Metal-ist. I have a more egalitarian approach when it comes to metal. I embrace them all with open arms.

Well, truth be told, shiny brass and rust are still kind of like the crazy uncle you tolerate only at certain times during the year, but I’m working on my equal rights for all metals approach.

Metals are somewhat seasonal for me, too. Last fall, I was in love with copper and wanted to copperize everything I came into contact with. By winter, I was on a Silver streak and wanted everything to be aged silver.

I’m not sure I’m back to my copper mood, but something about sure makes me happy.

The truth is, around my house, most metals happily coexist with one another.

I like metal. I don’t really care what type it is. It all has a place in my home.

On one end of my piano, lives aged gold, shiny silver, worn brass and oil-rubbed bronze.

While on the other end, lives more shiny silver, rusted tin and faux copper.

I’m quite happy with it. I think it works because they are small pops of metal.

I plan to redo the blonde wood piano into an aged silver finish, like I did with these chairs.

With such a strong metal look, I may have to change up my display, but I really won’t know until I get it done.

Sometimes, just a hint of metal is all you want on your furniture, like with this shelf.

If you want to how to achieve some of these metal looks for yourself, click on the above pictures to see how to do it.

What kind of Metal-ist are you?

Suesan

Can This Stinkin’ Month Please Just End?

Those crazy, hazy days of summer were in full bloom for our family, except not so much in the way that you want to capture and relive. More in the way of “Please Make It Stop.”

What started as a giant inconvenience (moving to a new home) turned into sadness (news that my Mother-in-law had taken a turn for the worst) followed by an emergency trip out to Washington for Hubs and Katie to say their goodbyes to their Mom.

 Buddy, Kiddo and I had to finish the move with the help of our wonderful church family.We could not have done it without them. I’m truly appreciative for their help. One brother from church kept telling me that Hubs owed me big for leaving town in the middle of the move, but I will never regret having him fly out to say his goodbyes to his Mom.

Since we were anticipating a funeral at any given point, we were trying to hurry and get our stuff in the new house. As these things sometimes go, Mom rallied for a bit and we had the following week to get cleaned out of the old house and get stuff put away to the point of semi-functioning.

If you’ve never been on death watch before, the highs and lows of an emotional rollercoaster are just not fun. While we certainly didn’t want Mom to go, sometimes, you just want the ride to be over with.

While dealing with all the challenges around us, life took a turn for the tragic when a good friend, and our son’s and Hub’s assistant Scoutmaster was killed in a rollover accident. Aaron had been out in his jeep setting up for a scout campout when his jeep hit a rut and overturned. Aaron was pinned underneath.

Aaron’s son turned one the day after his accident and his wife is expecting their daughter in December. Aaron was a true scout who exemplified all the best qualities of that organization. He was also a soldier and had served two tours in Iraq and was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan in January. If you believe in the power of prayer, this family is in need of some.

Two hours after Aaron’s memorial service, we got the call that Mom had passed away. We spent the next day furiously planning for a trip out west and getting the boys registered and scheduled for school and classes because I somehow overlooked that chore in all that we had going on. The boys started a new school on one day and then we flew out to Utah the next.

As if attending a funeral weren’t bad enough, when I went to wake Katie up, I discovered that she had been violently ill in the night with a stomach flu. Hubs tried to suggest that Katie miss the funeral, but the whole point of the service we had in Utah was for Katie’s benefit.

We tried to tell her that Mom had died, but she couldn’t accept it. She needed to see Mom to understand.

What followed was more like a scene from a horror movie. If you’re the squeamish type, stop reading now! I’m about to cross the line from Polite Blogging Generalities into Over Sharing Territory.

Are you still with me? Okay…but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Katie was sick throughout the 2.5 hour drive up to Logan, Utah. She was sick during the service, at the graveside and throughout the rest of the day. Because Katie has the intellect of about 3-4 year-old in some respects, taking care of her when she is sick is like helping an adult-sized baby. You have to help her get things where they need to go. By the time we were at the open house held at a cousin’s home, I wasn’t feeling too good myself, but I couldn’t tell if I was actually sick or if I was just second-hand sick from helping her.

Let me just say that this was the most violent stomach flu I ever remember having. There was this Halloween store in Dayton called Foy’s that we used to go to every year. It has a puking statue outside one of their stores. I always thought that was such an exaggeration. Turns out, not so much.

When we got on the plane to come home, Katie had recovered and things had settled down for me, although I was still achy and tired. I napped throughout the flights and even slept on the floor of the Denver Airport. We found a quiet place in an upstairs area above our gate where the boys could plug in their electronics and I could rest.

By the time we were on our second flight, though, Buddy said he wasn’t feeling too good. He managed to make it through the flight, but the airport’s curbside trashcan wasn’t so lucky. It was pretty much a pukefest from that point out. Both Kiddo and Buddy were sick multiple times on the way home, including once on Man Child’s front lawn when we dropped him off.

I refuse to feel badly about the lawn incident, since Man Child lives on Ohio State’s campus area and I can guarantee you it’s not the first time that lawn has been fertilized by the contents of someone’s stomach.

We came home to a house full of boxes and a mountain of laundry to do. Kiddo was sick throughout the night and Buddy isn’t awake yet, but I suspect he didn’t fare much better.

I won’t even go into the knee issues I’ve been having all month, but I will tell you that I go for an MRI tomorrow to see what’s causing it. Throughout this whole month of challenges, I’ve been in severe physical pain with my knees and I’m ready to be out of pain.

I’m really hoping that it’s not one of these situations:

I apologize for the Over Share. I had to get it out of me. I PROMISE next month will be back to projects. I have a new house to show you and lots of figuring out to get this house working for us.

I’ve told you before that being creative helps me cope. As you now know, I have a LOT of coping to do!

Suesan

Bench Cushion & A Fail

With my life being hijacked by all things non-creative, I thought I’d catch you up on the chair bench.

When we last saw Chair Bench, I’d painted and primped it out to this point. I was trying to figure out what to put in the oval medallion areas. I also wanted to make a cushion for the bench.

I went to JoAnn’s and purchased some Nu Form batting that’s made especially for outdoor projects. It’s resistant to mildew, which is important in a high-humidity state like Ohio.

This stuff is not cheap, but some things are worth the extra cost. I had a 40% off coupon, so 1.5 yards cost me $21.08. My bench isn’t as wide as the batting, so I had to cut off about 12 inches along the length. I may try to make a pillow or two with the left over.

Because the batting is so thick (2” deep) I cut through half the thickness, and then came back and cut the rest. If you have an old electric carving knife, that might have worked, too. But save your hands some grief and cut it in stages if you don’t have that tool.

I bought some outdoor canvas from JoAnn’s when it was on sale for 50% off. This fabric is normally $19.99/yd! Ye-outch! That’s too rich for this girl’s blood. Even on sale, I balked a bit at paying $10/yd for it.

I found a couple of prints that I liked. I liked the bright colors and the happy flowers, but the black was too jarring to me for some reason. The fabric was really too bright in real life.

Here’s the same fabric, but in softer colors. I really liked the lighter tones, but I thought this was a little too pale for the bright summer sun.

Finally, like Goldilocks, I found one that was juuuuusssst riiiiiiight.

I love the greens and blues, and it cemented my decision to paint the bench the bright sapphire blue. The little white flower design from the fabric were my inspiration for the embellishment on the bench. I liked how the scalloped shapes around the medallions match the shapes in the chairs.

I wanted to buy the matching blue or green canvas and use that as piping for the cushion, but I was already pushing the limits of my budget on this project. I bought 1 yard of fabric and decided to do a Tim Gunn and “Make It Work.”

Fold the fabric in half, the long way, and place the batting inside the fabric so the front edge of the batting (the widest part) is against the fold. This puts the seam in the back where no one will see it.

Pin around the cushion to show the exact shape of the cushion. Once it’s pinned, use a fabric pencil to trace along the pinned line. Remove the pins, pull out the batting, and cut out the fabric.

Sew along the blue line. I left a large opening along the back because I didn’t want to mess up the batting by trying to force it through too small of an opening.

To allow for the depth of the cushion, box the corners. To box the corners, open up the fabric and match the top folded edge of the cushion with the side seam.

If you look at the picture above, you’d want that folded edge at the top of the picture to match up with blue sew line on the left. This will make a triangle point.

Measure across the width of the triangle, until you have the height of the cushion. My cushion was 2” tall. I moved my ruler away from the point of the triangle until I had two inches wide.  Mark line with the fabric pencil and then sew across the line.

The boxed corner gives height to the sides of the cushion. If you don’t box the corners, your cushion will be flat along the edges.

I used a blind stitch to sew the cushion shut.

Finally, the last thing I needed to do on the bench was come up with the design for the ovals. I had a lot of great input from my readers. I ended up putting a monogram in the center oval.

The font is a modified CAC Shisoni Brush font. I stretched out the bottom leg of the K.

For the side ovals, I did a larger version of the flower.

I forgot to mention it in my first post, but I used Elmer’s Painter marker to do all the white embellishment.

It put a nice white coverage over the bright blue and the paint flowed really well in the marker. I was very happy with this marker. I had a Zig Painty Pen that did not perform well at all. The paint was thin and did not look white on the first pass.

I really love how it all turned out and came together.

I also added a little something along the arms.

If only I could close the chapter on the bench right here. In the interest of full-disclosure, I need to point out the fail. It was me. And my impatience. And maybe a dose or two of forgetfulness.

A few days after I got finished with the bench, I was reminded why it is so important to thoroughly clean any piece prior to painting. Especially pieces from a kitchen or dining area that are likely to have oils on them from cooking and/or handling.

D’oh!

Paint (even one that has two coats of primer under it) will blister in hot weather when the underlying surface is not properly cleaned. Since I did this project in stages, I jumped into the painting part and my light cleaning was not sufficient.

It also bubbled on the arm. I’ve left it alone to see if any other blisters form. Once we get moved in, I will have to remove the blisters and thoroughly clean and sand the area before I repaint it. But, hey, now I can show you all how to fix blistered paint!

Cost Breakdown:

• Chairs, Boards Paint, Primer & Urethane – $38.38
• Outdoor Batting – $21.08 (1.5 yds @ 40% off)
• Outdoor Canvas – $10.00 (1 yd @ 50% off)

Total Project Cost – $69.46

Suesan