Another item to cross off The List

I hope everyone had a great holiday. The kids got little pre-schooler friendly handheld games for Christmas so I got my iphone back... that was present enough hehe.

Aside from visiting with family in from out of town I'm waiting, with nearly held breath, for the new CTMH 2011 catalogues to arrives. I've SEEN it, it's amazing! There isn't a single new paper pack that I won't be ordering for my own use, never mind for my monthly group. Super excited!

While not officially back to crafting, I do have something craftish related that's been on my List (you know, that monster list that never seems to get smaller of stuff To Do) for ages, so I'm posting some pictures! Six years ago we bough a set of table and 8 chairs from IKEA that had white canvas seats... well that won't do! I recovered them nearly immediately with a nice yellow and blue pattern that suited the house we were in at the time. This was before I had kids...

Now the chairs, all but the two that aren't around the table, all look horrid! Covered in stains from chocolate milk to raspberry jam to goodness only knows what else (remember, my kids are all under the age of four!) The pattern is wearing thin in places and, even though I've scrubbed the seats with upholstery cleaner, the stains remain.


I was determined to get them recovered... and to purchase heavy weight clear vinyl to top them off with! I've done half the chairs now and I'm really happy with the results.

Aside from the pictures I have some tips for anyone else doing this kind of simple recovering job:

1. Fabricland often has 50% off sales on their upholstery fabric. But remember, if covering in Vinyl too, you don't "need" upholstery fabric... you can use anything that doesn't stretch.
2. If you have little kids that fight over where to sit... get some nice fabric for them too! I did one for each kid even though the smallest isn't sitting in a chair yet. (I used "licensed" cotton.)
3. If you are recovering with kids in mind, do it in layers... your fabric, their fabirc, then the vinyl. This way if the kids get tired of the pattern you picked, it's easy to take off the vinyl then their fabric and redo the vinyl... leaving you with a matching chair!
4. When stapling, do one layer at a time or your layers will get bunched.
5. Also remember to start in the middle on any side and work toward the edges.
6. Triple check that your pattern is the right direction.
7. Check for a 4th time that your pattern is the right direction.
8. When working with straight lines (lines or squares or other linear style pattern) don't pull too tightly "across" the pattern... in my case I pulled tight front to back but was careful left to right.
9. Put in a favorite movie for the kids and wait until they are engrossed or they'll hear the staple gun and try and help you cut fabric.
10. Speaking of cutting fabric, use kitchen scissors on your vinyl, but use your nice fabric scissors for the fabric.
11. Don't fret about straight cuts on your fabric! You're recovering chairs, not making a wedding gown!! (My sewing friends would have been horrified watching me cut this fabric).
12. Cut away fabric from the screw housing on the seat so you aren't fighting with reattaching it to the chair.
13. Trim the vinyl ruthlessly on the corners or your seat won't go back on the chair frame. No seriously.
14. While the seat is off the frame, go ahead and wash the frame!
15. Have tums... or a good stiff drink... ready.
16. Don't try and do it all in one day.

Here are the seats all finished. I love the fairies, which are obviously Tinkerbelle and friends but in a style I've never seen before! Kerowyn keeps changing her mind on whether she likes Minnie or Tinkerbelle better, thankfully Elora doesn't care yet since she's still in a high chair.

Thanks for checking in! I'll be back soon with my embossing series. Please feel free to suggest different types of embossing, I'm sure I've missed a few!