Monthly Archives: November 2013

Reclaimed Wood Box Seat

Reclaimed-Wood-Box-Seat

This reclaimed wood box seat started out from pieces of an old TV stand and leftover woods from other projects. The box was then covered from reclaimed embossed wallpaper that was hand painted with brown house paint. After the paint dried, it was given a copper faux finish with a dry brush to give it a metallic look and feel. A long 70s belt we bought at the Salvation Army was cut in half to create the two straps that embellish the front of the box. The top was made from a scrap piece of plywood and foam reclaimed from an old sofa that was glued to the top of the plywood. But before gluing the sofa foam to the plywood, we affixed a large piano hinge to both the top and box base so we could open and close the lid on the box that we planned to use for storage.

Reclaimed-Wood-Box-Seat2

We had a leftover piece of faux leather from another project that was just the right size for this seat. We then added upholstery tacks around the bottom edge of the seat top to add character and secure the faux leather to the wood frame. The feet for the box were reclaimed from the same sofa that we got the foam from. The great part was that the feet were already covered in brown fabric that matched the color of our box seat.

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This wood box seat is very sturdy and added two comfortable seating spots in our den when we have guests. And last but not least, I’ve already used this box seat to store a lot of my craft and fabric remnants. This was a fun project because it gave us extra seating and extra storage for the cost of reclaiming and re-using some trash items.

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Reclaimed Fabric Mini Doll Dresses

Little-Black-Dress

I was going through my fabric remnant box and found some very pretty small swatches that would make very pretty doll clothing. The black fabric had a nice draping quality to make a doll size little black dress. The bright pink satin fabric swatch was a bit larger so it lent itself for making a doll size fancy ball gown. Both fabric swatches were from old dresses of mine that I thought I’d one day use to make a scarf or other accessory.

I had a very pretty old doll and I thought it would be nice to make two new dresses for the doll. I held the fabric against the doll and determined that there was enough fabric to make both dresses. I used some scrap paper, traced and measured the doll’s current dress and added a 1/8″ seam allowance. I cut out the pattern, making adjustments and pinned the pattern to the fabrics. After cutting out both fabrics, I machine sewed the main segments, and preferred to hand sew the rest of the smaller pieces together.

In a small box of my remnant trims, I found a pretty cream colored pearl trim that was small enough in scale to trim the black dress. I hand sewed the pearl trim around the waist and neckline of the little black dress. I had a bit of the black fabric left over so I sewed a little black purse by folding the fabric onto itself and hand sewing the edges. I then hand sewed a tiny little piece of pearl trim in the center of the purse.

Later, I found a small skein of silky cream colored yarn that matched the shade of the trim on the dress, so I decided to crochet a little shawl for the little black dress.

Little-Balldress

The pink dress was totally different in style but also fit the doll nicely. I also crocheted a small shawl for this dress using black embroidery floss, and although it took quite some time, I added a fringe to this tiny shawl using the same embroidery floss. So from time to time, take a look through your remnants and leftovers because they may surprise you and inspire a new creation.

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