Reclaimed Rebar Chair
This rebar chair was an alley find that my husband came home with. I immediately loved the style of the chair and thought we could refurbish it. The chair was a little dirty, a bit rusty and had one of its legs disconnected from the top rim. With a thorough cleaning, a few repairs and a little paint, I knew it was possible to save this chair.
To make a new seat cushion, I used the bottom of the chair as a template and traced the circle onto thick plywood that I asked my husband to cut out. I had some old upholstery foam I had saved from a previous project, and used a small pillow I had that was the perfect size for the top part of the chair. The beautiful light teal fabric I used for this chair was from an old curtain I had purchased at a thrift store for another project I had in mind. A friend of ours welded the leg back on for us. We were very pleased with the results of our labor and we still use the chair to this day, after 17 years.
Rebar Chair
Rebar Chair Rear View
Closeup of The Rebar Chair Details
Art On Reclaimed Plaster Lion
This lion cub is a plaster piece that had been painted in a dark color that made the lion cub dull and bland. We had acquired some statuary from a plaster business that was closing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin about 13 years ago. I had painted an abstract painting at the time that I named Confetti and my husband suggested that I should paint the same colors and designs on the lion cub as an abstract piece. At first I thought it would be better if I painted the cub in realist coloring and features, but later decided my husband was right and I should give it a try.
It was very interesting to paint the cub in the same abstract colors and designs I had used in my painting. I had so much fun and was very impressed with the results that I decided to name him Calico Cat. Here I have featured the original painting and Calico Cat. I’m glad I listened to my husband’s advice — sometimes it’s fun to use your imagination on an old piece and give it a new look and feel.
Confetti Painting by Diana Romaxx
Whimsical Wood Stools
These three wood stools were a great find at a clearance sale and a perfect fit for my kitchen counter. Although the stools were a little beat up, they were still very solid and I knew I could work with them. I knew I had some leftover upholstery fabric and foam pieces I had saved from a previous project that were just enough to cover the tops of all three stools. The stool tops were plain wood with white legs. Because my kitchen has a fruit theme and the fabric has a very colorful fruit theme, I wanted to give the stool legs a very colorful and lively look. So instead of painting the same designs on all three stools, I decided to just paint different whimsical designs on each of them. The designs I painted on the stools were red cherries against a light green background, purple grapes against a golden background, and a lively black-and-white checkered pattern. And although the stools are beginning to show some wear and tear, they look even more whimsical and rustic with age.
So if you have some old chairs around the house that just don’t match the decor of your home, with a little craft paint and a little time, you could recreate them into your very own work of art.
Three Painted Wood Stools
Scrap Wood Abstract Fish
This fish was made from leftover scraps of wood that we had saved from a book-shelf we had built a few years ago. The fish was drawn out on the wood freehand and then cut with a scroll-saw. The fish was sanded around the edges just enough to smooth it out. We then drilled a hole big enough to insert a small dowel-rod into the fish body and two holes were also drilled for the glass eyes at this time. The bottom fins were hand cut from fine cuts of the 2×4. To create the base, we used a piece of 2×4 and mitered the edge to give it a rounded cut around the top of it. We then aligned the fish with the base to find the balance point to drill a hole into the base to insert the bottom part of the dowel-rod from the fish body. Wood glue was used to glue the pieces together. The whole thing was then primed with gesso to assure even paint absorption. Then the fun part for me was painting and embellishing the fish.
Abstract Wood Fish Cutout
Abstract Wood Fish Primed
Abstract Wood Fish Left Side
Abstract Wood Fish Right Side
Miniature Dollhouse Paintings
Small scrap pieces of canvas can make small pieces of art to warm one’s heart! One of the crafts I love to make are dollhouse miniature paintings in the 1:12 scale. They are very therapeutic to paint and are highly collectible. These paintings are painted on scrap pieces of canvas, museum board, and sometimes on small pieces of wood. I used to go to an art shop not far from home that also did custom framing, and they would put together bags of scrap pieces for crafters and artists to buy for small paintings — a great way to reuse the store’s scraps. Materials used for these paintings were museum board scraps and acrylic paints.
Miniature Dollhouse Paintings On Scrap Pieces of Museum Board