Mid-century Dining Chairs

October has been a tough month, lots of rain and not enough sunshine here in the West Coast.  On top of it all, I had a really frustrating and challenging time with this chair reupholster project.  I had reupholstered chairs before so I thought this one would be no difference…

Union Jack Step Table

When I first laid my eyes on this vintage style step table, it screamed "Union Jack" at me.

I Love Word Clouds

This past weekend was the Canadian Thanksgiving.  Among the usual things I was thankful for, one in particular was having one of my nightstand makeovers featured on the Graphics Fairy's site.  This couldn't come as any greater encouragement for a newbie like myself who has only been blogging for a couple of weeks.  Ecstatic is definitely an understatement to describe how excited and thrilled I am.

OK.  Back to this blog.  I love word clouds.  There is something to be said for images composed simply by words or meaningful words turned into arts.  It's simplistic and yet so complex.  Ever since I discovered how to create my own word clouds, I've been obsessed with incorporating it into things from greeting cards, wall arts to furniture.  My favorite go to word cloud generators are Wordle and Tagxedo.

Today I am going to share two things I've made with word clouds.

The Great Commission

Guess what?  I have been commissioned to paint a pair of nightstands for… can I have a drumroll please… my father-in-law.  Apparently, my husband had shown my father-in-law the nightstands I painted (see my "From Trash to Treasure" blog) and he was rather impressed.  So here I am once again to tackle yet another set of nightstands.

I really wanted to make these nightstands personal and something that my in-laws would cherish.  So after we loaded the furniture into the minivan and started the hour long drive home, I began brainstorming for ideas with my husband.  Does the best idea come when you are driving or what? Because no sooner than we pulled out of their driveway, we came up with a brilliant concept for the nightstands.  We both agreed that my grandchildren crazy in-laws, would be all over a family tree with the names of all their grandchildren.

From Trash to Treasure

Many years ago, we had reluctantly inherited a pair of vintage nightstands.  I was not a big fan of them since day one.  They were dated and a bit of an eye sore to me.  In fact, on a few occasions I have seen similar style of furniture left on the sidewalk with a sign that said “FREE” begging anyone to just take them away.  If I could find something ANYTHING structurally wrong with the nightstands, I would have been more than happy to part with them.  Oh how I loathed these indestructible solid wood furniture which were built to outlive me… 

(I never took a "before" picture of my nightstands.  

This was the closest one I could find on google)

In the beginning...

Not so long ago, I lived a fast paced life style of working full time in the city of Vancouver and being a mother to my two school age children.  Working, keeping the house in order, ensuring my children are thriving and keeping my marriage strong was a challenge.  Long story short, we moved to the suburb and I quit my job to become a full time mom.  With the new change came a new challenge: more time and less money.  The pressure was on for me to be more creative with a smaller budget.  And before you know it, I started thrift shopping and turning something used, something old, something vintage into (and I hope you would agree) something beautiful.

When we first moved into our new house, we needed a pair of bedside tables.  This was my very first second hand furniture purchase...

And, this was my very first DIY furniture make over.  I named it the "His and Hers" nightstands. 



I found these images from The Graphics Fairy and applied them on the top of the nightstands using the Mod Podge transfer method.

I had every intention of keeping the nightstands.  Unfortunately, they didn't go with my existing bedroom decor.  The choice was either to keep the french provincial style nightstands and replace the existing contemporary bedroom set or let them go.  I chose the latter.  Which led me to my very first craigslist selling experience...  And the rest is history.