Drop Cloth Chair

Alright, I've had this project in the works for about a month. I don't know why its taken me so long but it did. Actually it didn't take long it just took me a while to photograph it as a "finished" product :)

So here it is and all its glory!

Alright, this chair has come a LONG way. The first week we moved my mom, aunt, and friend came up to visit and help me with whatever I needed help with. Originally it was painting, but in our family we never do what we say we are going to do. We decided to go thrifting instead!  

These are our fabulous finds!! The ladder from the Ladder Light ,  gas can that will be made in to a side table, the medicine cabinet for the bathroom, and the broken chair that I have made unrecognizable!

(The thrift shops up here are the best I've ever seen! I got all of this and a few other things that my mom, aunt, and friend picked up ALL for $20!!)

So here is the chair. It was sturdy just a little worn and missing an arm. My aunt is the one who made me get it because she has a matching one, also missing an arm :)

I knew it wouldn't take much to make it look like new so I chopped off the arm. And sanded them down to a matching hight that wouldn't poke you in the legs when you sit. 

Once I cleaned it up some I decided the cheapest way for me to cover it would be a drop cloth. So I got a 9x12 ft drop cloth from Lowes for about $10 bucks and started at it! I wasn't so sure how to do it at first so I played around with what the best place to make my first cut would be. I ended up landing on draping the corner of the fabric over to cover the back. And then I went to town with some stables!

Yes I recovered this chair with a drop cloth and staples... It works!

Then to cover the corner and make sure it looked pretty I used the gift wrapping technique. Just pulled to the side and made a tight corner then pulled it down nice and tight to staple. It took a little fidgeting to get the top fold to look nice so you have to play with it a little. Then to finish the side I folded the remaining edge of the cloth over and used no sew tape to avoid the staples! 

I was so proud of that side of the chair. It was a huge boost in convidence to wing it and have it looks so nice and smooth :)  But this next part got a little tricky to photograph so I will do my best to explain. I flipped the remaining amount of cloth over the top of the chair so I would pull it tight around the bottom of the back to staple. 

After flipping the chair back to the upright position I cut the fabric along the base of the back leaving just enough fabric to pull tight and staple. I pulled the fabric from the back to the front of the chair stapling underneath the back and then pulled the remaining fabric to cover with a finished edge using no sew tape.

And then again used a similar technique as wrapping presents to finish off the side of the chair. Unlike the other side it didn't have the finished seam of the drop cloth so to make sure the sides matched I cut a piece of the seam off of the left over cloth and then again used no sew tape to attach and finish it off. 

 

And for the bottom I just cut a square of the drop cloth slightly bigger than the seat and notching out where the legs would be. 

Then I flipped the chair so I could see the underside and pulled the fabric tight and stapling. I rotated around making sure that no one side had more staples in it than another all while checking the top to make sure it is pulled tight with no bubbles or ripples. I think that rotating while you staple helps keep the fabric taught and even across the surface, but i'm sure you could do that other ways too.  The corners got a little tricky so that was pretty much just pull and staple as much as it needed. 

But to make them look more finished I rolled the corners of the fabric under, stapling tight, and the hot gluing in place so that it wouldn't move around and show the fabric underneath. 

Here is the finished chair! Well the covering part at least. It honestly didn't take too long at all and it wasn't hard either!. I'm really happy with how the drop cloth looks and think leaving it like this would have worked just as fabulous as what I ended up doing to it. 

But being bored coupled with just moving I couldn't leave the chair alone. I wanted to have some other creative project other than painting the house so I decided to paint the chair :) I love flowers I think they are beautiful so I picked some of my favorites and did my own rendition of them on the seat and back. 

And then I STILL couldn't leave well enough alone! I had the chair sititng in the living room for atleast 3 weeks and decided it was just too "pretty" for me. As much as I love floral I don't really have traditional floral in my house anywhere. I have lots of floral inspired patterns int he living room but they all have a twist to them. So I decided to add my twist to the chair once more :) 

I went and got the sample Valspar paint from Lowes and picked out the brightest green I could find. 

Celery. 

I love it! I think it added just the right amount of flare to this chair. totally more me. Sadly I don't really need it in the living-room. It fits fine for now but I don't think I'm going to be its forever home. 

It was a fun project and I can't believe how far it came from that broken chair at the thrift store. 

 

Painting Class

This semester I am taking a few studio classes along with art history, art and philosophy  and working with a few Life Science students to add art work to the new science building on campus. 

Because I am taking so many non studio classes I wont have too terribly many projects to share with you other than painting and sculptures. 

So here is my work from my beginning painting class! 

These first 2 paintings are done on 5x7 canvas board using unidirectional mark making. 

Each is of a still life set up in class and we had about a day for each of them. 

I've hardly ever painted with oils and I was very hesitant to learn ( Just love my fast drying acrylics!). 

However, these 2 paintings where a good start. While it was frustrating to mix some of the colors it really taught me so much in how to SEE color! 

In both of these I chose to paint a white eyelet pillow and a white and black pot lid. 

However, for the painting on the left we were not allowed ot use black and we were told to really look for the colors and to not have any pure white or pure black anywhere on the canvas! 

This was hard, but as you can tell I was able to find some color :) 

This was the 3rd painting in the class. We spent about 2 class periods on this 11x14 canvas. 

Again it was another still life where we were asked to not use any pure white or black. 

Even though I was painting a black cloth, black suitcase, and 2 white jars I obviously found some color coming from the warm and cool light that was falling over the space. 

Now this is our first real project. 

We finished it about a week ago.

This canvas measures 18x24 and we had to build them ourselves!

I forgot to document that process for yall but hopefully I will have another chance to share it before the end of the semester!

Basically, we buy pine board cut them to the appropriate pieces nail and clue them together

and then stretch our canvas across it using stables and then finally cover it with gesso. 

Once it was built we moved to a new colorful still life. 

Again, we couldn't use pure white or black but because most of the objects were a bright vibrant color it was some what easier to see the colors through out the objects. 

 Here is the still life I chose. 

Fake sunflowers, 

a champagne bottle

wooden box

fake apple 

yellow table cloth 

and a plastic striped cloth. 

This image is a close up detail of some of the striped cloth and apple (unfinished). 

And the image on the right is the studio!

Its crowded and covered in paint. 

In the bottom corner is my pallet. 

I actually really enjoy using a pallet (mine is just a sheet of glass with taped edges) 

but it makes mixing and saving the colors so much easier!!

TA DAAAA

My finished painting. 

It is now hung in the hallway at home. 

(thats why the lighting is kinda off... sorry about that)

I've enjoyed this class. 

Sometimes it can be relaxing, once I get in to the painting and the stress of the drawing is done. 

I hate that I wont have the chance to take another painting class here at Clemson

but I think I'll continue working in this style at home :) 

PS. I just wanted to say thank you again to all my new followers! 

And to all of the Fabulous blogger ladies who have featured me on their blogs recently! 

You can check me out on Just A Little Creativity 

and What Meegan Makes! 

I need to slow down!

Life is happening and leaving me behind!

I have a lot to play catch up with this week. 

And my body is exhausted from attempting to stay afloat. 

I'm beginning to think I need to step back a little and reevaluate my schedule. 

Between being a wife, work, and school. I don't have enough hours in the day to do all of them! 

All that said, here is a project I did a little while ago. 

I forgot to document it before I sent it,

BUT I got this picture of it once it was hung :) 

This was for a beach house in St. Simons Island, GA. 

They sent me an image of "their" sand dunes

and wanted me to do whatever I do as an artist :) 

I enjoyed sitting down for a day or two and busting this out. 

Hopefully I will get to do more soon, 

This is the kind of project that relaxes me!!

Look for updates later this week about

School, Etsy, and wedding photos!

Why I may be missing for a while. And a GIVEAWAY

Hey ladies!

Ok, I've been extremely busy lately and my mind has been all over the place. 

I want to post but hours just keep slipping past me which is making my days FLY by. 

As most of you know I am getting married August 4th. 

I am extremely excited and busy all at the same time. Which in-turn is making me very very anxious. 

So, I wish I could update on my latest projects and some of the other fun things going on but I just can't find the time or creativity to spare at the moment. I'm going to attempt to write a few posts and schedule them to post over the next 3 weeks but who knows if I will actually get around to it. So keep visiting the blog as they might not get posted to Facebook right away! 

Now all that to say!

 I am featured as a givaway on the awesome Young and Crafy blog!! 

Please go check it out it opens Monday July 16th at 6 am and closes Thursday July 19th! 

Here is a sneak peak of the piece that is being given away! 

Andddd 2 detail shots. 

Alright so here is the scoop. I found young and crafty a while back and finally got the guts up to ask her to feature my project. I told her to go look through my blog and see what she thought would fit best and what her readers would be interested in. 

She pointed out a few different projects but said she really enjoyed the desert flower canvas I did for a friend a while back. (Check out the link for that past project). That canvas was too large to do for a giveaway so she asked for something simililar yet scaled down. 

So when I sat down to finally start this painting I thought about just kinda recreating that piece but then realized that I wanted to do something new and to just really paint from my heart. Because it is a giveaway I didn't technically have a commission for it so I could literally do whatever I wanted. And that is what came out! 

I like it so much I just hope other people do too!! 

Would yall rather me do these types of giveaways instead of the signs? Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think my next personal giveaway should be!

PS. don't hold it against me if I don't post back for a while. I honestly am not sure when I will have time to write again! 

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!

I know I haven't done as many posts as promised but I have a good reason. This holiday season wasn't too terribly hectic so I was focusing on having good time at home. What I qualify as good time is quality time with the people I love, it doesn't have to be full of exciting parties or really anything at all it's just uninterrupted time. I got back to Columbia the third week of December and got to spend a lot of time with my family. My original goal was to finally catch back up on my blogging and to even do some revisions for you guys; however, I was enjoying my good time with the fam.

So, I'm just gonna give a quick over view of all of my projects from the holiday season.

The Holidays are great because I get lots of fun projects! This project was for a friend from Clemson who is engaged to a pretty big Gamecock fan.

I also got to do another pair of TOMS for a friend while I was home over break. I really enjoyed this pair because she gave me free rein and just gave me a few things that she thought could inspire me. Her only requirement was that she wanted 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 ("Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus").

Even though I love the free time over the holidays to do projects on my own schedule, I do think that my friends and family get a little tired of my gifts... This year I did better and didn't give EVERYONE a homemade gift. But Reed will get one every year...

This year I knew that he really wanted a large cooler. He talked non-stop about his buddy Cody's cooler that he could fit all of his deer meat in when taking it to the processor. So I decided to make a Reed a meat locker for Christmas. I was attempting to make the top of it look like the cooler was open and full of meat ready to be grilled. Sadly, I think the cup holders messed up the illusion. This was a new techinque that I had never tried before, I think it was pretty successfull for a first try.

-Funny story- I got the pictures printed at Wal-mart and when I went to pick them up the lady asked what my pictures where of so she could find them quicker. I tried to avoid saying raw meat so I just told her the size and number of prints I was picking up. Sadly, this did not suffice and she asked for the content. Once I said raw meat she didn't talk to me again. I guess it would be kind of creepy for some random person to print 16 pictures of raw meat...

Now I'm back at school and ready to start the Spring semester. I can't wait to get back in the studio I'm taking nothing but studio classes which is WAYYYY exciting! Be looking out for new sculptures, photographs, and prints from printmaking!! All of these classes are going to be very tedious and time consuming but I can't wait to get my hands dirty again! 

-Also, I have made a Facebook page for the blog and am working on an Etsy store, if you have any advice pleeeeeaaassssseeee share. I am most definitely not tech. savvy. 

Ya know. Just a quick afternoon project :)

Sadly, my apartment is STILL not completely put together. I still have about 8 boxes lining the walls of my room, my walls are all bare, and my new awesome desk is covered in junk... Great way to break in a new apartment. 


I think I just like doing things for other people instead of finishing my own projects. I went over and spent probably 3 hours or a little more doing this mural for a FABULOUS friend. She has been asking for a piece of art from me longer than anyone and I've been totally slack and until the other day have never given her a piece of my work!! I hope she likes this and LeAnn if you read this, I promise I'll still get you that tin you've been asking for :) 


I'm horrible at remembering to take before pictures. The room is a pale green and I came in to add the tree as a fun little accent piece.

My fabulous photographer, LeAnn, captured me in action. This was also my first ever live audience! LeAnn and her two roommates decided to join me. We all decided it was just really relaxing to paint while listening to Michael Buble  :)

TA DAHH!!

LeAnn, I hope you love your tree and I'm sorry it has taken me so long to finally do something for you! It was so great to just chill with you and your girls while doing what I love most! 


Ok, my goal is to get my room completed by next Saturday. Reed has the day off tomorrow, hopefully I can bribe him and a few other strong boys to carry my hippo of an armoire up two flights of stairs! Wish me luck!!