‘George’ the freestanding drawer!

Last year, I acquired some lovely old furniture from a lady, after meeting her brother one day on a train to Aberdeen… (You can read the full story here!) One of the pieces she very kindly gave to me was this vintage chest of drawers. It was really beautiful piece and had been extremely well loved, but some panels were missing, others were falling off, the beading was chipped and broken and the drawers were very stiff and heavy.

I made the decision to use the chest of drawers in a new way, and create things from its different elements. I had already made a big ‘Z’ for Ziggy out of three of the drawers for my workshop wall, but just recently I had the idea to make a piece of furniture out of one of the remaining drawers.

I love mid-century furniture legs, so I ordered a reclaimed set, then got to work sanding, drilling, screwing, 

cleaning, priming and painting… and in the end, I got this! 

I was struggling to think of a name for this piece, but Fiona helped me when we were installing the Pop-up Shop. A Wham! record I own (…guilty pleasure!) soon became the soundtrack to all our hard work, so Fiona wanted to dedicate a piece George Michael. So meet George, the freestanding display shelf! 

'Ella'- Redesigned Vintage Sideboard

I think it's about time I put 'Ella' in the spotlight!

She has undergone quite a transformation! I loved her when I first seen her in her original state but she was very much stuck in the past and I was keen to highlight her pretty curves and give her a contemporary-meets-retro feel.


Here's how she looked when I first picked her up... heavily stained + varnished with some broken, hinged olde-worlde handles!

Before I start a redesign, I like to look at the shape + structure of a piece of furniture and break it down into parts in my head! I then choose colours to highlight all the different components to help show off it's original craftmanship.

I absolutely love her scalloped back board, Queen Anne legs + curved cabinet doors. This piece has lots of vintage appeal! 

I have created a band of sky blue around the middle of the sideboard, including the doors + back;   painted the drawer faces rose pink; sandwiched these parts between a navy top + legs and painted all of her interior grey.

I have topped it all off with lovely hand-made handles from Anthropologie to tie in the colours + create an off-beat finish!

from Anthropologie

And who inspired this piece of redesigned Ziggy Sawdust furniture??  Ella Fitzgerald!

Vintage florals, feminine curves + full of soul ... she's definitely an Ella! But my colour combination was inspired by this Color Collective image:

I wonder what will inspire my next piece...

Retro Record Clocks!

I think it's about time that I give my Retro Record Clocks a bit of a mention seeing as they are currently dominating my ETSY shop!

I am a big 'retro' music fan (the Ziggy Stardust/Sawdust connection is no coincidence!) and my love of objects 100% extends to old records!

I am fully aware that the idea of converting records into clocks isn't the most original idea but they are fun to make and fun to own!

I try my best to focus on finding iconic records with a bit of cult status, to make the clocks all the more desirable... and I also use coloured plastic clock pieces to add a little 'pop' of colour!

click here

My favourite recent find has to be Simon and Garfunkle's Mrs Robinson 7" single from 1966, which is the sound track to one of my favourite films- The Graduate.

(So here's to you Mrs Robinson!)

Records are great objects in themselves and even though their function becomes altered when they are made into clocks, it's much nicer to have an affiliation with the songs that they contain!

Other clocks that I have made from great records include:

Start! 7" single by The Jam

Frankie Says Relax 7" single by Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go 7" single by Wham!

Union City Blue 7" single by Blondie

Let It Bleed 12" album by The Rolling Stones

and

Pin Ups 12" album by David Bowie

but you can find even more at my Etsy Shop!

Eggstra! Eggstra! read all about it:

Easter has been and gone but I've still got a few pictures that I would like to share!

I have been very busy working on my Ziggy Sawdust creations and things are starting to take shape... a few more days of hard work and they will be ready to make their camera debut!

But in the meantime, here's a little insight into my fun, family easter weekend:

Every year my family get together in Edinburgh to roll eggs, catch up and eat some good food. I have plenty of childhood memories of my sister and I sitting at the kitchen table with our paint sets, decorating every egg that my mum could find in the fridge! As we got older, this routine started to fall by the wayside and there was a few sad years where we ended up rolling undecorated boiled eggs... but this year I took matters into my own hands! I dug out some bright nail varnishes, glitter and made use of my treasured Japanese Washi Tapes to bring back family egg decorating with a vengeance!!

When I went to get started, I found that one of the eggs had been decorated by the hen that laid it! Sadly, as I only had 6 eggs to play with, I had to pull the feather off to give it a more glamourous make-over... but here's how it turned out! :

Then I got cracking with the Washi Tapes:

... and then used a nail art pen to make this one look like it was from a little speckled hen

 

Cluck! Cluck!

And here's how they all looked together:

The religious tradition of rolling eggs down a hill has become slightly skewed in my family, and instead eggs get thrown down the hill and directed at those who choose not to participate! 

(All in the name of fun of course- there have been no A&E visits... yet!) 

Here's an action shot:

Can you spot the flying egg?!

We normally throw eggs up and down until they smash but the Washi Tape seemed to make my eggs invincible!

With half my eggs still intact, I guess I won the game... yippee!

Initial idea

Needing christmas gift inspiration? What about trying out Spearmint Baby's idea and make a button monogram for someone special?

image found here.

A full tutorial can be found here but you could tailor the design and the buttons that you use to suit the person that you make it for... Lovely stuff!

That's Armoire!

It's my last post from Venice and I've got lots of ideas for getting creative with cabinets!

Martha Stewart, domestic queen, you never fail to inspire me! Here she puts two different cabinets, striped back and painted the same, on top of each other to create a DIY armoire. 

image found here

And here's a lovely tutorial from Fresh Home Idea. It's a step-by-step guide with handy tips to keep us all on track! Have a look at the 'before' picture too... to me the diy effort gives the cabinet even more vintage charm!

image found here.

Now, if you're feeling handy, this might be the project for you! With a full on set of instructions, Ana White guides you every step of the way and literally shows you how to make a corner cabinet from scratch! I'm really keen on this idea... maybe add some patterned wallpaper and vintage door knobs into the mix?

image found here.

Then there is Miss Mustard Seed at Mustard Seed Interiors who has taken a new approach all together and painted the whole wardrobe with black-board paint... a lovely idea for storage to double up as a memo-board in a cafe, for example.

                    

image found here.

And, just for good measure, I've thrown in this image...  The colours, pattern, shapes are all just garishly brilliant!

 

image found here.

I probably wouldn't be able to sleep at night if this was the decor in my bedroom, but I think it would be fun in a dinning room or something. Bold can be quite brilliant!