Vintage Chair Yeti-Over

Long-time readers may remember this vintage chair make over from way back in 2010. Sadly, when I moved into my house, the chair sat in the workshop for a while and someone left something metal on the seat, where it promptly rusted and left a big stain on the cream chenille. I tried cleaning it and only made it worse. It was a sad, sad day at the Rosenfeld Cottage.

Until! I saw this awesome chair on Apartment Therapy.

Not surprisingly, it's super difficult to find a gorgeous skin like that for an affordable price. But West Elm sells these Mongolian lamb's wool pillow covers for slightly less than a fortune (and I had a gift certificate that covered a big chunk of the cost).

I don't know how well these will hold up, so I didn't want to go through all the pain of actually reupholstering the chair - plus I didn't want to cut the pillows up. Who knows what would happen with all that fur? So I basically laid one pillow cover over the seat, and loosely basted it to the piping on the upholstery in the front and back. Then I looped the second cover over the back and did the same thing. 

Here is the before (without the tragic seat stain)...

And here is the after...

Maybe not quite as luxurious as the original inspiration, but it's definitely fun and adds a lot of texture to the living room. What do you think?

DIY: First Day of Fall Wreath!

Fall is officially here! I've been waiting for scarf and boots weather for MONTHS, and even though it's still 80 degrees outside, it has not deterred me one bit. In order to ring in the fall properly, I decided to make a new wreath for the front door, inspired by this one at Paper Source. But instead of paying $20, you can pretty much make this from scraps you make have lying around the house. 

Here's what you need:

1. Cardboard for creating the wreath ring and the leaf template

2. Fabric and/or paper scraps (I used a mix of fabric, paper, pleather and felt)

3. Hot glue gun and glue sticks

4. Scissors

5. A pen

Optional Supplies:

1. Iron and starch

2. Feathers 

3. Stalks of dried wheat

I started by tracing a dinner plate onto the cardboard, and then a dessert plate inside that circle. I then cut around the outer line and the inner line to give me my wreath form. Then I freehand drew the leaf template and cut that out too.

Then came the tedious part. I traced the leaf onto all the fabric and paper, and cut out millions of little leaves. Okay, it was more like 100, but it felt like millions.

It's not important to have an even number of colors, I wound up using about 12-16 of each (I had 7 different fabrics). You can always cut more if you run out! My fabric was a little wrinkled, so I starched and ironed the leaves, folded them in half longways, and then pressed them again. The crease makes them stand up a bit, and gives the wreath a little more body. 

Next, hot glue your leaves, round-side down, to the outer most part of your wreath form, overlapping the sides just a bit. I tried to use every color equally, without it being too perfect or deliberate. As I went around, I incorporated the feathers and wheat stalks.

You should end up with three rows of leaves on the cardboard ring. For the fourth and final row, glue the leaf onto the ring about halfway up the piece of fabric (instead of on the round bottom), and then fold the round part around to the back of the form and secure it with more glue. This way you'll hide the rough edge of the cardboard. 

When you're all done with that, secure a loop of ribbon or string to the back of your wreath for hanging. Because my wreath is going to end up on a glass door, I finished the back by gluing a ring of the pleather.

I also added a bow to the front, to polish things off. And there you go! A super snazzy new fall wreath! Paper Source, eat your heart out!