One project down!

YAY!!!
I cannot tell you how excited I am! I FINALLY finished the big project that has been hanging over my head for a while. I completely refinished my chair.
I wish I had a before picture; but, my camera decided to reformat itself and it ate all my old pictures. Suffice it to say that I bought this chair at a garage sale for $2. The lady begged me to buy it (as she sneakily appealed to my crafty side--challenging me to refinish it) The chair had been used as an outside decoration and was in very rough shape. (My husband told me that the lady should have paid me to take it...) I had to rip off the old nasty fabric and stuffing, strip and sand the wood, re-stain, re-stuff, and re-cover. Oh, what fun! I'm glad it's done!

And, in great timing...because I wasn't quite sure where we would put it in our little apartment. But, now we have a house to put it in! More to come on that later! So thankful! :)

Ok, so I found the pictures of the chair that were somehow saved in a random section on my old computer! Yay! Here are a few shots of the "vision" (and you may now be able to understand why my husband questions my judgement on projects)

It had layers and layers of fabric on it

Pinterest Projects: Cool Coasters

Ok, I'm totally hooked--on Pinterest. At first, I was confused by all the goodness; but now, I love it. I have found SO many great and inexpensive gift ideas! I'm definitely making a list (or pins) of what projects I want to tackle. I found this idea the other day: homemade, personalized coasters. I have a friend getting married soon and I thought this would be a perfect gift. Coasters are one of those things that we didn't register for; but, someone had the forethought to buy us and we use them all the time. Anyway...
The materials:

-4, 41/4 in x 41/2 in tiles  (I purchased mine at Menards for 11 cents each)
-4 square pictures (cut slightly smaller than the square tiles)
-Mod Podge
-foam brush
- 4 square pieces of felt (again, cut slightly smaller than the tiles squares)
-ribbon

  The Materials (minus the felt)

The Procedure:

1. Clean the tiles so they are free of any fingerprints. Then, paint Mod Podge onto the back of the picture and place it on the tile making sure there is even space around the edges. Allow time to dry.

2. Then, take your felt and mod podge it onto the back of your tile. (You can also use cork, but I had felt from a previous project) Allow time to dry.

3. Then, mod podge over the top of your picture in order to seal it so the water from the glass won't affect the picture. Allow time to dry.  Then, if wanted, you can add more coats of Mod Podge (I put on 3 coats).

No worries if it looks like this--it will dry!

 

4. When dry, you can stack your new coasters and attach a ribbon.

 

 

I think it's just the perfect, personalized gift!