I've got it covered

Welcome to my upholstery shop.

That's right. I finally did it.

You may recall this previous post where I outed my hideous indoor-outdoor-carpet-covered dining room chairs with the hope that I would be inspired enough to take action and recover the darn things already. I even had the vintage fabric. And a newly purchased electric staple gun. What was my problem!?

The problem was this: The longer I looked at the fabric, the less sure I was about it. I liked it but too much brown in it to go on brown wooden chairs, I thought.

Please meet Plan B.

I brought home this vintage barkcloth for another project altogether (scrapped!) but when I casually tossed it across one of the chairs, it became the new vintage chair fabric.

Voila!

 

 

And with the chairs completed, I can now turn my attention to the I'm-over-it white sideboard...

Paint swatches from Martha Stewart at Home Depot.

Hope it's warm & dry where you are. Raining sideways here today.

Nuts for Vintage

Can you tolerate one(-ish) more vintage-holiday-show-and tell? I'll hit just the highlights, I promise.

As mentioned on my previous post, I found a few more holiday treasures at a recent 'living' estate sale which, when I drove up to it, didn't look like there would be much to see. 

The sale was held in a ramshackle warehouse of sorts, in the middle of an orchard (you may recall I live in the Fruit Loop) and the woman whose estate was for sale was there and very much alive & kicking. And she was downsizing in a major way.

{all photos can be clicked to enlarge}

Buried in a box, I found this set of vintage cornhusk nativity characters but with spun heads instead of cornhusk heads. Sort of  1970s crafts meets 1940s crafts.

Did you notice the fellow on the far right dressed in purple? I don't know the particulars of his situation but somehow he ended up with an acorn for a head and a nut shell for a hat.

Maybe it's me but he kind of looks like he's wearing a cowboy hat.

This is just the tip of the shiny-vintage-Christmas-iceburg I found at this sale. There were so many ornaments I couldn't bring myself to unwrap them all to take a photo but they did provide lots of ideas/justification for purchasing that I'll share in another post. 

Some serious vintage honeycomb madness was happening too. 

I love that metal hanging decoration on the right, made from vintage tin molds. The Living Estate Sale Lady told me she made those to sell at church bazaars back in the day -- they're for hanging on the front door or from a doorknob. I have some holiday plans for that piece too.

 And finally, picks of all kinds -- witches, pumpkins, Santas, dolls, glass balls, elves and my favorite on the far left, the Black Cat. Some of the picks even had leftover cake clinging to them which always mystifies me. Maybe someone was in a hurry. Or wasn't wearing their reading glasses. 

Which never happens to me. 

Whew - feels good to get all of that out of my system. Thanks for indulging me. 

Take two tablecloths and call me in the morning

Wishing I felt a little more like this...

I've spent every minute lately with my new sidekick, the head cold. Despite my best efforts to sprint ahead and shake it, it always seems to catch up with me later in the day. Admittedly, I don't do sick well, spending most of it in denial about actually being sick, even as I'm hitting the couch with blankie, pillow and cup of tea in hand. ("I'm not thick. Whereth my kleenexth?")

Fortunately, just when I really needed some perking up, the mailman delivered a box of good cheer from a certain Sweet Bee at Sweet Bee Cottage. Thoughtful Janelle (aka Sweet Bee) and I go way back -- we 'met' on ebay years ago and then we started blogging around the same so she knows all about my vintage tablecloth addiction.

And she sent me a fix. Thank you for these, Janelle! My cold is much better now but my addiction just got a little worse. 

I confess I had one more vintage Christmas (and Halloween) lucky streak at an estate sale recently -- a sale I pretty much forced myself out of my sickbed to attend because I am dedicated. Or delirious. So glad I went and I'll share more later this week. This Beistle honeycomb Santa was one of treasures I found.

Meanwhile, it's back to the Doily Factory for my regularly scheduled Christmas sewing. 

P.S. Regarding vintage tablecloth addictions: Have you been to The Little Round Table? Candy has created an amazing Index ... for the 120-ish vintage tablecloths in her collection. This lady is or-gan-ized!

Here's a link to her Vintage Tablecloth Index (once you get there, scroll down to see the photos).

I suddenly feel the need to alphabetize something.

Warning

 To me, this guy is a little 'clown-scary'

Some of what you're about to see is ridiculously cute and sweet and may lead to a toothache.

Stop me if you've heard this before: This morning I stopped by an estate sale that had already been open for a couple of hours. This is my motto regarding estate sales: Arrive late, don't expect much.

This sale had His & Hers outbuildings -- His was all tools & bolts & drill bits but ... Hers was dedicated entirely to vintage holiday crafts! And there still was plenty to choose from despite my late arrival and low expectations. 

A vintage Christmas Vegas chorus line

I just couldn't help myself but I probably should have.

This summer's yard sales have resulted in an unexpected 'abundance' of vintage Christmas everything,  so I've decided to sort through it all, keep only what I really, really love (I might need one more 'really' in there so I'll actually get rid of something) and am most likely to use (snore) and then the rest will go in my etsy shop. 

I may be experiencing a delayed reaction to the silverware hoarding at Estate Sale 2.0.

So hard to resist ... how cute is this little bunch? 

 

 There was also a bit of vintage Easter which included this barnyard of cuteness.

I found one vintage Christmas tablecloth which came with (no extra charge!) a glob of vintage Christmas dinner. Kind of like a really gross gift-with-purchase. 

Didn't stop me though.

The offending tablecloth came home and is currently taking a timeout soak in the vintage-linen-laundry-bucket.

 

 Hope you have a terrific weekend!