I was really tired of the rat's nest of extension cord, wall warts and multiple cables feeding the three 30ft LED strings in our living room. Then a couple of weeks before Christmas it hit me: LEDs consume 5V DC, USB supplies 5V DC, newer wall receptacles with USB can supply enough current. Put them all together and this just might work.
The secret here is how to achieve a snug fit of the coffee bag around the foam without rubbing your knuckles raw as you pull the bag over the foam. We have made mattresses and seat cushions before, and while the results were great, it took a week or longer for our fingers and knuckles to recover from the ordeal. As Pia was discussing our plans for the coffee bags with friends, they sagely nodded and said they'd been do this road before and had to pay with blood. We were not looking forward to that!
Casual browsing at Wynola Junction Antiques and Wynola Farms Marketplace turned into a very productive shopping trip. Here's what we found and where it is going in our home:
This is an idea we had for a very long time, but never got around to actually build. Then we saw this version by Erin Loechner and everything came together. Her idea to mount the shelf up high, and installing the brackets on top of the shelf seal the deal. Genius!
Pia and I had spotted canary wood at Cut & Dried Hardwood (now sadly gone) a few years back, fell in love with its crazy colored stripes, and wanted to create a furniture piece with it. However, for lack of time and energy nothing ever happened. Then, two months ago, our need for another small table became urgent, and the plans finally coalesced.
First off I have to say that the only reason one should want to restore a Brooks saddle is if the leather is in usable condition. If the leather is too worn to recondition there is no point in keeping the old rails and mounting new leather, just go buy a new saddle from Brooks (they are not that expensive). The only reason I say this is because in my quest to refurbishing my saddle I did lots of research and found many people were trying to restore old seats with new leather, which makes no sense because the worn in leather is the only part that makes the seat worth restoring.
At the moment I am creating greeting cards. I have a box full of scrap paper, labels and other things I collect from different sources.
I assemble them and make them into cards like the one above. Years ago I taught art classes and my students of many years knew that almost everything we used to create with had a story and asked for it. So, I tell you the story of the fabric piece in the middle of this card.
Inspired by a page sent to us by our dear friend Susi Niederberger I set out to rework the display frame.
I stole this idea from a flower shop in La Jolla where they had long stems of exotic flowers artfully displayed in a bamboo frame, but I extended the concept. You can put just about anything into this frame, just use your imagination. In our house we have mounted flowers, tree branches, cloth, origami pieces and much more, all with great results.