...well, maybe a long weekend.
So I’ve been sitting on this project for… oooh, nearly two years now, and seeing as I was in a creative mood last Sunday, I thought I might finally get on with it.
There seems to be a trend of "re-styling and re-purposing" at the moment. Everywhere you look, crafty people are turning one thing into another thing. May as well join the bandwagon, right? To tell the truth, I was already planning on using Cheyenne’s old kindy sheets for this project, way back when I bought the laundry hamper. I mean, what else was I going to use them for? She did use them (as sheets) once or twice when we went camping, but she really is too big for them now and they don’t fit her camp stretcher. It just seemed a waste to chuck them out and not do something with the material. But hey, now I can seem trendy and say I’m re-purposing them, LOL.
So, it’s a cheap and not-so-cheerful laundry hamper from a bargain shop. Cost me about $14. Ugly plain linen bag complete with dodgy, el cheapo stitching and unfinished wood – you know the ones I mean. All it needed was a new bag (courtesy of Cheyenne’s kindy sheets), and a lick of paint and it would look fantastic in her bedroom.
I love the floral pattern and colours in this fabric. I fell in love with it at the time when I got it on sale at Spotlight. So much so, that I think I got some in blue tones as well… * note to self - hunt through material stash *
After much grumbling and swearing, I gave up trying to un-seize the lift on my sewing cabinet (last time I was packing up my machine, the lift got stuck about a third of the way down, and now it won’t go back up again either!) and just made-do. Just as well I wasn’t sewing something huge that I needed the extra table space for! The bag is such a simple shape that it all came together very quickly and I only really had to stop and think when I came to do the buttonholes on the tabs. OMG, the last time I sewed a buttonhole was in Home Ec at high school. Thank goodness for my Bernina instruction manual, haha. Result? Four perfect buttonholes.
With nothing left to do to the bag other than sewing on the buttons, I turned my attention to painting the frame. Cheyenne’s bedroom furniture is white, so I was determined it had to match. Quick trip to Bunnings for some spray paint (yes, you're right, I'm too lazy to fiddle around with a paintbrush) and I was ready. First, the primer. No problem there. Now the top coat... Two coats of white later and I could still see patches of the primer showing through. Seriously? I could be re-coating forever… Time to rethink the colour. I sewed on the buttons while I thought about what colour would be more likely to give a nice even coverage.
I decided to go with a bright pink paint, which would pick up some of the colours in the fabric. That meant another trip to Bunnings in the morning. *le sigh* Naturally, it rained all day, which put a stop to painting. My “weekend project” had now stretched out to three days! Thankfully, yesterday was fine and I got two coats of pink on the frame. Touch dry in ten minutes, my arse! Not even after 20 minutes! After retouching a few touch marks, I set it to dry overnight.
Yes, pink was a great choice, I think.
Ta Da!
Finally, it is finished. Yay! My "weekend" project only took 4 and a bit days! Although Cheyenne will be using it in her bedroom straight away, it will match even better with her room décor when she moves into the front room at the end of the year. After we paint it pink, that is. And after I move my craft room out and into her current bedroom… and don’t even get me started on that!
(I’ll leave THAT for another post)
