Writing Cabinet Renovation

New 2012 has started and my New Year resolution is to put more attention to this blog, find more ideas and create more handmade things.
I haven't posted anything about furniture restoration and renovation for a long time. Just haven't seen anything I would like to share. I found this writing cabinet renovation couple days ago. Just compare these pics.
Before

and after

This writing desk was born in USSR about 60 years ago but after renovation it looks like new. I like bright colors and fresh look. It's really good for children's room. 

The renovation was done by LiveJournal user asa_asa. Here you can find more details and how to. BTW it's not first asa_asa renovation I am writing about. This toys cabinet was renovated by her as well.

Last leaf....

We had snow this weekend. In October!!! In New Jersey!!! A lot of trees still have green leaves. It was really mind-blowing: green, gold, yellow, red leaves covered with white snow. Winter is coming and it's impossible to stop it. Really soon all gorgeous leaves and wonderful colors will be gone except one last leaf. Live Journal user macka_gothika found a way to save a warm piece of fall. These lovely leaves are brooches. Amazing, isn't it?

All these leaves are for sale. You can buy them here also you can visit online store to see or/and buy other creative art works made by macka-gothika.

Halloween is coming

This year I am kind of busy for handmade hallowing ideas hunting but some hallowing stuff is impossible to miss. These pumpkin-shaped earnings are so cute and so "for the season".

The author of these little pumpkins is felliniya. There are a way more nice handmade girlish things in her blog. 

And finally - yes, these earring are for sale:) You can contact felliniya using this e-mail nekrofilija@yandex.ru

All about pillows

I don't write about such stuff but a good friend of mine, Nataly, just opened her shop on etsy. I would like to help her in her business at least with some promotion. And finally I like pillow covers she makes. These are two reasons why I desided to write this post.
Brand new shop is filled with a lot of pillow covers of any style. They are cute!
My favorite item in this brand new shop is this flower print pillow. It's fresh and bright. I love such things.

Next one I would like to highlight is elegant and romantic set of three pillow covers "Time to Dream". Black and white colors are simple and perfect in their simplicity:

And last one I want to put here is funny, fashionable, a little bit punk pillow cover.

So don't wait, check Trendy Dreams Shop on etsy to find stylish and elegant custom made designer pillow covers, drapes, valances, bedspreads, blankets and anything else you want:)

Gilles Eichenbaum Garbage Lamps

Gilles Eichenbaum is a French Designer who makes amazing lamps from old cookware and other thing that definetely was not designed to be lamps.For example this lamp has name "Domestic Affairs" and it is made from iron and cake pan:ase 8.5 x 18cm.

My favorite lamp has name "Aubade". Gilles used kettle to create it. I really love this metal lacework. It looks so fragile and elegant

"Blanquette de Veau" is night-light made from aluminum pot. Gorgeous!

More of these cookware lamps and other lamps made from most unexpected things you can find on Gilles Eichenbaum personal webpage www.garbage-vpot.com

Knitted Furniture from Patricia Graf

Looks like knitting is an inexhaustible source for inspiration for designers and furniture makers. Earlier I have posted knitted chairs and knitted wallpaper. Today I found couple more unbelievable pieces of furniture related to knitting. These two amazing things were created by Patricia Yasmine Graf - young German designer. 
This crocheted stool has warm cozy looks and moreover it has integrated footwarmer. Great idea for cold winter evenings.

This crocheted easy chair is comfortable, beautiful and functional as well. It's tentacles can hold remote control, magazine or anything else you need to relax.

More cool furniture and creative accessories can be found on Patricia web-page www.pyg-design.de.

Rupert McKelvie’s Missing Pieces Table

Except of furniture renovation and all other handmade I love putting together jigsaw puzzles. Today I found my twin soul who loves furniture and puzzles as much as I do - Rupert McKelvie. He is a British designer mostly working on furniture design and other home decor.

Once upon a time he had jigsaw puzzle set with missing parts, so he decided create something useful and complete from these pieces. I believe it took a lot of time to put this puzzle-table. There are 4800 pieces from Arc de Triomphe, Winnie the Pooh, night sky and Taj Mahal puzzles.

Rupert McKelvie says "I was all too aware of the frustration of nearing the end and realizing there were ‘missing pieces’. It became something that would never see completion". So as we can see some times frustration can easily transform to inspiration. 

I have put puzzle with train into the box long time ago because I lost a lot of pieces, so now I am thinking to create something like this awesome table :)

Cupboard Door-Gone-Art Desk

Author of this idea is Autie. She invented and created these funny and useful tables from real junk.

 

Guess what is the source for these tables? Doors from old cabinets. Kids love art and their own craft table inspires them to do more and more. Children can seat on the floor and draw because of short table stands. Table top that can be opened is another great idea. That gives you space for paper, pencils and other crafts. 

As I mentioned before for creating such kid table you need doors, stands, paint, base, sand paper, screws, drill and everything you think will be useful for decorating.

First step is sanding of doors, you should remove old paint and/or finish. Clean up the door. Attach stands. If there are no door hinges you should attach them too. Now it's time to decorate. You can do whatever you want, for example you can use decoupage as Autie did.

Step by step instruction  and more pictures can be found here www.u-createcrafts.com. This web page contains huge amount of all kind of handmade and decorating. 

Furniture for car lovers

All my previous entries were some kind of "girly". This post for men. I am sure the heart of each man will be touched by this furniture. Actually my heart is broken too. What men love so much? Almost so much like a girls? Cars. I believe most of them will be even glad to sleep in their beloved cars and .. now they have such opportunity. This sofa is designed especially for car fans:

There are two young designers from Poland - Andrzej Sapierzynski and Lukasz Siodmok. And they are geniuses. Do you know a boy who does not want such armchair? Do you know anybody at all who can stay calm when see it? Probably I am overreacting but I always do when I find something breathtaking.

For such sofa and armchair you definitely need some special coffee table

Amazing. That's all I can say. And this is not everything that they can do with cars and furniture. These guys designed office desks and standing lamps and can do custom design for you. There is even a picture on their web-page with some explanation how they create such things. So if you liked it and want to find out more go to http://www.la-ds.com/. 

Some amazing clocks from some really old(odd??) stuff

I met a wonderful and creative person just couple days ago. Her name is Olga. She loves to create beautiful things from some old junk stuff. Mostly her art creations are made in steampunk style. For example these earrings

But I just LOVED her clocks. They are amazing. Just take a look at this one made from ... an old chair:

I believe every artist would like to have such piece of art in his/her studio. These clocks are inspiring to create more and more beautiful things.

The next one - has nothing glamorous, even name. These clocks are named "Antiglamour". They made from vintage clock parts, vintage frame, suit-case wheels, chain....

And the last one I really love - "Cuckoo clock". Vintage door, vintage clock parts, bakelite bird, old key.. what is the common for all these things? Almost nothing except all of them together are really rare and gorgeous kind of clock. 

I liked and posted these three clocks because I have never seen such clocks, they are just mind-blowing and one of a kind. And they fit the format of my blog just perfect. There are more Olga's art at her personal web-page www.olgaclockworks.com. They are also beautiful, I really recommend to take a look.

Old Chair

Ok, the rule is working: if I found something interesting, like a chair, I'll find couple more amazing chairs:) If you have old chair like this, you can throw it  into the garbage

 or you can do something like this:

 LiveJournal user amazonka-city has chosen second way and got a wonderful chair:

If you liked this chair you can find more works of amazonka-city here

Source: http://amazonka-city.livejournal.com/

Cut Chair from Peter Bristol

This chair looks just unbelievable. The most crazy thing that you can sit on it. The plate under carpet makes this chair stable and safe to sit, stand or anything else you can do with chair

This unique and mind-blowing piece of furniture was designed by Peter Bristol, you can find more pictures of this chair and other amazing inventions in design by visiting his web-page http://www.peterbristol.net/

Amazing handmade folding-screens

Whether the folding-screens are furniture? I have never thought about it... But anyway, I found couple perfect handmade examples of it in Svetlana Fadeeva blog. 

This one is named "Corset". Vintage pictures and lacing are really stylish and of course require the room to place it to be stylish. 

 One more in vintage style, this one is my favorite:

Next one is for Great Britain fans, traditional for this country patterns, famous phone bots make your interior elegant and British (don't forget to speak with accent when you buy it to make your interior and you look consistent :)).

These folding-screens and a lot of other handmade treasures you can found in Svetlana's handmade shop.

Moo-oo Candle Holder

There are couple things people can look forever: fire, sky, water. You can look to the burning candle for hours moreover if you put your candle in cute candle holder made by yourself you can look at it for a days.
Here is tutorial how to make such candle holder:

Materials and tools:
1) IKEA (or any other cheap) wood photo frames with glass;
2) acrylic black and white paints;
3) glue;
4) spackling paste;
5) gloss and matte finish (spray)

Here is a good example of frames we need:

Step 1. Using glue put together skeleton of future candle holder (use just frames without glass). Then put spackling paste on it, create a bold stoke. Pay more attention and put more paste on corners and joint. Let it dry for a night.
Step 2. Paint it with acrylic paints and cover it with gloss finish.

Step 3. Now you should create picture on glasses, you can just print picture you like and put it under the glass. Than using glass paints and glass outline re-create this picture on glass. After picture is ready and paints are dried cover glass with matte finish. 

See couple more examples of candle holders made using exactly the same technology below.

For this one decoupage was used, pictures on glass are cut of from napkins:

For this one the same frames were used, they just lay down one on top of another. branches and grits were used to make a texture. After all it was covered with gold spray paint (good hand made Christmas gift).

And last one:

I would like to say thanks to SoffiaShark LiveJournal user who created all these candle holders and this tutorial.

 The source http://soffiashark.livejournal.com/64682.html