My first upholster! Progression photos

April 24, 2022April 24, 2022Leave a comment

Good evening fellow followers 🙂 My latest blog post is progression photos of a upholstered chair, I’m pretty proud of it, hope you like…

My first task was unpicking the metal staples around the brim, ready for new fabric. I sugar soaped and then used a primer on the bare wood, when dry I sprayed chalky grey furniture paint, and a crystal clear protection to seal. Next, I stapled a bottom sheet to the frame, to increase durability. The fabric I initially chose was black/dark blue, with elegant yellow flowers. I used the first bit of cloth as a template to get the right size. Upon completion however it was agreed the choice of fabric was a little too pretty, and did not match an industrial vibe wished for the new store cafe (this is what I’m working on at the moment). As it appeared more for a bedroom than a café, I unpicked the metal staples and started again! I upholstered with a plain more rustic fabric, and glue gunned a brim, adding a bit of personality with the tassels!

This has been my favourite project so far. I love the shabby chic effect, and I think it looks very classy and elegant. I love that I’m learning too. The store manager did give me a tip to pull the fabric really tight, so less loose, I completely agree however I don’t think I’ve done bad for a first upholster attempt. I’m really proud of myself, hehe 🙂 🙂

Coming up soon, some metallic steampunk effect frames, upcycled wooden spools (big project for the cafe) and a Earth map decoupaged table! Please do keep a look out… I’m hoping to sell some of my art/knitting too as sponsorship money towards my Liverpool cathedral absail, so I’ve plenty to keep me occupied 🙂

Much love, Lauren xx

Upcycled cafe table – 22 progression photos

April 21, 2022April 21, 2022Leave a comment

Hi everyone, I’ve been a busy bee upcycling again for the Children’s Air Ambulance! My latest blog post is 22 progression photos of a rustic café table, hope you like!

I started off with a quick sand and sugar soap cleanse. Then, I used a spray primer for the leg and foot of the table, before spray painting silver. Next, wood staining the table… Well, it went a little wrong! I didn’t sand the table sufficiently and subsequently it went a tad blotchy and darker in some areas. I ended up having to start all over, scrape and sand thoroughly. I switched from a roller brush to a cloth for more even distribution. The finished result is more desirable, a rustic antique pine, only requiring a polyurethane varnish to strongly seal.

This isn’t my most impressive piece in my personal opinion. It was a bit of a chore and required some elbow grease to scrape/sand. I was happy when it was finished to be perfectly honest, haha.. Well, at least it was a learning curve.

Up next, upholstery! Yes, my very first go at upholstering a chair! Look out for it.

Many thanks, Lauren xx

Upcycled storage box / ottoman – progression photos

March 31, 2022March 31, 2022Leave a comment

Hi again fellow followers! My latest blog post is progression photos of a upcycled storage box / ottoman. This is the one I’m most pleased with, hope you like it too! 🙂

I started off the project by giving the box a good clean with sugar soap, and a thorough sanding with my black and decker mouse sander. I then applied a primer and undercoat which dried in a couple of hours; a huge improvement from before with the shabby chic bedside cabinet – 16 to 24 hours that one took! I then applied a little bit gloopy (unfortunately a few years old) furniture paint in a clotted cream colour. Next I decoupaged the front and back of the box with a gorgeous sort of marble effect silver wallpaper my friend kindly donated. Afterwards, I used furniture wax to seal the clotted cream paint, and satin varnished the decoupage. To finish, I wood stained the top with antique pine wood stain, and painted the hinges black. And here it is completed…

This is my favourite upcycling project so far. I think it looks quite classy with the decoupage, and is unique; hopefully it’ll raise a lot of money for the Children’s Air Ambulance once it’s sold 🙂

I’m not sure what my next project will be, I’ll keep you in suspense, ha! I’m not volunteering today, having a chill out day for my birthday, 31 today, hooray! It snowed this morning… almost like a white Christmas 🤶🎄🤶🎄

Thank you so much for taking the time to read, appreciated.

Many thanks, Lauren xx

Rustic charm distressed TV cabinet – progression photos

March 22, 2022March 22, 2022Leave a comment

Hey again! My latest blog post is progression photos of a rustic charm distressed TV cabinet, upcycled for the Children’s Air Ambulance. Hope you like…

At the beginning of the project, the TV cabinet was a dark mahogany colour wood – not always a preferable shade to sell nowadays. Therefore, it was my job to sand using a black and decker mouse sander – still very time consuming it must be said despite not being hand held sand paper! As you can see, I went for a distressed look. One of the drawers of the cabinet unattached also, so I used ‘no more nails’ to secure. After extensive sanding, I kept it simple and classic by rubbing on a furniture wax – to give a rustic shabby chic feel 🙂 🙂 The result…

My next upcycling project for the Children’s Air Ambulance is some sort of storage/ toy box I intend to paint, varnish and decoupage but before then I may have finished a cosmic wolf diamond art to donate. We can’t sell hand made items as a charity unfortunately, so along with what they send off, I’m going to knit some bobble hats, scalves etc for the refugees in Ukraine. I think that would be lovely to do…

Thanks so much for taking the time to read / view, much appreciated.

All the best, Lauren xx

Shabby chic decoupage bedside cabinet

March 15, 2022March 15, 2022Leave a comment

Hi blog followers, my latest blog post is progression photos of a shabby chic decoupage bedside cabinet I upcycled for the Children’s Air Ambulance.. Hope you enjoy!

Firstly, I thoroughly washed the bedside cabinet with some sugar soap and sanded by hand with sand paper. I then primed with a 16-24 hour dry primer (mistake, won’t be purchasing again, too long a wait), and sanded some more the next day.

I decoupaged the drawers, front and inside, with a pretty duck egg colour/ bird pattern wallpaper, using mod podge. I likewise decoupaged the top of the cabinet too. I sealed with furniture wax on the Rust-oleum furniture paint, and a clear satin varnish over the wallpaper.

I almost bodged the project up by trying to distress the sides. It just did not look right at all, so I tried to salvage it by repainting, leaving a few little distresses on the front/drawers, to keep a shabby chic effect.

As only my first attempt in years, I think I’ve done a pretty decent job. Far from perfect, but not bad. Moving forward, I think if I continue to decoupage/paint, to make sure all is smooth and to a professional standard so the Children’s Air Ambulance can make the biggest profit possible. If I improve and learn by practice they could hopefully sell my upcycled furniture for a lot of money!

This is my next project, a mahogany TV cabinet I’ve begun sanding with a black and decker mouse sander I bought yesterday. So watch this space!

Thanks so much for taking the time to read /view my latest blog post, I appreciate your ongoing support 🙂 🙂

Much love, Lauren xx

Upcycled surround sound standing speakers :)

October 9, 2017December 22, 2017Leave a comment

Hi everyone!

Please see below a step-by-step guide of how I upcycled (with the help of my dad lol) four surround sound standing speakers, that my dad no longer wanted… Hope you like 🙂 …

I purchased some plywood from a local business. As seen above, my dad cut the plywood for me, to the same size as some vinyl records I bought from a second-hand furniture shop. I sanded down the sawed circular plywood with sandpaper..

After this, I glued the circular sawed plywood and the actual vinyl records together with contact adhesive…

This is what the stereo speakers looked like before I began upcycling them (see top photo above). The next step was to wash the speakers down really good with some sugar soap, and cover the area where sound is supposed to come out with black tape, in preparation for priming and spraying (as those areas I didn’t want to prime/spray)…

I used a few white finish surface primers purchased from Wilko to prime all four speakers…

Also purchased from Wilko, I sprayed all four of the speakers with a few metallic gold sprays, and a gold glitter spray afterwards for added effect. Both the primers and sprays I used are fast drying, so it’s not too time consuming to wait then spray another couple of layers (as I did, to get the best possible finish)…

I returned then to the vinyls… it was a good idea to sand and file, as well as sugar soap again to ensure the vinyls looked as neat and tidy as possible…

I sprayed the back of the vinyls (i.e. the attached plywood) with a black spray paint, also from Wilko, and touched up areas a little with some black acrylic paint…

I then asked for my dad’s assistance to measure correctly and saw into the speakers, also using a craft knife for precision, to make little slots for the vinyl records to be slotted in…

I gave the speakers another sugar soap to remove any dirt. My dad then used a strong Unibond ‘no more nails’ glue to stick and slot in the vinyl records. Another sugar soap was necessary to get rid of any excess glue and dirt…

I bought some really cool retro music note stickers off of Amazon, I thought these would finish of the speakers perfectly, to create a desired ‘vintage vibe’ and of course definitely in keeping with the whole music theme…

And the final touches – I used a strong Unibond ‘no more nails’ glue to stick some gold sparkly ribbon (from Boyes) around the areas where the vinyl records were already slotted into the stereo speakers… finishing off the project very nicely I think 🙂 …

The end result:

And here are a few photographs showing the end result of my surround sound standing speakers upcycling project; illustrated as natural photographs, and also using a couple of camera effects! … A fully functional unique piece of art, hehe!… They are supposed to act as a quirky shelving units, in case you were wondering, haha 😛

This was only my second upcycling attempt. I think I may donate both these upcycled speakers and my previous upcycling project ,the upcycled drinks trolley, to a second-hand furniture charity shop such as the British Heart Foundation.

If I have learnt anything from my two upcycling projects, it is probably that I shouldn’t go too ‘individual’. By that I mean, I should try and achieve a look which is more likely to be more universally liked.. still vintage / shabby-chic inspired, but more similar to current renovated furniture on the market… I’m going to move away from priming / spraying, and have a go at chalk painting, distressing and decoupage next I think…

So please do keep a lookout for my future upcycling projects!

Nice comments / advice always welcome, hehe!

Thank you 🙂

(Please visit my Facebook page ‘UnicornPostbox’ to ‘like’ and ‘follow’)

Upcycled Drinks Trolley – start to end process

May 4, 2017May 4, 2017Leave a comment

In February this year I purchased a second-hand drinks trolley from the British Heart Foundation furniture charity shop in Doncaster, for £15. Only recently, I set aside two days of grafting in our garage to upcycle it… I thought I’d share with you my start to end process, I do hope you enjoy…

This is what the drinks trolley looked like when I bought it. Definitely in need of some tender loving care, and a little titivating! It was quite funny actually because when I brought the trolley outside from the BHF shop in Doncaster, the wheel fell off and started rolling down the street slope! So yeah, it was a bit embarrassing running frantically after a wheel in a busy town centre, but nothing a wingnut couldn’t fix at home!…

The first step was to put on some personal protective equipment, a white overall that made me look like a giant tampon, haha! (Gloves and protective face masks are definitely advisable also when spray painting). I then gave the trolley a good long clean with sugar soap, sanded it down thoroughly, then sugar soaped it again loads to wash off all the debris…

The next stage was to spray the drinks trolley with a spray primer I bought from Wilko’s. I decided to spray paint rather than paint the trolley as I was told this achieves the most effective and fastest drying coverage, which was so true; it only took about 30 minutes to dry, I was pleased overall with the coverage too. I then spray painted only the areas of the trolley I knew were going to be visible in the end product with metallic gold and chrome silver spray paints. Again, these were relatively quick to dry…

I purchased these wooden love hearts from The Works. I used a craft knife to cut the middle of the big love heart, and used the smaller love heart holes as stencils to draw and cut 4 little wooden love hearts, before spraying all these new shapes bright blue…

After that, I cut out some vintage inspired wrapping paper I bought from Clintons to A3 size and laminated them. I glued these to the top and bottom on the trolley using a standard craft glue gun…

Next, I protected the laminated sheets, and spray painted the remainder of the trolley shelves with red, blue, gold and silver splodges. This stage was not planned. Originally, I was going to glue cushion fabric on these areas of the trolley but changed my mind at the last minute. So at this stage, I was pretty much ‘experimenting’ which ooooo sounds so artistic, but in truth it’s probably more accurate to say I was ‘winging it’, haha! I then cut off 8 strips from a red fluffy cushion, to become borders around the A3 laminated sheets…

Next, I used a glue gun to stick down the dried large blue love heart onto the bottom shelf of the trolley (this is where I imagine beer cans to be stored). I also used the glue gun to glue the red fluffy strips of cushion around the edges of the A3 laminated vintage wallpaper…

Lastly, I used the glue gun to glue down 4 pink and cream love hearts I also bought from The Works, then glued to them the 4 small blue spray painted love hearts (where I imagine shot glasses to be kept). I also glued pretty pink ribbon around the edges of the large blue love heart and attached some battery operated lights I purchased from B&M around the top shelf of the trolley…

and yippee, we have an upcycled drinks trolley!

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This was only my very first upcycling project, I have never attempted to upcycle anything before. So, bearing that in mind, it is certainly not the best but I think I have made a valiant effort, and the end result isn’t toooooo frightful, haha!

I hope you enjoyed the post, please do share with me your thoughts on the project.

Thanks, Lauren x

(Please visit my Facebook page ‘UnicornPostbox’ to ‘like’ and ‘follow’)

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art / craft, travel / theatre

Category: Upcycling