Do you ever buy things spontaneously, on a whim, knowing
they will be useful for something, somewhere, sometime?
I do, quite often!
Now generally these things end up being put away - to be
saved for just the right occasion, and what tends to happen is they get lost in
my house and I completely forget all
about them.
About 2 years ago, I was walking through Ikea – you know the
place you go to not wanting anything, but always managing to come out having
bought something. Well, I had almost got through the entire shop without
purchasing a single thing - when there it was, this adorable little wicker
chair
If you saw it in real life you too would spot
its adorableness!
I just had to purchase it!
I think that I may have been wearing my new Granny hat at
the time, even though he was only 6 months old!
I put my new chair away to save it for that special occasion.
Luckily as it was rather an odd shape it was quite difficult to lose in my
house, so it was always noticeable and therefore not easy to forget.
Many months later I was rummaging through the fabric shop’s
remnant box when I came across an off cut which I knew would be just perfect
for my little wicker chair. The fabric was a print of Noah’s Ark and some of
the pairs of animals.
I scanned various
sections of the fabric onto my computer and cropped and manipulated and cut and
pasted …
I know it makes it sound as though I know what I am doing, but
trust me, I have no idea! I kept all the images the original size, (not as
shown here) but I could have altered them if it had been necessary.
I have a flatbed scanner so I was able to scan the fabric
without first cutting it, I didn’t want to cut it as I was going to use it
later. If you look carefully at these pictures you can see the images from the
folded fabric beneath, luckily the scanner didn’t pick them up. I could have
placed a white sheet of paper in between the fabric folds to prevent this, but
didn’t think of that at the time!
Anyway when I had all the sections that I wanted scanned
into the computer I then printed each section onto tissue paper. I used the
sort of tissue paper that you use for wrapping, I cut it down to A4 size and
stuck it with sellotape onto a sheet of A4 paper and then fed it VERY CAREFULLY
(I did manage to jam the printer quite a few times!!) through the printer.
It took a while for the ink to dry because the tissue paper
was not absorbent, but when it was dry I cut around the images fairly close to
the outline but not too precisely.
In the meantime I spray painted the little chair using
Plasti-kote Satin Super; I chose a pale blue colour to signify sky and water. TIP Don’t spray paint in a force 10
gale!
It took several coats of paint to cover the chair, but I was
being a little too perfectionist and maybe 2 coats would have been just as
good, plus I wasted a lot of paint in the wind!
I held the tissue pictures up against the chair to decide
where I wanted them. Then using ordinary PVA glue, I spread some onto the chair
where the picture was going, pressed the tissue picture gently into place and
covered it (the picture) in PVA glue. I
did this with all the pictures and then left it alone to dry. When it was dry I
re-coated all the pictures with more PVA glue, paying particular attention to
the edges of the tissue.
When
everything was completely dry I sprayed Plasti-kote Hobby and Craft Sealer all
over the pictures and lightly over the
entire chair.
I cut some 1” thick foam into the shape of the chair seat
and using the fabric, which I still had, I covered the foam making a
comfortable chair seat.
I found the tiniest cushion I could and made a cover for it
too.
By the time I gave it to my grandson he was 2 ½. But he loved it!
So there you have it - impulsive buying, but worth every penny!!
