Hand Crafted

Some of you may remember that I recently talked about decorating our apartment. Well, these past few weeks I've been pretty busy.

First, I have to put credit where credit is due. Our wonderful friend Jlyn has got to be one of the most creative people I have ever met. Check out her blog to see some of it. She transforms junky, old cheap stuff into some of the cutest things ever. It's awesome and it inspired me.

Full of inspiration and a mostly empty wallet I took a trip to our local Goodwill. I found this old, gross wooden toy chest that I knew could be transformed into something cute. I handed over a few bills for it and had a strong young guy carry it out for me. I wanted to put up a picture of how ugly this box was, but I accidentally deleted the photos off my camera. Just envision a toy box with a pirate stenciled on the front and dancing, brightly colored Easter bunnies on the top. Interesting to say the least.

After a quick trip to the hardware store it was time to sand--lots and lots and lots of sanding. Two days later I was still sanding. But finally that ugly pirate and bunnies were gone.

Then I primed the top and took another trip to the hardware store for some paint and wood stain.

The box needed some more color, so naturally, I chose red.

Considering the box was dirt cheap, I couldn't get too upset that the inside smelled like a giant moth ball. This was my solution...

In the meantime, I took several trips to fabric stores to find something to craft some pillows from. After some discussion Haden and I came to an agreement and I enlisted the help of my very talented, seamstress mother.

I cut and measured

Pinned

and sewed.

Lots of time, paint, needle pricks and creative juice later--here is the final product