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Progress! (Vintage steam trunk bench part two)

In my last Used post I introduced a special project that I was planning. You can read about it here and check out the “before” pic too.

The first thing I had to do was get it out of the basement, which was no easy feat considering the Very Large Piles of Boxes that are down there right now. Thankfully my husband was on hand to help me with this part.

The second thing I needed to do was clean it up a little bit. It was pretty grimy. Wood furniture is also very vulnerable to fluctuations in temperature and humidity, and requires a little extra care every once in awhile… especially this piece, which hadn’t seen the light of day in many years. I used a store-bought oil to spruce it up a bit. (Did you know you can make your own with olive oil and a few drops of lemon oil? It works great too.)

Here are a couple close ups to give you an idea of what I was working with:

In my first post I wrote about making pillows for my trunk, but I wasn’t able to get my hands on my sewing machine right away. I did however, make it to the fabric store for a preliminary shop. Here’s a free tip: don’t rush your trip to the fabric store. You’ll just be overwhelmed. It takes a LOT of time to find the perfect fabric. You need an afternoon to browse, and preferably coffee and snacks for fuel because there are a lot of different fabrics out there.

In the meantime I rigged up a temporary solution. I discovered that my fabric store had pillow covers on sale for a good price. All I needed to do was stuff them! And so I did.

I grabbed an old lumpy pillow we had lying around (I had used it to create an extra layer of padding in our moving boxes and it was destined for the garbage):

… cut it open to remove the stuffing…

… and stuffed the larger of the two covers with the contents. The smaller red one (pictured below) actually has two old misshapen Ikea chair pillows stuffed inside it.

I’m pretty happy with the results so far! I also threw an old scrap of faux fur on the top of the trunk to make it a little warmer. Tis the season!

We are using the trunk to store seldom-used winter gear right now (helmets, skates, long johns etc.) and it’s working out really well so far. Here’s a different view. Kindly ignore the wine bottles, thankyouverymuch.

Now that I have my sewing machine back I’ll finally be able to pick some great fabric and get started on a larger cushion for my new trunk bench. Maybe for my next project I’ll make something to hang on the wall there too… hmm..

My new project: Vintage steam trunk turned bench

We are at the tail end of a giant six-month renovation of our home. We moved in a few weeks ago and still ticking things off the list, an activity that is both satisfying and frustrating at the same time. Satisfying, because it’s always good to tick things off a list… frustrating because that list is still a mile long.

One of those things is to figure out seating in our new mudroom. I was originally hoping for a simple bench made out of reclaimed wood, but I’ve since had a change of heart. I’m thinking it’d be cool to fish out the old vintage steam trunk I’ve been keeping in the basement and use it for a bench instead.

My inspiration comes from this image on Pinterest. Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s going to go here, which is a mess right now, so please consider this the BEFORE pic okay?

Now all I have to do is:

a) Find the trunk in the basement. This will not be as easy as you think, considering the number of boxes that are down there right now. And they are piled up right to the ceiling. Ack.

b) Make pillows, because it’s the pillows that TOTALLY make the bench, don’t you think?

My only problem is that I’m not exactly very sewy. I think I’m going to have some issues with this part of the equation. That’s why I rounded up a few tutorials in preparation:

• Easy Envelope Pillow Cover Tutorial
• This Sweater Pillow Tutorial is awesome
• Giant floor pillow tutorial (this might make a good seat cushion too)
• This no-sew (!) pillow tutorial is pretty appealing too.

Now all I need to do is find my sewing machine! Stay tuned for my “AFTER” pic. Cross your fingers for me okay?

One of my fave vintage finds…

… are old aprons.

I don’t know why. Most of the ones I find are downright awful. Many are terribly tacky, but once in awhile I find one that captures my full attention. There is history here.

I think aprons are awesome, and I think we should wear them more often.

Here’s one of my favourites. It is dreamily diaphanous, almost non-existent in its sheer sheerness. When it comes to vintage aprons, sometimes form and function meet, and sometimes they don’t, and sometimes they miss it by a narrow margin and SOMETIMES it’s just nice to have something for the sake of having it, well, just because.

Here are a couple of pics of me wearing it from awhile back (pardon the TP in the background there):

Some women believe that aprons hearken back to a time when women were enslaved to their domestic duties and chained to their kitchens. I happen to think aprons = power. Some chicks like me who choose to wear aprons do so because it makes a weighty statement about how tough we are. Aprons are subversive. They’re anti-establishment. They are POWERFUL, and not just because they help us keep our clothes clean. Aprons are a symbol of authority, a uniform of influence.

Think about it.

Do you have a photo of yourself wearing an apron? Send it to me (andrea AT quietfish DOT com) and maybe I can share a few of them here.

Fall craft roundup!

We’ve always been a rather crafty family. Kids and crafts go together like peanut butter and jam. There is a lot to love about crafting where kids are concerned.

a) Kids are free to be creative and work without constraints
b) Kids love to make a mess I also think it’s good for their wee brains, and their hearts (if you know what I mean.)

I have been keeping a list of small crafty projects that I wanted to share with you.

• Apple dolls remixed – I would like to make a bunch of these and display them outdoors, speared onto long sticks or the tines of a pitchfork in the style of medieval apple people. I wonder, however, if someone is likely to stab themselves with a carving instrument. Hmm.
• Corn husk dolls
• Rock bugs and other creatures
• Crocheted nature necklace (so pretty!)
• Woven paper pumpkin
• Leaf rubbings- Pressed leaves would also be pretty in between two layers of clear contact paper. It might make a cool placemat too!

Wouldn’t this leaf be pretty pressed between two layers of clear contact paper? I see fall placemats in our future!

Halloween crafts

• Flapping bat
• Salt dough ghosts
• Shadow puppets
• Gingerbread skeletons (I love these!)
• And hoo boy, check out this spider’s nest I found on Pinterest!

Got any fall crafts to add to the list? Please share!

“'Now is the time to try something new.'” (subtitle: Decorating with Fortune Cookie Fortunes)

My last Used post was about decorating with vintage maps. Today I wanted to talk about fortune cookies.

I find it very difficult to throw fortune-cookie fortunes away. I am not sure why, exactly, perhaps I think they serve as good reminders for us sometimes.

Here are some of the ones I have kept over the years:

• “Others admire your caring qualities”
• “Whether you choose love or fame, you’ll be able to handle either or both.”
• “You have an unusually magnetic personality.”
• “Your smile will brighten someone’s day.”
• “You are a person of culture.”
• “Now is the time to try something new.”

And my personal favourite:

• “You like Chinese food.” (HA!)

I know that fortune cookies are the kind of item that’s regarded as a throw-away, but I think it’s neat to incorporate them into your living space. They’re inspirational!)

1) You can make your own fortune cookies, for starters. All you need is felt, glue, and a bit of wire (and fortunes of course). There are some easy instructions on the Martha Stewart website. Once upon a time we made our own and displayed them in a pretty bowl. It was fun to ask friends and guests to pick a fortune (which we often custom made just for them). We have given our homemade felt fortune cookies as little gifts too.

2) You can display the best ones in a pretty jar or container, for occasional inspirational reading like we did here:

3) You can tuck them under a sheet of glass that tops a dining room or coffee table. This is my personal favourite and I’m aiming to incorporate this idea into our own household at some point. It would be so cool to eat breakfast (at a table like this for example!) while being reminded of my good fortune. What do you think?

Decorating with maps

As some of you know, I’ve been in renovation mode for the better part of a year now (er, possibly more). Honestly, it is pretty much all I think about. Well, we’re finally in the home stretch, and so now, more than ever, my brain is brimming with ideas for inside of the house. You know what’s really captured my heart lately? MAPS. It’s a great way to add a little personality to your living space. You can use maps in a big way for major impact, or a small way, just to dress things up a little.

And the best thing is that you can find old maps almost everywhere and they’re relatively inexpensive. (My local secondhand shop has boxes of old maps. Just ask!)

For example:

• You can make a really cool light fixture out of pages from an old atlas.
• You can use a heart-shaped punch to highlight special places you’ve travelled and glue them into a simple frame, or use old maps to decorate wooden blocks
• Personally, I love the idea of using vintage maps as wall-hangings. Here’s an example of an old classroom map that was used in an entry way. Love it!
• For awhile I had a vintage map of Rome laid flat on the top of my nightstand. It’d be easy enough to modge-podge it in place like this. (Isn’t that neat?) Or if you were really crafty you can do a whole chest of drawers.

I haven’t even touched on globes. I’ve always wanted to start a collection of vintage globes and display them in an interesting way – like this – ack! I just want to die of the pretty.

What about you? If you could get your hands on a gorgeous vintage map, where would it be from? (I’d love an ancient wall-sized map of Prague myself! Or maybe a young Ottawa. Hmm.)

Top 10 Back to School Budget Tips

It’s that time of year again!

This is an expensive time of year for many families with kids in school. Here are a few of my best ways to save a few bucks:

1) Start scoping out the sales as early as possible, but don’t feel like you need to buy everything all at once. The kids bring home school supply lists that often include dozens of items. On top of that there are the backpacks, lunchbags, and indoor running shoes … and it adds up very quickly. Buy only the things you think the kids will need right away, and buy the rest as you can afford it. Many schools ask for extras such as bottles of hand-sanitizer and cases of tissues. These are pricey items, and you definitely shouldn’t feel pressured to send your kid to school with everything on the first day.

2) Don’t cheap out at the Dollar Store. I realize this is contrary to many other people’s back-to-school tips but in my experience the majority of the school supplies we’ve bought here weren’t even worth the dollar we paid for them. Crayons that break, pencil leads that snap, markers that dried out too quickly … ugh. I hate paying for things twice, and I also hate having to spend the time and effort to buy things twice. So I seek out the sales and try to buy brand name items that I’m familiar with or that were recommended to me. If you spend a bit more now you will save money in the long run.

3) Avoid the impulse buys and learn to say no. Last year my daughter spotted a calculator that was shaped like a piano keyboard and I caved and bought it for her. Why not? It was cute and only cost five bucks. Well, it stopped working within a month. That boring old grey calculator from the year before would have been perfectly fine. One of the best ways to put the breaks on impulse shopping is to zero in on the products you need and stop browsing the aisles aimlessly without a plan.

4) Get on the email lists for the stores you frequent most often. Many major chains offer great deals, promo codes and notifications of upcoming sales in their e-newslettters. Gap and Old Navy are great for this.

5) Technology is your friend. There are shopping and coupon apps you can download that will help you find the sales. And did you know Michael’s will accept smart-phone coupons as well as printouts from their website? (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found myself in line at the cash, surfing for an online coupon or promo code! Bookmark them beforehand.)

6)  Label your children’s belongings. If something leaves the house, it might get lost. And don’t assume your wee one will recognize his or her own belongings, because if it’s a hoodie that’s only been worn once odds are they’ll forget about it. I used to pooh-pooh the idea of buying packs of labels for this purpose but it paid for itself after the first pair of labelled footwear was returned to us. We like Mabel’s Labels and we use them religiously to label the kids clothing, footwear, and school supplies. They are very durable and long-lasting. Let your child pick the style of the label so they feel good about “decorating” that  boring grey calculator (see#3). (Check out their back-to-school combo!)

7) Get your kids used to the idea that hand-me-downs are ok. That being said, avoid buying gender-specific items where possible, otherwise your little girl will steadfastly refuse to use big brother’s extra spiderman pencil case. There’s this mentality that we need to buy All New, Every Year. And I think we need to break that habit. Newsflash: we do not need a whole new wardrobe every September.

8) If someone wants to buy that extra special double-rainbows-prancing-unicorn backpack and it’s above and beyond what you are willing to spend on one, make your kid earn the cash for the difference. It’s a huge life lesson. That being said…

9) … show your kids how much things cost. I think we shield our kids too much from the financial realities of everyday life. Draw up a budget before you go shopping and stick to it. Include your child in the process too and do the math as you go.

10) Buy used when you can, especially for big-ticket items like dorm furniture, desks and chairs. Check your local Used site! You never know what you’re going to find. For example, when our daughter started taking music in grade seven we found a great secondhand trumpet. I never thought to look for a used one.

What are your tips for back-to-school shopping? I’d love to hear them!

Bored of board games? Not me.

I’ve written about my love of board games before; my collection of board game pieces as well as a vintage game I once found on my travels. (I’m still on the lookout for an old Spirograph by the way.)

I think board games are a great family distraction. Not only do they create some wonderful low-tech family time, but kids can learn a lot from board game play. It depends on the game of course (one can safely assume that kids learn different things from chess than they would playing Twister for example), but board games can be a great way to learn how to count, strategize, bluff … all kinds of skills that are handy to have in real life. (This is exactly why we’re going to be teaching our daughters how to play poker this summer, but that’s a post for another day.)

As some of you know we are in the middle of renovating our home. At one point we got to wondering, how can we incorporate board games into the design of our home?

Well, you can do what we’re doing and build game storage right in!

Why should cool-looking vintage games be left mouldering in the basement, out of sight out of mind? If the games are easily accessible they’re more likely to be played.This doesn’t look like very much right now, but it’s one side of our living room. Within the next month or so this space will become a custom floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. Deeper shelving on the right side will be reserved just for board games.

I found another great board-game storage related idea on Pinterest the other day. You can frame your board games and turn them into wall art. This person made their own frames for board games, but I wonder if you could find some older frames that would fit. The game pieces are simply stored behind the frame. All you need to do is take it off the wall to play. Isn’t that smart?

I also love the idea of incorporating your favourite board games right into the furniture, like this table that has been mod-podged with a whole bunch of stuff, including a board game. I love it. And here’s a great coffee table hack too; a tic-tac-toe on one side, checkers and chess on the other. All you need is some chalkboard paint.

So what do you think? Is it time to bring the board games out of the basement?

Camping adventures with the family

My family and I just got back from our annual camping trip. It was, in a word, great. But once again I was reminded that everyone has a different idea of what makes a great camping experience.

Some people’s idea of camping is entirely about loud conversations while sitting next to a roaring campfire flanked by a stereo on one side and a case of beer on the other, with 1980s thrash metal filling every stretch of quiet that may sneak in there.

It’s kind of interesting, don’t you think, that some people eschew every comfort, while others won’t leave home without their brand of quilted toilet paper and a flat iron yet call themselves campers?

We are somewhere in between. We are car campers, which means that we pack a lot of stuff and use our vehicle as movable storage. We’ve been doing it for so long we now have packing and meal planning down to a science. (Well, most of the time.)

Allow me for a moment to reflect upon what I love most about camping:

• campfires
• food cooked over the fire
• the silence
• nature
• hiking, and exploring new places
• quiet contemplation (marginally related to “silence” in the list above)
• canoeing on calm waters
• sleeping outdoors
• … in my cosy sleeping bag
• … on an inflatable mattress
• looking at the stars
• collecting cool rocks
• napping in the tent
• reading
• birdwatching
• swimming in the lake
• staring at the water
• fireflies
• feeding the chipmunks

Speaking of which, check out this greedy little guy:

Here are the things I do not like about camping:

• the preparation, the risk of forgetting something important and then having to take the flack for it later (“Moooom, how could you forget the maple syrup!”)
• when neighbouring campers blast their music (often from tinny car stereos), let their dogs bark on the site, or roll out the big screen and projector for a family viewing of Indiana Jones.
• stinging bugs, flying bugs, hairy bugs
• the smell of bug repellant
• outdoor toilets (although I will tolerate them)
• sand in the tent and/or in my shorts
• leaky tents and soggy sleeping bags
• getting up to pee in the middle of the night
• loud tent zippers

Things that could bother me, but amazingly, do not:

• wearing the same shorts for days at a time
• unwashed hair
• rain

I realized the list of things I do not like about camping is a lot shorter that my “like” list. I think that means we’re going back next year.

Are you a camper? And do you agree with my lists?

Beating the heat!

I could have predicted this was going to happen. The summer we decide to renovate and move into an apartment with no air conditioning was going to be one of the driest and hottest summers on record here in Ottawa. I knew it.

We having been doing all kinds of things to stay cool.

• We keep a jug of cold water in the fridge (I bought a really funky one at a secondhand store just for this purpose, see?)

• … and we make sure the ice cube trays are full at all times.
• We make icy treats for ourselves, like this virgin Pina Colada Slush.
• We give the dog cool baths.
• We take cool showers, especially at bedtime.
• We got our hair cut. It’s amazing what a difference this made.
• We eat our dinners picnic-style at a nearby park and hang out in the shade.
• We set up a couple of fans, close windows and blinds before it gets too hot and open them again when the worst part of the heat has passed.
• We discovered that it feels pretty good if you wipe your skin with a cool facecloth and stand in front of the fan. We have not yet succumbed to filling bowls of ice and setting them in front of the fan, but apparently it works!
• We baked cookies! Not in the oven, are you crazy? We used our car.
• We have been eating a lot of cold dinners that don’t require turning on any elements, like salads, sandwiches, and cold cereal.
• We blast the AC in the car at every possible opportunity.
• We have been spending a lot of time at shopping malls, movie theatres, Ikea, and at the public library just chatting and reading.

At first the heat was tolerable and we congratulated ourselves on our hardiness. “We’re TOUGH,” we said loudly, high fiving each other, weakly, with sweat running down our faces. After all, the lack of A/C is a first-world problem. Surely we aren’t so spoiled that we can’t deal with a little heat? Ha. All this to say, if you are in a similar situation, some cheap relief can be found on your local Used site! In Ottawa for example:

• Take this 20” desk fan, which I recommend if you’re trying to get any work done as computers release an awful lot of heat and brains tend to melt.
• Although I do love a fan that has a retro design.
• Maybe this is the summer you finally install that ceiling fan you’ve always wanted?
• We borrowed one of these kinds of fans for the girls’ bedroom. It made a huge difference. (Hint: if you want a fan for the bedroom, look for one that has a timer on it.)
• For awhile I seriously considered getting something with more cooling power. If you’re in an apartment or just need a bedroom cooled while you sleep, a portable air conditioner might be the solution you are looking for. Here’s one for only $200. (Caveat Emptor! Always try before you buy, ok?)

We have learned a few things during this process, namely, fans are amazing, and that we are made of tough stuff. To a point. How do you beat the heat where you are?