Chair Revamp

Hi!

If you've been keeping up with our blog you'll know that Leti and I are slowly but surely re-doing our work space.  The latest project that we finished was recovering our dingy old desk chairs.  Leti got them from the street (once again).  They are mid century chairs with good bones, but were in desperate need of recovering.

Leti has recovered furniture in the past, but I was a newbie.  The first thing we had to do was to go shopping for fabric (my favorite part).  We went to discount fabrics on 11th & Howard where they have a ginormous selection of every fabric imaginable.  It was a bit overwhelming and it took some time to look through all the fabric.  We finally settled on a neutral beige fabric that was sturdy and had some texture.

I'm sorry I didn't take pics of the process, but I'll be sure to take pics next time!!!! The first thing we did was to unscrew the back of the chair and the seat.  Then we took the old fabric off and put some new batting in for more cushiness.  Next, we measured the fabric to cover the back and the seat and stapled.  It sounds simple, but it took a whole day!

Have a great weekend!

-Johanna

My Weekend with Pearypie

Hi all,

Over the weekend I was browsing the world of Instagram when I came upon an interesting pic, which led to a click, which led to an Instagram follow, which led to so much more.  I then lost myself in Pearypie's Instragram pictures, website and videos for the next two hours!  (I think Instragram is a gateway app) I can officially say I am obsessed with all things Pearypie.  Who is Pearypie you ask?  Her real name Amata Chittasenee and she is an awesome makeup artist.

The pic that caught my eye on Instagram was of her holding two cupcakes (my other obsession..no, not cupcakes, but food in general).  Not only did the cupcakes look delish, but her makeup & hair looked impeccable.  Come to find out that she looks perfectly put together in all her pics!  She literally looks like a doll with her big eyes, flawless fair skin, long brown hair and a cute outfit to top it off.  With all of the pics of her different makeup looks I wandered over to youtube to look for makeup tutorials.  I am so-so at doing my makeup and thought I could learn a few things.  I clicked on "My Everyday Look" video and was amazed.  She goes from an everyday plain jane to looking super cute in about five minutes & she makes it look super easy!  I tried replicating the look at home and it didn't quite turn out like hers...sad face.  I'm going to chalk it up to different skin tones and the colors she used didn't quite come up on my darker skin, right?   

Here's Pearypie's video.  What do you guys think? (fast forward to the 25 second mark for the tutorial)
P.S. I even love the music she uses!

Pearypie: My Everyday Look - YouTube

Bye!

Johanna

Watercolor Cards

Hi all!

I hope you guys had a great Labor Day weekend!  It's so sad to see summer go, but to tell you the truth it really didn't feel like summer here in San Francisco.  With summer gone my favorite seasons are coming...fall and winter!!  I have numerous reasons why these upcoming months are my favorite.  Firstly from August to January my family celebrates a birthday each month.  That means there is an obligatory birthday dinner AND birthday cake!  Secondly the holidays...Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Years.  This means candy, pumpkin chai latte, turkey, presents, baking christmas cookies, the nutcracker, family time, Home Alone reruns and so much more.  Then there's the fashion...chunky sweaters, beanies, mittens, scarves, boots and cozy jackets.  And last but not least...holiday crafts.  Which leads me to this post. Recently Leti and I made some fun paper crafts.  We took it back to kindergarten and broke out the watercolors.  We made easy cards with thick paper we had laying around, the watercolors and our creativity!  

  

What do you think?

-Johanna

Tuxedo Dresser

Hi Friends,

Leti and I have finished re-storing our last office piece (unless she picks up more from the street!).  My brother-in law Mike found the piece for us when he was clearing out his mom's garage.  She was going to toss it, so he brought it home for us.  Score! Here it is.  

                          

  


We liked the piece a lot because there are so many pull out drawers for storage.  We decided on keeping with our color theme and painting the dresser black and white.  Our plan was to keep the dresser black with the exception of the doors.  We wanted to paint those white and do a black pattern to tie in with the rest of the dresser.  Below is our quick step by step process.

First we painted the doors white.  We ended up doing three coats.

Next, we taped off our pattern with painters tape.  This step took some time because we wanted to ensure that the lines were perfectly straight.

We then painted the inside pattern black.  We did three coats of black paint.  

          

Next, we put a fresh coat of black paint on the top and the sides of the dresser.  We finished the dresser off with some awesome knobs from Ikea.  Here she is..

              

-Johanna

Greetings!


Over the past couple months Leti and I have been giving our office a little makeover.  We're trying to do little DIY projects here and there so that in a couple of months our office will be a whole new one.  Our project this past week was we re-covering our dull cork board and re-painting my brother-in-laws old coffee table.

We knew we wanted the cork board to be fresh and colorful so we decided to cover it with a fun fabric.  Because Leti sews she has containers full of left over fabric.  After looking through piles of fabric we found the perfect one.  We lucked out because it was exactly what we wanted!

Re-covering the cork board was quick because there wasn't that much to it and there was two of us.  First, Leti wrapped the board with the fabric and stapled the back.  While she did that I painted the four wooden frame pieces black, waited for them to dry and then snapped them back into place.

Tadaa!

Now, for the coffee table DIY.  At first Leti and I weren't sure what color we wanted to paint the table.  We were thinking black because it would match our "dipped" table that we previously re-finished, our cork board frame and because it's one of my favorite colors.  We wanted to use spray paint because it would be less time consuming than using paint.  We went to our local Home Depot to get the black spray paint and we found something even better...

Glittery black spray paint!!  We knew we had to use it for the table because when else are we going to use glitter spray paint?  (I know it says metallic on the can, but it's really more like black with glitter flakes.  However, it does have a bumpy texture because of the glitter flakes)

We first primed the table all white with Rust-oleums Ultra Cover Primer.  We also used a handy dandy spray paint gun that made spray painting a breeze.  All you do is attach it to the nozzle and spray...that way you're index finger won't be doing all the work! 

                               

It's also best if you do all the spray painting outside because of all the fumes.  After the primer dried we did the first coat of the glitter spray paint.  We ended up doing three coats to completely cover the coffee table!

1st coat

2nd coat

3rd coat

The last step was to apply 2 coats of polyurethane on the table to protect the spray paint.  

It looks a little blue when it goes on, but it dries clear.

Here's the finished product...

Sooo sparkly!

I can't wait to finish our office and show you guys the final product!  I feel like we're almost there.  

Have a great weekend!

-Johanna