Table, Part 2

Finally! My table is done almost done. I am way too impatient to wait until it is finished, but in the pictures it will probably look the same. We fixed all the problems we previously had, wood glue and wood filler were our saving grace in this project. No wobbly legs, no gaps between the boards! I was really frightened that it was going to be a complete disaster turning our first project into our last project. Thankfully that did not happen. The only thing we have left to do is potentially put another coat of paint on the legs and then seal it with polyurethane.
Also, those chairs that I was working on the other day... I just finished them yesterday. I've been working on a lot of random things so it takes me longer to finish each project. I also have a bad case of going to the fabric store and finding five different fabrics I want, buying at least two and then don't ever start the project. I'm pretty sure I got that one from my mom. (I love you mom!)

Well, here is the semi-finished product...

I love it!

This picture hardly captures the actual look of the wood or the color. Again, I'm working with a cheap camera.

Now we just need to work on getting rid of that monster shelf next to it. Not sure if you caught a glimpse of those old windows behind it, those are a current work in progress (will hopefully have a post up about those soon).

Since my last post I also made these flowers to spruce up my lamp:

Just used some left over fabric I had from the recent pillows I made for our couch.

And will soon be working on this:

There's Bret, he couldn't handle being left out.

Replacing these purple pillows for white ones. I went a little crazy with color in my living room, we also have some turquoise blue that isn't shown in this picture. It was all becoming too much for my eyes to handle. Also I soon hope to be doing some upgrades to this futon chair, the cats are driving me crazy with this thing. I am going to attempt at making it just a regular chair and attaching the cushion so it doesn't sag any more. I will also be covering it with some pretty fabric and potentially painting it again.

Well, that's all I've got for now. Thanks for reading today!

If you didn't know, I also like to draw...

My whole life I have LOVED drawing. Sometimes, while I am cleaning my house, I find old note books that my friend Kelly and I would draw in. We would always do a make over on an "ugly person" we had drawn. Kelly's were always way better than mine, but still I loved to draw. There are a few times over the years where I would be getting ready for bed and suddenly have some urge to draw and would end up staying up a few extra hours working on some drawing that I just had to finish before I went to bed.

This is a drawing I did before I took any classes, it is from a magazine cut out that I copied.

When I got into college I began my first term with my first college art class, painting. It was amazing and gave me a whole new medium to explore. That is when I learned, even if you think you are a terrible artist you can be very pleasantly surprised by your talent. There were so many people in that class that had never painted a day in their life, and by the end of the class they came out with some amazing paintings. It was a really wonderful class and I learned so much about painting, and my true passion for art. I loved it. I would just go to class and paint for hours and by the end feel like I had taken a week long retreat, I was refreshed and ready to conquer the world.

After the painting class I took a short break from art classes and then spring of my sophomore year I took a drawing class. Again, loved it. It is hard to take art classes every term if you are not majoring in art because each class can be anywhere from three hours to eight hours. Eek, that is just hard to fit into a class schedule. Unfortunately, I wasn't very motivated to be in school and decided to drop out. I ended up failing that drawing class because I was unable to drop it from my schedule. However, my failing grade was in no way a reflection of my desire to be in the class or my effort toward it. I learned some good stuff and got one of my favorite pieces of work from that class.

I did this while in my first drawing class. It looks better in person because the light didn't hit the graphite pencil the right way and made some of it glow.

This last year I began taking classes again and during summer term I retook that drawing class, through Chemeketa instead of Western Oregon. The class really helped me master drawing things realistically. However... I hated it! Ugh, it was awful. Every Monday and Wednesday evening I dreaded going to class, sometimes hoping I would be sick just so I didn't have to go. It wasn't the worst class that I have ever taken and I am glad I took it, but I am SO glad that it is over. The previous painting and drawing classes that I had taken were so laid back and relaxing. Unlike the one I just took, which was stressful and really hard tedious work. Uh, so happy it is over.
Anyways, I write this to say that now I have so much more free time! It is amazing. I am starting to feel motivated to have a normal life again. I've started reading books, my home is cleaner, I've had time to spend with friends, andddd I'm getting some projects done (which is very fulfilling for me).

Well here are some of my "masterpieces." They aren't anything too special, but I am pretty proud of them. Also, the picture quality isn't very good because I don't have an amazing camera, so you will just have to imagine that they are sharper images.

This was one of our early drawing. It is a contour drawing, done by picking up the pen from the paper as little as possible. It was done with a very fine point pen that didn't bleed.

This is also a contour drawing, but we were able to pick up our pencil while we did it and was done with line variation. Done in graphite pencils.

Three more drawings done in contour line variation.

This is kind of boring, but we were learning to add value. This as well as the rest were done with soft vine charcoal and compressed charcoal.

More value...

This was done covering the whole page in charcoal and then erasing out the apples and adding darker value with compressed charcoal.

This is a horse skull.

This is on a light blue charcoal paper, and along with black charcoal we used a white compressed charcoal. This is probably my favorite from that class (although I'm not in love with my knife).

And Finally...

This was our final drawing... It was so hard and took forever! I wasn't sure I was going to finish.  I am just happy that my face didn't end up having a pig nose. This was also done on a light blue charcoal paper which you cant see in this picture.

Well... that's all I got. My friend Jamie took this class with me, and she is amazing! I wish I had some pictures of her work. She hasn't ever taken a drawing class and wasn't even a fan of drawing before this class. She turned out to be the best one in the class (in my opinion). Just goes to show that you never know what you are capable of until you try.

Lazy Labor day...

After my last post about our new table top my older sister called me "Little miss HGTV" which I will take as a compliment! And, I got featured on My Repurposed Life's Featured Followers Friday, which I was very excited about! That gave me the motivation to actually finish my table, so we started working on it again yesterday, but it is still not finished. We are planning on finishing by the end of the week and I am excited to finally have my kitchen back in order.

After driving all over the place yesterday, spending lots of time with family, and working on our table I am trying to make today a productive but relaxing day (which probably means 15 minutes of productivity for every 3 hours of relaxation). So to be slightly more productive (and avoid the huge pile of laundry) I decided to work on recovering my chairs to go with our new table. Easiest thing I have ever done, and basically free! I already had all the supplies I needed. We bought these chairs a few months ago at a garage sale for 10 bucks for the whole set, which is such a bargain! They are nice chairs, but I just thought they could use some sprucing up. At another garage sale back in June we found about three or four yards of fabric for only 1.50! I had been looking at this exact same fabric at the fabric store not too long ago for close to $10 a yard, so I had to get it. After a while of trying to decide what to do with this fabric, I finally decided to use it to recover my dinning room chairs. It is very busy fabric so I thought for anything else (like throw pillows) it would probably be too much, but it works perfectly for my chairs

These are the chairs before... and my messy kitchen (which I blame on table construction).

First I unscrewed the chair cushion from the frame.

Then I cut the fabric, it was so easy I didn't even have to measure.

My cats insisted on bugging the crap out of me while I did this

Then I stapled the fabric to the cushion, with my handy staple gun that I got for a dollar at a garage sale. I like garage sales...

Then I just put it all back together. I wasn't sure I was going to like this fabric, but I think it looks good. It should match our farmhouse inspired table.

Tada!

I have only done one thus far, I am taking my 3 hour break. Hopefully my table will be done soon and then we can start working on the buffet to replace our huge shelf...