diy

Making old things New

I bought two of these chairs at $5 a piece at Beehive Thrift in Northeast Philly.  They had some markings on them, names written most likely by the children who owned them.  I love wooden chairs, and I love wooden folding chairs even more.. so these were a steal.  I was going to sand them down and re-finish them with a nice wood stain… but instead I decided to go bold and paint them neon green, inspired by Lois’ freshly painted outdoor table and chairs.

I went to home depot and selected my color of choice.  I was instructed to get “paint and primer in one” exterior paint, because that would cover the best, and also hold up the best for people to sit on.  Normally paint is made for walls mainly, not for objects to sit on, so I was alittle worried that it would not hold very well.  Floor paint would be the best, but they only come in gallon sizes and I only needed alittle bucket.

I had to put on about 3 coats and then touch up different areas.  I admit, it’s not the best paint job, but I only had one sized brush and tried my best.

Then I decided to garnish them up a bit by adding cushions.  I bought these “denim” (not really denim, they just look denim) cushions from ikea for $5.99/piece.  I’m unsure if I’m going to keep them as they are, or cover them with a different fabric.  I had high hopes to cover them with neat vintage floral patterns, but I have yet to get my hands on any.

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Silhouette Profiles

Amanda and I are making these for artshop. This one is Theo, the little baby that I nanny. His birthday is in a few days, and this is his present from me.

To make this I took a photo of Theo’s profile. Then I imported it onto my computer, brought it into Photoshop and outlined his face. I deleted the background and filled in his silhouette. Then I smoothed out the edges (I had to give him a fake neck because he was wearing a hoodie and it wasn’t visible). I made an oval around him, and selected a background color (yellow), then printed it onto photo paper and framed it with this adorable ikea frame.

These will be available for purchase at Artshop:

Art Shop 2009
Featuring 60+ Artists Displaying and Selling Their Work
Opening 6-10pm Friday, December 4th
with free food, drink & music
& Continuing 11am-4pm on Saturday, December 5th
at F&N Gallery, 2007 Frankford Ave. Phila Pa 19125

more on the studio

my friend, meg of paper stampede made this paper mache bison head for our studio. i love it. the shelf underneath was found by my sister at a yard sale and she painted it white.

our closet

past clients/friends Diana and Ryan constructed this equipment closet for us last weekend. It’s amazing.

new additions to note are our shelves:

these are made from trash picked closet doors, and ikea shelf brackets.

our chalkboard wall, painted by cassidy and dustin

our showcase of wedding work

and custom molding around our front door, cut and installed by me!

D.I.Y. Studio – grand opening!

Oh boy so we really did it. We really moved my 400 pound desk! Here’s proof!

So all of my furniture is moved in, and is starting to get set up. I’m really excited to see what the other photographers (Emily, Cassidy, and Dustin) will add! Right now only about 1/4th of room is furnished and set up. The rest is still a barren wasteland for now. We definitely need some serious shelving in order to unpack all my boxes of stuff that I can’t find anywhere for. Right now I have 2 long pieces of wood, and 2 short wide pieces that I trash picked awhile back that will be great for shelves. I’m going to pick up 2 more pieces in the next week and then probably start drilling stuff in!

The bathrooms are still another obstacle. We decided not to paint to save ourselves some time. But we definitely need some better lighting in there and probably shelves and decorative elements ASAP.

Things we still need to do:
paint the doors
paint the outside walls
paint the elevator (still questionable)
find wallpaper and put it up on the first wall
hang photos
put up shelving
make a seamless holder for the back wall (i think we want two of them)
build a closet

DIY Studio part 100 (give or take)

It’s been awhile and we’ve gotten pretty far in the d.i.y. studio business. The walls received their 1st coat of paint. I was undecided on giving it a second coat, but I think we’re going to go ahead and do it. It’s a bit project but it will look so much better when it’s done. Cassidy, Emily, and Dustin (newbie!) finished scraping the lead paint (very carefully) off the brick walls and primed the walls last night.

Monday will be our painting party and we’ll hopefully have everything finished up at the end of the night! Then its on to cleaning and moving (!!).

Here’s some shots from last night:


so many keys

DIY: Refinishing a bench!

I’m pretty excited about this one, and the fact that I did this successfully (with the help of Amanda Jaffe, of course). This is the bench that I found for $5 at Bada Bargains. It caught my eye right away because of it’s 1950’s George Nelson Style. The original finish was pretty spotty, so i decided to refinish it. I bought an Old English Red wood finish from home depot and went to town on the sanding with a power sander. I started at 60 grit sand paper, and moved over to 220 grit to smoothen it out.

after sanding I painted on the finish, and Amanda went in after me to wipe off any excess with a paper towel

not long after that, we had a finished bench!

It looks great in the studio with the rest of my vintage wooden furniture.  I’m very excited and proud of it!

The Dress

Normally I don’t go through the clothes at thrift stores unless I’m looking for something specific. However, I always check the dress section. Most of the time I don’t see anything I like, but once in awhile I find a gem. These are some of last year’s findings.


Mainline Consignment $12


Circle Thrift $4


Circle Thrift $4, alternation: turned long sleeves into short sleeves


Circle Thrift $4, alternation: turned long sleeves into short sleeves