DIY Amazing decorative Fire Pit Lamp

I just stumbled over this fantastic DIY project! Sibylle from Funkytime has found this old fire pit on the fleamarket and spiced it up with a gorgeous yellow color and turned it into a lamp! I love this, it's a really unique piece of standalone decor with lightning function! Here come 2 pictures, but for more detailed info on how to make this fire pit lamp, please click here

 

DIY reupholstered Chrome Office Chair from the 60s

I just made some photos of my finished DIY reupholstering project, and my first one too!! For many years I've loved this ooooold 60s chrome chair in the basement of my father-in-laws craftsmen room, but I always thought that it's just way to damaged, dirty & stinky to be repaired and renewed. Well, back then I probably didn't have much idea of how to do it, but now after many years of interest in these things, I now felt it would be no problem to do it! And especially because I just couldn't let go of this beautiful chair - to not be part of my new home!!! So here you can see how it was before, it was upholstered with a green vinyl fabric, but there was a lot of dust, dirt, and color splashes all over it, because it was in the crafts and tools room for so long. Also the wooden armrest, totally scratched etc. My worries were mostly about the chrome, because I thought once it is rusty, it is hard to remove it!
Well what a nice surprise that I was wrong!!! :)

I found some tips and advice on the net, the most simple one I tried, which was aluminium foil and water or vinagre, I mixed the two in a little bowl, and started to rub the chrome legs! Miraculously and very fast the legs got it's beautiful shine back!

I decided to go for this lovely electric blue fabric, which I really loved, because I have nothing comparable in my house, and I wanted to add a real different accent. Also for long I wanted to finally make use of the neon orange piping, that I had left for a long time, never had anywhere to use it, but still kept it, because I love it so much! So finally it matched perfect with the blue fabric!

 

I was hardly thinking about using a vinyl or leather material for the chair, I was really into the idea, not only for the looks of it, but also for the longevity of the chair, but because there were parts that I would have to sew, the seating part, and my sewing machine doesn't work very strongly and properly, so I didn't want to risk it and used this heavy cotton material instead. I guess it will live for 2 or 3 years, and after that period of time I will probably anyway be in the mood to change the look of the chair again!

So what do you guys think of my new old home office chair? 

I hope you enjoy it :)

Sunburst Mirror

For a long time I've wanted to have one of those sunburst mirrors, I know it's been a while since they were trendy, but however I still wanted to have one. I love big mirrors, and so I didn't want to buy one of the smaller affordable ones! NOW WAIT: I do not want to post or reblog the DIY tutorials on how to make these with wood shims, I offer an alternative for a specific reason, that I will tell you in just about a moment, so please be patient and read on!

I researched the net, and found so many wonderful DIY tutorials, and most of them were those made of wood shims. Here's a few lovely examples that I really liked: 

Now that all sounded so simple, buy the shims, maybe even in 2 different sizes, glue them together, make a huge ring of them, paint in a nice colour, and glue the mirror onto it - ready to hang!! Yep, that's what I thought!

Here comes the problem I encountered: Most of the tutorials and DIY that I read on the net, are from the US, and often I cannot find some specific material needed for the projects here in Germany...And that really makes me mad, because it's the most simple things. For this sunburst mirror project, I wasn't able to find anywhere that kind of wood shims, so thin and very long. Here they only sell very short ones, like an inch or so, they are only used to lay laminate.. So I wanted to see if I can buy them online, the US shims I mean, and they were available via amazon.com, but just the shipping would've cost too much, because I would really need many packages, as I had a huge mirror (about 24" diameter, 60cm). Then I thought to make them myself with the table saw, watched some vids on youtube, looked all pretty clear and simple to me, but I didn't go for it, because we have a really bad table saw, and when I switched it on, it just scared the sh*t out of me... Next idea, why not go to a carpenter, he could professionally make the shims for me, I did, and I felt like he slapped me in the face when he said he would make them at 0,65 cents a piece, I mean it's not like I'm buying professional table legs, wood shims are usually sold like waste or remaining stock. On Amazon.com, there was a package of 56 pcs at 7.36 $, so one shims cost is about 0.13 $..

So here's what I've finally decided to do! I decided to switch on my scroll saw, buy a huuuuge piece of wood, and transfer a sunburst drawing that simulates the wood shim burst scheme onto the wood, and simply saw the whole sun as a whole piece! It was too big for the scroll saw, so I had to make 4 equal pieces of the wood, and then it worked. I'm still working on it, need to paint it and glue the mirror onto it, but I can't wait to post it in the next days... :)

Especially I'm excited because I hope for all the people here in Europe, who also encounter problems to find wood shims, can maybe also use my alternative idea to make your own small or biiiiig sunburst mirror! 

Only thing I can reveal at the moment is the drawing that I made in Adobe Illustrator, it's huge, 100x100cm , that's about 40x40". Please don't be irritated by all the numbers , now that I've finished the cutting and sawing part, I realize I made things once again more complicated than they really are, I tend to think that I am a logical person, but doesn't seem so... Here's the preview of the drawing:

 

Are you interested to see how mine turned out? Would you like to read a post on my blog that describes all the DIY steps for this mirror? Please join my network, and feel free to comment :) Thanks and Enjoy!