color me: fair aqua

hutch, Schue Love

Color Me: Fair Aqua, Pantone 12-5409

Fair Aqua is a beautiful, light, robin's egg blue color. It's cool and crisp just like a mid winter frost.  Light blue is a popular color used to modernize outdated furniture.  Use this color as an accent or main attraction and it's sure to be a big hit!

upholstered chair, Manolo Home

dresser, Centsational Girl

metal fan, etsy

sideboard, Be Colorful

chair, Herman Miller

wall, Alkemie

couch, Houzz

I would love to hear your thoughts on this light aqua color. Do you have any fair aqua pieces in your home? Furniture? Accent pieces? Painted wall? Talk to me!

Etsy Finds feature!!

Guess what?!?!  My map desk was featured on the 'Head of the Class" Etsy Finds email today!  The Etsy finds email goes out to all Etsy members, both shop owners and non shop owners.  Super cool, huh? :)

To say the listing has gotten a lot of views is a understatement. :)  I'm sure it will new home soon, so it may be enjoyed for a long time.

Interested in more information?  Check out the desk before and process and after!

color me: sodalite blue

coffee table, The Inspired Room

Color Me: Sodalite Blue, Pantone 19-3953

Sodalite blue is a vibrant, deep blue color named after the natural stone sodalite.  This lovely blue color reminds me of the deep ocean waters near Maui, HI.  Sodalite blue was named one of Pantone's top ten colors for spring 2012.  Use this color to add some richness and depth into your home. You can anchor a room with a deep blue coffee table or desk.

desk, Vintage Ambiance

bench, Metro Sofa

room, Victoria Dreste Designs

door

upholstered chair, Neiman Marcus

kitchen, Design Darling

desk, apartment therapy

before & after: the Victorian throne

The Victorian throne chair was a collaborative effort between myself and Urban Threads as part of their Lab series.  Urban Threads knows embroidery, I know upholstery, and together we created an awe-inspiring chair!  You may have already seen a look at the chair here, when I announced (okay, more like jumped up and down and screamed in excitement) that we were very honored to have our chair featured on Design*Sponge as part of their before and after series. 

Without further ado, I present to you the Victorian throne...

after:

before:

We found this (very) large throne of a chair on craigslist.  The chair is Eastlake Victorian style and dates circa 1890's.  The lady I purchased it from shared with me that the chair had previously resided in a beautiful Victorian mansion in the historic district of St. Paul.  Wow.  I wish I could have seen the rest of the house.  I'm a sucker for antiques and old homes.  But back to the chair.  It had great bones and beautiful detailed woodwork, but we wanted to update it into the 21st century (think modern and bright). 

So I stripped off the old upholstery

and painted the chair white!

In the meantime, a team at Urban Threads was busy creating and embroidering large designs to be used on the new upholstery.  All of the designs and patterns used on the chair are available to purchase as a part of their Mendhika collection, so you can recreate this same look on your own chair if you wish.  A special, very thick thread call Burmilana was used in the embroidery for this chair.  Burmilana is yarn like thread that offers beautiful raised textured effects which gives the embroidery a wonderful, old world folk feel.

With the newly embroidered fabric complete I was able to get to work upholstering the chair.

The result is a throne fit for a modern king (or queen).  What was previously a dark and rather clunky chair has been brightened up into a bold and modern piece. 

Who would have thought to use machine embroidered upholstery!?!

Many many thanks to the lovely Niamh of Urban Threads for inviting me to be a part of this collaborative project. Also many thanks to amazing photographer Patrick Kelley for the beautiful after shots of the chair that he pulled together in a single afternoon.

linking up at:

Design*Sponge before and after feature!!

I'm elated, speechless, excited and just all around happy to share that one of my latest projects has been exclusively featured in the Before & After series of Design*Sponge!  Yes, Design*Sponge!! :)

This chair was a collaborative project with Urban Threads, a local embroidering company.

Here's a link - http://www.designsponge.com/2012/07/before-after-upholstered-chair-redo.html
Go check it out, now!

Thanks for getting excited with me!  I promise I will share all of the details of this collaborative chair project with you in a few days.

One more happy face first though...  :)  And a BIG thank you to Niamh of Urban Threads for asking me to share in this awesome collaborative project!

harp back chair finished

Woohooo!  I already completed the harp back chair that I blogged about yesterday!  Sometimes I have an idea and I just want to complete it right then and there.  That's what happened with this chair.  As soon as I finished snapping the before pictures and I had a paint brush in my hand and was painting away.  Now that's motivation! :)

I stuck with my original plan and painted the chair a lovely light blue.  I slightly distressed the edges and corners to give the chair a worn look.

The seat was reupholstered in this pretty stripped linen fabric.  I love how the strips in the fabric accent the cords in the harp part of the chair back. 

Like what you see and live near Minneapolis, MN?  This chair is available for purchase (but probably won't be for long).