Before and Afters

Hello! I've started the new year off and running with a few projects around the house. In addition to doing my "winter" cleaning...weeding out closets and toys from the house and organizing some areas that needed an overhaul...I've found some time to do a few decorative projects. 
First of all, my kitchen dining chairs got a face lift. My set came with a basic ivory fabric when I bought them. I know that it sounds a little cheesy, but up until a year ago, I had the chairs covered in a clear vinyl covering that I picked up at Wal-mart. I merely stapled the vinyl to the seats to protect them from my children.  But of course that wasn't really the ideal look I was going for and eventually I just wanted them to look like regular chairs and not something that crinkled every time you sat in them. So, I removed the vinyl and after living with my three children, my chairs went from ivory to DIRTY!

Chair Before

Chair Before...just plain Dirty!

 And AFTER....I LOVE the suede microfiber that I found at the fabric store! The best part was that this was on the clearance section and I paid only $14.00!!! Can you believe it? I covered six chairs and even tackled the piping, which at first I was completely scared to do. I scotch guarded my fabric first, then measured and cut each piece and stapled it right over the old fabric. 
Now that I sprayed them with the scotch guard (which by the way is a FANTASTIC product), anything that spills on them beads right off, and I can wipe them cleam with a sponge! And of course, we've already had some spills from the kids, and they have wiped clean not leaving anything behind!

 I really love my chairs and it feels good to have tackled a project that I have seen done a lot and hadn't actually gotten a chance to try up until now.
My next project was covering a lampshade for my craft room. I've had this lamp for a while, I like the clean lines and the simple drum shape of the shade. 

 Very simply, I found a great fabric to complement my room. The room is red with black and white accents. I cut my fabric to the diameter of the shade and glued it using fabric glue. I added some trim around the top and bottom and it was done. It only took about 15 minutes to get this look....probably one of the fastest projects I've accomplished that had the greatest impact. What a difference!

I'm in love! I have left over fabric and I'd love to use this black and white print somewhere else in the room. I'm in the midst of refinishing a chair that will go in the room and in thinking that it'll need a pillow...we'll see where my creative juices take me! I'll share once the room is complete!

Gina