Tweaking A Chair Kit

Hello Friends and Happy Thanksgiving! Those of us who live in the US celebrate all the things we have to be grateful for on this day every year, though it is good to keep gratitude in our hearts at all times, wherever in the world we are. I am grateful to have had a fabulous visit with my amazingly wonderful folks in Arizona.  Since I've been home I have done my best to pick up where I left off with the trunkhouse, and that was in the parlor.

In this post I'll share a few details about the chairs I made.  While it is not a real tutorial, hopefully it helps you to imagine ways to think beyond the instructions for some of the old favorite mini kits you have lying around. It can be so much fun to make something unique and totally your own, even when it's not totally from scratch.

I started with a couple House Of Miniatures Chippendale Wing Chair kits. Then I looked online for wing chair styles that I liked and could adapt the kits to. Here's the chair I wanted to mimic...

My inspiration chair had a much slighter profile, so I needed to cut the kit's winged side pieces in depth and height.

I also rounded the detail at the top.

The kit's cardstock pieces also needed to be reshaped. The most important step here was to keep dry fitting to see how everything was fitting together.

My inspiration chair was also different in that it had rolled arm rests, where the kit had rolled front/sides and flat arm rests. I moved those rolled kit pieces to the tops of my arm rests, after I trimmed the little lip pieces away. They were intended to secure the cardstock sides in the original kit configuration so I no longer needed them.

I altered the cardstock further to accommodate the rolled arm rests once they were glued on.

The next few steps pretty much followed the kit's instructions, applying a strip of fabric to the edge of the sides, applying it to the cardstock, then applying those pieces to the side pieces.

I encountered my first real challenge when it was time to upholster the chair cushions. One of my kits was fairly new and one of them was really old. The chair cushion pieces from the older kit (which are made from some type of foam) were shriveled, brittle and crumbled in my fingers. My solution was to eliminate them from both kits and use batting, instead.

Left, newer kit foam. Right, older it foam.

Two layers of quilt batting.

Time for fabric...

And cardstock...

All the components are ready for assembly per the kit instructions.

The kit's leg assemblies have always looked a bit clunky to me. Plus, given Roz's petite stature, they are a little tall. Instead, I cut down some short spindles to make more height appropriate chair legs.

And I even hand sewed a couple accent pillows! I think my sewing skills are improving... a little. 😊

Roz loves her new custom wingback chairs and can't wait to see them in the parlor! I'm saving that for the big reveal, but there's so much more to do before then. More progress, hopefully, next week, my friends! 

Hope this post has inspired you to rework some of your favorite mini kits to make them your own! Thanks for stopping by!

xo xo,

Jodi

A Little R&R For Roz & Rozario

Finishing Roz's bed last week had me feeling pretty good about my progress, but I couldn't forget the "functional" part of my promise. She was definitely going to need a place to hold her nighttime things. It had to be the right height for reaching the reading lamp from her bed, be big enough to hold her current book and glass of water, have a storage drawer to securely stow her wand, have display space for more books and tchotchkes, fit into the limited bedroom floorspace and still feel "feminine". Oh Boy! I had my work cut out for me! I got some measurements then got to work designing the perfect nightstand in Design Space.

Once the pieces were cut, I decoupaged strategic sections with some very pretty scrapbook paper and assembled the chipboard parts. I made trim pieces with cardstock to overlay on top. The tabletop is finished with the leftover fruitwood stain from the Chrysnbon table kit I made for the breakfast nook. Waste-not-want-not, right? The chipboard takes this stain nicely. I added a fancy pull to the drawer and Ta-Da! Very pretty and yet "functional", too! The solid purple cubby gives a nice contrast to but will not compete with whatever Roz decides to store and display in there. As you can see, I had assembled it before adding the rose buds to the bed posts. It still needed many accessories to make it "function" well for Roz. 

First we'll talk about her lamp. It was part of a Chrysolite Mantle Lamp kit set from my stash. I loved the compact size, but it needed a larger base. I added a fancy spacer bead to the bottom and then a small round wood circle, which I cut a channel into so the wire could exit the back. I painted it a unifying black, then gave it an aged bronze finish with glaze, burnt sienna and dark brown paint. Its aged bronze look matches all the other lighting fixtures in the project.

The alarm clock is a Playmobil piece that Birgit sent to me in a Christmas package. It is adorable, so all I did to it was add a bubble of "glass" (UV resin) to the clock face. The vase is made up of more mulberry buds and flowers and secured in the vase with UV resin. Little Women is one of Deborah's wonderful books from her Etsy shop. The bottom cubby is stuffed with books covered in pretty scrapbook paper and a potted plant I made. That should give Roz a good start to the "functional" part in her bedtime ritual!

When it came to addressing Roz's floor, I knew she needed a rug. Stepping from a warm bed onto a cold floor in the winter is not my idea of "functional" - it's enough to make you stay in bed all day!

 Unfortunately, I encountered loads of challenges trying to get this job accomplished. First was finding a rug photo for the round room. There is not much to choose from, surprisingly, when searching for "Round Purple Rug". Maybe I am just too picky?

I attempted to change the color of rugs with patterns I liked, but with unsatisfactory results. I learned how to change objects in a vector to a different color, but could not find a suitable vector image of a rug.

 I finally found a pretty purple rug photo, but it was layered on top of several other round rugs. This prompted me to learn how to cut out a circle shape in Inkscape (very helpful!). Unfortunately, my low budget, eight year old Canon printer thinks purple is the color of red wine. I have done all the tutorials to calibrate the colors, many times, with no improvement. It's just not that versatile.

As its final insult, it refuses to feed my velvet paper through regardless of the settings I choose. No nice piled rug is ever going to come from it. I won't even allow myself to contemplate the cost of the ink I've wasted all these years. 

Below you'll see the rug on the left is the one I sent to the printer, the one on the right is what I got... Yuck!

I am not one to give up easily. So, thinking through all my limitations and options, I decided to print a rug I liked in a light color scheme and then color several elements with markers. It didn't come out too bad but it still really wasn't what I had in mind.

Throwing money at a problem always helps, right? LOL! But I did finally break down and buy a new (and supposedly much better) printer. The rug I printed on the new printer using cotton printer fabric came out much better than the one from the old printer, but it's still not fantastic. Until I have time to play with materials and settings, I am calling it good enough, for now.

Moving on! The next functional element Roz needed for her bedroom was a place to sit. Since the floorspace was going fast I decided to make Kris Compass's Parson's Chair Tutorial from her website. If you are new or unfamiliar with Kris' tutorials, I encourage you to go explore. They are fabulous! I was able to reduce my pattern to a more appropriate size for Roz and her room. It is maybe 1:16 scale now - perfect!

Before we get to Roz's bedroom photos, let me share Rozario's nook furnishings. Aside from his bed, there will be a wall shelf and a floor shelf to house all his treasures. Because of the curved walls, I made the shelves out of Sonotube scraps, again. I primed, painted in a metallic purple and added gold Dresden detailing to match his bed.

Floor Shelf Back

Floor Shelf Front

Wall and Floor Shelf Primed

Wall and Floor Shelf Painted and Trimmed

I let Rozario go through my stash and take anything he liked. I also made him some board games and books. A special ~Thank You~ to Johnny's momma and to Birgit for passing so many of these great minis on to me. I will treasure them and make sure they are put into use, eventually! Here's what we made, gathered and spruced up in Rozario's favorite colors...

Toys

Books~Games~Family Photo

Board Game Printies

Rozario also asked to have a photo of his heroes, the dragons Draco and Tschang, to hang above his bed. He wants to be as honorable and as powerful as they are when he grows up. And if he feels like misbehaving, the photo reminds him to expect a little visit and some words of... encouragement from the pair.

And then Rozario and I got to load his shelves! We had a ball! By the time I got the camera, Rozario had, eh hem, "adjusted" some things. 😊 He is so excited about his new toys and his bedroom!!! If you've never seen a fire breathing dragon blow bubblegum bubbles, let me tell ya - it's a sight to see! We had to make an "outside only" rule for everyone's safety.

And here is the furnished nook...

And here are Roz's finished bedroom elements together...

And placed in her room. She hung framed photos here and there of Fluby, Rosey, Rozario and herself.

And with all the lights on...

It was a lot of work to get here, but finally, FINALLY! Rosalinda and Rozario will get to enjoy a little R&R in their new bedroom! I can't tell you how great that makes me feel!

They love their new spaces, and for the first time, maybe ever, Rozario didn't complain about bedtime!

If you have been keeping track, my friends, that leaves only the parlor to finish in the trunkhouse! Then it's back to work on the treehouse part of this project. Wayne and the girls have been so patient! But with the leaves rapidly falling, the need for indoor living space is becoming urgent! No time to stop and celebrate the trunkhouse progress yet. There's still so much more to do!

xo xo,

Jodi