With the first preseason game here in Green Bay and the Packers getting their butts handed to them, I thought tonight was a perfect night to update the blog with another post. You know, since I haven’t done so in a while. I’ve been busy enjoying my summer and finding my grove now that I’m back in the office.
In non-blog news, I FINALLY opened a shop on Etsy, and I made my first sale this past weekend! Woot, woot! You can check out the
The Crafty Llama by Lonie.
Today I’m going to show you my repurposed sewing box. I had worked on this towards the end of May (I told you I have a bit of catching up to do.) This box was my mom’s, who had inherited it from her mom. Over all, it was in good shape, but needed a little bit of an update. I’m not sure when my grandma got it, but I’m guessing sometime in the 60s or 70s. I could be wrong.
I started by taking off the hardware. Some of the hinges were held together with bent pins. I replaced the hinges with new ones. I did need to file where the hinges went because the new ones were slightly thicker than original ones. The knobs on the top were glued in place to keep from spinning, but the glue was so old that it was no longer holding the knobs in place When I unscrewed them, I removed the glue. It just looked kind of meh.
After wiping it down, I disassembled the box, taking the handle, legs and arms off, and spray painted them gold outside on my breaks. I have to say that’s one thing I miss about working from home. It was so much easier to get things done. Anyway, the pictures turned out pretty bad so I won’t share with you pictures.
Then I set about painting the individual boxes. I took my navy chalk paint and mixed it with a little gray chalk paint. When the paint was dry, I waxed it with some Martha Stewart wax. I’m not sure how I like this compared to Annie Sloan’s wax. It seems to want to pull off more paint for a more distressed finish. Sometimes, that’s good and that’s what I’m going for, like in this instance I think it worked. But sometimes, I don’t want a distressed look, which is why I like Annie Sloan’s wax.
I wanted to add a little pop of color on the inside, instead of blah wood. I picked out some fun and vintagy fabric, a orange-coral and white polkadot fabric and a blue fabric with orange-coral and flowers.
Once the paint was dry and waxed, I took measurements of the inside of each box. Using the measurements, I made templates I could then use to cut the fabric. The bottom box was a little different because there were ridges on each end. To get those I stuck a paper in between the side and and the bottom. Then I traced the line of the ridge and cut.
Once all of the templates were cut, I traced them onto the fabric and cut them out. To attach the fabric to the I got out my trusty tacky spray. Working in sections, I sprayed the tacky spray and then used a putty knife to smooth out the fabric, taking care to tuck in the corners.
To finish the interior of the box, and clean up the edges, I used washi tape, ribbon and twine. I tired to stay with in the blue colors
Once I was done, I reassembled the box and filled it with all of my sewing supplies.
Overall, I’m happy with the way the sewing box turned out. I wish the paint didn’t so easily wipe off. I love the contrast between the blue and gold and the surprise of color when it’s open.
Crafty Llama by Lonie 