Gluing Fabric Is Much Easier than Upholstering Doors

Upholstering the old-fashioned closet doors in my living area proved a big task, covered here.

For the bedroom doors, I tried a much easier, efficient, and economical process: I created panels and hot-glued them to the 7.5-foot panels.

Burlap has a nice heavy texture and it is easy to create straight lines, even without a proper fabric cutting table, which I don't have.

Just pull a thread. If the fabric is loomed straight, you end up with straight lines. This is relatively easy with a coarse weave, but it takes a bit more time than writing the sentence.

The fabric panels create a more modern, plain feel that I like. The slight bubbles in the top photo are less noticeable on the tall door as a whole. Moreover, the closet is in a narrow alcove, so one really doesn't often step back to view them as I have here.

This bottom photo shows an uncovered door. I have only this one left to do.

I steam-ironed the burlap, and I used a loose stitch around the edges to create a neat edge line.

I would not recommend this in a child's room or for anyone who is rough. I slide the doors gently on the tracks, using only the handles or the raised edges.

DIY: Casters for A Small Pantry Cabinet; Saving An Insulated Wheeled Bag from Extinction for $0

I love a little pantry cabinet that I picked up for $40 in a thrift shop nine years ago. It is a perfect space saving idea for my small kitchen.

The problem is that the swing-out shelf doors need three inches of empty space on either side, making it hard to find the right spot for it.

The pantry slides into the folding-shelves by leaving the bottom two shelves up.

I also bought the folding shelves in a thrift shop. I stack two, instead of using a baker's rack for open storage. This gives me six shelves instead of the typical three or four on a baker's rack. The shelves are narrower, making storage more accessible and a better fit in a galley kitchen.

As the photo shows, the doors will not open, however.

That's why I installed casters on the bottom.

As long as I had it upside down, I put three screws into the backing which was coming loose along that bottom edge.

With casters, I can slide the cabinet forward when I need to access my canned goods, tea, and other dry goods. Then I can slide it back into its nook.

Unfortunately, the wheels made the pantry just a tad too high so that the top shelf would no longer fold down. Simple fix: I shoved some sliders under the bottom of the shelves. Sliders are intended for putting under furniture when moving them. Now the height is perfect.

Installing the casters was easy peasy, so I moved onto to fixing an insulated food bag with a saggy bottom.

This project required some creative problem-solving.

The bag cost less than $20 and was designed to fold into a narrow profile for storage. It has toted a lot of weight it was never meant to carry over the past decade.

I picked up some scrap molding at Home Depot.

The boards are shown along the back of the freezer bag along the pull-up handle. Right below that handle, there was another break where two boards meet but had no support. You can see how I cleverly used two curtain rod brackets to provide stability. They are just below and to the side of each wheel.

I placed the curtain bracket edges toward the bag--see close-up photo. Knowing me, I would rip into a bare shin with one of those if the edges faced out. I used a washer under each screw to compensate for the slightly raised bracket edges. See photo.

I had hoped the scrap molding wood could support the bag's bottom. This wasn't feasible. The original bottom was two wood sections with nothing but quilted bag between them and an interior square cardboard panel.

No wonder this poor bag was sagging!

Neither scrap strip was wide enough to screw into both of the original wood sections, yet they were too long to use in the other direction.

Instead, I used two shim strips that I had on hand. I inserted them under the torn vinyl cover and screwed them into the existing wood construction.

I sealed the opening with a hot glue gun and added a piece of heavy duty laminate. I took the photo on close-up setting so it looks a lot messier than it is.

Remember, this is on the bottom of the bag toward the pavement, where no one can see it.

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With the main repairs completed, the scrap molding came in handy to stabilize the inside. I hot-glued the strips into place.

The bag has a fold-down bottom for the expanded dimensions; this covers the wood under-floor.

The bag no longer folds, but it hasn't been used in the slim-line configuration for years. Plus, I can probably get a few more years' use out of this handy bag -- and all the things I used to fix it (except my time) with FREE. Free is good!

What's Up Tiger Lily Ribbon Fan

This $18 fan from WalMart shows what a few rolls of dollar-ribbon and a bit of creativity can accomplish.

I lusted after pretty floor fans in the hundreds of dollars at department stores, while my white PVC fan plugged along, silently doing its duty and looking very large and very white against the cork floors.

Finally, I decided to wrap the stem in some dollar-a-roll ribbon I'd picked up at after-Christmas sales at Michael's crafts. They'd been on the shelf for months, so why not?

At that point, all I wanted to do was disguise the ugly thing; I hadn't planned out an entire DIY craft project.

I wrapped the stem carefully, without using glue to keep it in place. You can see the place where the PVC joint bulges that was especially challenging to cover neatly.

The ribbon is the kind with fine wire at the edges, which made it a little easier to shape.

This Maypole wrap defies gravity, secured at the top near the motor with just a bit of tape.

Now that I've had so many compliments on this piece, I won't hesitate to use hot glue when I redo it.

When the pole looked pretty good, I decided to try my hand at hiding the hideous base -- a big white plastic circle against the beautiful cork flooring. I didn't have enough leopard ribbon for the whole base and of course I couldn't go back and buy more, because that sale and those products were long gone.

I experimented with overlapping the different ribbons to feature the leopard print. I was still reluctant to anything permanently, in case I didn't like it and wanted to rip it all apart.

I settled on gluing some of the ribbons together, one on top of the other, but not to the fan base, to create the wheel. I use tiny dots of hot glue and quickly poke one piece onto another with a barbecue stick.

The design is fairly delicate, and I probably should hot glue my creation in place one of these days to make it more stable. I move it gently holding onto the motor so the whole thing doesn't crumble away, but the fan mostly stays in the same place anyway.

With the stem and base complete, the white face of the fan stood out like a big old full moon, only not in a good way. My next step was to use the remaining leopard ribbon as edging.

My first idea was to please the two-inch wide ribbon and make a ruffle all around the fan face. I was hoping for a leopard-printed sunflower.

This was too girly and silly. Shows why it's not a good idea to run wild with a hot glue gun until I know what I want to do.

I experimented until I came up with folding the ribbon from front to back. It turned out to be the easiest process of those I tried. The wires helped with that, too. Tiny pleats shape the ribbon into the circle. These are held in place with an especially sticky double-sided tape, applied in small pieces.

This wasn't a 15-minute project like the maribou lampshade. It started out as a bit of whimsy and ended up as a full DIY craft project. My cheap fan gets lots of compliments even from repair men who stop by to fix appliances!

2 Maribou Feather Boas, 1 Lampshade, and 15 Minutes with a Glue Gun

This DIY lampshade cost about $15 to make out of two feather boas.

A pair of these glass candlestick lamps were on my mother's vanity my whole life. They used to be my grandmother's, and they look 1920s.

They are petite, with delicate etchings of vines and flowers on the base and stem.

When Mother passed away in July, the lamps came home with me to Florida. They sit on a three-piece Art Deco set that includes a drop-top desk from a Royal Scandinavian furniture maker. Amazingly, I acquired all three pieces at an auction for $75, and they are the pride of my furnishings.

The old-fashioned glass lamps are a perfect accessory.

While in Schenectady, I saw a large maribou-covered lampshade in the window of a vintage upcycling store. It was $200 which is about $188 more than I'm prepared to spend for a lampshade.

Today, I at last had enough confidence to tackle the job of recreating the look. Maribou is so right for the era, too. It evokes memories of those flapper gals with their feathers and beads.

It took more feathers than I thought -- about 11 feet. Each boa is two yards. I figure 7-9 feet, but I used all but a foot of two boas; each is six feet.
estimated 5 to 9 feet for the job.

I've go to go back to JoAnns fabrics and buy another boa tomorrow.

Next try, I will see if I can pull the feather rope a bit tighter and perhaps better defining the rows of the wrap.

It took only a few drops of hot glue to anchor the wrap here and there. The bottom row took the most, perhaps six to eight, so that it would be stay in place. As I wound upward, I used about three or four glue drops for each level.

Total cost of the DIY lampshade is $15.

The Chair that (almost) Ate Me

It’s a big bruiser, isn’t it? I bought it three years and eight months ago. I have sat in it many hours a day, every day, except when out of town.

Before that, I sat in an even more massive (if that’s possible) leatherette recliner for six months in New Orleans. Little by little, my will to do anything ebbed away.

Or perhaps, my will flowed back as I worked odd jobs on my laptop, web surfed, and frittered away perfectly good time on non-productive tasks. It’s always so hard to figure out what is the start and finish of something?

I’ve yearned for years for an expensive Scandinavian modern recliner with a footstool, instead of a kick-out panel. These are so far beyond my level of frugality, such a chair was aught by an impossible dream.

Now, with craigslist, patience, and a bit of luck, it is possible to find most anything at a steep discount. This sexy northern import became mine about 85% off retail, albeit in (excellent) used condition. I feel as if the whole world has opened up around me and that I am no longer suffocating in tons of upholstered padding.

Still, I’ve a fond spot for that big boy that has been my pal for so long. It’s a shame I do not have a place where I can tuck it away. Perhaps I should get rid of the dining room table. It’s only use is as a place to pile junk. You may have noted, from the background in the photos, I am not exactly Martha Stewart.

But who else gives you headlines like Bearded Lady Shops at Wal-Mart or Attack of the Killer Barbie Dolls?

I doubt that it was ever possible to get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant – long closed now. But the Arlo Guthrie song is still a good tune, part of the musical Hall of Fame of the era. You probably can find the memorabilia, though, on craigslist.com.

Obsolescence Foils Frugal Shopper

Planned obsolescence has been on the social critics’ agenda since Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders was published in 1957. Yet, 50 years later, our society is a card house of credit debt and endless shopping.

Recently, my frugality has run plumb into planned obsolescence. I needed to reconfigure some wall shelves, including the purchase of new boards. Even though the shelving is less than two years old, RubberMaid has stopped making the honey pine veneer. A Home Depot representative reassured me that the new color, natural, is the same. It is not.

I priced custom-made shelves, but that was too expensive. A home decorator suggested that I create a belly line of shelves in the center, or perhaps a top and bottom accent line of shelves in a different color. He saved the day.

I visited every Home Depot from North Miami to South Palm Beach. I sorted through board after board, finally managing to round up three honey pine shelves. That was enough to make a belly line in walnut possible. The darker color coordinates with some darker wood furniture. Blond wood is all wrong for my room, so the natural veneer was impossible.

My new quest is for a small hot pot to boil water for morning tea and, more importantly, to take with me when I travel to use in motel rooms. The nice metal one I’ve had for many a year has burnt out. New models are plastic. I even saw one with a plastic plug. I am not sticking little plastic feet into the wall.

I've also been on an endless quest for a special kind of hinge that folds flat in both directions to build a folding screen. "Like Mae West used to stand behind if a man was in the room and she was changing clothes," said a nice man named Bill at Grove Hardware -- a store I highly recommend. He called suppliers, including one that was importing the hinges from China. Apparently these hinges aren't being made any more. So what do manufacturers use for folding screens sold retail?

I'm doomed to these quests for products that are discontinued and nonexistent as long as planned obsolescence is the motor that keeps the economy running. So is everyone else who wants shopping to be simple and for good products to stay the same.

Handy Baskets Organize, Add Texture

Baskets are an inexpensive way to add texture to a room, as well as providing storage. Often, they can be found for a buck or two at a thrift store, rather than buying them new.

I use baskets on my wall unit of shelves.

These two baskets are larger than they look. The wicker basket, right, is a lunch box with a lid with clever handles that lock shut -- perfect for a quiet lunch alone in a park. A subtle diamond pattern woven into the front of it is too subtle to capture on camera. It holds computer program CDs and instruction booklets for computer electronics, such as this camera.

The red one hides an entire Leggoes box that I use for a classroom demonstration activity. There is a close-up below.







The next basket on the wall shelves holds music CDs. Lighter and darker reeds are interwoven to create an interesting pattern.


These three baskets, below, are grouped against a small wall for the time being.
The very large picnic hamper holds my sewing supplies. I've placed a tray on top of it -- you can see the blond wood rim -- to create a flat surface, so the other baskets don't sit askew. The square basket and pale reed basket with a graceful kidney-shaped top edge are being re-purposed as I reorganize my living space.




This use of a basket as a lampshade, below right, never worked out; it always sits lopsidedly. It currently resides in a corner behind my recliner that is a holding pen as I decide what to put where in my clean-up. I'd forgotten about the large round basket until I noticed it in the background. As you can see, it is a trash basket. It is not usually overfilled and serves more discreetly as my circular file. It is roughly brushed with white paint in a shabby-cottage effect.





I also forgot about this nifty harlequin basket, below, until I wrote about the other trash basket. I keep dashing off to take more photos as I write. This jaunty harlequin serves as a petite trash container in the jungle room half-bath. It cost a buck at the dollar store and is one of the few that I purchased new.










The little rope basket, below, holds extra hand towels in the jungle room. The two sides with their scallops resemble seashells. The spokes and handle are wicker.






The next two photos show my file-tray basket. In a one-bedroom apartment, I hide my printer behind a lamp in a dark corner of the room. Even the "end table" on which it sits serves a storage purpose; it is my cedar chest for woolens that we so rarely wear here in Florida.





















Baskets are great for stashing paper -- bills, receipts, and mail offers about which I'm undecided. Two are shown below and in close-ups. I like the way rattan has been twisted to form a rope that was woven to create the round basket.



Notice how a rough brown twine has been woven into the center section of the long, thin basket, below.


























This rustic basket is a refugee from Christmases past. It is woven of a flat bark or reed about an inch wide to form a diamond weave. These have been faintly brushed with red and green that does not show unless you are very close. It is a brittle wood, so I can understand why the maker didn't get the bottom quite flat. It must have been hard to work with this material. It holds everything I need next to my recliner -- eyeglasses, nail kit and hand cream, calculator, bookmarks, you name it.




Spray-painted gold years ago, this basket belongs in storage until the winter holidays. I threw a modular kusudama in for the picture, but the pink and yellow paper is too light to photograph well. Notice how the graceful rounded bottom is centered with a flat coaster-like circle that is woven right into the work so that it will sit right. How clever and practical!



This little basket is the right size to hide a small plastic flower pot. It has a large handle (extends out of the photo), and once hung from a wire plant hook on my patio, until the plant died. Plain rough brown twine forms the X pattern on the body and gold twine accents the top and bottom rims.


This wide variety of baskets adds (I hope) texture yet unity to my main living area. Wait, we're not quite done. There are still the scullery maids in the kitchen.

Once upon a time this lime-green basket accented a tiny bathroom trimmed in that color. Now it holds vitamin pills in the kitchen. Perhaps it's time to repaint it.

Last, these hanging copper wire baskets cost a few dollars at Wal-Mart. Every kitchen should have some, don't you think?


I almost forgot this pair, below. Set on an angle to each other, they contain bathroom clutter in a minuscule space with no storage. Less than four inches wide and 13 inches long, they are a tough rope fiber on wire frames.














In conclusion, you can see that I love baskets. They help keep my clutter in control. I like the way they look, and the price is right.