Projects

I have a couple of projects that I'm working on right now.  I bought a toddler-sized rocking chair for $3 at a garage sale last week, and I've been busy chipping three layers of paint off of it.  The chair is sturdy, but ugly and chipped, so I have to get down to the wood before I can sand and paint it again.  I plan on spray painting it a glossy white (a la Young House Love), and then it's going in Melanie's room.  This is definitely an outside project, with all the scraping and sanding, which means I won't get to work on it today since it's raining.  Instead, I turn to project number 2, which is finishing the kids' bean bag chairs.

I found a really neat idea online, where the bean bag chairs are made with a zipper in the side, then filled with stuffed animals instead of beans or fluff.  They now serve double duty: as a seat for the kids, and stuffed animal storage!  Since I bought too much fabric, I am going to make four.  I have actually finished two of them, but the first day the zipper broke on Megan's, so I need to replace it and make the other two.  One is going to be a gift, but the last one I am stuffing with all the random baby blankets we have lying around.  The kids love to play with them, but I'm tired of them taking up shelf space.  Ergo, Megan and Marina's bags will have stuffed animals in them, and Melanie's will have the blankets.  Each kid has a seat, and I get to breathe a triple sigh of relief as the clutter decreases.

I have really (really really really) high hopes to make at least four Christmas gifts for family members this year, so I suppose I should start on those this summer too.  If I don't, December 15 will roll around and I'll be pulling my prematurely grey hair out by the handful.  Of course, I can't post the details here, but rest assured that they are awesome.  :)  I also started Christmas stockings for the kids in January.  I (again, high hopes here) want to cross stitch their names in the top, then sew them up.  I have sewn approximately 1/8 of one of them...so 2 7/8 left to go.  We'll see if that happens for this year...