The Dream Joins the Pinterest Partayy!

It’s party time, people.  Pinterest partayy time!

So, a bunch of cool blogs that I follow — What the Graham, Mrs. Priss, Stucco Bungalow (among others) — are hosting a Pinterest Partayy today and I thought I’d join in the fun.

Basically, we’re all taking something we’ve “pinned” on Pinterest and instead of just leaving it there on our virtual board of DIY dreams… we’re making these projects reality.

Here’s my Pinspiration:

ORIGINAL SOURCES

1 – West Elm

2 – Tulip and Turnip

3 – Kara Paslay Designs

4 – Pepper Design Blog

And here is our finished product:

Disclaimer: For some reason, the photos do the fabric no justice.  It’s not as gold/red as it appears.  It actually has some silver and gray tones to it and blends really well with the color palette in this room.  I tried tweaking the colors in PhotoShop, but it still didn’t come out just right.  

We’ve been discussing making our own coffee table/ottoman for over a year.  Sad, but true.  I looked high and low for a used coffee table we could upholster, but never found one.  So, this entire piece is DIY by the Dreamers – the Mr did the construction and I did the upholstery – we tufted together.  (Sounds sexy, right?  Not really.)

I plan to do a more detailed Dream It Yourself (DIY) tutorial, but for the sake of getting this post up in time for the PARTAYY – here’s the shortened how-to version.

You start by enlisting your husband to build the frame:

We actually used fence post caps for the feet and they turned out perfect – and cheap!

Then, comes the upholstering…

Prequel… I didn’t get a photo, sorry!  We put furniture cushion foam (you know, the green kind) cut to measure – atop the wood frame.

1. Cover everything with batting.  I did two layers on the sides and one on top.  I secured it all with liquid spray adhesive.

2. Sew corners. (Sewing assistant in background is optional.) Sorry, no detail pics of this either.  It was a little frustrating.  In the end, I turned the fabric right-side down on top of the ottoman and pinned the corners.  I wanted it really taught, so I made sure I pinned it very snug.  Then, I sewed one line, about an inch below the corner of the foam down to the corner of the wood.  I cut out the access fabric, angling my cut to leave room for the corner to be covered.  They turned out really nice!  One corner was a little too snug, and I just sewed a new hem about a quarter-inch outside the original one, then ripped out the first one.  It fits perfectly!

3. Cut the bottom of the fabric, leaving enough extra to pull under the wood frame far enough that you won’t see the staples.

4. Staple away!

5. Be careful on the corners.

Here’s what it looked like when we were done with these steps…

(Again, it looks really red-orange here… not true to life, promise!)

So… now it’s time to TUFT.  That’s a term I, admittedly, had never heard of before starting this project.  I knew that tufting – or, adding buttons – would really take this piece up a notch… so… here we go…

Yes, we’re going a bit out of order here.  The tufting process actually begins before the fabric is upholstered.

1. We marked out the frame – penciling in where we knew the buttons would go.

2. Drill holes for the button threads.

3. Make buttons out of extra fabric using a kit sold at most craft stores.

3.5 (not pictured) – using upholstery needles, pull wax thread through the holes underneath, through the foam, batting and fabric.  It seems like it would be easy to loop the button and then draw the needle back through – but, for us, it was IMPOSSIBLE.  We drilled the holes bigger, tried every thing we could think of – but we could not get the needle back down through the hole.  So, unfortunately, we only had one piece of thread to work with. We tied it to the back of the button – then tied the two back-end threads next to each other together.  This is definitely a two person job – so you get the buttons really snug and TUFTED.  The word is making more sense now, isn’t it?  (Still not sexy though!)

4. It may be hard to tell what this is – but it is the underside of the buttons… the threads tied together.

And here, once again, is the finished project:

And some more looks… I am pretty damn proud of myself about those corners!  That’s the part I was most worried about…

So, what do you think?  Give me a comment below and let me know.  Meanwhile, check out the other Pinterest Partayy participants and their projects:

This is my kind of party!

If you did a Pinterest Partayy project, please link to it in your comment.   I can’t wait to see what everyone did.

Psst…. This ain’t my first rodeo.  A while back, I did another Pinterest-inspired project for the nursery – a “You are my Sunshine” wood canvas quote.  You can see that project here.  

About Michelle Fortin

Michelle Fortin is a follower of Jesus, a wife and a mom. She's also an award winning broadcast journalist and public relations professional. Michelle spent nearly a decade working in television newsrooms across the country, both behind and in front of the camera. Training future broadcast journalists in her faculty associate roles at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and at Arizona Christian University was a cherished focus of her post-TV career. Today, she maintains a roster of public relations clients focused on empowering fellow “momprenuers.” She also serves as a speaker for various women's and mom's events. Michelle received her bachelor’s degree from Biola University and Master of Mass Communication (MMC) from Arizona State University. She and her husband, two young kids and English bulldog call Scottsdale, Arizona, home.

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