Fantastic Decor

Showing posts with label craft. Show all posts

Multi-level work table

Materials: Vika Manne table tops and legs

Description: I wanted a work table that was high enough for me to work standing up and not have to bend my back. I also wanted a place to store my tools and not have them pushed off the table edge while I was cutting fabric, or doing other large projects. The table had to not jab me when I walked around it (small room), and should roll so I could roll it over to my file cabinet when I did my filing or move it out of the way if needed. I also want to be able to sit at it with a higher drafting type chair too. (Big list of requirements !)

So... I bought two round Vika Manne table tops, one extra leg (5 instead of 4) and put the legs on the first table top (after re-measuring/drilling the placements). I then used closet rod holders and some thick wood dowel rods sections to make 5 short legs (placed in between the bottom legs) that went between the two tops. I covered the wood dowels with some grey plastic tube but they could have been painted as well. The top of the table is 36" high, which is good for me, but could be made to any height by making the center legs longer or shorter.

OK, I admit it looks like something from outer space, but it WORKS and I love it! :-)

~ Darlette, Santa Clarita, CA USA

Ikea green christmas

Rose shares her "green" Christmas with us.

"I bought my sister an early christmas present, a Cyril desk, and instead of throwing out the massive amounts of cardboard, we decided to go green this christmas."

Advent calendar made from Wilma tab-top curtain

Sonja is here to spread some Christmas cheer. An advent calendar has pockets of treats for each day leading up to Christmas.

"With December here, I thought I'd share with you the advent calendar I fashioned from a ready-made Wilma curtain.

It simply involved cutting the curtain to the required size and then sewing strips of white fabric onto it in order to create pockets into which the little treats could be slipped."

Click for more detailed instructions on Sonja's advent treats calendar.

Baby changing table grows into light table.

Boris recycles his daughter's old changing table into a lightbox. Love how it closes in a compact little thing.

"I made the Sniglar baby changing table into a light box. My wife, for a few years now, likes to practice sewing for our daughters. She buy a lot of books containing patterns she has to reproduce on white paper which she then uses to cut the fabric. It's not easy to reproduce those patterns onto the paper.

As our youngest daughter is now two and a half years old, we do not need any more our Sniglar changing table, and I decided to transform it into a light table for my wife. I first thought to keep the table structure as it, but finally, I prefered to use the two level of the table to make one foldable table. I first fixed together the two vat with a long piano hinge. Then I stuck aluminium foil into the vats to reflect the light and I fixed four neon tubes into it. A few meters of cable later, I then closed the vats with two white and opaque plexiglass panels and that's it."

Craft cabinet

Kristin tucks an ultra-hardworking craft area into a computer armoire. It's amazing to see how much stuff she managed to sneak in there.

"Using several Ikea products, I took an old computer armoire and cabinets to make a scrapbooking/craft/desk/office area. I don't know the names of the actual parts I used, but you can see it all with descriptions on my blog. The desktop is actually the glass door for a tall cabinet or armoire that I found in the as-is section (my favorite!) for about $10. My husband cut some MDF to place under it for stability, and I used the small cabinets on each end. Inside the armoire are towel rods for ribbon spools, bins for storage, metal strips with magnets, and magnetic spice containers for storing smaller pieces"

See more of Kristin's craft armoire.

A craft pod that hides a sewing machine

Liz hacks a craft pod with 2 Billy bookcases. Open to craft. Close to hide the clutter. Perfect.

She says, "I used two Billy bookcases, a piano hinge, two hinges for the sewing machine fold out shelf and 8 wheels also from Ikea. The piano hinge holds the two Billy bookcases together, and the sewing machine shelf has two 5.5cm hinges to hold the fold out shelf. I also screwed the sewing machine shelf on the sides to the bookcase for extra support. Not quite sure about the weight you can put on it but it's been holding on pretty strong and my sewing machine is pretty heavy."

See more of Liz's craft pod.

Anyone who sews will love this ironing board

If you ever need to iron large pieces of fabric like curtains, you'll love Katie Croteau's ironing board. It's hacked from the Norden table, with a cover/pad over it.

See more here.

XL cutting table

A husband is a good thing, I'm gathering from these recent hacks. Handy hubby Larry whips up this mega-sized cutting table for his wife's fabric and sewing business.

He says, "My wife runs an internet-based fabric and sewing business and recently took some office space. She wanted a new cutting table for the space with a couple of requirements:

It had to be big. Really big.
It had to be smooth so as not to catch fabric on it when laying out and cutting patterns
It had to be high - higher than the normal 35" countertops

Our solution? A 4' x 8' sheet of laminated particle board (from Loews), trimmed with oak, on a couple Ikea Galant bases and legs. The Galant legs extend the table top up to 40" high, making for a very comfortable working area.

Cool stuff, ideally suited to the task at hand without blowing a bundle (whole thing came in under $350)."

The inaugural stitching-n-bitching round the new table.

See more of mega-sized cutting table.

Spring Chick's to-die-for craft room

Once in a while I receive a craft room hack that turns me green, really really green. This is one of them. Lucky you, Kari!

Kari says, "I recently moved to a new house and am lucky enough to finally have a whole room for my crafting hobbies/business. I do a lot of sewing so I wanted a big, flat, and high (to save my back) work surface where I could lay out fabric. I also needed a lot of storage space.

My solution was to buy four Ikea base kitchen cabinets (2, 30" and 2, 18"). After assembling the cabinets, we (my husband and I) bolted them together on the bottom and added turned feet (to make it higher and prettier).

We flipped it right side up and built a top out of MDF. We covered the MDF with nice fabric (actually a shower curtain, for the width) which we stapled on underneath the edge.

We had a piece of glass cut to cover the whole top. As finishing touches, we added wood trim to hide the 'seams' between cabinets, glass knobs, and an Ikea rod (Bygel). I think it turned quite nicely and it functions just as I had hoped. A huge work surface (with a knee hole for sitting), with tons of storage underneath.

On the other side of the room, I needed a desk. We also used Ikea kitchen cabinet bases for this (one 24", one 18"), one side with drawers, one with a door. Then we just used the Ikea white kitchen counter top (Pragel) for the top. We also added feet and glass knobs to the desk. When I pulled up a chair to the desk, I realized that (duh!), this desk was higher than a regular desk, because it is counter height. Therefore, I had to go buy a counter height stool (Ikea Henriksdal). I modified their standard cover by sewing on a little Ikea fabric (Fredrika) around the bottom for a more custom look."

Love is Blund

Cute overload ahead!

Mette felt in love with Blund at first sight. She says "He just looked at me ... I looked at him... and took him home.... and promised myself to make as many jumpers and trousers as possible for MY BLUND and all the 'Blund Brothers'!

Apparently Blund has quite a few fans and some pretty cool clothes. Go see Blund dressed to the nines on the Blund Group.

Mette's basic knitting pattern is available here, which includes a T-shirt, a vest, a pair of trousers, and a little rucksack for Blund. Awwww....

Updated! February 25, 2009
Nicole's Blund Bear

She says, "I was so excited to see your post on the hacked Blund bears! I've attached a photo of two bears that I modified for my nephews Dean (D) and Quinn (Q). They loved them."

Magnetic hacks

Hanging stuff up with magnets is a great way to declutter and get more work space. These 3 hacks show how you can add a little attraction to your space.

Craft magnet
Linda makes good use of the Grundtal magnetic knife rack in her craft room.

What she did was attach the knife rack onto her wired craft basket drawers and just "stick" her crafty tools onto the strip.

See more of Linda's crafty storage here.

Refrigerator knife holder
Adam and Melissa didn't have an obvious place in their kitchen to put a magnetic knife strip. They say, "The best location was the side of our refrigerator but we didn't want to drill into it. So we took 2 Grundtal knife magnets and glued the 'non-magnet' faces together. You can discard the 2 cylindrical spacers that come with each magnet. We added glue and clamped it overnight to allow the glue to cure. One face sticks to the fridge while the other face is for our knives. The magnet sticks very well to the fridge -- it takes two hands to pull it off."

Mini magnetic knife holder

For Clara, a full magnetic strip wasn't necessary. So she just added her 3/8″ rare earth and ceramic magnets to set up a mini panel for her knives.

See more of Clara's mini-magnetic knife holder here.

Keep your cuppa warm with this tea cosy

This is a great idea from Liza. Now we know Ikea's thick padded potholders make fantastic tea cosies too.

Liza says, "I love tea in a teapot, and it's hard to find a good, well padded, tea cosy in the US, so a few years ago I started making my own. Usually I make them from scratch, but it occurred to me that I could use these Ikea potholders that had been lying around unused. They were too big as potholders, but worked fine for an individual teapot cosy.

1. I unpicked the binding off 3 of the 4 edges of both the squares.

2. I cut each square into a bulbous, semi-circular shape, keeping the binding attached on one potholder, cutting it off on the other.

3. I joined the 2 semicircles together at their round sides by fitting the attached binding over both of them and sewing together. I actually had to hand sew this part, as my sewing machine wasn't up to the thickness, so this was the most time-consuming part (about an hour). I also made a little loop at the end with some of the extra binding (there's a lot left over), because I like to hang my cosies up on hooks in the kitchen.

And there you have a teacosy.

You can compare with another cosy I made previously, and with a small teapot for size. Actually this cosy is not quite as effective at heat-conservation as my regular ones (since it's not quite as well padded) but it was so easy to make and cute that it's fine."

sandrine's show and tell

sandrine means craft queen in french. okay, it doesn't but after seeing the bunch of stuff she sent me - all crafted from ikea items - i am inclined to think that way. i am especially taken by the tindra candle collages. aren't they just so fun?

she says, "my name is sandrine. i live in nantes, france and i do things like these...

the magnetic frames bubbla are decorated with a collage of photos cut from magazines.

the pillow aina is intended for a girl who likes purple. the horse is decorated with ends of fabrics (tissues), pearls and glitter stuck onto it.

cut out collages of photos and pictures from magazines varnished onto the tindra and tindra ljuv. more here and here.

the pillow hanna (can't find the link on ikea's website) is transformed into an owl, using fabric (tissues), some wool and buttons. on one side is the first name of the girl to whom it was intended.

visit sandrine's blog (it's in french) to see more do-it-yourself goodies.

crochet table decorations

have dinner guests and want to pretty up your table? if you can crochet, here's one quick hack from marion.

she writes, "for last year's silvester-party i needed a bit more sparkle on my table, we had more people than usual, so i had to bring out my long table cloth that i hardly ever use... and of course i had no fitting table decoration.

so i picked two galej from my shelf, picked beads and a thin silvery wire (more filament than wire, probably) and an equally thin crochet hook.... and crocheted these covers for the glasses.

they were rather quickly done (one evening watching TV each), didn't cost anything because i had everything at hand and they are removable. my guests liked it."