she's crafty: tassel stool.

i'm kind of over making resolutions (soooo 2010), but if there is one thing i would like to attempt more of in life, it's to finish projects that i start. and then actually blog about them. this is what i like to call SETTING REALISTIC AND ATTAINABLE GOALS, people. so this project has been sitting on deck for awhile, and this morning, over coffee and breakfast tacos, i totally killed it. killed it, took pictures, and now i'm blogging about it. boom goes the dynamite, but i'd like to reiterate that this is not a resolution: this is a commitment to completion and it coincides with early january; fuck resolutions dot com.

i bought this POS little stool at the guild shop, a houston thrifting treasure trove, for like $7. it was super fug. so fug that i had to hide it from b-rad. the thing is, i KNOW brad can see the potential in all the trash i drag home, but his secret motivational tool for encouraging me to transform things is to get really, really mad when i bring stuff home and yell that it is trash and a total waste of money and does he need to call hoarders? and be like my wife is hoarding a giant pile of things that belong in a landfill? so i don't have a BEFORE picture, because quite frankly, that is kind of like evidence of how bad this looked when i bought it. but it looks pretty fly now, right?

it had three layers of other fabrics on the seat, so based on the layers of gross that i peeled away this morning, it's at least the 4th incarnation of this stool. AND LET ME TELL YOU A SECRET: i re-upholstered it using a blouse. it's not as fluorescent as it looks below, but lemme tell ya: it is a fierce electric melon.

you don't actually need that much fabric to recover a cushion (or make a pillow, for that matter), so if you are already working on the cheap and kind of know what you are doing, thrift yourself a shirt or dress or badass blanket or curtain panel or any other textile in good condition. a half-yard of nice fabric can get expensive, but this 2X ladies' shirt was like a dollar. surely you bitches saw how nick olsen used a mexican blanket on a french chair in house beautiful and the world was like WHAAAA? pick one up for yourself next time you're at the fair.

i should mention that it really freaks me out to post pictures of my own house, because the things that go on or go in here are things i would NEVER do for a client. my style is 'bizarre tchotchke clutter pattern explosion + animals' and we don't seem to sell a whole lotta that in the high-end interior world, so i like to save it for my yours truly. it's really a specialty niche, after all. people like kate spade and herve pierre and abigail ahern know what i am talking about, y'all.

so just in case you're curious, and because i made brad take pictures, here are some action photos. wallpaper shown is cole and son matsu pines; bed is custom, lucite lamp is arteriors and you may have also noticed my 5-year journal (still amazing) and 4-H ribbon from previous posts.

outermost layer. if it looks really fancy in this photo, it's because brad is practically ansel adams.

second incarnation. this version totally had a crush on jake ryan.

true OG velvet layer with welt trim, aka ol' dirty bastard.

prior to diy-ing, get manicure, put on bunny sweater.

counter-clockwise and keep it tight, bitches.