I needed somewhere to hide all the junk that has been cluttering my desk. I decided to put this old paper box to use.

I cut both the box and the lid in two.

The lid will become the front pieces for these boxes.

I removed the paper that was on the box (I added that some years ago, so this is the second time I am re-inventing this box…lol) to make it easier to work with.

Some cute fabric and glue was used to hide the ugly surface.

The lid was attached to the front with a glue gun.

All the crap that was spread out around my working space was hidden away in the boxes.

The boxes where put up on a shelf.

I also added a handle to them using a white suede leather cord. Very easy to do. Punch some holes in the front, use three starnds of cord, braid, and tie a knot at each end of the handles.

Check out Part 1 and Part 2.

If you saw my latest post on this chair you probably noticed that I changed my mind about the fabric. Instead of the velvet I decided to go with last time I found a much better fabric a few weeks ago. It is a upholstery fabric and it looks much better that the previous fabric!

I also found a great ribbon for the chair. This is how I attached it.

I knew using glue for this was out of the question. I am actually not sure, but I think most ribbons on chairs like this one are attached with small nails. The problem with that is that you do not want the nails to be visible.

I managed to make the nails invisible by sneaking them in from the sides and hide them within the ribbon.

Do you see the little nail in there somewhere? I hope not.

The hardest part to get the ribbon around is the base of the chair’s back. Again, I am not sure how this is done correctly, but I solved it by folding the ribbon and sewing a few stitches.

Very happy with the result!

As if I didn’t have enough old leather jackets to repurpose already, my aunt donated hers a few weeks ago. It had a very heavy brown leather and it was not in a great condition. Before I could use it to make something new, the leather had to be cleaned and conditioned.

I used soap, mink oil and neutral shoe shine/polish (colored shoe shine could get onto my clothes if some residue is left when the leather has been turned into a bag).

To get the leather nice and clean I used a sponge and a few drops of Swedish pine soap diluted in water. If you are anywhere else but in Scandinavia you will probably not have access to this soap, but regular glycerine soap will work just as great! Try not to use a soap that will make the leather dry, go for soaps that are oil based.

Gently clean the surface with the sponge.

After you are done cleaning, wipe off the surface with a cotton rag. I used an old worn out t-shirt, hah!

Let the leather dry. Then apply mink oil. I had to use quite a lot of it, mostly because the leather was SO dried up, but also because my mink oil is probably over 20 years old and kind of dried up too… It still works, even though it could be considered to be… uhm. Vintage.

Let the leather soak up the mink oil. I left mine over night. In the morning the oil had dried up and there was almost nothing left to wipe off.

But I did anyway, and so should you. Get that cotton rag again and wipe off the leather until you have a surface that is non-sticky and smooth.

After the mink oil I like to use a polish to get some shine. This is not really necessary, but I think it makes the leather come alive again and brings out the color more. It makes the leather look new.

Apply the shoe shine and let it dry.

Polish it up until you have a nice shine.

… And be amazed at the result!

The end.

Terrible because my sewing machine decided to stop working on leather and I had to sew the entire thing by hand :C So, now you know why I did not update last week.

The blue suede is from an old jacket (of course ;)) and the multi colored suede cords are from endlesssleather.com. I also used my hole punch.

As usual I used A4 paper as a pattern (I did add some extra cm for the fold at the top).

Like the black drawstring bag I did some weeks ago I had to use two smaller pieces for the bag’s front and back.

I used the same stitch as this tutorial on hand sewn buttonsholes use. The fringes I added made the bag sturdy enough even though I couldn’t use my machine to sew it.

After folding down the top I cut out holes for the drawstring and stitched them.

Sewing the shoulder strap and attaching it to the bag was the hardest to do by hand. But it worked out fine in the end.

I have more leather bag projects planned, I bought a new leather needle for my machine yesterday. I hope that solves my problems…

I decided to cut off this miserable dress and make it into a top.

I cut it off at the hem and cut off the sleeves to make them normal – I am SO tired of gathered/scrunched up sleeves! Ugh. I also removed the drawstring waist and instead used a piece from the cut off as a sewn on belt. I added one of the left over buttons at the waist, that part easily opened up after I gathered the top at the waist.

To spice things up with I also added two gold trims from Wholeport.com. The gold looks great with the blue denim!

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