Owen's Pride Custom Tack Box

As someone who has ridden a horse exactly twice (and not very successfully!), I admit to not knowing a whole lot about the work and care that goes into enjoying one. 

My friend Leigh-Ann, on the other hand, knows it well. She has a sweet horse named Cooper who, I've learned, comes with a lot of stuff! 

Leigh-Ann mentioned how much she longed for a nice - and big - custom tack box for the barn and, of course, I was happy to oblige. 

***Insert funny imaginary montage of me trying to figure out how to build a tack box!***

Here is the result....

The closed piece measures 5' high x 2' wide x 2.5' deep.  

I customized it with black trim and a black hand-painted decal of Leigh-Ann's horse show (Owen's Pride) and tattoo design. 

Here is an inside shot. Places for saddle, helmet, gloves, grooming gear, etc., etc.

Detail shots.

The whole piece has a little shelf on the top that came to be completely by accident - but I'm told it works well for hanging some sort of more horse stuff (see how educated I've become?!).

So, now that I know what a tack box is and how to build one, I can make some more! 

Send me an email if you want one for yourself! carolynclegg@gmail.com

Pinny's (AKA cute little half-aprons)

I'll confess - I'm not usually a pinny kind of a girl. I'm not particularly domestic. I don't bake or cook well. And, I don't usually do cute and sweet.

But, when my good friend Debbie over at Granny McNab's introduced me to this sweet little pinny pattern from her Mum,  I couldn't resist. Pinny's may not be put to good use in my kitchen, but I have a couple of friends who would love them.

So, I headed over to Fabricville with Mrs. Lee's pattern in hand and had a great time picking out fabrics.

 

For my friend, Rebecca, a funky combination of a bright green Nordic-inspired print with a yellow polka dot trim.

For my friend, Dawn, a pretty combination of small print roses with a fun turquoise polka dot trim.

Now part of me is tempted to couple a fun zebra print fabric with a hot pink trim for a wild pinny of my own! We'll see.....

Glitter Art

If you're drawn to all that glitters, I recommend taking a trip to Las Vegas!

My husband, some good friends and I were there for a few days in March and it was fantastic! And now, one quick trip to Vegas and I'm all about the glitz and glitter!

When we got home, I decided I wanted some sparkle in my house. The results came in the form of these two art pieces.

The first piece was made with almost 800 individually glittered 1" x 1" squares. Crazy, I know...but, I'm happy with the results.

And, the second piece is my glitter bulls eye!

I think it brings just enough sparkle to my dull we-are-selling-our-house-and-this-is-what-the-stager-told-us-to-paint beige walls!

Sneak Peek

This is my proof of concept board for my new dining table design. Stay tuned.

Faux Capiz Shell Chandelier

I don't know if it's my personality or something that's hard-wired into my brain - but, why don't I ever go for the quick and easy projects? Produce 1 or 2 little round wax paper circles? Nah, I'll make hundreds and hundreds of them. Then I'll sew them together in rows and rows and rows....and then wonder why it's taking so long!



But, look at the result! It looks pretty close to the real deal.

As I mentioned, I had my camera stolen. On it were a stack of how-to photos for a couple of projects, including this one. So, knowing that I'd spotted this project online at some point I did a Google search and found this tutorial by Freshly Picked .



I made my chandelier basically the same way. A couple of differences include using a great little wire fruit bowl for the base and securing the basket using the existing threaded screw system that held up the original glass fixture.

Who knew that ironed wax paper could look this good?!

Thanks to my friend, Sylvia, for letting me borrow her hole punch for so long!

Lost camera

In the blogosphere, if you make something and have no way to take a picture of it, did you really make it?

My camera has been stolen. I'm heartbroken. Not because of losing the camera itself, but because of the 540 photos on the memory card that are now lost to me - only half of which I uploaded! That's a hard lesson to learn!

So, I'm heading out to get a new camera. I have lighting, pillow covers, new shelving and a toy design to share. Oh, and a sneak peek at my newest project!

Stay tuned!

I have a winning rack...ahem, bike rack

The Halifax Regional Municipality recently held a bike rack design competition. Design a rack for placement at the Dartmouth Ferry Terminal. Fun, right? And, with the added bonus of winning a new bike (I love new bikes).

The marketer in me couldn't pass up submitting a marketing statement/bike rack design-hybrid for the city.

Here is the transit logo -


Here is the design I submitted -


With bike (config 1) -


With bike (config 2) -


The results are in. I've been named "second" winner. I'm not quite sure what that means yet -other than not looking awesome on my new bike (I'm not saying I begrudge the 16 year-old first place winner her bike. I'm just sayin').

My design has been submitted to Metro Transit with the recommendation they be placed at various bus terminals around the city. That would be cool. (Yeah, but, can I ride cool around town...?)

Thanks to HRM for picking my design and loading me up with great alternative prizes!

And, Aelyn Murphy, your winning design is awesome! I'm just teasing. Enjoy your new bike!

Public announcement - http://www.halifax.ca/mediaroom/pressrelease/pr2011/110421BikeRackDesignWinnersAnnounced.html

Super Storage

Space is in short supply in my tiny house. And, anyone with kids knows that small spaces become even smaller when little ones leave their mark.

So, the decision to move our daughter into our tiniest of three bedrooms (8 x 9 - yes, that's tiny!) was made to make way for a new den/playroom upstairs. In order to move her twin bed into the new space we had to sacrifice the closest by ripping it out (pictures to come).



Eden's new storage plan starts with two cubby units (purple, of course!). The plan is to build a third unit that will fit in the corner and stand tall enough to house hanging items. The door will be a half-door that will swing out above the smaller right-hand cubby unit.

Now, I like my furniture to pull double duty - and, this piece is no different. So, I'm sewing up upholstered cushions that will lay on top of each unit. The longer of the two units also has a little desk that sits on a rail-type system. This way Eden can use the space as a little reading nook.


I'm excited to see what the green fabric will look like with the unit. I think it will be fun and bright. It should go nicely with Eden's new duvet cover.

The room is coming together!!

Seriously. It's a salad bowl. DIY Challenge - #2.

I needed a fun - but somewhat inconspicuous - light shade to finish off my daughter's new room. Other requirements included ridiculously easy and inexpensive. So, why not a salad bowl shade?

To start, you need the remnants of this type of ugly ceiling light. Take off the glass shade and you're left with a threaded rod that attaches to the base.

Here's what you'll need:

• $10 clear plastic bowl with roughly the same dimensions as the shade you removed (mine is PC brand)
• round coding stickers from an office supply store
• a drill and 3/8" drill bit (same size as the threaded rod)
• white spray paint
• saran wrap, or some way to cover the outside of the bowl when spraying

Step 1 - Drill a hole.
Using your 3/8" drill bit, slowly drill a hole straight through the bottom of the bowl - dead centre.

Your threaded rod should slip right in. If not, make the hole slightly larger by shaving around holes edge with your drill (wiggle the rotating bit around the edge).

Step 2 - Stickers.
Use your stickers to make a pattern. I went with random dots.


Step 3 - Saran Wrap.
You only want to spray the inside of the bowl, so cover the outside of the bowl with saran wrap to protect it from getting sprayed.


Step 4 - Spray.
Light coats.



Step 5 - Peel off the stickers.
Peel before the paint completely dries (before it dries as one piece!).

Step 6 - Attach to ceiling.
Slip the rod through the bowl and attach to ceiling fixture.

DIY Lighting - Challenge #1

I woke up one morning last week and, amazingly for the first time, admitted the light fixture in my bedroom is super ugly. Which led me to look around and let sink in that all of the lighting fixtures in my house are super ugly. So, new challenge – DIY myself some cool lighting.

My first DIY light is a small pendant light for my little ones bedroom renovation. I’ve been pining over the very lovely Swarovski Schonbeck pendant light for a while now. But, with a hefty price tag of just over $1,400, the closest I’m going to get is a DIY knockoff.

For some reason I have been carting around an old wrought iron planting pot hanger for years. It was one of those “it could be good for something someday” things (my collection of things drives my husband crazy!). But, couple the pot hanger with a $5 IKEA Hemma cord set and you’ve got yourself a frame for a light.

I made and tied on a slew of beaded strings around the frame of the hanger for shimmer. The colour choices match the bedroom’s new fabric.

To hide the string ties I then wrapped the whole frame with a thin turquoise ribbon.

I still have a few finishing touches to take care of – including tracking down a tin snip to get rid of the extra chain, evening out the beads and installing the light above E's new bed.

So, while I’m not going to be showing off this light fixture at any glamorous exhibits, it does the trick.

Featured on ohdeedoh.com

Back to blogging - A duvet cover

I have a three year-old with an insatiable appetite for the colour purple. Now, I like purple - but not in the espresso hit that she does. Luckily, I found a fabric that fills the purple need for her while giving me a little relief from all purple/all the time.

Using the fabric as a starting point, we’ve painted the room and made a few “designer” decisions (stay tuned).

My project this weekend was sewing the duvet cover. I used the designer fabric for the top, and decided on a purple and white polka dot fabric for the underside (originally a dress fabric, but it works!). All in all, this was a pretty easy project. It was literally sewing two pieces of fabric together. Remembering to make a slit in the side for the duvet.

I decided to add in a bright green piping. I thank Lenee Alexander over at ehow.com for teaching me how to sew piping! Nothing like propping the laptop up beside the sewing machine!

Website

www.carolynclegg.com

the beginnings of a home office desk

i'm working on turning our one spare bedroom into a home office/playroom/guest bedroom. a little lofty, considering the room is only 9' x 11'! my first project is building myself a little desk that can be tucked away when eden and i need some room to play. so, how about a desk that swivels?

i'm building a desk that is made up of two 12" x 48" x 6" tabletops that sit on top of a small storage unit. the storage unit rests against the wall and the two tabletops are parallel to the wall.

when i want to use the desk i swivel the two tabletops to meet and lock them together.

i have the table tops made. i just have to see if the way i imagine the tabletops swiveling will actually work. i can't have them scraping against each other when they swivel. i'll show you what i've come up with next week!

idon storage shelf

i know, i know....i took a little two week hiatus. i was busy building this....




this is my idon shelf (finally something named after my husband - he's been waiting awhile!). idon is an acronym for idea icon. this shelf is three rotating cubes within three cubbies. each cube is 6" x 6". i painted a different design on each of the sides and back to match up as you rotate the cube.


it funny how after you build something you think about how simple it was and what took so long?!

work in progress

i like doing this blog for two reasons - one, it gives me weekly goals and two, it's nice to have all of my projects in one place. but, on the flip side, i sometimes avoid more complicated projects in order to post once a week. i have a few big projects that i have stuck in my head that need to come out! the project i'm working on now is a little complicated. i spent last week working it out by building little models out of cardboard to make sure it would work. these boxes are going to eventually rotate!

i've approached the nova scotia designers crafts council to see if i can become a member. in order to become a member you have to submit three pieces to be judged. i'm hoping this one will work out as a submission. my jury session is october 10th...yikes! stay tuned!

crazy cool tables

i'm a bit of a new design junkie. i'm addicted to being wowed by other peoples ingenuity. these two tables definitely impress. i want the marble table above by tineke beunders . how clever and fun!


i love this musical coffee table by tor clausen, too. how much fun would this be with a couple of kids (or a couple of drinks!).

a baby duvet

what happened to summer? we've had to put the heat on two nights in a row! so, i thought it was time to make a little baby duvet for eden. luckily, my mum had an old duvet that she was happy to let me cut up! cutting up a duvet was crazy...i felt like i was working in a snowglobe for a couple of hours - down feathers everywhere! i'm still picking feathers out of my sewing machine.

out of one queen sized comforter i was able to make two baby duvets and one twin duvet. this one was covered with a cute hot pink fabric.

just two pieces of fabric sew together, a slot made for the duvet to fit through.

i'm going to pack away my sewing machine now and move back to the table saw! i have some projects stacking up in my head.