Cargo Pants Messenger Bag via Pinterest

I finally finished what I thought would be a quick project.  I started it a week ago Saturday, ran out of matching thread, and it sat there until today.  Quite awhile ago I pinned a tutorial to make a messenger bag out of a pair of cargo pants. Lucky for me, my son had a pair of army greenish ones that he said were ugly, and would never wear again. I'm pretty sure they were his choice a year ago, but his loss is my gain. Saved myself a trip to the thrift store, and a couple of bucks.

I think it turned out awesome!  Here is the link to the original post. noodle-head cargo pant messenger bag

I have used her patterns before, and really like them. I won't bother with a tutorial, you can just follow hers. It was pretty easy, and made from stuff I had on hand. The only thing I changed, was I made the strap adjustable with buttons.

I wasn't sure if I would want it as a shoulder bag, or a cross body messenger bag. This way, I can use it either way. I used a rectangular ring from an old strap in my stash. Not much gets thrown away around here, never know when you'll have a use for something. It's a bit of a curse, but usually works out for us!

You cut the front flap piece from one of the sides of the pant with the cargo pocket on it. My pair had these pockets on one side, and one larger pocket on the other. Not sure if these pockets are super useful, but they look cool, so I chose this side. My cell phone will fit in the bottom one.

I lined the bag and the strap with this fun print in a reddish coral print. I really like this color, and have a jacket in it that will look great together. I chose another floral print with a lot of colors to bind the flap and make inside pockets. Hoping spring will hurry up.  :) 

Put one of my labels on the outside pocket, I just like how it looks.

So there it is, my new bag. Another pinterest idea finished successfully. Yea!! Pretty sure I'll never get around to trying all of them, but it's still fun to have lots of ideas to choose from. 

Keep pinning!

Two Dollar Chair

Well, here it is.

 We were heading out to dinner one evening, and happened on an almost over garage sale. My husband and I jumped out, (against our children's wishes), and took a look. We saw this chair, and  I think it was marked down from $10 to $5. My husband and I looked at it, and the woman came up to us and said we could have it for $2. SOLD! Now, it looked pretty rough, but we could see it's potential.

The fabric was, as you can see, really worn out, and the arms were beyond filthy. I ripped the trim and nails from around the arms, to get rid of some of the yuck. 

Then I draped a blanket over it and there it sat, just like that for well over a year. Funny how after awhile you just get used to something, even if you don't like it. I couldn't decide on a fabric or color to recover it, so, it waited.

Then, when I put the chevron fabric on my wing back chair, I was inspired to finally do something with this chair. So, we un-upholstered it. It is the not fun part of upholstery, but not only to you get the yucky fabric off, you get patterns for your new pieces. 

You start at the bottom, taking it off piece by piece, and take a lot of pictures and remember the order that they came off. They will go back on in reverse order. This chair had 2 layers of cotton and horse hair on the seat, which I replaced with foam and dacron batting. It also had a major spring issue too, which required retying and new metal straps. Lucky I have an amazingly handy hubby, who loves to do that part for me.

This is what the bottom looked like after we took the black fabric cover off.

This is what it looked like after we took the straps and burlap off. It needed some major work. It was kind of wobbly too, and after removing the fabric and batting, we found the frame had a crack along the top. Again my hubby glued and screwed all the joints to make it sturdy again. 

After all that, we were ready to start putting it back together. I had found a fabric at Hobby Lobby that I liked, but it was a little pricey. That's probably why it sat for so long. But, with the 40% coupon, I decided it was my choice. I laid out all my removed pieces, figured yardage and went and bought fabric, gimp, foam, batting, staples and nail head trim. After I got the fabric home and started upholstering, I really fell in love with it. It's the coolest piece I have ever done.

It makes me happy every time I look at it!

The design on the fabric is shiny silver metallic. If you look in the cabinet to the right of the chair, the candlesticks are mercury glass I found at a garage sale last year. Perfect!

After

Before

It had great lines and the wood was in great shape, so it was worth the effort. I first just had gimp glued over the staples, but the nail trim really made it. 

One more shot of my new favorite!