OK! What Just Happened???

Tessie just made a BIG mistake! She erased the memory of my typing an entry for her, but she was very careless with allowing the entry to stay where I could see it. Of course, I am not sure how she could hide it unless she did something drastic to delete it. I don't think she has that ability. Good thing for me!

So....She thinks she's top dog? Hmmmmm....I am going to have to see about that.

She did talk, or should I say harass, me into making her a new place to sit whilst watching me work on projects. I am not sure if it will be useful to others or not. I am going to tell you about it, with the hope that it will spark some ideas.

She sits and watches me work a lot and she says she is tired from all of the zapping of chairs and chases. "It would be much easier if I only had to zap myself." she said.

So to humor her, I decided to build a seat into the lamp that I use all of the time for close ups. It has a base with different sized holes around the weighted base for pencils and other supplies. I don't use them because the lamp gets moved around a lot and they would just fall out.

You could use this method to build all kinds of overstuffed furniture. If you were to do that, I would suggest either ceiling tile or foam core for the base piece. I just used what was at hand.

We buy Fancy Feast cat food in a box of 12 cans. It has one or two pieces of really nice cardboard between the two layers. I save it and use it for all kinds of crafts. Actually, that's what I used for the cover of the "Vines" book the other day.

Anyway, I whipped out a piece of that and cut three shapes the same as the bottom of the hole I wanted to fill. Then I cut a long strip about the height that I wanted to fill in, in the space.

I then glued two of the shapes to the top and bottom of the strip, making a hollow form. This will never be seen, so I wasn't too worried about pretty.

I played around with the leftover piece, bending it this way and that to make the back and arms of the seat and trimming as I went. I should mention that all cardboard has a grain to it just like wood and will bend and form in one direction better than the other. If you run it over the edge of a counter or a desk, you will easily be able to force it to curve. That's what I did with both the strip and the back piece.

Next, I took the pieces and dry fitted them into place. They worked. I drew a line on the back where the base hit it. From that point up, I glued on some high loft quilt batting and cut the top to shape with a little extra for roll over. I covered this piece with the fabric. I glued down the bottom edge where there was no batting first and worked up to the top, rolling over the batting and fabric, then gluing the fabric to the back side.

I made this piece so that the lamp hole would just meet the edge of the roll.

Then I put two layers of batting on the last of the seat pieces and wrapped it with fabric, gluing it to the back.

The last step was simply wedging the pieces into place. I didn't want to make them permanent, just in case Tessie changes her mind.....We all know that happens.

I made a pillow with the remaining cardboard, some batting and a piece of the zebra patterned fabric. Now everything's coordinated and all's right with the world again.

With this technique, you can make other overstuffed pieces. They don't have to be in a hole. Experiment. Have fun.

Shame on you, Katie, for encouraging Tessie! She has been next to impossible to live with all day. I must go and follow more of her orders now.....

See you tomorrow.