Before and After Day....

On the way home from town this morning, I stopped at a garage sale as they were putting things out to sell. I lucked out! I found this radio case for $3.00.

Nope. There's nothing inside, but there will be. Zar and Tessie are both vying for it. Zar wants a laboratory and just plain wants it.

Scott's Liquid Gold is my friend...I relegated Zar and Tessie to the other side of the table and went to work.

After less than five minutes, this is what the case looked like. That stuff is amazing. It looks even better up close and personal...

I got the back off and there is lots of room inside. The only problem is the front is glued as well as nailed in place. This might be a tough one.

I am playing hooky from the trailer this morning. I was looking at lap desks at Walmart this morning. The ones that they have this year aren't as big as they have been in the past and twice as expensive.

Being a cheapskate, I decided to go with the old one and fix it up.

Another before photo. As you can see, lots of paint and glue stuck to the surface, not to mention cuts from Exacto blades.

This one is just the right size and I use it a lot. So.....Here goes. I purchased some sticky backed cork drawer liner. That's all....I had glue, fabric and everything else to do what I had in mind.

This desk has the soft pillow underneath attached with Velcro. I pulled that off and went to work.

I cut strips of fabric about 3" wide, long enough to go around the edge of the desk and over lap just a little. I had to do it in two strips cut crosswise of the fabric.

Starting at one side, I glued the strip to the back, even with the edge of the Velcro and turned up to the side in one pass. I clipped the corners so that the bottom would be wrapped neatly.

Then I flipped it over and trimmed the edge of the fabric all around so that there was no more than an inch to wrap to the front and glue. In this particular case, I had to cover an indentation meant for pencils. I didn't want to lose that feature or I would have just ignored this step. I cut a piece of fabric long enough to glue inside and come out over the edge of the indentation about a half inch, making sure that all of the edges were glued down securely.

Next, I cut a paper pattern for the cork piece to go on top, with a hole where the indentation was.

The tough part was getting the paper off and this piece on evenly. I started with the corner where the pencil well is and worked to the opposite diagonal corner. The cork has a tough backing on it, so I was able to lift and reposition it a couple of times, here and there. (If you try this, save the scraps for minis. I make soles for espadrilles with this stuff.)

When that was straight, I glued a small self-healing mat to the left corner. Then I decided that I needed a pincushion to match. I used an 6" circle of matching fabric to make a yo-yo and stuffed it with batting. I then used green pearl cotton to section it off like a red tomato type pincushion, with a green button in the center to match the cutting board. Poke the picture, if you want to see it closer.

I now have a brand new, better than store bought, lap desk. I guess that there is no longer an excuse not to go work on minis. No. Wait. There is. I don't want to get my new lap desk messed up!

See you tomorrow.