Repurposing With Flower Power

One of the casualties of our recent move was a loft bed which I had been using in the kids' room.  When we attempted to reassemble it in the new house, we quickly realized that it was too bent up to go back together properly.  So, the skeleton of said bed has been perched outside, by the garbage cans, theoretically waiting for one of us to make a trip to the recycling center.

It's hard for me to explain how my projects come to me.  Inspiration usually hits me when I'm attempting to do something completely unrelated.  I might see something, that makes me think of that other thing, that reminds me of something in the back of my garage that would be great for...  it's like that.  So, it was something like that, that lead me to my most recent headboard project, using, of course, the abandoned loft bed frame.

It started when I realized that the mattress supports for the loft bed were the exact length of a king headboard.  I liked the lines of the metal supports but didn't like the cheap Ikea metal finish, so I decided to paint.




Paint falls into one of my hoarding categories.  I like to have paint on hand, since nothing changes a look faster than a coat of paint!  Paint can get expensive, so I've made a habit of checking the rejected paints at Lowe's, Home Depot, Ace hardware, etc..  There's always a table of paint cans that were denied, generally because the color or finish wasn't what the buyers wanted.  These cans are usually $1 to $5, as opposed to $30.  Not bad.

In this case, I had a blue color that I liked, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted, so I pulled out my stash and started mixing.  I came up with a perfect gun-metal grey.

Some of you may recall the headboard project in which I layered old fabric samples.  When we moved, I collected and stored those samples, uncertain of how I was going to use them in the new house.  It occurred to me that the cold look of the frame might benefit from some fabric softening, so I started to play.

My idea was to make fabric flowers.  Then I remembered that I have a tin filled with old buttons from my mother's and grandmother's sewing days.  I was so excited to infuse some history into this project.  I also decided to use some of the yarn (which I got from freecycle a while back) for accents.

Once I started applying the flowers to the frame (I sewed them on), I realized I was going to need to make a bundle of them in order to get the effect I was looking for.  I was going for the look of scattered flowers, but I think it would also look really cool to use one to three large flowers instead.

After a lot of placing, removing, repositioning, and staring, it was time to install the headboard.  This was easy to do since the frame had perfectly placed holes which I was able to use for mounting it to the wall.  I used deck screws because I liked the rusted look of them.

I had a few flowers left over which I've had a little fun with.  There are so many fun applications for them.  One of my favorites is lampshade embellishment.  In this case I used magnets to apply the flowers to prevent damaging the shades.

Klee and I are planning to open a little on-line shop to sell some of our creations and finds.  I think I might sell some of my flowers there. What do you think?

Anyway, stay tuned my friends.  I have an obscene amount of projects to catch you up on.

Peace out!