Cedar Chest

Yesterday, my husband and I went to a city, about 150 miles from where we live, to see our best friends' son in a college production of Pride and Prejudice. Our daughter lives in the same city, and as we had some time prior to the performance, my daughter, my husband and myself dropped into the local Goodwill to check out the goodies.

This is what I found:

A beautiful (though somewhat worse for wear) Lane cedar chest. It has real cedar inside!

After some shrewd wheeling and dealing, I was able to purchase it for $100. Not too bad. My husband, and a helpful store worker, loaded into the back seat of our car, and we drove around the remainder of the weekend with a cedar chest filling the back seat of our Hyundai.

We arrived home today in the early afternoon. I washed the grime off the chest and removed the old handles and upholstery fabric.

After searching through my fabric stash, I found a piece of upholstery fabric I had purchased on clearance at Hobby Lobby. I used this to recover the upholstered top. My son helped me pick out some new handles for the chest at our local Home Depot.

A little 0000 steel wool and a can of Restore-a-Finish later, and we now have a beautiful heirloom sitting at the end of our bed.

I am extremely pleased with how it turned out.

Not only does it look lovely, and provide woodsy smelling storage; it also serves as a stepping stool for our older dog who is beginning to have a hard time jumping up onto the bed.

It is very gratifying to go from this:

 To this...in an afternoon!

Tote Bags Galore

 Have I mentioned I enjoy making bags? Purses, handbags, pouches, messenger bags, tote bags, if it can hold stuff, I love making it.
My last post was about the custom handbag I made as a result of a Craftsy class I participated in called Design Your Own Handbag instructed by Brett Bara.
I can't say enough great things about the Craftsy platform and classes.
Once you purchase the course, its yours forever. You can go back at anytime to watch all or just parts of a class. You can post your questions, comments, etc. in the class, and the instructor replies, and so do the other participants. 
Craftsy also has classes they offer for free! Such a great deal. To prep for the Design Your Own Handbag class, I signed up for a free Craftsy class called Bag Making Basics: Reversible Tote and Zipper Pouch. This course is taught by Kristen Link and is so easy to follow that I went a little crazy with the reversible tote bags. As can be seen by the row of pictures on the left and right.
This was a wonderful way to use up a bunch of fabric pieces that I have. The bags don't take much in the way of yardage, so I just put colors and patterns together in whatever way felt fun.
The bags are reversible and machine washable. That may just be the best part.