This Is From That!: March 2013

lucky lucky me! that is exactly how i felt when i first laid eyes on this . . . er . . . beauty. one day last november, i had some time to kill before i had to do the school pick up so i decided to blitz through my local Goodwill. as always, i started in the housewares department to see what treasures i could find before heading to the clothes. i hadn't found much to get excited about and was getting ready to leave when i noticed this dress form off in the corner. i immediately found myself racing through the store in case someone should get there before me. i'm sure that my son (who was in the stroller i was pushing) thought i was just trying to make it a more enjoyable ride for him, but i knew that i was really a woman on a mission!

when i got to her, you can imagine the absolute joy i felt when i saw that they were only asking $12.99! holy crapoli! it was my lucky day!! i've wanted one of these for as long as i can remember but they were always so much money. i couldn't believe how little they were asking for something so great. i quickly tucked her under my arm and started dragging her to the counter . . . not an easy task while trying to push a stroller. fortunately, a good samaritan took pity on me and offered to carry it for me.

the sweet lady behind the counter could obviously see how happy i was about my find. i told her that i had big plans for what i was going to do with my new dress form and she was surprised to hear that i wasn't going to use it for sewing.

for the past year my husband and i have been planning (and finally building) our new house. i am especially excited because i am going to have my own closet that i won't have to share with him!! i even have a color scheme and many ideas of how i am going to make it uniquely mine. (thank you, pinterest!) i've been on the hunt to find a dress form i could customize to put in this new space that would coordinate with the jewelry holder i made out of a giant plastic frame last year. (if you'd like, you can read about it here.) at last the search was over!

i didn't get started on the project right away, since i have two kids and a job, am building a house, etc. etc. etc. i have been too busy and besides, ain't nobody got time for that! however, i got an itch the other night to do a project, so i fished it out of the back of my daughter's closet and got to work.

first i made a crude drawing of the form and labeled each piece on the back to coordinate with the drawing so i could remember how it should be reassembled. i also took pictures of the inside and how it was screwed together.

i then went to Ikea and bought my fabric . . . followed by a trip to Home Depot to get a sample pot of paint (which i matched to the chevron fabric on the jewelry holder) and gloss to spray over the painting, since the sample pots only come in flat and i wanted the finished product to have shine.

when i arrived home, i lightly sanded all of the metal pieces and wiped them down to remove the dust before painting. i ended up giving the legs and metal shaft about four good coats of paint while allowing ample drying time in between coats. while i was waiting for paint to dry, i started recovering the individual form pieces. some were definitely easier than others. i would just keep pulling and stapling the heck out of it until it looked right. it was very hard to get around the neck and shoulders, so the finished product is no where near perfect, but good enough for me. besides, the fabric pattern is forgiving of imperfections so i lucked out there! all together, the fabric portion took me about 2.5 hours. it seemed like forever, but in hindsight it wasn't really that bad after all, especially when i look at the finished product!

after the last coat of paint had dried overnight i started spraying the gloss. make sure to be in a well ventilated area because the smell was terrible. luckily we had a nice day, so the temperature made it so each coat dried relatively quickly (only about 20 min between coats). in the end, i did four coats of the gloss to make sure every inch was covered. finally it was time to reassemble her!! i was glad i took such detailed notes because it was trickier than i thought.

i am so so happy with how she turned out. i love the fabric choice with the color of the base. it really pops and looks cool next to the jewelry holder. i can't wait to put her in my new closet!!