In 2016, I've embarked on a project to restore, recycle or repurpose (dubbed the 3Rs) at least one item a month.  These experiences will be made available as tutorials via my Etsy shop. My 3Rs Project for January are these pretty  'Leaf me alone' Barstools.

We had these stools in our kitchen for the last 10 years. They had become pretty grimy and they would have looked pretty shabby in their shiny new home. Just compare the 'before' shot below with the end product above.  

So I whipped out the sander, paintbrushes and a few other tools and came up with these nifty new bar stools with a dint of imagination and elbow grease.

The leaf designs inspired me to dub them the 'Leaf me alone' stools.  I took hundreds of photos and put together this little slideshow to show the emerging design. I had just as much fun making the slideshow as I did working on the the bar stools.

I was really pleased with this project as I was able to give new life to old stools.  It cost me about RM115 to buy the supplies I needed for this project. (I live in Sydney but I'm in Malaysia for the next little while). That works out to about AUD$30. In whichever currency you consider, I think what's been produced is pretty impressive. 

If you feel inspired to give old furniture a new lease on life, I have a step by step PDF tutorial with designs, pictures and detailed instructions and tips that shows you how to create a barstool of your very own. The tutorial is available for purchase for AUD$5.45 from my Etsy store.  Payment is made via PayPal and you will receive the PDF within 5 minutes of the payment going through.  Please note you will receive a PDF file only, not the stool in the picture.

Get Tutorial

I would love to see pictures of what this has inspired. Please feel free to share them in the comments section below. 

The one on the left is a special brush for varnish but sheds a lot of hair.

I'm in the midst of restoring an old wooden bed of my mother's and needed paint brushes. I had new brushes at home but they shed worse than my dog and I wasn't game to use them. I needed some wood filler as well, so when I stopped by the hardware store, I asked the woman who was serving me for brushes for varnishing wood.

Sure enough she pulls out the ones that shed like crazy. So I told her what my experience with them had been like. She looked at me a little pityingly. Before she went to show me some other brushes, she told me that I had to pull the bristles to remove any loose hairs before using them. I hadn't done that. So I learnt something new today.

Still not game enough to try it again. I bought a brush with a thinned edge instead. I think it will work nicely with varnish.

This recipe is so quick to make and taste delicous too. It uses white chocolate and cream cheese. The addition of dried pineapple and brazil nuts gives it a lovely flavour and texture. I love brazil nuts in fudge. The recipe is below. Make and enjoy.

Ingredients
250g white chocolate broken into small pieces
220g cream cheese
2 1/3 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
a pinch of salt
3/4 cup brazil nuts chopped
1/4 cup chopped dried pineapple pieces
Rectangular baking tin

Method
Line the baking tin with greaseproof paper. Sieve icing sugar into a large mixing bowl. Add a pinch of salt, vanilla and the cream cheese to the sugar. Beat these ingredients with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Melt the white chocolate in the microwave using a low setting and heating at 20 second intervals. The chocolate should be soft enough to work into the cream cheese mixture. Take care not to burn the chocolate. Beat the melted chocolate into the cream cheese mixture. Stir in the fruit and nuts. Spread the mixture into the prepared pan.  Freeze for an hour and then transfer to the fridge for another 2 hours before eating. Store fudge in the fridge.

I've had tapestry on my mind after seeing some repurposed tennis rackets.  I was playing around with the photo editor software to see if I could convert a photo to an outline.

I wasn't impressed with their outline but found the emboss effect quite fascinating. The photo was one I took while I was in Venice, two years ago. It was taken on the island of Burano which is famous for its colourful houses. Now just imagine this embossed on a metal sheet and enameled with colour.

Definitely a project to try when I have some time. Check out the repurposed tennis rackets by Danielle Clough, to see where my circuitous inspiration came from.