If at first you don't succeed...

Several years ago I inherited an old stool with straight blonde wood legs and a beat up turquoise seat.  I wanted to use it with my vanity, so I reupholstered it in green to match my bedroom decor at the time.  It has seen a lot of use and held up pretty well.

I never updated the seat cushion, and it was getting a bit flat, plus I am no longer in a green phase.  So as part of my bedroom update, I decided this weekend to re-reupholster it.  Here it is in it's naked glory:

I had no definite plan for this other than making it pretty.  To start, I made a full skirt from a $5 Walmart twin bedsheet, and hot-glued it on.

I bought a piece of 3 inch foam for the seat, and decided to upholster it in the same fabric I used on my dining room chairs.  I was really sort of winging it and didn't think this through properly and it showed.



It turned out really bad 

Back to the drawing board.  I pretty much knew what I'd done wrong, but I didn't really like these two fabrics together anyway so I decided to try rounding off the edges of the cushion and stretching a different piece of fabric over it instead.  This was a much easier solution than my first attempt, one which I had thought of and rejected earlier because I was convinced I had to do a lot of work for it to look nice.  But you saw what that got me.  I remembered that I had a pair of white euro shams that I bought and didn't like on my pillows (too big), and I decided to see if one was big enough to cover the seat.  It was nearly perfect, and I really liked how the scalloped corners of the sham looked hanging down over my skirt, so I cut those off and hot glued them onto the frame before I screwed the seat back on.  I still didn't like how the bottom part of the cushion looked so I decided to tie a ribbon around the cushion to hide the part where the fabric puckers:

Then I added some tulle.  And a bow.  And then it looked a bit like a wedding dress. 

So I simplified the bow, and now it's a little better I think.

This was a pretty cheap project since I only had to buy the cushion, sheet and some ribbon.  I wanted to do something quick and easy last weekend but this turned out to be neither of those things. But I sat on it to do my hair for a week now and I have to say it's pretty comfy.

Thanks for visiting, and have a great week!