Vintage Footstool with Freezer Paper Transfer

You know how last weekend was a sit around, do nothing all day, weekend? Well, this weekend was the complete opposite. I didn't sit still for a minute. Right from when I got home from work on Friday, I jumped into projects. And actually accomplished 5 or 6 things. I'm pretty proud of myself for getting so much done.

One of my favourite things was recovering a small footstool we have. This stool was a gift from my aunt and I use it all the time. It sits under my desk and I prop my feet up so that my legs are at a more comfortable angle. It's a cute stool, very padded, but the fabric colours don't suit my taste any more. So off with its head! No really, everything stayed in place and I just covered over it.

(Sneak peek)

Here is the little sweetie before the facelift. The main colour is a yellow-tan with red and olive green stripes. As you can see, it's in really good shape and the top is very cushy.

I started by measuring up one side, across the top, and down the other side. All together it was 26" (adding a bit for the edges) so I cut a piece of pre-washed dropcloth into a big square 26 x 26. Do you use dropcloth as a fabric? I'm telling you, it's the best thing ever invented. The weave is tight, it can be dyed or printed on, and it's fairly water-resistant.

I draped the cloth over the stool, made sure it was centred, and pinned the corners down so that they fit tightly.

I then sewed along my pin lines and fitted the cloth back onto the stool.  It needed to be brought in a little bit at the bottom of each corner so I re-sewed the bottom half of each seam to be closer to the stool. Are you with me so far?

I then cut off the excess material on each corner, flipped the material right-side out, and pulled it back down onto the stool. You'll want it to fit very snugly. Now is the time to adjust your seams if you need to. You don't want to wait until you've started stapling and then realize it's too loose.

I removed the stool legs, and starting at a corner, folded over the material and stapled it down to the underside of the frame.

Most people recommend starting in the center of each side when you're stapling, but I was able to get it to lie flatter when I started at  the corners. Once all four corners were stapled down, I stapled along the sides, folding the material under to get a nice finished edge. I then screwed the legs back on.

Flip it over and see what you've got! Isn't that a beauty? I could have stopped there, but oh no, there was more fancify-ing to come!

I searched on the internet and found a graphic that I liked. It's a french style soap ad that may or may not be authentic. I saved the image, tinted it brown and increased the contrast, then flipped it in reverse. (PicMonkey is great for that if you don't have other editing software. I have Photoshop but for something like this I find PicMonkey faster.) I printed it on freezer paper, like I've shown you before, and then pressed the image onto the top of the stool and rubbed it all over with a flat object (in this case the side of the tape dispenser) to make sure it was evenly applied.

You'll want to dampen the fabric first, but just slightly damp - if it's too wet your image will bleed into the fabric. Not all of the lettering is legible, but the main words are and that's good enough for me! Those kind of imperfections just make it look worn and original.

The sides seemed a little plain so I took a piece of brown satin ribbon, folded it in half lengthwise and sewed it together along the long side. I measured around the stool with the ribbon, marked where the two ends should meet and sewed them together. I then slid the ribbon down around the stool like an elastic band, making sure that the long seam was facing inside towards the stool and not showing. The seam that joins the ribbon ends will show, but if you wiggle the ribbon until that seam is on top of one of the corner seams no one will even notice. Did I say "seam" enough? Seam, seam, seam!

And there you have it. Wasn't that simple? And now my stool has a new life. 

I'm linking up here this week!