Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 246
Repurposed Furniture
Hello Everyone
Well, after all the excitement of the last few weeks l am afraid Henry had a bit of bad news this week.
His parents told him that after paying for all the renovation work in the attic there was no money left in the kitty to buy any furniture for his new play room.
Henry was devastated!
His mum said that they had enough for a nice, soft, colourful rug for him to sit on in the middle of the floor but that was it!
She had seen a really lovely one at the Rocky Bay department store.
Bill, Bob and Emily told him not to worry – they didn’t mind sitting on the floor to play – but Henry had had such big plans.
Now all he would have in his lovely, new room would be a mat and a bookcase.
Then Henry had a letter from his cousin which cheered him up no end.
She was a lot older than Henry.
She was very good at drawing and was now a student at an art college.
She had heard about Henry’s new play room – and his lack of furniture and she had had an idea that she thought could help him.
She told him that if he could find some old furniture that other people didn’t want anymore, she was pretty sure that she could do things with it that would transform it into something truly wonderful.
She needed to do projects for her course and if she could photograph the pieces of furniture she had transformed, she could then put the photographs into something called an art portfolio.
The portfolio would be a collection of all the artwork that she had done at college during her course.
Henry’s cousin explained that even dusty, old furniture could look really great after it had been painted.
He shouldn’t think that the furniture was second-hand but wonderful pieces of art work – and nobody else in the whole world would have furniture that looked like his!
His furniture would be ‘repurposed furniture’ – another word would be ‘upcycling’ and this was really fashionable furniture.
When Henry heard that his furniture would be unique pieces of art, he thought it was the best news ever!
So Henry’s parents put the word out and all the neighbours looked in their garages and sheds and one morning Henry went out into the back garden to see a heap of old furniture people had popped inside the back gate for him.
Well, his heart just sank.
lt was brown and boring and very dusty and there were even cobwebs on some of it.
His mum told him to not be dispirited. She told him to wait and see what his cousin would do.
Bill, Bob and Emily came round to see the furniture.
They weren’t too impressed either – but they all got to work to clean it up so that it would be nice and clean and dry and ready to be painted.
lt is nice to have friends, isn’t it?
And that weekend, Henry’s cousin turned up with her paintbrushes and toolkit ready to get to work.
First, she set all the furniture out to see what she had to work with and had a ponder.
Henry stood beside her unconvinced.
She was very tired after her long journey so everyone had dinner and went to bed.
Early the next morning Henry woke up to find Annie already hard at work.
There were five dining room chairs, and two wooden chairs with arms.
There was a large book case and a chest of drawers.
Annie got to work preparing the furniture by rubbing it down with some sandpaper. She explained to Henry that the surface of the furniture had to be prepared so that paint would stick to it properly.
Henry started to help. He knew that the sooner the furniture was prepared for painting, the sooner he would see Annie’s ideas come to life.
Annie painted everything light blue and then she started to paint pictures on the chairs on top of the base coat. She was a good artist and Henry was beginning to be very impressed.
Of course, she had to wait for one layer of paint to dry before she could put another on.
She stuck a large poster on the front of the chest of draws and slit it with a sharp knife between along all the gaps. Now there was a big picture of some cute, scary aliens right up the front of it.
She made a frame to match the outside of the front of the bookcase and then she stretched chicken wire across the inside. With the addition of hinges and a little handle the book case was transformed into a cupboard. You could see everything inside but the things couldn’t fall out.
She painted wonderful pictures up the sides of a planet surface and lots of craters and more aliens. She used lots of different colours and some silver paint as well to make the pictures glint and look really special.
Then Annie painted little pictures of planets, stars and rockets over the backs of the chairs. She also painted some blue and silver stars on the bookcase that Henry’s dad had already painted white earlier.
Captain Jack and l turned up later that day with a table we had made out of pallet wood and a large tyre inner tube that Captain Jack had found in his boat house for the children to roll around on and Auntie Alice wasn’t far behind.
She had made Henry a rag rug made with lots of different bright colours, two large floor cushions, a crocheted blanket and a seat cushion for each of the wooden arm chairs. Annie had not painted the seats of those, so no pictures were covered up.
Henry was so pleased he could hardly contain himself.
Everything had turned out well after all – even better than he could have ever imagined.
Then Captain Jack, Auntie Alice and l constructed a play tepee with four poles and some old sheets.
So now Henry has somewhere to sit and look up at the stars and dream.
Bye bye everyone – don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!
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Thank you!
And see you again next Fun Friday!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bob: l got a book from the library about upcycling furniture Bill.
Bill: Oh really? What is it called.
Bob: lt is called ‘Upcycling Furniture’ by Ann Teaks.
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
Another thing that all the children are looking forward to is the annual Rocky Bay fireworks display which is coming up soon.
You may have heard of the firework code. This is a list of dos and don’ts when handling fireworks.
The best thing for children to do is just not try and buy them or touch them at all. Let adults deal with them.
You might be given a sparkler to hold, however, and isn’t it great to make patterns with them in the air?
It is a good idea to wear gloves when you hold a sparkler because the white sparks can prickle a bit if they fall on your skin.
Another very important thing to remember is that when the sparkler has finished, the red, glowing end is still very hot, so you should never touch it.
Here are some photographs of last year’s display to get you in the mood.
See if you can spot a dragon’s head on a long neck in the middle of the third photograph.
And when Halloween is over and Firework Night too, we all start thinking about going shopping for presents. If you give your friends at school presents, whether you buy them or make them, you will have to wrap them up to make them look nice.
If you would like to make presents for your friends there are plenty of ideas on this blog.
Emily thought it would be nice to make all her school friends the Christmas presents she is going to give them this year.
She has really got quite good at knitting so she thought she would make them some doll’s clothes.
She always likes to make a nice job of wrapping her presents and she hit upon a new idea of doing that.
She found that the inside of some large crisp packets are made of foil.
Once you empty the small packets of crisps out, you can cut the top and bottom off and then cut down the back seam – you will be left with a sheet of silver-coloured foil.
It can be used as wrapping paper to cover small boxes and if you add metallic-coloured ribbon and maybe a little bauble or a tiny spray of tinsel your presents can look truly spectacular.
All this upcycling helps preserves our resources and saves money too!
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Quick Quiz
Unmuddle these letters to find items of furniture…
- doewrrab
- cehst fo radrews
- deebisd biceant
- rissdeng batel
- criarmah
- foceef lateb
- tickehn loost
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A STORAGE BAG
This little bag is perfect for storing away little items like small dolls’ clothes.
STORAGE BAG (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and dk yarn cast on 62 stitches
Knit 2 rows
S1 (k5, p5) repeat last 10 stitches until 11 stitches remain, k5 p6
Repeat last row 3 times
S1 (p5, k5) repeat last 10 stitches until last 11 stitches p5 k6
Repeat this 8 row pattern 6 times more
Stocking stitch 8 rows
Garter stitch 20 rows
Cast off
TO MAKE UP
- Sew two sides right sides together using over-sew stitching along base and sides
- Crochet 150 chains into a length of yarn using the same or a contrasting colour
- Using a yarn needle threaded onto the yarn at the end of the crocheted chains pull the cord you have made through the top of the bottom of the garter stitch panel of knitting at the top of the bag
- Tie the ends of the cord together and neaten ends
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- Wardrobe – doewrrab
- Chest of drawers – cehst fo radrews
- Bedside cabinet – deebisd biceant
- Dressing table – rissdeng batel
- Armchair – criarmah
- Coffee table – foceef lateb
- Kitchen stool – tickehn loost
lf you would like some more ideas about upcycling please check out my Pinterest Board at: –
https://uk.pinterest.com/TheSaltySamBlog/places-for-children/
