Moppe to Map {or how to make an Ikea Moppe chest look slightly more attractive}

Serves me right for making promises when it comes to blogging; always the kiss of death. It's nearly Christmas for flips sake!

Anyway, 'nuff said, on with todays waffle....

You can call it a 'tutorial' if you like (I think that can be little condescending so I won't) or just a post about how I prettied up a plain chest. It's just the way I did it. I'm not saying it's right or wrong but it's my way and it works for me; you might love it or hate it but if you're thinking of doing something similar and have never tackled this sort of thing before it may give you a few pointers.

(apologies in advance for the lazy one-handed phone pics but it was easier than downing tools every few minutes to take a snap on the big camera)

So, I'm supposing that an awful lot of people out there have some form of Moppe chest. This is my third and very useful they are too. Just crying out to be decorated aren't they?
My other two are painted. One I won't show you as it was decorated many years ago for my interior design course and was intended to showcase 'paint effects'. Hmmmm.....suffice to say it now lives in a cupboard and does service as a sort of first aid box. It's not pretty. I'll get around to re-doing it someday.
The other one I hand painted (after a fashion!)  and it sits on the worktop in the utility room and is full of all those little things that need a home but you only have a use for once a flood such as picture/curtain hooks, matches, superglue etc...I don't know why I'm telling you all this except to demonstrate the versatility of the Moppe!

So when I decided to buy another for use in my little office come craft space come sewing space I wanted to do something different.
I decided to cover the drawer fronts with an old map just because I love old maps and I can stick down paper in my sleep so not much of a stretch, creatively speaking.

I quite often find old maps or road atlas's at car boot sales and the like and cheap too if they're damaged. Then I have no qualms about cutting them up for projects like this. This lovely Bartholomew's atlas is from 1955. I know because it says so inside.

 

So what do we need? Well a Moppe chest (or other undecorated piece ~ you can of course apply this method to lots of other items, big or small) plus....

 

 

.....a pencil, a very sharp craft knife/scalpel, a ruler, a cutting mat is very useful, PVA glue, a smallish brush, something to decant the glue into, paint, knobs (if using, we'll come that later) wax, wire wool, sandpaper and a cloth.

 

Now you won't need much paint for this. I really wanted to use a pale grey but couldn't be a***d to go out and buy some. You know what it's like when you just have to get on with something. So I found half a tester pot of F&B paint in 'Bone' knocking around and crossed my fingers it would be enough. And it was. Not quite as grey as I would have liked, more grey-green but meh! I gave the outside of the chest a light sand and then applied two coats of paint including the edges of the drawers. You can paint the whole thing in and out if you so wish. Me, I don't see the point. Paint knobs if using.

Handy hint! Use a brush the same size, that is, the width, as the drawer edge and you can paint the whole length in one sweep without worrying about getting paint over the edges where you don't want it.

 

Apply two coats, let it dry, give it a another light sand. Then wack on the wax. I love Briwax in Antique Brown. Been using it for donkeys years.  I know, looks scary! You can apply with a cloth or you may prefer like me, to use wire wool. Any grade will do. This will smooth the surface and also distress at the same time if you give it a bit more welly so if you haven't used the sandpaper or forgot then this will do the job. I also prefer wire wool as it really gets the wax into the surface grain. I didn't want a really dark surface so I polished it off near enough straight away with a clean cloth to remove excess wax and buff to a lovely sheen. I was going for a slightly dirty look, not out and out filthy! If you do want to distress, just be a bit more heavy handed on the edges to remove a little paint.

 

 

 Handy hint! If you're turning the drawers around and adding knobs (which I like to do) this is a good stage at which to mark out where they will go. As you can see from the above picture, I forgot until after I'd applied my map  :-(  It can still be done, it's just easier to do it before by pencilling two lines from corner to corner and where they cross in the middle is where you put your knob. We don't want pencil lines on our lovely drawer front so it has to involve measuring and stuff and blurghh, you get the idea; don't be a numpty like me and remember to do it before sticking commences!

  

 

 Time to cut out your paper. Place the drawer face down (remember I'm using the 'back' here not the front with the little finger hole) on your map and drawer around the edge with a pencil.

 

The using a ruler, preferably a metal one, cut around the pencil line with your craft knife. Put your weight on it so it doesn't move.

 

 

 Handy hint! This is useful if leaving your project for a few hours ~ pop the relevant drawer front into it's drawer until you're ready to stick it down. I know it seems obvious but as I'm trying to replicate a whole area over six drawers it means I'm unlikely to stick the wrong piece onto the wrong drawer front. If you're going for a more patchwork look, don't bother! 

 

 

 Time to get sticking.

But first, lets talk about wrinkles. And bubbles. This is the bane of the decoupager, if you will.

First, your paper will look like this:

 

 

 Then as it starts to dry, it will get worse and look like this:

 

 

Then it will dry out completely and look, well, if not as smooth as a baby's behind then pretty darn close.

 



Wrinkles? I don't think so!!



(I was lucky in that I was able to apply my map to show both my home town and where I live now (vaguely between the knob and the sea!) as they're not too far from each other)

 

How do we achieve this? Firstly, by having our PVA as undiluted as possible. It needs a little watering down to make it brushable but too much and we get wrinkles and bubbles and they won't disappear when it's dry.  So, just go very steady with the water and barely add any. If you do add too much it's easily remedied by adding more glue back in but you may end up with far too much glue and then it'll be wasted and we don't want that either!

 

Secondly, just apply a VERY thin coat to your surface. The temptation is to slap it on because we want the paper to say put but it's really not necessary. The paper will adhere just as well with a thin coat but make sure the surface is completely covered and you'll be fine. Remember, the glue is going to be quite strong as it's barely diluted.

 

So.....decant some PVA into a container and add a VERY small amount of water. Mix well and apply a THIN coat of glue to your drawer, making sure you've covered it all well. Start by brushing out towards the edges to make sure there is a good covering as not enough there and you'll get curling up. Then do the rest. Apply your paper carefully and smooth down from the middle outwards; pretend you're applying a screen protector to your phone or for the more old-fashioned amongst us (me) covering a shelf in Fablon.

 

You can also go over the surface with a roller. I've never used one, finding my hands sufficient, but each to his own. Just keep smoothing with your fingers, from the middle out, even though as you're doing it more bubbles will keep appearing, little blighters!

There will be a little bit of 'slip' but you will still need to work fairly quickly.

It will get to a stage where you're 95% happy and you can't do anymore. This is when you walk away, let it dry and hope for the best. If you've followed the advice above you should have a near enough wrinkle free surface and my work is done. You're very welcome!

 

 

 Now when your paper is dry you may find it's a little larger than the drawer. This is only natural as we traced around the outside of the drawer albeit closely. Fret ye not.

 

 

 Just place your drawer face down on your cutting mat and trim all around with your VERY sharp craft knife. Again, put your weight on it so it can't move. This will give a lovely crisp edge.

 

 

 If you're adding knobs drill a hole in the drawer front (which we marked out BEFORE we applied the paper, didn't we?) feed a screw through from the inside and screw on your knob. I have to admit this is where I hand over to the reins to Mr TVL. My knobs, which are teeny tiny came from ebay.  I certainly couldn't find any that small on the high street. They come without screws so you'll need to buy some. The knobs on my hand painted Moppe are actually from an old (and by old, I don't mean vintage, just manky) wooden towel rail. They were screwed onto the end of the rails to stop them falling out. I try not to throw anything away I think will come in handy one day!

I'm sure you could glue your knobs on with something like 'No More Nails'. It very much depends on what you plan to keep in your drawers.

 

You'll notice (if you look closely) that my maps don't quite match up in the centre. And The Wash ends very abruptly!

 

 

This is because I took mine from across two pages of a book where there was a spine and a white border through the middle. Another problem I had was that I could only get four drawers from one double page so had to go to another page for the bottom two. This threw everything out as you can see from the second picture below. It was impossible to get the map to look seamless ~ I would have run out of map altogether on the right side and would have to have had a join on the left due to the spine.

Fuzzy phone pics are indefensible, so I won't bother.

So I had to be satisfied with the best I could get and it doesn't bother me but if it does you, best to use a large fold out map instead. You'll just have creases to contend with then! Or go for a more 'freeform' (patchwork!) look.

So there you go. Fairly cheap to achieve (just had to buy the knobs) it only took a few hours work over the course of a couple of days and it looks a heck of lot more interesting than it did initially. Well, I'm pleased with it anyway!

 

This is where I'm supposed to say 'ta-dah'. Instead I'll wish you all seasonal felicitations and erm, I'll see you in three months ;-)

How to Fashion a 1940's Style Ladies Trilby From a Modern Hat

Vintage hats aren't cheap, and if you don't wear one regularly but just need one for a one off-event they can seem like too big an investment.

When I was looking at buying a 1940's hat, the problem that I had was actually finding a vintage hat to fit me. I didn't think I had a particularly big head but compared to ladies from seventy years ago, mine must be gargantuan!

I decided it couldn't be too difficult to fashion something myself that would pass muster until I found what I wanted.

So, although I'm certainly no milliner, until I found a my vintage hats in the right size and price bracket I wore this little Deb-designed hoo-ha and thought it may be helpful to share with you how I achieved it.

As you can see, I've obviously got too much time to waste on playing about with fun but pointless picture editing software*

First step is to find a hat. I bought a felt cloche style one from Gap via the charity shop. Apologies, but I forgot to take a picture of what it looked like before but I'm sure you can imagine...rounded close fitting crown and a downwards pointing brim, nothing like a real cloche of course but very suitable for my purposes. Felt is great because not only is it period correct, it's easy to change the shape of it by steaming. As I'm sure you know, you can cut felt without it unravelling or needing any finishing and whatnot.

Then a picture for inspiration is always useful.

I love this picture! (I've split it in two so you can see all the detail) Ordinary ladies wearing ordinary, everyday hats, most of them in the unstructured style I was aiming for. There they are, knitting away for victory!

Step three is to find a 'head' for your hat as I'm sure, like me, you don't have a hat block lying around the house doing nothing. My small mixing bowl was just the right shape and size. I wasn't trying to change the size of my hat so really the bowl just serves as somewhere to rest the hat while working on it.

Next, set a large pan of water simmering on the hob. Then you need to start manipulating your hat into the shape you want. Obviously, what you do will very much depend on the hat you're working on and what you want to achieve. As I was going for a ladies trilby I wanted to put a deep groove in the crown. Once you have the felt where you want it, use pegs to hold it in that shape while you steam it.



 Hold your hat over the pan using a pair of tongs or something similar and preferably wearing an oven glove (I put mine on a bit too late, ouch!)

Keep setting your hat on the 'block', manipulating the felt, pegging and unpegging to see if the pegs are holding it where you want it and then re-applying some steam to each area you are trying to change. Try the hat on to make sure you're pinching and bending the felt in the right direction and that it doesn't look like a dog's breakfast. Don't do this when you've just took it off the steam obviously! It all sounds a lot more complex than it is, trust me! All will be pretty obvious when you are doing it.

When you're happy with what you've got, leave your hat to dry. Don't worry if it's not perfect though, you can always go back and do some more fiddling, that's the great thing about felt. As you can see, I let mine dry but then decided I wanted a more downwards facing brim at the front so I did a bit more steaming and pegging...

When it's dry, remove the pegs, try your hat on and if you've done steaming, all that's left to do is to pretty it up a bit.

A petersham ribbon is a perfect addition and you can find it on the high street or for a huge choice of colours, try ebay. I wanted a particular yellow to contrast with my green hat and because I knew I was going to wear it with a yellow cardigan, so that's where I bought mine.

You can sew the ribbon on if you like but I used my trusty glue gun and it was done in seconds. I trimmed my ribbon to the exact length around the crown as I knew I would be putting a bow on the top but if you're not doing that make it slightly longer and fold it over neatly where the two ends meet.

The bow was just another piece of ribbon folded over and then a short piece glued around the middle. Then the whole bow was glued on top of the join I mentioned above. As you need to position your bow over your ear, make sure this is where the join in the ribbon is.

And that's about it! My hat cost just £3.00 plus the ribbon. I can't remember how much that was but it wasn't a lot and I had quite a bit left over for other projects.

Oh, and if you were wondering if the pegs left dents in the felt, they didn't and neither did I end up with a stain where I let my hat touch the water; luckily!

*No, I haven't

Spring greens

I don't know about where you are but the weather is distinctly gloomy in my neck of the woods at the moment and has been for days. It's wet and cold and the sky looks like it's fallen in. Not exactly Spring-like!

Still, the bulbs are well on their way up in the garden, although not as far on as these that Mr TVL kindly bought for me when he popped out for a pint of milk.

They are currently cheering up my kitchen and hallway. We recently found ourselves re-decorating the hallway after replacing our sofa and chair. The old sofa was so big we had trouble getting it out of the living room and ended up scraping the wallpaper and catching the woodwork in several places while trying to manoeuvre it through the doorway and down the hall.  My intention was certainly not to re-do the whole lot but the yellow and terracotta colour scheme was looking tired and a bit dingy so although I was forced in to it I'm kind of glad really as it did need freshening up.

 

The hallway is one 'room' I've always struggled a bit with. It's a very narrow L-shape, typical of a bungalow of this era and with very little natural light. We had new doors hung when we moved in (yes, the Sapele ones had to go!) and we had half glazed ones where we could (not a good idea for the bathroom obviously...) but still, most of the time it's gloomy. Hence, the yellow although I don't think it really helped much.

So this time I was going to paint the whole lot white but when it came to buying the paint I chickened out! Although I love the idea of all white walls I find them a bit scary at the same time.

So I compromised with Antique White on the Anaglypta and a soft green I mixed myself above the dado.

All 37 inches of it!

While I was at it, I took the opportunity to *cough* tone down the 'stuff' and have only put back...wait for it...ONE mirror and TWO pictures!

 

 

I used to have this Barbola mirror in the bedroom (along with about three others...) until IT was purged a while ago too. It's too pretty to be stuck up in the loft and I thought the pinky-red roses would look lovely against the green. I have to admit, I'm moving slightly away from the florals; they won't disappear altogether but I'm trying to mix some other things in there now.

 

 

I'm still undecided about whether to keep the Anglepoise lamp here or swap it for something with a fabric shade. I'm also framing a picture that I may replace the large floral print with on the opposite wall and it's NOT flowers. Quelle horreur!! But otherwise job done. And to say I had no intention of doing it I'm actually quite pleased with how it turned out. Now, I really have to turn my attentions to the bathroom...
As I was doing this post I realised I should have shown a 'before' pic but oddly I could only find one on my computer which I'm sure can't be right but here it is anyway. Lots of cottage prints, family portraits and other assorted pictures on every portion of wall space!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In other news! If you've recently visited the website you may have noticed we've had a bit of a facelift. That's all I'm going to say about that. Moving on...

February marked the sixth anniversary?/birthday? of This Vintage Life. How time does fly. That's quite a long time and having given a lot of thought generally to things over the winter I've decided that there will be no more big uploads of stock, at least for the forseeable future anyway. I'll be adding one or two items weekly or as and when I acquire something interesting.

Therefore I won't be sending out New Stock emails to the mailing list anymore. I think you'd soon get fed up if I dropped you an email whenever I added one item to the site! So, I'm going to add an update to Facebook every time there's a new product added as it's quicker and simpler that way.

 I'll try and mention it on the blog too although that may just be a link in the sidebar. I might add something to the home page of the website too so if you drop in regularly, you should know that way. So please, if you want to be kept updated about stock you'll need to visit us on Facebook and 'like' us or whatever it is you have to do to get updates (I'm so un-techie!!)

Lately...

I've been...


framing vintage sheet music...too pretty not to!

finding thrifty vintage bit's such as 50p watercolours...

crocheted cushion covers (the larger two...there is a third!)

Carltonware for £8.00!! Who cares if the spoon's broken?

Charity shop chicken. My find's are few and far between at Charity shops. They're just not as good as they used to be...

Vintage car boot curtains...for £1.00

I've also been enjoying the leaves that are turning...

long shadows and stormy skies...but no rain for over a month!

visiting beautiful places...

as well as indulging in a patchwork project...

making plum jam...

and collecting lot's of tomatoes (with a little help)

revelling in the late roses...

and buying Pansies for some Winter colour.

And not forgetting treating myself to many hours of Autumn viewing...bliss!

and starting to think about you-know-what (groan!)



I've also been busy re-stocking the virtual shelves as t'were at This Vintage Life with lot's of lovely new items.