Why Oh Why

But consider:

This side-by-side was built by the Rockford Desk and Furniture Co., which only existed from 1891-1895. I've found one singular other example of this cabinet, which was auctioned over a decade ago, and was stained a dark cherry color. I personally like the color of the quartersawn oak as it is, so I'm not planning a full restoration.

Mostly it's patience, Facebook marketplace, and local thrift stores. (Not antique stores--they're generally priced at what stuff is worth, and they're able to be patient until a buyer with the right budget comes about.)

And that means that you might be doing a lot of work driving somewhere, hauling furniture, and then driving a lot again. It also means passing on cool stuff that isn't in your budget. The great deals are always the ones that are the least convenient. Always. They're priced low because the seller wants them gone and doesn't want to deal with moving themselves. They're usually in smaller towns that aren't antique hotspots. This piece was two hours away from me and I roped some random motorcyclists into helping me load it into my van.

Personally I'm a fan of getting a budget, secondhand piece of furniture that's good enough for what you need for now, taking care of it, and then upgrading to something cooler when you find it. For example, the side by side is replacing a mediocre writing desk and this very heavy leaded glass hutch (which I moved out of the way yesterday by myself and let me tell you, not fun).

I'll be selling both the desk and hutch for essentially the same amount I paid for them. It's kind of like leasing furniture, really. I already recouped what I spent buying the side-by-side by selling a different china cabinet. All three of those furniture items are nice, and were individually less than $250 when I bought them. They're just less cool than the new thing!

I forgot to show you that the swirlies open up

To do this you need:

quilting cotton fabric, any pattern you like. Nothing too heavyweight!

heat and bond iron-on interfacing (link is amazon; your local fabric retailers should have it. Buy local if you can!)

an iron and ironing board

a computer, with access to www.photopea.com or an image editor of your choosing.

a cricut or other cutting machine that works with sticky mats to feed material.

A roll of vinyl transfer tape--you can do this project without it, but it will be easier with.

To begin, make your design in your image editor. You want large, single color, relatively simple shapes on a transparent background. I have a 12x24 cutting mat, so I made my image 11.5x23.5. Export it as a PNG, and then upload it into design space or whatever application runs your cricut or cutting machine.

Prepare your fabric by cutting it to the size of your mat. For me, that's rectangles of 12x24 material. Also cut the same size out of heat-and-bond. DO NOT REMOVE THE BACKING PAPER FROM THE HEAT AND BOND. Once you've got rectangles of fabric and rectangles of heat and bond, attach the heat and bond to the fabric with an iron.

Prepare your sticky mat by attaching a layer of vinyl transfer tape face-down, so the sticky side is up when you remove the backing paper. This will prevent the fabric from leaving lint all over the mat, and the backing paper for heat and bond is very prone to tearing--without the transfer paper, you'll be cleaning your mats a lot between every cutting.

Stick the heat and bonded fabric face-up on the mat, so the paper backing of the heat and bond is adhered to the transfer tape. Smooth out to remove bubbles. And then load the mat into your cricut! I've got an explore air 2 (several years old now) and I used my normal blade at its deepest cut settings, and fire away. (Designs do not need to be mirrored.) Before removing your finished cut from the sheet, double check that the blade has gone all the way through and you will not need a second pass-I never did, but check just in case!

Peel everything off the mat, discarding the paper backing/transfer paper layers, then iron your fabric designs onto your bunting! If you want things to be really durable, you can sew the edges down like a normal applique, but for bunting, I didn't feel it was necessary.

Girl how is this easier than just jumping into the windowsill. get off

I love when I can combine projects for more powerful presentation. Prometheus X The Last Sequoia!

Sure! The rock is hollow and covers a small container of oil. There's a hole bored through his hand, leg, ass, and the rock with a wick that dangles into the oil container and feeds fuel into the flame. The wick is in a little glass tube to help regulate burn.

this is actually my favorite notification on this post because genuinely do you know how hard it is to sculpt a butt that is like. proportional but also if it's too flat you can tell that there's major muscles missing under the skin but also it needs to not be too caked or it gets weird, and it is actually a major anatomical landmark and if you mess it up the whole legs are off.

barely even visible

but im proud of it.