My Favorite

As I mentioned in my last post, on Feb. 19th, Portobello Pixie challenged anyone interested to write about their favorite "design". It could be anything, she said, it didn't have to be something sewn. I thought this would be fun and fit right in with the category of things that I already post as "my favorites."

About 6 or 7 years ago I saw an article about painting chairs in different ways. And somewhere in there, I was thinking about those special plates that you can order that say "It's Your Birthday" or "It's your Special Day" or something like that. I've always loved the idea of making a big deal over a kid's birthday. Or the day they get their braces off. Or have a stellar report card. Etc. And the thoughts collided and I thought it would be fun to have a chair that the kids could sit on for "their special day." Then, the idea expanded a little more, and I thought it would be fun for others in the family to be able to sit on the chair -- for Father's Day, or Mother's Day, or a promotion at work, etc. So, I thought it might be fun to paint a "Celebration " chair.

I started looking for chairs and soon found three chairs at an auction for $7.00 each. They were so odd looking, but I thought I'd see what I could do with them, and the chair to the right is what happened. I painted the three chairs exactly alike and gave one to my mom and one to my sister. So now, no matter who's house we're at for a party, the honoree sits in the celebration chair. The idea has grown a little too, for birthdays we've added a banner, placemats and one of those goofy stuffed hats with candles on top to the collection.

Here's a closer view of the front and back of the top of the chair:





A year or two later I was asked to paint some chairs for charity auctions. These pictures were taken before the chairs were sold and long before I had a digital camera, so they're dark, but you can see how the idea can be extended to different style chairs. The first chair didn't have a solid piece of wood running down the middle of the back, so I put the special days on little pieces of wood running along the top of the chair.
PeaSoup blogged the other day about a cape that she'd made for her child's classroom. When a child has his birthday, he gets to wear the cape and a crown all day at school. How I wish I'd known about that when my children were still in school -- just another thing to make their day SO special!

XOXO,
Anna