Ohh…  I couldn’t resist this little beauty for my own home… $20 at the Orange County Flea Market!

This vintage train case, covered in elk skin and trimmed in leather, now sits on the hearth of our kitchen fireplace.  I added the beaded Tanzanian cuff… borrowed from a collection in another room.  Such a fun piece, and useful too.  It now holds our matchbook collection.

Did you find something fun at the flea market last weekend?

What a transformation!  My Motorcycle Man and I scavenged this airplane drop tank, from a 60′s jet fighter, at the HAVECO aviation graveyard in Tucson.  We knew that Roland of Roland Sands Designs would know exactly what to do with it.

Roland’s day job… creating the most amazing out-of-this-world custom motorcycles for clients with deep pockets.  And now THIS for his showroom…

Only Roland and his fantastically twisted and creative brain could have envisioned this tank as a spectacular stairwell chandelier for his Los Alamitos Design Center.  I see a bright future!

My flea market church pew, hand painted in an “Out of Africa” kind of a way by my Motorcycle Man, desperately needed a cushion.  It was hard and SO uncomfortable… a typical church pew trait.

Since this is a rustic piece of furniture, (here you can see up close what the hand painting looks like) I knew I wanted a rough, imperfect looking fabric and cushion to go with it.

The fabric part was easy… burlap, $2.99/yd!  But, I knew I wanted the cushion to be hand tufted and wasn’t so sure how to do that, so decided to head up to Alchemy Fine Living on Saturday for an upholstering lesson with the very talented Connie.  She quickly taught me everything I needed to know about putting the cushion together and even let me take a spin on her super fast industrial serger and sewing machines.  I left after 2 hours with this:  a plain old burlap cushion:

And, during the course of only one football game on Sunday, I was able to finish up the tufting and end up with this:

Beautifully hand tufted,(if I do say so myself…!) and SO comfy.  I was able to sit on the cushion during the second football game (and overtime…..)  I was not happy about the outcome of the game, buuutt… was thrilled with how the new cushion turned out!