Traincase Makeover

Today is packing day and tomorrow I leave on my own personal little road trip to California to teach and attend "The Affair at Downton" at the Biltmore hotel in L.A.

As I was gathering things together, I realized I hadn't shared my train case makeover with you yet!!

I'm so pleased with the results. It looks just like I envisioned it (and believe me, that rarely happens!!!!)

This is what it looked like before. It was quite masculine and not at all pretty! I didn't take any "before" shots of the inside but just imagine black vinyl, torn and stained with spills and gunk.

Yep. That was pretty much the inside.

 Now it's clean and pretty! Just waiting to be filled with supplies and tools!!

I used a very tightly woven burlap fabric. It's very strong and I think it will last a long time.

 I actually used encaustic wax medium to apply the lace instead of glue. It's very forgiving because if you do something you don't like, you can just heat it up with a heating tool and the wax melts and you can remove or reposition whatever you want.

After it cures for a a couple of days, all the "sticky" goes away completely and you are left with a nice hard finish. The only thing I couldn't do with it, is leave it in a hot car. Out here it gets REALLY hot inside a car in the summer and I would come back to a big mess I'm sure!

I wrapped the handle in twine and used colored seam binding and torn lace strips to wrap around the base. Then I added a little bling for good measure!!!

It took me a whole day to re-do it inside and out, but now I cant wait to take it with me on this fun and creative weekend.

Hope yours is filled with fun and creativity too!! See you next week!!