The "Cascade Effect" has hit my house. We decided to redo the formal living room, which has now spread to the family room AND the kitchen. Upholstered furniture has been purchased, but I HAVE to leave my mark on things. So, I have several projects in the mix -- one of them even involving clay!

The non-pottery designs are a coffee table and end tables featuring wonderful Chinese silk embroidery with birds as the unifying factor. I purchased an old coffee table, two square stools, and a couple of frames at the Salvation Army. The stools, with the seat removed, will be the bases for the end tables, with the framed embroidered pieces as the table tops. The coffee table will have a longer embroidered piece (purchased on e-bay) under cut glass.

 I'm going to remove the woven seats from the two stools, prime them and paint the bases black to go with the charcoal grey sofas we've ordered. The coffee table (sorry, didn't get a photo of it) will be painted the same way. Finally, a couple of coats of polyurethane will be painted on for a durable finish.

Here are the two smaller silk embroideries. One is already framed, although I might opt to replace it with a frame more like the one sitting in the chair as pictured in the third photo down.

And here's the lamp which will act as the foundation for my standing lamp:

A 2 inch pvc pipe will go over the rod part of the lamp to better anchor the 6 or 7 ceramic cylinders that will be my contribution to its beautification. I'm debating whether to run the ceramic parts of the lamp over the open ironwork and up below the lampshade (so no dark metal shows except for the base), or to use the openwork as an accent. I might make pieces that work both ways and decide when I'm putting the pieces together.

I'll try and remember my camera when I go to the studio tomorrow to show you the individual pieces of pottery, which will be stacked on each other to create my standing lamp.