{Flutterby Bakery} Cafe Chairs

As promised...... A post with pictures!

Maybe not the most exciting of pictures (I mean I kind of think they are, but I guess it depends on what you are really in to whether or not chairs are exciting lol).  I was originally just planning on buying 3D printed little cafe chairs, but the more I looked at them the more I thought, I bet I could make these from wire. (Also I had seen a tutorial for making a table and chairs from wire for 1:12 scale, so that really got me thinking I should try it out myself).  I'm always torn with stuff whether to make it myself or buy it finished (or whether to make something from scratch or from a kit..... in that case kit usually wins so I don't have to do the math to scale stuff down and cut the pieces lol) I really love to be able to look at something and know that I actually made it myself (also it's usually cheaper to make myself), but also some things either aren't going to be worth the time and effort to make rather than buy or the homemade version doesn't turn out quite as crisp and clean looking as the purchased version.  In this case both of those things were factors I figured might come in to play, so I decided to try making just one and see how it turned out.

    I started by looking up the height and such of similar cafe chairs and determined that I would need my finished chair height to be .75". I also decided that .25" circle for the seat should be okay, which was easy because then I could just punch it out of heavy cardstock (actually I ended up using watercolor paper because it was the thickest thing I had around the house, but also I think it was a good idea because the moisture from the glue and paint is not going to affect it unless it gets awfully wet). I needed something a little more substantial to make the seat look right and not too thin though.  Fortunately I had just bought a package of different sizes of jump rings from Walmart the other day and one of the sizes was the perfect size to make the base of the seat out of.  I glued 2 jump rings together to get just the right look.

   

After making the first one I still wasn't 100% sure how I felt about it, but it was relatively easy to make and was cute so I thought it was worth making some more to see if I could do a couple things I wasn't completely happy about a little better (mainly getting the legs a little smoother and straighter and the seat needed to be a hair lower), after making the second one I decided I did like them enough to use and go ahead with making so I made a 3rd last night and will probably make a couple more today or this week.  For the actual construction, I have so far done it 3 different ways as I figured out what made it easier or didn't work as well, so I'll go through each way real quickly..... its basically the same steps, I just did them in different orders......

so..... for the first chair I made......
I started by bending a piece of wire to form the back of the chair and the back legs.  I brought several things to the work table with me to try bending it over because I wasn't sure what was going to be the right size, but this small screwdriver ended up being perfect, not only for this piece, but where it gets smaller near the tip worked perfectly for the smaller loop on the back (but I'll get to that in a minute lol)

I bent a much longer piece than I needed first and then after I had the arch measured the legs and cut them to length.  I found that a pair of toenail clippers worked fabulously for cutting the wire for this project.

Oh, also this is 24 gauge wire, probably should tell you that. lol.... so now back to making it..... 
After I had cut the legs to length I laid it down flat and put a couple dabs of glue on the legs where I wanted to seat to be and balanced a jump ring standing up on it and left it to dry.  (This is also where I realized that 2 jump rings would be better so I added another one.)

If I have one thing to say about making these (in any of the methods I used) it's to let the glue completely dry and set up, I really have patience issues so I often don't do this and then it makes it more difficult because I have to hold things together that should have already been set, but I'm sure it's so much easier of you let it completely dry first lol.  My next step this go around was to add the front legs, I bent a piece or wire so that the bent top fit inside the front of the jump rings, dipped it in glue and then stuck it in the jump rings

Because of how I did it this go around I ended up having to hold it like this until it was dry..... well I say until it was dry, actually I got tired of waiting and tried to cut the legs to length before it was dry and it ended up making the front legs and one of the back legs (because they also were not completely dry I don't think) come off so I had to try to add a few more dabs or glue and balance everything and get it lined back up properly and then keep it still until it dried......

    Once that was all dry I glued the paper I had punched out onto it for the seat, then glued the small loop into the back of the chair, by dipping the ends into tacky glue and attaching them to the edge of the back of the seat.  I laid the chair down on its back to do this so that the back was nice and flat and lined up properly {apparently I didn't take a picture of this though lol}.  Then I used some gloss white craft paint to paint the jump rings and the top of the seat.

For my second go around I had a couple of things I wanted to try doing differently to see if it made it any easier.  To start with I started by making the seat completely first...... gluing the 2 jump rings together and then gluing the seat on before I started putting the whole chair together.

Next I again formed the back and back legs piece and cut the legs to length, but I also made the front legs at the same time, measuring them to length (so I though) before gluing them to the seat.

Then I glued the front legs in place first with the seat sitting upside down (so that the legs were up in the air as they dried.

In this case I think I actually did let this dry completely before moving on, but that was probably only because I ended up having to leave the house for a while at this point lol.

Then I glued this whole assembly to the back piece.  By having the front legs already glued in place I was able to lay it on its side to dry on the back, which would have worked great, except that my front legs did need to be cut just a smidge shorter and I didn't let the back completely completely dry before I tried to do that so it came off a little bit and I had to re-glue it, but by then I was able to stand it up to dry and make sure all the angles were correct.

This time I painted the jump rings and paper seat before gluing the other back piece on, because the paint was a slightly different white than the wire and it's not really noticeable when they are just next to each other, but when I got some of the paint on the wire it was noticeable, and it was pretty much impossible not to get the paint on the inner back piece if it was already in place.  I let the paint dry and then glued the last piece in place the same as I did with the first one.

And then for the third one, rather than gluing the front legs in first with the seat laying upside down, I went back to gluing the seat to the back first (but with the seat already assembled like the second chair), with the back of the chair laying flat and then after that was dry (except it wasn't really) I glued the front legs in.  My thinking was that I would be able to stand it up to dry since the back was already attached and the top of the seat already in place, and perhaps if I had let the glue on the back completely dry and had has the front legs just the right length this would have worked, but I had to trim the legs slightly and the back wasn't completely set so of course, you guessed it, I had to reglue that so it ended up laying on it's side to dry again, which worked fine.  From there on I did  it the same as with the second one, painting first and then gluing on the inside back piece.  Over all I think this was probably the best way of doing it so when I make the last few I'll probably be doing it this way .......

So , if you were a good enough sport to actually read through all that here's your reward {lol}..... a couple pictures of 2 of the chairs set up with the little table I made a while ago, sitting in front of the wall, where they will ultimately be in the bakery.