Tiny Chairs for Crazy Humans and Baby Chickens

Okay, we know that I'm crazy, right? It's fine, I really accept it, it's a part of my personality. Last week, Charles said something along the lines of "maybe we should start thinking about getting more chickens...maybe we could get a few more this time?", which I decided meant "order eight chicks online right now!".

When I ordered, I picked breeds that had a hatch date ASAP so I could get them RIGHT NOW. I was ordering on a Wednesday, aiming for them to be shipped on Thursday and get here on Friday. However, now it's the following Wednesday, and the babies are supposed to be here tomorrow morning. That means that I had a lot of spare time and excitement between ordering and actually having chicks in the house, which I used to get their little mini-coop set up inside (actually a 100 gallon water trough, but close enough) and to make this tiny chair so that I could have a chicken photoshoot with the babes as soon as they arrived!

Final Product:

On the DIY subreddit, one of the "rules" is that you start with your finished product in your album of your process. I like it, because the next photo is usually the "before" shot, and it's nice to have them back to back, then go through the process. I don't have a "before" photo, because "before" is actually just a cardboard box and some bubble wrap left over from a package we got, so you'll just have to use your imagination on that.

Materials:

• cardboard box

• glue stick (or hot glue or super glue)

• bubble wrap

• packing tape

• needle

• thread

• plastic drinking straws

• box cutter

• regular scissors

• some fabric you like the look of

Process:

First, find your chair inspiration (chairspiration?) if you don't already have an idea. I googled "vintage arm chair" and found a stock photo site with exactly what I was thinking of.

Once you have your chairspiration, it's time to cut it out of cardboard. I made two "seat" pieces because I wanted to have a separate cushion to go on the seat part, but that's either unnecessary, or it might be better to have a back cushion as well to complete the look.

Left to right: cutting seat pieces (save the extra for your arms), drawing the back-piece shape

Second row: making sure the seat piece and back piece are same width where I want them to intersect, using the cut out from first half of seat piece to get an even and symmetrical back.

Next is assembly. If you have to bend your cardboard for a particular joint, make a cut on the outside of the cardboard without cutting through to the inside. For example:

I went through the outer edge and the corrugated middle portion, but left the inside to allow me to neatly bend without crushing other parts and without just cutting it entirely.

I used packing tape to put the chair together - you could use glue or thread if you wanted but I think packing tape is the easiest way to do it. I made a cut on the seat piece to fold up behind the back piece (to give some extra stability and strength to something I planned to put live animals on). Wrap the tape around both, then put a piece of tape touching both the back and seat pieces to hold the angle that you want.

Using the same outer cut to fold, add your arm rests (the leftovers from the squares you cut your seat pieces out of) to the chair in the same way: tape the fold around the back, then tape seat piece to arm rests to hold them where you want them. I cut two plastic straws to give a more rounded arm appearance, but more cardboard could also be used.

Now, to make the chair look less flat and more cozy, add bubble wrap. I used a glue stuck to get the bubble wrap down, and just did each piece a section at a time, using chip clips and a heavy bottle of wood glue to hold the bubble wrap to the cardboard/tape as it dried.

Once you're totally sure the bubble wrap is DEFINITELY dry (you may be more sure than me if you use super glue or a hot glue gun), you can start putting fabric on. You could also glue the fabric, but I don't like when fabric get stiff in the spots where glue was, so I'm sewing.

Take advantage of your thread and use it to stretch the seat cover and arm rest fabrics. Once you've finished sewing, you can easily glue a piece of fabric (or felt if you want a really authentic tiny chair) over it to cover it up.

Keeping the arches in the cardboard visible and nice looking was a little tough when putting the fabric on, but I just stitched lots of tiny stitches and carefully folded/stretched the back side to get it relatively nice looking.

I trimmed my second seat piece and covered it in bubble wrap, then fabric separate from the rest of the chair. I'd recommend trimming the fabric to wrap around the bottom so it doesn't push the cushion up TOO high, which might look a little odd. I didn't trim as much fabric as I would have liked, so it sits a little odd, but it's not weird enough for me to feel that I should redo it, so I'll just leave it.

Once your chair is mostly upholstered, it's time to make your legs. You can do this with actual purchased pieces of wood that will definitely look nice, or you can do what I did and collect a few thin, straight, non-rotted sticks from your backyard and trim them with wire cutters (often built into a pair of needlenose pliers, if you don't have a specific wire-cutting tool). Create the shape to match the base of your chair and superglue them together. I recommend doing this on top of parchment paper (which isn't immune to sticking to superglue, but is much easier to remove than your living room table...) or other such disposable/relatively nonstick surface. Glue the ends of the short side into the sides of the long side - if you try to glue them together as corners, you'll end up with a weak structure and open squares on the corner (unless you're cutting fancy 45 degree angles, in which case, you're better than I am!)

It's a little hard to see exactly how I glued my sticks together, so I added a little diagram. Note that the green sticks don't extend past the blue sticks.

Next, cut four equal leg pieces and glue them on top of your blue edges, or in the angle inside the green/blue connection for extra strength.

Let this dry for at least an hour - superglue does SET quite quickly, but its best to dry completely for more time to allow it to be at its strongest.

I glued a felt pad to the bottom and a nicer piece of fabric on the back to hide the stitching, but this is definitely optional. I'm making this to take pictures only of the front, so it's really not going to be seen, but I'm bored in a meeting at work that I really don't need to be in, so here's my activity.

Finally, we are ready to add the legs to the base. This can be done with stitching or glue, entirely up to you, but I have run out of super glue so I'm going to stitch it on. Just wrap the thread tightly around the base of the wood and be sure not to knock your legs, or they may look a little crooked like mine...

Ta da! You have a tiny chair. Tennis ball for scale. Keep your eye out for my chick photoshoot on the chair that should be happening any day now, if you'd like to see the full scale of my insanity, or at least the justification for the insanity of this project.