Oh and one more desk item...

Last but not least in this desk upgrade: the ink blotter. My friends, there comes a time when something that you love, something that you find very pretty and perfectly appropriate, something that someone you love gave you must go. It is old, it is dirty, it looks tired, it is worn out.

That's the story of this ink blotter. Stained from years of both use and storage -- poor thing was even used as a makeup tray (ultimate death to all white-fabric-based products) at one point and endured moving trucks, storage units and one accidental Modge Podge spill.

You see, the trouble is, I still wanted an ink blotter. I still liked the overall size and dimensions of ye olde ink blotter and, well, I'm cheap. So I decided to upgrade. I have a small stash of fabric (Have you ever heard the slogan, "She who dies with the most fabric wins?" because I try to avoid that) and I dug around for the right pieces to help me. I found the pink quickly and decided that was a great frame piece but i wanted something extra special for the center panel. At one point in my mother's industrious career as a fabric collector -- she is going for a hoarding title -- she worked at one of Dallas' high-end furniture and interior decorating stores. And she asked the designers if she could have the outdated, unused or leftover fabric sample books. They are a treasure-trove of fabulous pieces of fabric. The trick is finding projects that can accommodate upholstery-thick fabric that is less than two square feet.

My friends I'd been eyeballing this sample for years before this project came about and I finally had a chance to use these whimsical frogs and Lilly-pad fabric for something.

The assembly was super easy. I painted the old blotter with white primer a few times, For the flat parts, I stretched the fabric and used duck tape to secure it in place. I cut a few small pieces of bunting for the padded part, wrapped that in fabric and glued the whole thing together with hot glue. It's not a piece that can withstand being used as a Frisbee or anything like that, but in its place, it's just fine.