Hello. I have been obsessed with the above Heinz pickle ad for at least 10 years, if not longer. Back when I was on Facebook, the clown in the lower righthand corner was my banner photo for a long time and it pissed off all of my coulrophobic pals.
Every so often, it would come up as a memory in my phone and I knew someday I wanted to do something cool with it.
Then about a year ago, I wanted to redo the beverage buffet we have in our living room. I really loved it for a long time, and it helped me serve many great punches and sangrias at an array of parties over the years. But the gold glitter lost its sparkle, Jan. I wanted Henry to revamp that one but then he was like, “I have its twin in the garage, we can just start from scratch.”
Why the hell did we ever have two of these?! I don’t even know where they came from?? Henry the Hoarder’s Magic Garage, I guess. Like Mary Poppins’ bag, but with tools and random furniture that he must trawl the streets for on garbage night?? Now I know what he’s doing when he leaves at 3am “for work.”
Anyway. The original iteration of this that I had in mind was not what ended up coming to fruition. That’s what happens when projects come to a halt for literally an entire year because other more important things came up. Henry only got as far as priming it, so when I asked him last month if we could start it up again, I already had a different vision. Still the clowns! Still the same color palette! But different.
Enough words. Here is Henry hot-gluing faux fur to the sides the other night!
When I was in 8th grade, there was an issue of Sassy magazine that had a piece of wild clothing – there was a pair of faux fur overalls that I wanted DESPERATELY from a shop in NYC called Antique Boutique. My mom even called to see if we could buy them over the phone (lol 90s) but they were sold out! Basically every since then I have had a soft spot in my heart for faux fur.
Which has encroached onto Henry’s life and he hates it so much. “This is the worst stuff to work with!” he always huffs and puffs.
I found the perfect fabric from Spoonflower, which has a few coats of resin, then the cutouts of each clown was placed down and coated with more resin. You can’t tell in the photos but it gives it a 3-dimensional feel.
I knew that I wanted the cabinet pulls to be pickles, and then thought it would be cute to use dill pickles for the drawer handles. I found perfect versions of both on Etsy but then at the last minute (ie two days ago) I said, “Henry! Can you make a drawer handle out of a rubber chicken?”
And he was like, “Sure, Erin” in a low, guttural FML tone.
The chicken arrived today!
And now the buffet is complete! The old one is getting moved to the attic so Chooch can keep his games in it. So don’t cry for the old buffet-tina.
I’m really into it!
Squirrel snacks already in place!
Hard to take a good photo without glare from the resin, but these are so good IRL. It’s literally exactly as I had envisioned. Henry is really amazing (I mean, OK, let’s not get carried away, he fucked up several times and I screamed my head off, but here we are!).
I have to send a photo of this to the seller on Etsy because she makes crazy realistic pickle chips and these worked perfectly!
I’m so happy with this garish, ridiculous chunk of furniture. Another item that Chooch is going to inherit one day and be like, “the fuck am I gonna do with this, now?” Family heirloom! Imagine if Henry could quit his idiot job and make OOAK pieces as a business. Oh, Honestly Stupid Furniture. What if he went rogue though and started making like, Ted Nugent Cat Scratch Fever-towers or THE SERVICE servers.