The Art of : Making Champagne Chairs with my Mother, Michelle Shain
May 19th, 2022
The Art of : Making Champagne Chairs with my mother, Michelle Shain
For as long as I can remember, our childhood home was a place of hospitality. My parents had a knack for making people feel welcome, well fed and taken care of. Sundays dinners were the norm and so was setting the table. From a young age, my mom always put me in charge of that duty. She taught me where the silverware would go, let me have fun learning to fold napkins, pick flowers from the yard, put treats on each plate and one of my favorite things as a budding artist - she would let me make place cards with each persons’ name on them. I always noticed that she would save the “champagne cages” from special occasions or ordinary occasions and delicately craft them into the tiniest chairs that she would display on a shelf near the dinner table until my “place cards” were ready. We’d always arrange the chairs around the table together and place the cards atop each one. While the following instructions will teach you HOW to make the the actual chairs, I will go as far to say that the lesson + moral of today’s post is “The Art of Hospitality”.....going the extra mile to show the people you are breaking bread with that you care. That the night is special. And that - THAT my friends - is an art that I hope to one day perfect from my amazing mother.
So, glasses up! Cheers & Enjoy!
Love and Hugs,
Dorothy
I N S T R U C T I O N S
Materials needed: Champagne & Champagne glasses (for toasting of course), Champagne cages ( this is the top part of the bottle that comes off the cork), needlenose pliers
Step 1 : Untwist the wire on the bottom of the cage and remove it from where the vertical wires intersect. Straighten this wire out!
Step 2: This is where your creativity comes into play. The long piece of the wire you have just straightened out will be used as the back of the chair. Grab your pliers and shape + mold into any design! My mom loves to loop hers but I have seen ones with waves or scallops. Have fun with this.
Step 3: Once you have made the “back”, take your pliers and attach it to the top of the back legs.
*Since this is my first go at trying to communicate a how-to via written language and it could be all sorts of wonky, visit my Instagram to see a video tutorial.
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