Chevron-and-on

My latest creation for the Apartment Therapy Style Cure guest room makeover is a chevron frame.  I picked up a large square frame with a huge plain mat (on sale for $5 at Michaels).  It's usually used for people to sign at weddings.

I love a good chevron, it came a very close second in the coffee table pattern stakes, so it was a easy choice when I was contemplating how to decorate the mat.  Plus, I thought if it looked really bad I could always cover it with a fun fabric.

It looked a bit dodgy halfway through, but I reasoned that I was going for a hand drawn look and not perfectly symmetrical lines. 

Here's a closer look at my not-so-straight straight lines!

I went back and filled in some of the thinner chevrons, and added vertical lines to the wider chevrons to help break up the pattern.

Left on the to do list is to:

Paint the headboard
Change the hideous ceiling fan
Hang the curtains
Hang a couple of shelves
Add accessories
Finish and reupholster the chair

So, as you can tell, progress is slow.  The aim was to have the room finished by the end of this week - but I'm thinking it's looking more like the end of next week.  Mainly because I need some serious adult supervision before monkeying around with the ceiling fan!

Kate

xxx

Dollar Store Jewelry Holder

Sherry of Young House Love and  Katie of Bower Power set their spring Pinterest Challenge last week.  The idea is to stop pinning and start doing.  Take your inspiration from something you've pinned on Pinterest and create your own version. 

I decided to try and make a jewelry holder.  There are a bazillion versions on Pinterest but (as usual) I was determined to create mine on the cheap.  My Pinspiration (see what I did there?!) was this sweet little shabby chic jewelry holder from Etsy seller The Humble Bee:

Of course the first stop for any cheapo craft project is always going to be the dollar store.  I picked up a piece of foam board and a pack of thumb tacks.  The purple fabric was from Joanns and was leftover from another project I'm working on.

I cut the board in half and layered one piece on top of the other (making the size 10x15).  I covered the whole thing in fleece to give it a padded look (root around in your wardrobe and see if you have an old fleece you don't wear anymore and get cutting!).  Next I layered the lattice fabric on top of that and stapled everything together on the back of the board.

I marked out my border and stuck the tacks in at 1/4 inch intervals to give it a nail head trim look.

The whole thing was incredibly quick and easy to make.

I used some regular straight pins to hang the earrings on.

In the inimitable words of Gordon Ramsay: Dollar Store Jewelry Holder...........done!

Kate

xxx

 

Package Pals Part 2

Look what arrived on my doorstep this week:

A whole load of crafty goodness from my Package Pal Sara.  Sara's amazing blog, Sara Does, is packed with crafty tips and creative ideas.  To find out what Package Pals is all about, check out Jamie's blog CRAFT.

Now onto my loot.  The rolls of beautiful paper are for making my own envelopes - you can see the pink template bottom right.  Such a cute idea (find Sara's full tutorial here).  I have to admit, I'm so obsessed with the print on the turquoise floral paper that I may have to pop it into a frame.  You know I'm a sucker for cheap art!

The extra large eraser and 2 round pieces of wood are for carving my own stamps and creating their little handles.  I would never thought of this, but what a genius idea.  I'm thinking maybe my initials, or perhaps a star or even a quatrefoil shape.  I have some plain cream napkins that I've been looking to jazz up, so I think this would be the perfect project.  Stay tuned.

And the fabric is for sewing my own scarf.  I didn't mention that purple was one of my favorite colors, but I'm sure you could tell by looking round our home.  I've had my eye on a sewing machine so this will definitely be my first project when I take the plunge.  Check out Sara's tutorial on how to create your own scarf.

A big fat thank you to Sara for a fantastic package, and to Jamie at CRAFT and Julia at Stars and Sunshine for putting the whole thing together.

Kate

xxx

Package Pals

In March I signed up to Package Palls.  Hosted by CRAFT and Stars & Sunshine, the idea is you are matched up with your Package Pall and throughout the month collect and put together a crafty package for them.  I'd never heard of this idea before, so as soon as I read the concept I signed up.

I was matched up with Sara at Sara Does.  She has an amazing blog packed with fun and original ideas.

After emailing our likes and styles, I knew I wanted to do a mixture of crafty goodness and thrifty finds.  This is what is currently winging its way to Sara.

For crafting I picked up 4 napkins in a fantastic print, I thought they would be perfect for making a pair of funky cushion covers (hanging in the back of the pic).  I also found some fun matching trim.

A set on mini letter stamps and an ink pad, an apple stamp and washi tape for a quick craft fix.

For thrifty finds I found a cute wooden frame (the possibilities are endless, paint it, stain it, tape it, stamp it), some vintage scrabble letters that spell out Sara Does and old school number flash cards - I've seen them used in all kinds of craft projects

All this was squished into a cute turquoise card holder.

I hope she likes it!  I'll let you all know what I receive as soon as it arrives.  And if you want to see what everyone else sent and received, check out the Link Party over on CRAFT (yes, we're fashionably late to the party, ha!).

Have a fantastic weekend.

Kate

xxx 

Third Time Lucky

One thing I've learnt since we moved into our house is that sometimes you have to play around with layout and colours and decor until you land on the look you love.   

Take the main wall behind the sofa in the living room.  It started with a framed London Underground print (actually some gift wrap from HERE).  I liked the size and the frame, but I just could not get past the aged creamish map against the crisp white mat.  Something about it looked weird.  I don't know why, but it did, so down it came.

Next up was the DIY starburst mirror.  I love a good startburst as much as the next person, and I think this will definitely end up in another area of the house (maybe painted and in the hallway?).  But it just looked a little raw, or unfinished, or woody or something, so down it came.

The most recent update is my amazingly innovative paint chip art.  Ok, so not really.  Paint chip art has been around forever, but this was my first venture.  Come on, you knew it was only a matter of time.  I mean free art, that couldn't be any more up my street!

There are many, many, many examples of really good paint chip art all over Pinterest. These are some of my faves:

Two Girls Being Crafty

A Beautiful Mess

Smart Girl Style

For my take I went for triangles.  I managed to find a paint chip that was close to the main colour in the living room, and I used that to judge which other colours I would use.

I laid out the triangles to work out the general layout and colour spacing

Piece by piece I transferred them to my white backing card.

And I squished them all down with a couple of heavy books (thanks to YHL for their inspiration and for producing a weighty book).

I popped them back in the frame I had used for the underground map, and up on the wall it went.

Just the look I was going for - at least for now!

Kate

xxx

Birds on a Wire

Despite our recent yard sale, I did manage to cling on to a few future project pieces (aka old crapped up junk!).  Top of the pile was this frame that my bread print originally came in.

I quickly found a new frame for the print, and popped it on the wall in the nook.

The sad little frame was relegated to the basement.  This weekend I finally came up with the perfect use for it.  I dusted it off and dragged it back upstairs, but it was in a bad way.

I wanted to use the frame to create birds on a wire with little bird silhouettes and silver thread for the wire.  First up was covering up the chipped frame by painting it black.  Next I cut out my bird silhouettes from thick card (I googled bird silhouette and was spoilt for choice).

To secure them to the wire I taped a simple paperclip to the back of each bird.

To create the look of wire I found some thick silver thread at Michaels and staple gunned it randomly across the frame.  The ridge the glass used to sit in was the perfect groove for the staple to be well hidden.  Then it was just a case of placing my little birds on the wires.

I love that you could make this project as big or small as you like, and use as many different colours as you like.

It worked out being the perfect size for the blank wall in our guest room.

New here, thanks for stopping by. You can stay connected with me through Bloglovin:

Google Friend Connect (check bottom right in the side bar)

Or see my likes and loves on Pinterest

Kate

xxx

Pottery Barn Copycat Cart

Has anyone else spotted this sweet little Pottery Barn supply cart tray:

Last time I checked it was no longer available.  I guess the $100+ price tag didn't stop people from scooping it up.  Unfortunately, my budget doesn't stretch that far, so I thought I'd try and recreate the look for much less.

The tray bit was easy.  I had an old wooden tray I pick up a couple of months ago from a thrift shop.  I think it was $2.  I made a quick stop at Hobby Lobby and picked up some hunter green paint and a small stencil.  Another $3 spent.

I painted the whole thing in green, and began to stencil.  I decided to add a personalized touch and used our name for the supply company.

I wasn't worried about it being perfect as it is supposed to look like an old slightly battered cart, plus I could go back over and touch up any extra white bits with my green paint.

Next up were the wheels.  Sadly I don't have 4 small metal wheels lying round the house (I checked!).  Etsy had a couple of options, but it would have been about $30 for 4, and even then they weren't an exact match.  In the end I found these teeny tiny wreaths at Michaels.  My plan was to use the tray on our porch, so the natural element of the grapevine wheels would be perfect.  Plus it was $3 for all 3.

Clearly these spindly wheels weren't going to hold the weight of much at all, so I needed reinforcements.  I picked up a plastic container from the dollar store to glue to the bottom of the tray to support the weight of whatever goes on top.

 

I hot glued the plastic container and the 4 wheels to the sides.  I made sure to glue the container first, so I could glue the wheels at the exact height for them to touch the ground.

 

You can see the container in the pic below, but when you're sitting around the coffee table it's hidden completely.

 

 

This is the original Pottery Barn look:

 

 

And here is my recreation for less than a tenth of the price:

 



 

 

Now all we need is a few more warm spring days to put it to good use. 

 

New here, thanks for stopping by. You can stay connected with me through Bloglovin:

Google Friend Connect (check bottom right in the side bar)

Or see my likes and loves on Pinterest

Kate

xxx

Wonder Wall

On Monday we checked out how I turned a grubby grill into a fun note holder (more on that HERE).

On Wednesday it was the turn of a pair of thrifted wall sconces to be brightened up (more on that HERE).

And now, finally, its time to see what they all look like together.  "Good grief Kate, you really know how to drag a project out" I hear you cry.  Ha, I know - but I just love love love how it all turned out.

Our big blank bare grey wall has finally be transformed into a gallery-ish wall.

 

I tried to mix items that were personal to us, with colourful prints and things I'd made.  I knew I didn't want just a wall of frames, so mixed in the little shelf, the wall sconces and the upcycled note holder.

 

 

Emily Henderson of The Emily Henderson mentioned a little shelf exactly like this one in one of her Craigslist roundups, so I was especially smug to have picked mine up at a local flea mall for a crisp 1 dollar.

 

 

The little hexagonal mirrored tray was also a thrift store find.  It wont be long before there will be nothing new in our house, just a sea of thrift shop finds.  And I'm ok with that.

 

 

I'll give you one guess where the fan came from... altogether now... "a thrift shop".  But seriously, they are just the best places to find vintage bargains.  And no self respecting home blogger would be without their Design Sponge book. 

 

 

Going into the project, I knew the kind of overall shape I wanted to create and laid everything out on the bed to get a rough placement.  When it came to hammering the nails into the wall, I really just free styled it.  I wasn't concerned about having even spacing or anything hanging in line.  In fact, the more random the better.  Clearly if you want to hang pics in a grid, a level and tape measure and some serious calculations are required. 

 

 

Murph clearly wasn't too enamoured with my wall hanging technique.  You're looking the wrong way!!

 

 

This weekend I'm preparing to check off one of the major projects on the 2013 to do list.  Brace yourself Birmingham!!  Plus I have a sweet little Pottery Barn copy cat project in the works. 

 

Have a fantastic weekend whatever you have planned - hope to see you back here next week.

 

Kate

xxx