Making Plans

Happy Friday!  I hope you've all had a great week.  I've been busy laying the groundwork for a couple of bigger projects (bigger for me anyway) around here.  I've also caught the organizing bug in a big way (I can almost hear my mum gasp from the other side of the pond, ha!).  The yard sale was the catalyst in getting this place in some kind of order.  If we haven't used/worn/needed it since we moved in (nearly 12 months ago) it's out (said in your best Heidi, Project Runway voice).  Purge, purge and purge some more.

It's a little overwhelming to tackle the whole house at once, so I'm trying to do one space at a time.  First up is our sad little pantry.  I'm thinking stencils and plenty of shelving and some flexible storage options, and maybe a counter top?  Wish me luck!

In blog news, I made a BIG investment this weekend.  A new camera!  Up till now, all my photos have been taken with my little point and shoot Cypershot, and it's been great.  But I look at blogs like The Lettered Cottage and Yellow Brick Home and swoon at their amazing photos.  Of course, it helps that they have amazing things to take amazing photos of.  And I know having a good camera doesn't make a good photographer (cue lots of Googling), but I'm really excited to get out and about and try to improve.

I can already see the difference in picture quality just wandering around the house taking snaps of random stuff.  Of course first up was Murph, who looks thrilled at the prospect of having his picture taken.

 

This painting by numbers is my latest flea market find:

 

 

 Along with this faux old calendar:

So look out for some, hopefully, improved pics.  Have a fantastic weekend whatever you have planned.

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:

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Or see my likes and loves on Pinterest

Kate

xxx

It's all white

In super duper amazing news, our bedroom has made the cut in the Apartment Therapy Bedroom Retreat contest.  If you would like to vote, you can pop on over HERE.  Try not to be distracted by the other amazing entries, and head straight for the purple pillow.

This is the perfect opportunity to tell you about my latest TJ Maxx find (love that shop).  If you've been following along, you'll know I've struggled to find something I really love to hang above the bed in the master.  Why is that big blank wall always so tricky to fill?

I started with a small (too small for the space) square pic that made the move from our apartment.  It was only meant to be temporary, but 8 months later it was still there, staring down at my with it's annoyingly small proportions.  It's amazing how a temporary fix can turn into permanent.

One day I decided enough was enough and took it down in the hope that having nothing at all would be the kick start I needed.

And then a couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon this gem in TJ Maxx:

It was only $20 - great price, check.  The shape and size were perfect, check.  But I wasn't keen on the colour.  Nothing a can of white spray paint couldn't fix.

I made sure the mirror was completely covered before starting to spray.

After just one coat.

And here it is after about 3 coats and 24 hours of drying.  Ta daaaa!

Murph is as enthusiastic as ever about my latest project.  He could really give a girl a complex!

This weekend has a forecast of warm spring weather, intermittent spray painting, with a chance of thrifting!  Have a great St Paddys day.

Kate

xxx

Yard Saaaale!

I'm thinking the title may have given this post away! 

Finally, after months of banging on about having one, and hours of sorting (I wanted to make sure we got every last thing we no longer needed or wanted out), we had a yard sale.

I advertised on Craigslist for the week leading up to the sale, and put signs up on our street the Thursday and Friday before.  Nothing like fluorescent yellow and smiley face balloons to draw a crowd.

My friend came over to help and sell some of her unwanted items too.  It took us no time at all to set up.  I was worried nobody would turn up, but by 7.30 we were tired of turning people away (we were due to start at 8).



The weather was perfect which definitely helped.  I didn't get any shots of during the sale because we were busy wheeling and dealing.  Luckily most people thought our prices were already cheap.  Good thing as I have the worlds worst haggling skills.

Bargain hunter - "how much for the table?"
Me - "$40"
Bargain hunter - "would you take $20?"
Me - "ok"

I wish I was joking!

We sold all of the big items, with the exception of the item of the week.  It drew a lot of laughs but sadly no takers.

Even the 3000 lb TV headed out the door (fat screen definitely not flat screen).  This is all that was left (with the exception of the coffee table - that's a top secret future project!).  A local charity came by and scooped it up later that afternoon.

I'm so please to get all of our unwanted junk out of the house.  And now I have some extra money to buy more unwanted junk.  Ha, but really, I'm going to try extra hard to buy things that we either need or that I have an immediate use for.  No more buying for the sake of buying or buying because its cheap.  Ok, maybe just a little!

Kate

xxx

Say what?

I'm sure I'm the last to get the memo, but Jonathan Adler is doing a Happy Chic line for JCPenney!  Hold the phone!  I LOVE Jonathan Adler.

These bright colours and bold graphic patterns make me want to get in the car and zoom straight to JCP right now.

 

 

Apparently March is the launch date, and if you click on the right links you can find most of the bedding on their website - but search under Jonathan or Adler and no results pull up.  Clearly JCP want us to work a little harder for the good stuff!

I've also heard that Terence Conran will be adding to the JCP Home lineup.  He currently has a line for UK department store Marks & Spencers.  Check out some of his M&S offerings below, fingers crossed the same clean modern lines make their way across the pond.

 

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