Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Hump Day Colour Inspiration

Mint green is a hot colour trend right now as you would have noticed.  I like it well enough but don't have any inclination to decorate with it.  Miss E, however, is full on in love with this pretty colour.  She has gone back and forth between a love of green and pink over the years but is now over the last pink phase totally.  So, we have been slowly de-pinkifying (that is a word) her room and adding in some mint green touches.  That is the inspiration behind my hump day colour round up today.  Let's enjoy some minty freshness (ha ha):

 Pretty pillow (I love that cross symbol).

These are so classic.


Dining room with a green chair - beautiful wood tones here. (Via)  

 Mint green grandfather clock.

More lovely green chairs in an equally lovely dining room.
(there is a pic collage - this is the last one but the others are good too)

This side table might just change my mind about decorating with mint green - love it!
(you just need to scroll down a bit for this particular pic) 

What's not to love about this little guy?  So adorable. 

Ha ha, cute.

Swoon (although I would prefer sky blue or grey - oh yes, grey would be lovely here).


So, tell me, are you on the mint green wagon or not?

Friday, April 25, 2014

Favourite Finds Friday

Blossom tree in our backyard - this is from last year but it will look like this soon again...

How has your week been?  Good?  Mine has been great because we are starting to see Spring all around us and that is a VERY GOOD THING up here in Minnesota after the never ending winter.  Not sure where you all are but hope you are having great weather!

Here are some fun things I have come across lately and thought you might like them too.

1. I seriously need to know where to buy these little figures from.  Tiny People's Wonderful World.

2. This fabric tape would be awesome.

3. Not sure if these would even suit my place but I think these honeycomb shelves are really beautiful.

4. Such beautiful photography.

5. This could be one of THE most fun places to visit.

6. I am a total sucker for these vintage travel posters.

7. Love this article about using your gifts and talents.

8. This video is mesmerising.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Happy Easter!



Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Thursday, March 13, 2014

How to Make an Easy Rolling Clothes Hamper

This is a quick little fix for our laundry room (cupboard) that is one of those things that just niggled at me.  For some reason, random items of clothing get left all over the main floor of our house.  I am often yelling at gently reminding someone to go and deposit said items in our laundry.  I keep a laundry hamper there so the items aren't on the floor again in case there is laundry in the machine already (which there often is of course).  The laundry hamper I had there was a large'ish square fabric one that just fit in the space in front of our little tub but I often had to drag it out to reach the tub or something on the shelves and so on.  Anyway, of course it wasn't a big deal but it often got left out in the hallway and it was fabric (not great for keeping clean) and a bit cumbersome blah blah blah and I have been focussing on attending to all these little annoyances lately.  In the hope that my life will start running as smoothly as I imagine everyone else's does.  Ha!

So, I picked up a smaller hamper from The Container Store (it was about $20 from memory) and thought I would attach some castors to it.  I love castors.  They are great on all sorts of furniture too in my opinion.  Obviously I couldn't attach the castors to the plastic on its own so I cut out a rectangle from some scrap wood to match the base of the hamper.  Well, I started to cut it out and the commercial size jigsaw I borrowed from my contractor neighbour went all crazy and wouldn't shut off and I had a little moment of panic in the garage trying to turn the thing off.  My neighbour then finished cutting it out for me.  He is good like that.  :)  


Wood, meet hamper....


I was thinking about leaving the wood natural but decided my less than glamorous laundry cupboard (not to sound ungrateful - I am very glad we even have a laundry with a little tub) could do with a little hit of colour.  So I primed the edges that would be seen.  I didn't do the whole top and bottom because, well why bother?


Then two coats of a pretty blue.  I then attached this to the bottom of the hamper with poster putty so I could drill some pilot holes for the screws that were attaching it from inside the hamper bottom.  Keep reading, that will make sense soon.


I found these washers that are a decent size but with a smaller central hole (got them at Home Depot) as I thought they would hold the plastic down better than just the screws.


As you can see, little measuring was done to make these even.  I just eyeballed it.  It was a little tricky drilling down into the hamper when I realised the screws I was using wouldn't stick to my magnetic drill bit.  So I busted out an old trick.


Yep, poster putty.  Worked like a charm.


I bought four of these small castors to attach to the bottom.  I got these at Ace Hardware (obviously).  My only requirements were that they needed to be small enough to not stick out from under the hamper and they had to swivel, for obvious reasons.


I marked out my spots, drilled more pilot holes and then screwed them on.  Oh, I took out the poster putty from between the wood and the hamper before I attached the wood too.


Here she is, a little fun touch and mobile now!


Here it is tucked into our laundry closet (like I said, there are no glamour shots in this post).  It fits perfectly and is easy to just scoot out of the way when I need to get to the tub.

Just a little thing but it helps to make my day run that just a teeny little bit smoother so that suits me just fine.  Anybody else been trying to remove little annoyances from their day too?

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Spring cushion (pillow)

Hello, pretty cushion/pillow....

So, how is winter going in your neck of the woods?  Are you stuck in Narnia like some of us??  Or do you live in Texas and smugly watch the weather channel?  If so, let me know your address and I will be on my way!

Well, whilst outside looks like this still (aaaaand it just started snowing again... yay! NOT) I am trying to keep my sanity by keeping busy.  I have a whole spreadsheet of projects to do to keep my mind off the NEVER ENDING COLDEST FLIPPING WINTER in the history of the world me.

Our yard is literally half full of snow... gonna be a swamp back here!

Anyway, I have a gazillion half done projects but actually managed to start and finish this cushion (pillow) cover today in the time my kids were doing their math lesson.  It is super quick and super satisfying.  I can't claim this as my idea, the wonderful Sarah from Thrifty Decor Chick showed me how here.

First, a couple of days ago, I bought this placemat at Target when it took my eye with its pretty Spring like yellow.  I am desperate for anything that even hints at Spring so this got thrown in the cart quickly when I remembered this project.  Oh and obviously you need a fabric placemat with two layers of fabric for this type of project.


Then you simply use a seam ripper (or quick un-pick as my Mum always calls them) to open a seam of whichever side you want.


Stuff it with polyester filling or down filling or straw or whatever takes your fancy.


Stitch it closed again by machine or by hand, whichever you prefer.  I pinched mine down on the side and put pins in first to hold it and then stitched it on my sewing machine (sorry, forgot to take photos of that step).  From memory, I think Sarah did hers by hand to sew it back up.  My placemat already had an outline stitch so it was easier to just follow the original stitch line anyway.


Then, TA DA, plop it on your sofa and bask in the joy of making something yourself.  I have a bunch of cushions (pillows) on my sofa's that I am planning on giving some love to so stay tuned for some more ideas.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Squirrel stamp and ornament

So, I made myself a squirrel stamp.



Then I made a little ornament.  I will try and post tomorrow showing the steps.


I am imagining a little tree full of woodland theme ornaments.  I don't have any woodland themed ornaments so I am challenging myself to make them.  I am going to do multiples of each (I have this thing of having to have at least 3 of every ornament) so I am not trying to think of 50 different ornaments.  Whether I get there or not, well, we will see.  We are lucky enough to be having family visit us for Christmas (SO EXCITED!) and I have a loooong list of projects/cleaning/decluttering I want to get done before they arrive in early December.  I have a bit of a habit of trying to do too much at once.  Like we all do I am sure.  They might be lucky to just find the bed made.  :)

Monday, October 7, 2013

Pinterest Inspired Bench



I think I might have mentioned that I liked the easy instructions I found for making this little Shaker style bench and that I wanted to have a go at it.  I had it all finished a while ago (read: a year) but forgot to blog about it.  Ha ha, don't you love my confused decorating here?  I was just transitioning between Halloween and Thanksgiving so you get both!

Anyway, this is a really easy woodworking project that didn't require anything more than a drill, wood glue and screws.  I had all the timber cut to size at Home Depot but you could do that yourself if you have wood lying around and a saw to cut it with.  As it was, the guy at Home Depot totally stuffed up the measurements so I had to adjust the sizes on a couple of pieces after I started putting it together and realised it looked a bit odd.  Oh, I also borrowed a jigsaw from a neighbour to cut the triangular notches in the legs.

This is where I found the instructions and I strongly urge you to have a go.  It was a very quick project.  It took longer to paint it!

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Hello

Well, hello there, if anyone is still around. :)



Dropping in with a quick little project I did a few weeks ago.  My wonderful sister and her husband made the trek across the Pacific to come see us (another sister is coming for Christmas - yay!) and I made this pillow for the guest bed downstairs.  I love it!  So cute for a guest bed and helped cut down on the 'twee' I had going on in the room (what better spot to satisfy my secret love of everything granny floral?).

I made a simple envelope cover from a drop cloth (seriously love those things), hand wrote the word on there with a disappearing ink pen and then embroidered it using a simple backstitch and a thicker crochet yarn in a dark pink.  I am sure I could have taken a bit more time and got it more 'perfect' (or, you know, in the exact middle...) by printing out a template, tracing it on or making a stencil yada yada yada but then I wouldn't have done it.  I only have snippets of time to do anything when the kids are home on holidays.  They are back at school as of yesterday so I have a list as long as my arm of projects I want to tackle now... I am working on rehab'ing a tray and freshening up my foyer right now.  Be back soon with the results!

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