My Abstract "Art"

I don't know whether or not to be serious in this post, but since this is how I started off it looks like I'm going for not serious.

My husband was out Saturday morning with a friend so I took some "me" time and did a little painting. As you know, I have been wanting to take a stab at abstract painting and I guess you could say the outcome was an "A" for effort. It didn't turn out that great but I enjoyed myself while doing it.. that's all that matters, right??

I took some pictures of the progression.



I should have stopped at this point. I liked the soft pink and drippies. But then I tried adding color.. eek.







In conclusion, I definitely won't be calling myself an artist, but it was a nice, relaxing Saturday morning with my paints, coffee and some Civil Wars.. I can't complain.

And I did end up hanging it in my office on this empty wall space next to my curtain closet "doors".

Super Easy Bookcase Update

Now that I'm making my office much brighter and neutral, the dark background of the bookcases weren't working.

You can read the original post here where I painted the backs of my IKEA Billy bookcases.

BEFORE:



I really wanted to line my bookcases with grasscloth, but I didn't have enough left over from my powder room. I wanted to keep costs down, so I ordered this oyster burlap fabric from Hobby Lobby instead. 5 yards were less than $20!


I took the back of the bookcases off and used spray adhesive to adhere the burlap straight onto the backs that were already painted dark gray. Then I nailed the backs back onto the Billy bookshelves, and I was done! It took less than 30 minutes in all.

And here is the AFTER!





Note - normally the backs of Billy bookcases slide into those grooves, but with the burlap on them it's too thick. But that's not a problem - I just nailed them on with no problem and when there are items on the shelves you can't tell.



Filled with my things:





I love the subtle texture!

DIY Ruffled Christmas Tree

I was recently asked by Waverly to be a part of their 12 Waverly Bloggers of Christmas! We will be creating DIY holiday crafts with Waverly materials. The series runs from today (I'm up first!) until 12/23.



My holiday craft idea came from Pinterest when I saw a pin for this ruffled tree skirt:



I have a couple feather trees that I got last year and I thought a ruffled tree would look great with them.

This project is SO easy! The materials are:

- A hot glue gun
- A Styrofoam tree form
- Fabric (one sheer and one solid works well)

I chose Waverly's Peony Organza for the sheer and for the solid I chose Heritage Natural. You can search all of Waverly's fabrics on their website here.



This is the Christmas tree shaped cone I purchased at Michaels for this project:



I really liked the look of the frayed edges on the ruffle skirt above, so I decided to rip the solid fabric instead of cut it.



I measured all my pieces to be four inches wide (as shown). Just cut a little bit and then rip the rest and the piece will rip evenly.

The sheer can't be ripped because of the chenille peonies, so I cut these pieces very carefully to make sure the edges were even. These pieces are also four inches wide.


To start, I glued the end of the solid fabric onto the cone:


And then added a line of hot glue to start the ruffling:



You want to work in small sections like this. The ruffles don't have to be perfect (in fact it looks better if they aren't). Just bunch up the fabric and glue, it's very simple and there is no right or wrong way.



Be very careful!! The hot glue is very hot and my fingers were tender after this project.

Here is the finished first layer:


Next add a ruffled layer of your sheer right above the solid:


To make sure you don't cover up the pretty sheer layer, add the next solid layer an inch or so higher than the sheer:



You'll repeat these steps until you get to the top! When I got to the top I just gathered and glued the sheer carefully to make sure it looked pretty when pleated :)

And here is the final result!



And here is my new fabric tree with the feather tree I mentioned earlier.


Go to Waverly's facebook page to enter to win two $100 gift cards to JoAnn Fabrics and Michael's so you can create your own Christmas blogger diy craft!

Thanks Waverly for including me, it was really fun!

DIY Euro Pleat Drapery

Pleated drapery has been around forever but will never go away. It's a small detail but makes a room look sophisticated and tailored.

[ Lonny Mag ]

[ Urban Grace Interiors ]

Recently, a client of mine purchased white linen pole pocket curtain panels from West Elm. The fabric is really beautiful and they work well for this project.

We decided to euro pinch pleat her store bought drapery because custom pleated drapery was out of our budget. Here are the DIY steps for how I did this.. it's SO easy!!

I wanted the pleats to be more casual than a traditional Persian pleat, so I just did two folds instead of three:


First measure three inches down from the end of the panel and start your pleating. As you can see, my pleats are three inches apart:


To create the pleats, pull up two folds of fabric of equal heights just like this:


Here are some other views so you can see what your folds should look like:





Then pin your pleats to get ready to sew:



I added the red line so you can see where you'll be sewing your stitch. Make sure your pin parallel to your pleat.

Make sure you pin all your pleats before you start sewing. Make sure everything looks nice and neat and the lengths in between each pleat is the same (3 inches).

Then all you have to do is sew your stitch!


The red line shows where you will be stitching. You don't want to start the stitch at the front of the pleat; start a little bit below.

Look at the green line - you want to make sure you sew each stitch in the same location to create uniform pleats. For my pleats, I lined up the top of the panel with the end of the ruler on my sewing machine. I used this guide for each pleat.. make sure you use a similar guide.

This is what I do when I sew the actual stitch: Sew forward, sew in reverse and then sew forward again. This assures a strong stitch.

And repeat until all your panels are pleated!

Here is the finished product:




These panels above are actually double width. I simple sewed two panels together to create the double width! (The windows are foggy because we steam ironed the panels).

And that's it! If you have a sewing machine, this is a very easy way to create a designer look for so much less than if you were to have custom drapery made. Of course, nothing is as great as the real thing but this is a good improvement to store-bought pole pocket drapes.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Quick & Easy DIY

This little project was sooo easy and painless but turned out really beautiful. It actually exceeded my expectations!

I've been working on the home office for one of my clients. She works from home so the office must be super functional. I decided to have two desks for her - a "work" desk for her 9 to 5 and her "life" desk for everything else.

For her "work" desk, this was our inspiration:



I went with these elements from IKEA to "build" her desk:

1, 2, 3

When I purchased the top, I knew I would have to stain it to achieve the same look as the inspiration picture. I was, however, pleasantly surprised to find the desk top to be in it's completely natural state - no sanding was required!! Hence the "quick and easy" part of this DIY.

I pre-treated the wood with this:



I then used this stain:



The color is "Early American" and the little can is more than enough for this project. I used two coats and followed the instructions on the can.

Once the stain was completely dry, I used two coats of this (again, following the instructions on the can):



I used satin because I just wanted that subtle glow, like well-oiled wood. I'm not a huge fan of gloss on wood.

And here is how it turned out - very similar to the inspiration picture!





I snapped this picture last week after putting together the desk storage pieces:



I'll be bringing their top over later today :)

Look For Less: Paper & Linen

For a long time I've loved this paper and linen piece of artwork from Natural Curiosities:



I saw one of them at market in spring; it's even more beautiful in person. Here is my iPhone picture..



As much as I would LOVE the real thing, it's pricey and out of my budget right now, and I knew it'd be pretty simple to create a look for less option.

I found the handmade paper at Kate's Paperie. It looks like she's currently out of stock on these types of papers right now and I don't see the one I purchased on the site. I purchased it a while ago.

I looked and looked and could not find an HUGE acrylic frame, so I just used the largest white Ribba frame from IKEA.



The linen fabric I also purchased at IKEA in their fabric department. It's super thin (which is good for framing in the Ribba frame) and was only around $6/yard.

As you can imagine, it was super simple to create these pieces of "art". The hardest part was cutting down the paper. The paper was too big for the frame...



So I cut as best as I could around the curves to keep it looking organic:



I used the back of the Ribba frame as a template to cut the fabric out. Charlotte was my little helper, as always.



Then I ironed the fabric with heavy starch. I loove heavy starch.



Like my wallpaper?!? haha... obviously we haven't done anything to this guest room. It's currently our ironing room, but someday it will be a baby room.

Then I just put the elements in the frame, and voila! Finished! So super easy.

It was difficult to take pictures of the pieces in my room because of the glare from the windows... but hopefully you get the idea ;)





As you can see, this wall is super long and was very empty.. these frames help fill the space and balance out the room since the other side is heavy with the windows + curtain panels and dresser.



This wall color is CRAZY in pictures. It's actually a slate gray. Here is what the actual color looks like:



I'm sure it's camera user error on my part.

The linen in the frames tie in with the linen of the curtain panels on the other side of the room. (There is also linen on the settee at the end of the bed).





The room is almost done... the only thing left to do is find a great mirror for above the dresser. I'm thinking round.

Then I can take "after" pictures! Or maybe have a photographer friend take afters because the room could use a wide angle lens and someone who knows how to accurately capture color ;)