Painted Pillow

Yep.  I painted those stripes onto my newest throw pillow.  I had originally planned on using green fabric to Heat-n-Bond stripes to the pillow, but I figured that a little fabric medium, acrylic paint, and painters tape would be less time consuming.  Since I didn't do a very complicated pattern it only took about15 minutes to paint the stripes.

My new striped pillow is replacing this pillow:

I love the pattern, but ever since I decided to incorporate more green in my living room through the stenciled curtains and solid green pillows, it just seemed out of place.

The best part about this project is that it cost me ZERO dollars!  I used drapery fabric and paint supplies that I had left over.

Here's a shot of the new pillow with the stenciled curtains.

Love!

If you're curious about how I sewed the pillow,  here's my No Zipper, Envelope Pillow Cover Tutorial.

If you're curious about what I used to paint the stripes, here's my Stenciled Curtain Tutorial.  Just use tape to create stripes instead of a stencil!


I'll be linking up at:

Mixing Patterns & Prints

I showed off my living room yesterday, and let me tell you, even though it is far from groundbreaking interior design it was a little bit of a stretch for me.  I say that because I used multiple patterns in one space.  I'm typically a little afraid of pattern and color.  I usually have one pattern and then solid colors that match that pattern.  In the old version of my living room I only had two throw pillows that had pattern on them.  Everything else was solid.  Solid couch, solid curtains, solid throw, and the 10 other pillows I had were solid.

Here's what helped me get over my fear of pattern and color.

scan of House Beautiful via

The February issue of House Beautiful had an interview of Christiane Lemieux, the founder of Dwell Studio. (Did you notice that she has the yellow rosette Target pillow on her bed? Love that!)  Usually House Beautiful is just pretty to look at.  I feel like I, a completely untrained, non-designer, could never duplicate most of the looks in the magazine, the products featured are mostly way out of my price-range, and the tips from designers aren't all that useful.  After looking through an issue I just think, "How do they do that?  How do they make that look good together?"

I was surprised to read something so helpful in the short feature on Christiane and her bed.  This is what she said when she was asked about the prints she used in her bedroom.

"...Usually my formula is three prints--one large, one medium, and one coordinate that ties the other two together with color."

How easy is that?!    I, the completely untrained, non-designer, found that sooooo easy to remember and implement. Some of you may be thinking, "Duh!", but I had never heard a tip for using pattern and print explained so simply before.
  

It's definitely a tip I'm going to keep in my pocket and use as I try to finish the rooms in the rest of my house.

How 'bout y'all?  Any mind blowingly, easy tips you've put into practice or wanted to put into practice as you decorate your home?  I'd love to hear more!

My Thrifty Living Room Refresh

Well, here it is.  My little living room went to this (above) from that (below) for about $300.  Since I had such a small budget I had to rely on fabric and accessories to change the feel of the room.  The two main things that I would like to change about the space are still there.  I would love new couches (or even better, a couch and two upholstered chairs) and I would love to paint the walls.  I think it will be quite a while before I get to change either of those things.  Right now I'm genuinely happy with my space even though it is far from ideal.  

 

Here it is from a slightly different angle.

I had three main goals for the switcheroo.  #1:  get rid of the leaning shelves to prevent possible injury to my 14 month old son and to provide space for another seat.  #2:  edit.  As you can see I got rid of a lot of stuff.  I'm currently resisting the urge to fill up every inch of blank wall that I now have. #3:  freshen up the color palette,  rust, olive ---> aqua-ish teal, chartreuse-y green.  $200 of the $300 I had to work with went to the chair.  The rest was spent on the curtains, fabric for pillows, the jug lamp and shelves.

Oh, the shelves.  I could write an entire post on those shelves above the TV.  I will spare you the boring details and say that those are not the Lack shelves from Ikea (that I drove 3 hours to buy) because they were a nightmare to hang.  Those shelves are from Lowe's and I ripped them out of my son's room (which I was planning on doing any way) to put in our living room because I got so fed up with the Ikea shelves.  The shelves from Lowe's are shorter and more expensive than the Ikea shelves, but they are a breeze to hang.  Thank goodness I was able to cover the 15 or so holes that are now in my wall due to my attempts at installing the Ikea shelves.

I'm really happy with the way the shelves look now and I'm glad to have somewhere else to put photos.  I already had most of the accessories that are now on the shelves. The only new things I bought were the books between the bookends.  I got them from a thrift store because they went with my new color palette.

I took a photo of the pillows on my couch to show my fabrics off a bit more, and our dog Rufus could not be bothered to move, so here he his with my pillows.

Even though I won't be getting new couches or painting in the near future I'll probably be making small tweaks here and there.  I'm keeping my eye out for a large sisal basket to put between the TV stand and the side table to keep toys and extra pillows.  I'm also keeping my eye out for a new side table.  Our current side table is actually a $14 TV tray and it's just about as unstable as the leaning shelves that we had.  I pretty much have a small panic attack every time my son gets anywhere near it because my beloved $18 lamp is on it.  

Of course, I'll keep the ol' blog updated with any tweaks that I make.

I hope everyone is having a great Tuesday!

Home-made Pottery Barn/West Elm Lamp Knock-Off

I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter weekend.  Mine was great, and in case you missed it on Friday, I have the next three weeks off!

For the next couple of weeks I'll be sharing details from some of the projects I've done to finish up my living room revamp and by the end of this week or the beginning of next week I'll have pictures of the whole thing.

This first project (finished product pictured above) was so easy and cheap, and it turned out great.  I love home-made things that don't look home-made.

I had been looking for a lamp like these since I put my living room mood board together.

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The first one is from Pottery Barn and it's $100 and the second on is from West Elm and it's $150.  Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places, but in over a month of searching I never came across a (much) less expensive knock-off. 

 

So I decided to make one myself.  I've had that glass jug for a few years, I already had a shade I wanted to use and I've seen lamp kits in Lowe's.  The last piece of the puzzle was to figure out how to put a hole in the bottom of jug .  With only a few minutes of research I learned that I needed a ceramic cutting drill bit.  I made a little trip to Lowe's, spent about $18 to get the lamp kit and bit (I got the 5/16" bit), and I was ready to work. If you don't have a Lowe's nearby,  the following items are similar and can be found on amazon. 

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Time to drill!  I put a piece of tape on the jug in case it cracked while I was drilling.  I was pretty nervous at first and I imagined the whole thing shattering in my hands. 

Thank goodness it did not shatter, but it did take for-ev-er.  I'm talkin' about five minutes of holding the drill in the same place to make one hole.  Finally the hole was big enough for the cord to fit.

From there all you have to do is follow the directions on the lamp kit packaging.  I only had to make one adjustment  The stoppers that are included in the kit were all too small for the opening of my jug, so I used a little hot glue to create a seal so the stopper would fit.  The hot glue worked great and you can't even tell it's there.

Here's the finished product again:

And here's what it cost me:

New money spent:

• drill bit: $8
• lamp kit:  $10

$18 is pretty good for a solid PB or West Elm knock-off.

Here's what it would cost if all the parts had to be bought new:

• bit and kit:  $18
• jug:  $10-$15  (The shelves of HomeGoods, T.J. Maxx and Marshall's are littered with glass jug thingies.  Mine was $15, but I've seen ones the same size for $10.)
• drum shade:  $15 from Wal-Mart's Canopy line

$43-$48 is still less than half of what it would cost to buy the Pottery Barn Eva lamp.  

***OOPS!: I forgot to mention that you may need a lamp harp and the prongs depending on the kind of***

          shade you have.  The harp and prongs aren't included in the lamp kit, but they're also sold at Lowe's.

I'm super excited about how the lamp looks in my living room and I'm looking forward to sharing more projects and eventually the entire room.

*This post contains affiliate links*

Have a great Monday!

I'll be linking up to...

 

Painted Letters

Here's project #1 from my weekend.  I finally painted the letters above the cork board (which was only $11 at Wal-Mart) in our kitchen.  I got them from Hobby Lobby for $5 each.

This is what they looked like before.  Gold and crooked.  They've been hanging like that for about five months.  I always knew that I wanted to paint them, I just didn't know what color. (I also still had our Christmas cards hanging up!)

Thank goodness for Better Homes & Gardens.

I found this page in an old issue.  Those paint colors go perfectly with my new throw pillows.  I decided that I wanted to try and add a little more green to my new living room color scheme.  The color on the page is Sherwin Williams Antiquity.  It came out a little too light and I ended up having to get the color two shades darker on the swatch, Grandiose.  Paint was 40% off at Sherwin Williams this weekend so the sample I ended up getting was only $3.

 

I also used the paint on a set of "a" and "z" bookends that I got on clearance from Target.

I'm still not sure if I'm going to keep them in our living room.  They were originally black and now they look a little childish in green.  I may end up re-painting them and moving them to my son's room.

I wanted to post pictures of the new "art" in my gallery wall in my kitchen, but I was getting some bad reflections off the frames from the sunlight coming through our windows.  I'll get some pictures taken tonight and get 'em posted tomorrow.  Here's a little sneak peak!

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Turning My "Wanter" Off

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This sofa and the matching love seat are on sale at JC Penny right now for $799 each.  Not a bad price, especially when you consider that it's $200 cheaper than the least expensive sofa at Pottery Barn.

It's exactly what I'm looking for too.  Neutral with clean lines.  I can dress it up or down, and it'll go with most color schemes.

As I've been working on changing the color scheme in my living room, the one thing that's standing in my way of having the look that I want is my sofa set.  My sofa and love seat are skirted, camel back, and upholstered in  a yellow-y neutral chenille.  Blah. 

The yellow-y fabric makes me think my sofas belong in a room that looks like this:

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Definitely not the look I'm going for.

My husband and I bought our sofa and love seat four years ago, back when I knew that I wanted my house to look pretty, but I didn't really have a grasp on my own personal style.

Our set was also an awesome deal.  We stumbled on it in a furniture store that was changing location and trying to get rid of their inventory before they moved.  We bought both pieces for $650.  Yes, a new sofa and love seat for $650.  They're decent quality too.  As much as I'd like to get new sofas, I don't think I could bring myself to pay much more than that on a new set.   Since sofas are hard to come by at $650 for two, I most likely won't be getting them any time soon.

Of course reupholstering our sofas would be cheaper than buying new ones, but it's still not exactly cheap.  I wish I could get my sofas to look a little more like this:

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I could definitely work with that.

Since buying new sofas, nor reupholstery are options, this is what I'm going to do:  I'm going to turn my "wanter" off.  Yes, you read that right, "wanter."  We all have it.  That voice (urge, impulse, whatever) that tells us that there is something that we should have that we currently don't have.  The "wanter" also usually tells us that we should have that thing the very instant the voice, urge, or impulse kicks in.  Sometimes the "wanter" is sneaky and can convince us that the thing we want is actually a need.

The truth is that I don't need sofas, so I'm going to work with what I've got and I'm going to be happy with it.  I'm going to be thankful that I've got furniture in the fist place and that I've got a roof to put it under.

Maybe I'll stumble across a killer deal sometime soon (let me know if you find a sofa and love seat for about $200, OK?) or I'll find a way to make inexpensive slip covers with my horrible developing seamstress skills.  For now my wanter is officially off and I am going to be content with what I have.

Makin' a Trip to Ikea

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This week has moved so slow.  I haven't gotten much accomplished, but I'm hoping to catch up this weekend.  My husband and I are going to take a trip to Ikea in Charlotte to get a few things and maybe I'll have my living room mostly finished by the beginning of next week.

These are a couple things that we want to come home with us.

The Jappling Chair that is only available in stores.

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The Lack wall shelf is available online, but we'd rather not pay shipping.

I also want to make a stop by the Loomcraft warehouse in Burlington to see if I can find anything else to use in the living room.  I took some pictures with my phone when I was there a while ago.

Look at all the fabric!

 85% of the stuff that's there isn't that great, but then there's the 15% that's fantastic and only about $8 a yard.

Even though it's only Wednesday, it'll probably be Saturday night before I get to post again, so everyone have a good start to the weekend.

Framed Vintage Keys

OK, I posted this little project twice on my old blog and now I'm posting it again.  I'm just really proud of my keys.  Not to sound braggy, but I thought of this all on my own.  It wasn't until after I had this piece finished and hung that I saw this at Restoration Hardware.

via restorationhardware.com

This key art is 18.5" x  18.5" and retails for $199.  Mine cost me $25. I got a handful of keys at the flea market for $5 and a shadow box from Micheal's for about $20.  

The top and bottom rows of keys are flat so I just hot-glued them on.  The middle ones are tacked on with thread.

A few more months after I'd hung my keys I saw these at Pottery Barn.

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Those keys are "vintage" (can you call something vintage if it's recently been mass produced?) and $19 for 7 of them.  Also, I love that gallery wall.

p.s.  The Restoration Hardware key art is no longer available online, but it's available from their catalog if any one's interested in dropping $200 + shipping on it.

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