Coaster Child

The problem with being a night person, (I am not an "owl," too hipster-ie), is that I feel inspired, (or have inspiration emailed to me), so I set forth bringing it to life and then I have to wait until morning to photograph and/or write about it. The best lighting in my house is 10am in my kitchen nook. People keep telling me "Light Box!," but these people probably have a bigger house than me. Or don't live with wild monkeys bent on destruction.

Today I asked for ideas for my next project and I got one response, "cake!" which, it turns out I actually made. Without realizing it until just now. (Good use of "the secret," Deborah!) And then later I was reminded about my coffee melting my new bedside table situation. It seems a hot beverage placed on a ModPodged nightstand sort of melts the glue making it fog up again. So I made this:

 

A little coaster! The fabric was in my scrap bin and it's one of my favorites. I only had a little left but couldn't throw it away. I'm so glad I figured out something to do with it.

 

See what happens when you photograph at night? So dark. With weird shadows. But don't you love my mug? It makes me happy just to look at it.

If anyone else has an idea of something I can make, let me know. But remember I'm lazy and have limitations.

Palette Season

 

I've been redecorating my house in my head lately. Which is bad. Because if it's not on paper I always forget something. Like a wall or a door or I get the measurements wrong. Or I mentally paint the walls orange and then mentally pick out an orange stove and an apple green countertop. This could all turn out just fine. Or it could look like the circus is in town.

Enter COLOURlovers.com. I can create custom palettes and save them. It's so amazing. I am addicted.

Here's a palette I created based on a flower a friend gave me today:

 

 You can also view other palettes and vote on them. And sometimes you end up creating a new unnamed color and you get to name it! Magical! Here's Steamed Artichoke named by me:

 

Here's a palette I designed for my kitchen:

 

Seriously. I need to be stopped.

 

One Nightstand. Cheap & Easy.

 

 

Hi Everyone! My mom brain kicked in and I sent the wrong link! But this nightstand is cute right? Here's the correct Thing I Love on Thursday.

Sorry, I'm new!

It's finished! I think it turned out pretty cute. Much harder than I thought it would be, but totally worth it. 

I started with a plain, pine bedside table (industry term!). I thought I would paint it some crazy color but was inspired by this:

Not Catherine O'Hara, although she is an inspiration, but that excellent wardrobe to her left. Or stage left. Or your right. Anyway, it's gorgeous and my wheels immediately started turning when I saw it in Penelope.

Before:

The first thing I did was paint the inside a teal-blue color, since I wasn't decoupaging it. But if I did it again, I would paint the whole thing. If a little blue peeks through it's much prettier than wood. 

Next, I cut the paper. I bought a scrapbooking stack with a palette I liked on sale for $8. It was this one, 180, 12x12 sheets. I went through the stack pulling out the pages I wanted and getting it down to the exact mix of colors. Then I cut them into 3"x4" pieces and put them in order by color family.

Blues, oranges, patterns, orange/purples, purples, blue/purple/oranges.This makes it much easier when you go to glue them to the table. Nothing too similar is next to each other.

After a poor start, I tried just using the ModPodge to adhere the paper, I decided to spray glue the bedside table and place pieces on. This is good for two reasons: 1. no wrinkling/bubbling and 2. you can reposition! Genius.

For the sides and the edges..it's tricky. For the edging around the table top I cut 4" x 1" strips, sprayed the glue to the backs of the strips and adhered them to the edge by kind of curling them under. For the vertical edges, I used 4" x 2" strips and centered them on the edge and wrapped them. Creating a border on the outside and inside. You can see it better in this photo:

Since the inside of the drawer was kind of gross, I just spray glued a 12" x 12" piece and popped it in.

 

To finish it off, I found an Anthropologie knob from a previous project that was resting inside my garage. I remember that knob was expensive, like $10, which is more than I spent on the whole project.

Here it is! All done and pretty. I walked into my bedroom after I redecorated this little area and I did a double take because it was so pretty. It needs some wall color, but still! Gorgeous!

Check out DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land !!
and
Metamorphosis Day!!