I love love love this DIY lampshade by Carrie of Carrie Can for her sister. She takes an ordinary paper lampshade, and transforms it with tissue paper. The materials are dirt cheap but the result is wonderful! I am inspired to get started on a few lampshades of my own. You can find a full tutorial on craftster.org. And in case you are wondering the mural in the background was done by Carrie as well. Her sister is awfully lucky! Thanks for the inspiration and tutorials, Carrie!
I am not a huge fan of Valentine’s Day. At some point February 14th became the time for ridiculous mark-ups on flowers and candy that will be 75% off on February 15th. Yes, I am a jaded New Yorker. So sue me. I have to admit that I have a soft spot for the idea of candy hearts. I say the idea of them, because I don’t really love the taste. I do however love the taste of shortbread and the idea of spray painting cookies. If this sounds good to you, head on over to Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories (love the name!) because this is the post for you! Wonderful step by step instructions with pictures to make these adorable over-sized hearts. The geeky messages are a nice addition. Maybe this year my sweetie and I will spend some quality time together baking cookies. To me, that is the spirit of Valentine’s Day. via
I heart these DIY shelves. As a matter of fact I heart just about everything about Stephen and Shauna’s home. Clean and simple with quirky accents (is that a porch swing in the bedroom?!) Wonderful use of colors, textures and patterns. I am definitely having home envy. M&I are in the process of deciding if we stay in our current apartment or look for something else when our lease is up in a few months. If we do stay then our place needs some freshening up. I am definitely going to be stealing a few color and decorating ques from this amazing apartment. You can see more of what they are up to on their blog Somethings Hiding in Here. Check out the house tour to see more amazing images. via
Photojojo posted a tutorial for this amazing DIY perpetual photo calendar. I love that you can use your own photos or photos that you find on the Internet (check the photographer’s copyright just to be sure it is ok). This is just project I need to get me out there taking pictures. I love to take pictures while I am on vacation but I never think to drag out my camera to photograph my own city. I love that this is something that could change over time. If you get tired of a number, or find one that is better, change it up. I just happen to have the fotoclips, I got them on sale at Urban Outfitters a while ago, and this is the perfect use for them.
This year I didn’t have enough floor space to have a tree. I did have a Christmas wreath and some garland so that I would have a place to hang some ornaments and get the Christmas light effect and the pine smell. Unfortunately this meant that many of my ornaments didn’t see the light of day. I love this wall tree by Jane of All the Luck in the World. What a wonderful creative way to display all your ornaments without sacrificing floor space. Next year I am definitely going to give this a try. via
As we say goodbye to 2008 and hello to 2009 it is time to print ourselves a new calendar or two. Here are some links to DIY calendars from Tipnut. Happy new year!
If you love felt as much as I do, or even half as much as I do then you will be interested to know that you can now get 100% wool felt (as if there is any other kind that is worth drooling over) from Germany by the yard from FilzFelt. The colors are fabulous! I think I am going to get a sample set just to have a little bit of each. Mmmmmmm. Felt.
I am a sucker for advertising. I like nicely designed things which appear easy to make. As you may have read on this blog, M&I are attempting to built the ReadyMade MD100 shed. Neither of us has any construction experience whatsoever, but they claim two people can build this in one weekend for the relatively small sum of $1500. A bargain! Maybe this would take one weekend if you had two highly trained, seasoned carpenters. And that is only if they have the site prepared (or are building on a perfectly level site) and have all of the material delivered and pre-cut. I hate to sound bitter here, but as M&I forge ahead with these plans, we are noticing a lot of things that were designed in the name of cheap instead of right. There is nothing 16″ on center, which means when we are interested in putting up paneling instead of the corrogated metal, uh oh, nothing is 4′ wide so we have to put in extra studs. Yikes, we have a significant snow load, the roof they designed may not be enough… sigh. I would like to thank my dad and grandfather again for coming out and helping until late last night. We got A LOT done. The frame is up, the roof has plywood, we even have some of the siding in place. We still have at least a long weekend of work ahead of us to put in the doors (one sliding glass and one steel) and to finish the roof (we still aren’t exactly sure what has to happen there) and finish siding the whole thing. I am not going to say don’t buy the plans if you have your heart set on one of these, but keep in mind, one weekend and $1500 IS too good to be true.
The cold weather is setting in and as you might be able to tell from my posts, I am already in knitting mode and on the hunt to find things that will help keep me warm. I saw these super cute arm warmers which at first I thought were knit, but they are actually re-purposed knee socks! I love the color and they seem super easy to put together. The pictures help a lot. I actually like knee socks because they help keep my legs warm but I bet this technique would also work with the arms of a sweater that just isn’t working for me as a sweater anymore. via
After posting the felted pin cushion I started to get the itch to make something myself and what better than a felted bag! Mags Kandis posted this beautiful free pattern for a bucket bag. I especially love the embroidery embellishments. In fact if you click around Mags’ site you will see a lot of inspirational embellishments. I am also intrigued by the link to kiva.org and I plan to find out what they are all about.
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