Best Birthday present EVER!

Since we have "moved in", our house hasn't been quiet for a minute! Apparently when you live in an apartment, people tend keep their distance. Since we moved in 10 days ago there have hardly been a day or night that we haven't entertained our friends and family. Everyone is just as excited about our house as us it would appear. Included in these celebrations was my 30th birthday. In the 10 days that we have been sleeping in our house (and trying to unpack boxes) we have even had house guests. To my surprise (and what a surprise it was, lemme tell ya!) my cousin and design-go-to-girl Penny, came to visit for the weekend! Through the celebration and the jugs of Sangria we got to work unpacking and dreaming up endless design ideas including this small little project that is near and dear to my heart that anyone can copy in their own kitchen!

Penny brought me a recipe from my Great Grandmother (her Grandmother) for Mustard Pickles! It has quickly became one of my prized possessions. I'm talking if-the-house-burned-down-what-would-be-the-first-thing-you-would-save prized possessions for sure. It's so special because its written in her hand writing with grammatical and spelling errors and mustard stains on the paper, and its over 30 years old.
Obviously it required a place to be "displayed", and since my kitchen has bits of yellow in it, we figured that's where it should live. So this is what Penny and I came up with!

Nanny's recipe 

I found these 5 x 7 shadow box frames at HomeSence for like $10. They have a liner of grass cloth and a small sliver desk clip attached at the back. They evoke a little nostalgia in themselves which was perfect for this project.
Any shadow box frame will work for this project

Insert your recipe like you would a picture

I attached the frame (and the vintage clock) to the glass tile by using the 3M strips. If you need to remove them you just pull the tab and you have no hole in your wall! You can get them just about everywhere including Wal-Mart

The final look!

This can be done in any kitchen with a favorite recipe of collage of recipes etc! Cheep and cheerful!

Another cute idea is to re-purpose a cake stand!

A cute way to display your hand cream and tea towels!

Moving Day!

Update for all you lovelies that are following and who have been lighting a fire under me to be a better poster! I promise to do better!

We're finally moving in, and I terribly worried that I will never leave my little house again! I LOVE it!!! Its for sure the happiest house ever. But as I lug and unpack every box from the basement, I quickly decide that we have way too much stuff! I'm worried I may be boarder line hoarder. So I am purging, as I am unpacking, but you will be relieved to know I am finding good homes for the things I am discarding. Remember reuse re purpose as much as you can!

Here's an update on the move in!

Under construction

Waiting for the sink to be cut!



So happy with our kitchen! I am going to try my best not to clutter the counter area.

The only thing I can find is my coffee pot! Which happens to be the most important thing anyways!

Living Room

We have a TV! Eventually we need a unit to house our DVD player and electronics, but we haven't seen anything we're in love with that also works best with this space. So until then, I wait.

Master bedroom is almost finished! I need to add some accessories, and some final touches.



LOVE my curtains! If you have never heard of Tonic Living you have to check them out!
They are for sure the best place to get fabric.
tonicliving.com

Teasers

This week has been very productive! Our counter top came and was cut right this time! The missing cabinet facings have arrived and the brick and mosaic tile work has been completed!

Happy Mother's Day to all the awesome mom's out there!

 I know mine is pretty awesome!

String Light DIY

So here's my newest DIY project. The reason this came about was because I had ordered an outstanding light fixture for over my dining room table. However, when it finally came in stock the shipping cost on it was astronomical! So I cancelled it. I had been looking at these string lights for sometime, ever since (my fav!) Janette Ewen showed one on City Line. Check her out at http://www.janetteewen.com/
Her step-by-step didn't seem to hard. And ever since Pinterest took over my life, I have seen numerous string lights pinned and countless blogs giving the instructions. So I thought, why not give it a try. Worst thing could be that it doesn't work, and I have to cave and by the first light fixture. 

The blog that I thought gave the instructions the best was http://desertdomicile.blogspot.ca

There are a few ways to do it. Some blogs said to use a balloon, some said an exercise ball because the balloon will deflate while the glue dries over a couple days. 

Some blogs said to use fabric stiffener, elmers glue or modpodge for the glue. And the string can be wool, twine or crochet wool.

So after reading all the blogs I've combined a few things to come up with mine. 

List of items:

2 Balls of thin crochet wool about 300yrds

2 bottles of Stiffy Fabric Stiffener 

24" exercise ball (sorry mom, i'll replace it!) 

2 small buckets or containers

Vaseline

Pendant light fixture kit

This is the most messy DIY I have ever done! All the blogs warn you of it, and it is so true. You'll need to wear old clothes and line the table or floors with newsprint.

Step 1:  Wash your ball to remove any items that may not allow the glue to stick

Step 2: Skim a light layer of Vaseline on the ball. I've done paper mache and molds before and I know if you don't have layer of it on your object will be stuck to the mold you are trying to make. This was in one other blog I read and I thought it made sense

Step 3: Use a small ice cream bucket to rest the ball on. This will prevent it from rolling around the floor. Also you need to leave a circle on top to put your pendant fixture in, about the diameter of the ice cream bucket. Also to have it elevated a little off the floor really helps for winding the string from top to bottom

Step 4: The blog says to put the roll of crochet string into a bucket and dump in the entire bottle of stiffener 

Fix: This turned out to be a complete mess. The string kept getting knotted up and it became unusable. Round two turned into using another roll of string and dipping it in the glue as it unwind off the roll. 

Step 5: Start winding the sting around the ball, top to bottom, all the way around and back again. This is the most time consuming part. It took me about 3 hours, dipping the string as you go. The important thing is to have your string really saturated. 

Trick: You may need a friend (again, thanks Candace!) As I was winding the string around, the very first string was slipping down. It wasn't until I have enough on the ball to "tighten" that I was able to do it on my own.

Trick: Once you go around the ball a few times, pull ever so slightly so that the string tightens a little. Also, a good way to cover the entire ball is to keep turning the ice cream bucket around as you wind the string around, avoid turning the ball its self.

Step 6: Once I thought the ball was covered enough (remember the more string the more substantial the structure will be) I patted some extra glue with my hands on parts that I wasn't confident would stick. So I just gave it a light coating in places. 

Trick: The more glue you pat around it the more glue spots you will see in the openings of the string in the final product. It will be however easy to fix at the end.

Step 7: Now the tricky part, removing the ball. Just in case it decided to explode we decided to prick it multiple times with a safety pin. As the ball was deflating we gently helped the string detach in spots where it was glued directly to the ball by pulling the pieces away with our fingers.

Step 8: If I had followed the desert domicile blog to the letter, I would have had a nice opening at the top where no string had been wound. However, where I had trouble getting starting in the beginning the ball was being twisted around etc etc so I had an evenly strung ball all the way around. So I had to cut a hole in order to take the ball out. I used a small bowl the size I wanted the opening, traced it out lightly and cut it away using scissors. The structure is much hardier that I would have thought, so be gentle but no need to be paranoid that it will cave in. 

Step 9: Now reach in with your scissors and gently cut the ball into workable pieces. I found it hard to take the ball out in 1 piece so Brad thought it would have been  better to cut it up and it worked like a charm

Step 10: Now connecting your pendant light kit to the ball! We were worried over time that the ball wouldn't with stand handing from hooks so we threaded white florist wire around the opening of the ball to reinforce it. From there we dropped down the pendant fixture and attached the ball with florist wire to the pendant wire on 3 sides (extra weight distribution) 

Trick: Florist wire seemed to be the best thing to use because it's got some give. I can still put my hand in and change the bulb when I want.

Step 11: Install the pendant to the ceiling as specified in the directions of your light kit (make sure your breaker box is turned off first) or have an electrician install it for you to be extra safe

Ta da! And all for less then $50!!! 

Week-15 We have colour!

New pictures of our place with some colour on the walls and even some cupboards hung! 

Dining Room looking to the living room 

Remember the mosaic tile????!!!!

So glad about my cupboards

Looking down the hallway to the guest bedroom

Master Bedroom

I am so happy to announce that the saw has finally left the living room! Which means once the brick feature wall is complete (hopefully this weekend) the cleaning will begin and the decorating and moving in will start!
We have one room finished (minus the decorating and moving in part) The office/closet room was finished this week. We did a little diy on the back of the office wall too. I wanted to use wall paper so that it was a little prettier than the rest of the room, but I looked everywhere for one that I LOVED, but I found out it is really hard to find a grey/purple wall paper (that was averagely priced. Many were beautiful but out of my budget) So instead a friend turned me to a stencil. She had done a beautiful application around her fireplace.

Check out http://www.cuttingedgestencils.com/  The shipping was fasts and the cost of both the stencil and shipping was reasonable (about $55) and it was fairly easy to apply. The end result was not as clean and neat as wall paper would have been, but its cute and it was fun without the mess and hassle of wallpaper.
See the steps below.

What the finished product claims to look like

You will need your new stencil

Spray adhesive

Latex paint (quart is more than enough)

Small sponge roller

Painters tape

I pre-painted the wall a light grey for the background colour (the rest of the room is the same colour)

Make sure your wall is free from any dust or dirt a tack cloth is good for that

You may need a friend to help you start off (thanks Candace!) 

The stencil becomes really sticky so you may need another pair of hand in the beginning to line everything up  

Start in a corner of the wall you are stenciling

Spray your stencil with a light coat of adhesive-too much and you'll take the paint off the wall

I made that mistake!

Lightly stick the stencil on the wall

Use the painters tape stick the corners and side a little better 

(The spray glue was getting really sticky, so after the 1st two blocks I stopped spraying and just used the tape)

When you begin rolling the trick is to use a little bit of paint and do many coats. So roll your roller through the paint sparingly and then use a piece of cardboard to roll off the excess paint. You may need to do 3 thin coats.

Carefully peel off your stencil and move down to the next area.

Line up your pattern and roll again

Keep going until the entire are is patterned

In the stencil kit there are extra pieces to go along the ceiling. With the pattern I used, everything lined up perfectly and I didn't need to use it

The end result! 

The picture looks super, but in person you'd see that the pattern didn't come out as clean as I had hoped. In hind sight, if I took my time and made sure every area of the stencil stuck to the wall and each layer dreid completely before I did another coat, it may have been a lot better. However, it was really easy and only took 2.5hours. Plus, I intend to put up shelving on the wall and it will cover up a few of the "less neat" spots. 

I am pleased with this DIY so I think I will try to make a light for my dining room next!

Happy Friday Everyone!