If you don’t visit decor8 for a daily dose of inspiration, you’re missing out.  Not only does Holly have really good taste, but she posts often (= more fun to look at) and saves you from needing to comb through thousands of webpages to find the best stuff. And she’s really good about finding lower priced alternatives, which is nice for people on a budget (= moi).

After my surprise “get a hobby” win, I think I’ve used up most of my luck for a while. But I decided to put together an inspiration board for her latest contest just in case.

I’ve been wanting to make a wall board for a while anyway after seeing a pattern in a recent issue of Martha (can’t find a link - sorry) and the really incredible ones made by Shim + Sons. Let me assure that, after making my own, I have a lot more respect for how hard it is to get the fabric to lay nice and flat like Sally’s does. Maybe you’d better not really look at my fabric. Or the way that my camera didn’t like to photograph lots of white. The ochre pockets at the bottom were really fun to make, though, as were the fabric-covered thumbtacks (there’s a very nice tutorial for those here).

Of course, making the board was only half the project. I also got to search through my not insignificant stacks of design magazines, develop a theme, and start tearing out pages.*

*This was the source of a little disagreement between husband and myself. Is there anyone else out there who really dislikes ripping up your magazines? This is one of the things that has kept me from making a board like this in the past. Josh assured me that there are thousands of copies of Domino and Martha and Elle Decor out there just waiting to replace my damaged ones, but I’m still not convinced. I told him that I might tape the pics back in afterward and he said that he would laugh very, very hard if I did that. Is this really that neurotic of me?

The room I picked was the living room - our living room, to be specific. I think it’s really hard to decorate something in a vacuum instead of working with a specific set of walls, ceiling, and carpet. So, my goal was to come up with objects and colors that fit the very real living room in our very real apartment were I to have the opportunity to re-do everything with no budget. :)

It didn’t take very long for me to figure out that a lot of my images were falling neatly into a grey + brown theme. I kept the yellow/ochre and teal accents that I have now, but conveniently left out the ol’ forest green couch.

And what would an inspiration board be without something wildly beautiful that you cannot possibly afford?

Of course, I am now wishing that I had done this before moving in rather than after. I think I might have found another couple of hours to add a coat of soft grey paint to the walls, along with renewed/prolonged furniture searching. But I think that the point of an inspiration board should be opening yourself up to new possibilities instead of making you ungrateful for what you already have, so I’m going to be thankful for my little living room and dream about making a few changes in the future.

(You can relax, dear, I said “a few.”)

Our back door used to have a curtain made from eyelet lace and a blue-and-maroon-Americana-print ruffle. Ick. Last Saturday night, I decided that I couldn’t bear to let our guests see it and whipped up a substitute from an old sheet.

It’s not spectacular, but the view is now much improved and it goes well with my aunt’s  daisy watercolor. Don’t you love the round frame?

Much stress at work this week. The problem with having multiple bosses is that they can all ask you to do something at once. And then call repeatedly to see how their project is going as you scramble to finish stuff for the other guy. Sometimes they even put you on speakerphone, and it’s such a nice treat to know that your “ums” and “ahs” are being amplified for whoever-else-is-in-the-room to hear.

I’m probably learning valuable lessons about priorities and time management, but I’d much rather that it be Friday already. 

Are you sick of my living room yet? If so, I promise that this will be the last photo for awhile (or until I make any more noteworthy changes).

These are the new couch accent pillows I finished last weekend. [I'm also keeping the brown pair for now because there's a blue-and-brown picture on the wall opposite the couch above the tv, and I don't have much else that's brown.]

The new pillows pick up the ochre from the entryway and our oak furniture, the white helps to lighten the couch, and the black print matches the wallhanging and curtains without looking too matchy-matchy, if you know what I mean.

I am really happy with how these turned out, even though the fabric panel is upside down on one set (you didn’t notice, did you?).

The painting in the top right corner, above, is one of my estate sale finds from last weekend. It has all the right colors for the living room, so I’m just trying to decide whether I like it enough to hang above the white file cabinet. It’s not the most exciting painting ever, but it’s colorful and cheerful and - most importantly - not mine. I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing like hanging your own art in the living room to make you wish that you had used a little more blue and not added so much detail to the background. An anonymous artist, however, is generally above reproach. Funny how that works.

Before I had the chance to moan about the temporary demise of this blog (’cause what’s a craft blog with no photos?), I got a couple of camera-loan offers. My brother-in-law cheerfully handed over his Sony for a couple of days, and as a result I can show pictures of the little open house party we had yesterday.

For some reason, I have really been wanting to make cupcakes lately. So, I did a little online search for  recipes and found that some people are really, really into cupcakes. This lady seems a little crazy to me, but she provided this recipe, which garnered a lot of comments (as it should, considering how much butter it uses.) I made 1 1/2 batches and got 40 cupcakes, which was about right. And then I spent Saturday afternoon frosting them with yellow and pink and white. I haven’t frosted anything in a long time and my technique was a little shakey, but the beauty of cupcakes is that when you put 30 of them on display together, nobody notices which flowers have four petals instead of five.

I got a lot of comments about the display method, which I think I invented (although it gets hard to remember what is inspired by an old issue of Martha and what is straight from your imagination). It’s a really nice way of adding height to a table and doesn’t involve lots of fancy display dishes that don’t fit in your cabinet. You just alternate plates of different sizes with some non-wobbly glasses and stack them as high as you dare. Mine shook a little when pushed, but they survived a couple of 2-, 3-, and 4-year olds reaching for seconds.

So, a good time was (hopefully) had by all and I’m already planning the big Christmas party I want to throw. With lots of Christmas cookies and candles and carols and mulled cider. Mmm.

I’m going to try to snap some pictures tonight of my weekend projects and estate sale finds, which were unusually good. At the moment, I think I can survive on borrowing until I have enough money this summer to get a nice camera of my own. Any suggestions for a reasonably-priced digital SLR? Pretty please?

I’m still trying to finish the new throw pillows for the couch…they’re a very simple design, but it will probably take a few more days. Am trying to heed some gentle words from husband regarding my need to be “productive” all the time. He’s a lot wiser than I am about these things.

I went to WSU’s MFA exhibit during lunch yesterday because I’m always curious about what a mediocre state school’s art department churns out (answer =  about what you’d expect). There were a number of mystefying sculpture exhibits, some boring screenprinting, a couple of installations, and one painter who could paint. If you’re around, I recommend visiting sometime during the month to take a good long look at the work of Isaac Powell and short, amused look at everything else. I finish with a clip from the WSU news service, which pretty much sums it up:

Chris Watts, a professor in the WSU Fine Arts department, and this year’s graduate advisor, has been the formal coordinator of the MFA students for seven years. When asked if the exhibit will have an overall theme, he said, “the strength of the Fine Arts department and the MFA program is we don’t have a certain style, each student is allowed to shine on their own–find their own path. This year’s group was no exception; they continued the long standing tradition of creativity and excellence.” 

Mmm, I’d hate to be the one to break it to him that some paths are better than others.

I put the fabric hoops on the wall last night (it made me nervous to think of them lying around, waiting to get spilled on). For once, I followed the Martha-recommended method and actually taped paper cutouts to the wall first. I’ve always avoided this because it seemed too time-consuming, but it was entirely worth the extra effort.

I got to shuffle the little circles around, stare at them, and shuffle them some more without hammering any extra holes in the wall. Plus, it’s hard to hold seven fabric hoops up to the wall at once and actually see how they look together.

This is the new view from the dining room into the kitchen. There’s one more tiny hoop on the top right that you can’t see because of the doorframe.

I like the fact that the hoops are all made from the same fabric. I love the other samples of this method that I’ve seen, but some of them can be really busy if there are 8 or 10 different types of fabric. This one print is plenty for me.

The only regret I have is that the installation is a little more, er, girly-looking than I had planned. Since getting married, I have tried very hard to curb some of my feminine decorative impulses. Josh is a very patient guy, but I don’t know how women with extreme-vintage houses manage not to drive their husbands nuts (or maybe they do). So, I keep most of my turqouise-and-pink finds in my craft room and choose more manly colors for the rest of the house. Except for the pink, purple and red flowers shown here.

I’m also going to squeak in a photo of one of my favorite decorations ever, a (Josh-approved) Japanese parasol mobile that I got from a friend. Erin, if you happen to ever read this blog, I will hang this mobile in every house I ever live in.

I’m going to visit a little craft fair during lunch break tomorrow, so this will be the last post of the week. Hopefully, my sewing machine will be fixed any day now and I’ll get to spend the weekend struggling with 7-ft fabric panels (curtains, anyone?). I hope you all have plenty of fun stuff to do, too.

Ever since I saw this suggestion for displaying fabric in embroidery hoops on the Purl Bee, I wanted to make some for our kitchen. (Obviously, I wasn’t the only one to see it…some other bloggers made really cute versions of their own.) I decided that this was one of the only legitimate uses I could find for my precious meter of Liberty* fabric, which I’ve been hoarding until I could find a way to get maximum decorative value and mimimum regrets a year later.

*I hadn’t heard of Liberty until I spent Christmas in London a couple of years ago. My mother, who had been living there for a couple of months, told me that we HAD to go to the store together to look at the fabric. I wasn’t sure why she was so excited but happily obliged and boy-am-I-glad that my mum has such good taste. The building itself is incredible (it’s made from timbers of old sailing ships), and the fabric floor is totally overwhelming. You can see some samples on Purl Soho, although I think there were a lot more in the store. It took me at least half an hour to pick the print I did, and while I sometimes scratch my head as to why pink and red was my favorite color combo, I’m so glad I bought something.

So, I took my fabric off the shelf a couple of days ago, ironed it, and started. chopping. it. with. scissors. (Kind of a bad feeling.) I realized right away that the print was a little too thin, so I cut some muslin squares for backing.

I tried to get the edges to fold back when the hoops are hung so I wouldn’t have to glue them down, but that didn’t work. So I spent last night chatting with some other crafty ladies and brandishing my mini glue gun. I hated gluing the fabric, but I think I can still cut it off the hoops in a few years when (as one friend said) I’ve decided that I really wanted to use it for a quilt instead.

One quick note, if you decide to try this project at home: it only looks good if the fabric is perfectly taut, and the best way to do that is to make your outer hoop only slightly bigger than the fabric + inner hoop. You can tug the fabric around to fix some floppy spots, but I found that squeezing the top hoop over the bottom one leads to the best results.

Unfortunately, a pile of fabric hoops on the counter is as far as I got…gluing took a long time, and I want to be really careful when I hang these so I don’t put extra holes in my newly-painted kitchen wall. But I should be able to show you the finished project tomorrow.

Reasons why this is a really, really great decor idea:

• It’s cheap! (Unless your fabric is expensive.) I’ve been accumulating embroidery hoops at thrift stores for a while now, and none of them were more than $1.
• The hoops are circular, which is a nice shape-change from all the rectangular frames out there.
• Textile art is really sweet.

Maybe the last one is a little subjective, but I’m really liking the look of fabric on the wall right now. And speaking of fabric, I picked up two more pieces at the thrift store yesterday. Neither are very big, but the colors are so springy that I couldn’t leave them there.

The title of this post was supposed to be “craft room curtains,” and I got within two seams of my goal last night. And then the sewing machine started having tension problems (why does this always happen to me?) and now requires a trip to the sewing machine doctor. I don’t begrudge this, since the machine was a very gracious gift and I know I’ve got to put some money into it sometime. But couldn’t it have finished those seams first??

I’ve found that I really enjoy making my own curtains. When it comes to curtains, I find that the nice ones are all really expensive and the cheap ones are really polyester-rayon. Sewing your own seems like such a viable, cost-conscious alternative. This curtain is very similar to another set that I did for our old living room that, unfortunately, don’t coordinate at all with our new place. I don’t have the patience to patchwork, so as a compromise I just sew long strips together. They tend to be a little uneven because my sewing machine thinks it’s a racehorse and the fabric just flies by (okay, there’s always was a lot of seam-ripping and muttering when I sew curtains). But I usually like the way they turn out.

The flower print is a pillowcase; I was going to cut it into two panels but it was barely wide enough as-is. The striped fabric is the leftover from a sheet that I’m making into two long panels to hide my shelves (the panels that my sewing machine refused to finish). As soon as I get those up - and I think I might just handsew them - I’ll fix my random assortment of wall decor and take some nice pictures during daylight. Which will hopefully take care of that yellow tinge. And then I’ll unplug that clock, too.

Isn’t this a nicer, cheerier view for our neighbors?

I’m taking tomorrow off for Good Friday, but on Monday I’ll be back with the finished curtains and the weekend’s thrifting finds. Good luck with your own treasure-hunting.

We all love a good before + after, right? So, in the spirit of spring makeover season, I offer…my freshly-painted dining room. (Regrettably, the “befores” were taken during the day and the “afters” at night, so the lighting conditions are different. But I think you get the idea.) Also, should you desire to try this at home, be warned that lots of cool trim = lots of time to paint. I think it took me about 4 hours per coat…at least it should have, if I hadn’t run out of paint with 8 square feet left to go. Why does that always happen to me??

View from living room:

View toward living room (see my new vase?):

View toward kitchen:

(The wall art is some free wallpaper scraps I ordered from Graham & Brown framed in two breakfast trays a friend gave me.) 

View from kitchen doorway:

Please excuse the wonky chandelier in the last photo…I think the light fixture is really cute, but the little lamp shades have been a problem. They supposedly rest on top of the bulbs with metal clamps, but when I changed a bulb last night I couldn’t get the shade to fit back on - it would stay for a few seconds, and then shoot off in unexpected directions. And the ones that do stay on are never straight.

Also, I’d like to mention that human beings are not the only creatures that have “fat days.” As shown in the very first pic, dogs have them too.

Things I (now) love about the dining room include:

• the way the new paint elevated it from “room where people eat” to “dining room” 
• the way the creamy white trim contrasts with the grey-green-blue 
• the way our Shopko table looks a lot like this table from Crate & Barrel (and cost a lot less!)
• the way the chair backs complement and emphasize the grid on the cabinet doors
• the fact that the paint inside the cabinets (which was there when we moved in) almost exactly matches the paint on the wall
• the fact that my husband loves it as much as I do

We’ll start inviting y’all over soon so you can see it for yourselves…

The dining room is done, but I’m not going to take photos until the furniture is put back in place (it doesn’t look like much of an improvement with plastic, rollers, paint cans, etc. scattered all around). I do have pics of my other weekend accomplishements: thrifting and cooking.

I don’t know why I’ve been on such a thrifting kick lately, especially since I don’t have a lot of money to spend. Thrill of the hunt, maybe? Anyhow, I spent about $15 last weekend and came away with a lot of new treasures, including:

..two pillows in a really lovely linen print (from a thrift store). The pillows are strangely lumpy, so I think I’m going to throw the stuffing out and keep just the fabric. I really, really like the combination of green and turquoise.

..a vintage Christmas tablecloth in perfect condition (from an estate sale).

..a French wallhanging (from an estate sale). I’ve started collecting these - I have one with Swedish flowers (in Swedish) and one with American birds.

..a hobnail vase and a jar(?) with lid (from the dollar shelf at an antique store).

..a piece of fabric-that-I-didn’t-realize-was-polyester and a great old photo (from a thrift store). Can you see the expression on the man’s face??

Not pictured: new spider plant, large piece of printed fabric, and some other stuff that I can’t remember right now.

I’m out of time, so I’m going to post the food pics without any comment other than that they were delicious. The potato soup moreso than that ravioli, but it was my first try. (Don’t the raviolis look like little alien spaceships?)