Maxzilla

My Mom and I collaborated on a Halloween costume. I designed the outline and started laying down the Sears Tower. She really pulled through and added all of the little touches. Oh, and made the actual costume that Maxine wore. Too cute. "Maxzilla!"

New from SnapshotRadio

I just did a quick spin through my bookmarked flickr pages and re-visited Snapshotradio. I seriously want this girl to start a blog. Check out this before and after, what a great way to save space.And her inspiration board. Part of the board is an essay about birds nesting she wrote when she was 8, too funny.This bag is handmade.

Tiled Headboard

If these were less expensive I'd think about tiling a headboard for my bed. I figure I'd need like 50 or so of them and at $18 that's just not practical. But wouldn't that look so cool and unique?

Found on Apartmenttherapy but from Urban Outiftters.

Customizable Shoes

I just realized that Steve Madden has customizable shoes! Everything from their ballet flats, to espadrille pumps can be made to your liking. I made these navy flats with a red stripe in the back. I went with the no bow because I'm kind of over my ballet flats actually looking like little girl ballet shoes. These are much more mature, and only $100.

Thrift Inspiration

This girl has got a good eye for thrift store goodness and re-making things. On her "second hand corner" shot on flickr, practically every item was from a thrift store and super cheap. The credenza is Ikea, on sale, just painted white with new knobs. She is also quite a crafter.

Shopping at Mom and Dad's

I took a spin through my parent's attic last night to see if they had a chair I could use as my desk chair. I didn't have any luck finding a chair, but I did find an awesome coffee table and a vintagey chair/stepstool from my childhood.

The table started off with a whole lot of blue paint on it which my Dad sanded off. We went out and bought a nice stain to go on top. Here's an action shot...The stepstool needed a new coat of paint, so we picked up some oil-based red paint. I think I might buy some black paint too to fix up the little pull out steps.All in all some pretty nice finds. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Somebody stop me...

Ok. I am out of control and I need to stop. The fact of the matter is, that I have very little going on both during the day and during the night, as my sister so kindly pointed out. Hence, I've been obsessively thinking about decorating, and not spending enough time studying for my math placement exam.

I got sick of this:So I whipped up this:But what I was really trying to accomplish was a combination of these 2:
Can anyone recommend a good primer? :)

Help! Art as Headboard?

I decided to do a little experiment to see if I could pull off black and white art hanging above the bed as a headboard. I drew little silhouettes of various images, and added a few things I already had framed. I've never hung a grouping of art though before, so I'm wondering how this looks, and what I can do to improve it (despite straightening the frames). Should I spread it all out? Should I eliminate the ones with color and keep it strictly black and white?? Help! Here's a closeup of some of the art I made, using a sharpie to outline some photos I liked.A photo I took of Washington Square Park my freshman year in college:Crazy charcoal drawing:

Wood Cutouts

I had seen this beautiful piece of furniture floating around in the blog-world awhile back.And I had run into this idea as a DIY. I can't stop thinking about which piece of furniture I could pull this off with.
And then I found these! I think I love the wardrobe the most and wish I had thought to do something like this before I stenciled the inside of my wardrobe. Wood laminate on the outside + stenciled design on the inside would just be too much.
Images and furniture from Velocity Art and Design

Weekend Fun: Stencil Decorating my Wardrobe

So I did it, I created a stencil and painted the inside of my wardrobe. It bares a striking resemblance to my grandparents 70s orange kitchen citrus wallpaper...but whatever. Should I paint over it? I'm not sure I love it like I loved the image below :(

Faux Wood

I've written before about my lack of real furniture. Well, today I became a little obsessed with finding myself a mid century modern dresser, and was marveling at the look of real wood, more specifically teak. So when I was at the hardware store on my way home buying cat litter (my roommate and I call this hardware store the "jackpot" because they literally sell everything from shampoo to house paint) I ended up buying some stick on wood. Yep, a wrapping paper size roll of paper made to look like wood. So? What do you think??This "counter" is a shelf that was stained and dirty that I'd flipped on its side for extra kitchen storage. Now the stains are covered up and it looks like wood...well, sort of. This stuff might be kind of addictive, I'm ready to go and cover all of my fake furniture in it!

Spotted: My Ikea Desk in Yellow

I was going through an AT San Francisco House Tour (AB Chao's Modern+Old=Mold) when I spotted this!Hard to recognize, even harder if you have never been to my place, but it is indeed the same desk that I have from Ikea, but painted yellow, how cool! Why didn't I think of that?? I wasn't planning on bringing my desk to Chicago with me but now I've got big plans for it! Here's another view, and it just so happens I have one of those little Ikea vases as well. I remember them being only $2. (Maybe I should start a new blog, ISpyIkea or something)I picked this desk because it slides in and around so you can make it smaller and spin it the other way if you need a tiny desk. Mine is shown below in the tiny version, and looks so silly compared to the one from the house tour.

Jazzing Up Ikea Wardrobe

I have the Ikea wardrobe below, and have grown attached to it. So attached that I'm bringing it to Chicago with me. Yep, even though the back panels are coming off, and the wood on the top is flaking, I'm bringing it with me. It's the only item I own that's taken me over an hour to pick out (remember that, boy who was with me? :) ) and I have grown accustomed to organizing around it, storing shoes below it, and scarves and belts in sweater boxes inside of it. Come to think of it, one of my very firsts posts was about my beloved wardrobe. To read, click here.
On a blog that is new to me, Liquid Blog, there was a post about stencling floors, and there was this image of a wardrobe too...I'm on a stenciling kick, and think this might be a fun project. I have a full length mirror on the left door of the wardrobe, but on the right door, I could stencil a design similar to the one above, possibly in yellow? And then maybe I'll get some small stick on metal hooks, and I could hang some earrings, or belts, or my hooded sweatshirts which I never have a place for. I found the stencil below from Domino's guide to stencilling, it looks a little like the one above. Actually, I think it is the one above! Man I'm good :).If I ever manage to leave work before 11pm (this week has been awful) you can find me in my wardrobe.

Mirrored Furniture, a DIY?

I saw on Ikea Hacker today that someone "hacked" the Ikea Parsons style coffee table and turned into a really cool looking mirrored piece of furniture. Domino, and other magazines have been featuring this style of furniture a lot, and I particular love this piece:Am I crazy to think that I could pull something like this off, with just a regular dresser, perhaps this one below? (from Ikea)Yeah, I think I pretty much know the answer...but how cool would that be if I actually did pull it off? It could be really awesome! Then again, it could end up looking as ridiculous as this halter top I made out of a t-shirt my freshman year of college. Notice the leafy curtain in the background, man I had style back then...

1st Attempt at Stencilling

I created a stencil and used my leftover paints from my lampshade project to do some experimenting. I think I really need darker paint, but I kind of like the result. It's fun how with a stencil you can recreate the same thing over and over in new ways. Here are a few of my trials.Blended the teal and yellow
Yellow on a sheet of paper from a Drug Law History Book, chapter "Where Has All the Acid Gone?"First try, pure yellowThis is actually just the stencil on a Kaballah book I was thinking about tearing up to use underneath the stencil. Decided against it, but this looked kind of cool.

A Cat, A Stencil and a Lampshade

I got off of work early today (5 o'clock is early). So I headed to the hardware store down the street to start on my to-do list. I can't believe I've actually got one of these things accomplished and it's still just Friday!

I bought: some stencil paper, an exacto knife, 2 colors of paint (it's wall paint but it did the trick), and a stencil brushI sketched out my stencil, inspiration (close but not exactly) from this Anthropologie shade.
I had to take a quick break while I was cutting out my stencil for safety reasons (no not because I was drinking a beer) because Nerms wouldn't move.The first one. I forgot to buy a 2nd paintbrush for the yellow, so I improvised and used a Q-tip for the dots.
The final product. I apologize for my lack of photography skills! It's a little darker in person.

John Derian Decoupage

This is sort of like a rumor you hear through a friend of a friend of a friend...

I found John Derian's decoupage work via SFgirlbybay's guest blogger Megan Samuels. While these works are extremely expensive, I can't help but wonder if decoupage is a hard thing to do on one's own. Does anyone have experience decoupaging? I could see buying a cheap lamp and using paper and glue to make something similar. This is going to be on my list of weekend projects to conquer.