wise owl

this summer, while my best friend was visiting, we took on a little project.  I had seen this adorable owl artwork on pinterest and put it on the top of my must do list.  rachel has done a lot of little painting projects and I have done NONE.  so I hoped that she could maybe help me out when she came to visit.... thankfully she was willing!

we started at the craft store to purchase a canvas and some paint.  I used a wall color I had at home already as the base.  I painted the entire canvas in this muted aqua/teal color.

while the base coat was drying we created a template out of tissue paper.  we first measured and cut the tissue paper to the exact size of the canvas.  we then folded it in half and looking at the photos from the original post rachel drew the owl on the paper. we folded the paper in half to be sure to have a symmetrical owl.

I then cut out the template and traced it onto the canvas.

then we painted the owl on to the canvas.  the more paint in your brush the better because it goes on more smoothly.  a good brush and quality paint is key... I always use toll paint type paint and have to go over it again and again.  this time I bought a high quality acrylic paint and it worked much better!

and here is the finished painting hanging in my office at school... next to some of my favorite photos and, of course, mr. potato head!

an inspired lamp

a few months ago I helped my dad move some furniture out of my great grandparents' house.  in the process there were two lamps that I spotted... they were pretty fabulous, but I didn't know just what to do with them.  after pondering it for a few months, buying a few different fabrics, and googling how to recover a lampshade I finally figured out what to do.  I did a search at my favorite store, anthropologie, for some lamp shade inspiration.  my lampshade went from this... to this!

first, I had the original lamp.  I knew I was going to repaint the base, simple, right?  well, then after looking at paint I decided, I'm going to paint the shade too!  so to the hardware store I went and found two paint colors that would work.  

then, I scoured my fabric pile, and the bags of clothes I had ready to donate to the thrift store.  I love using fabric from clothing for projects because it has so much texture and more character than craft store fabrics for a fraction of the cost (especially if I'm just planning on donating it anyway!).  I put together 3 patterns--- 1 wide fabric, 1 in between width fabric, and 1 narrow fabric.  I measured the diameter of the shade, divided it by the number of strips I wanted to have (I wanted 12) and then cut my widest strip to that width.  I think mine ended up being 3.5 inches, 2 inches, and 1 inch wide.  I did four of each pattern and repeated them around the shade-- I first sewed the three fabric strips together (optional) to make one big strip-- then hot glued them to the top and bottom of the shade.

after all the strips were on the shade, I used hemp jewelry twine to cinch the fabric strips at different heights around the shade.  there was somewhat of a pattern to this, but no measuring.

I then hot glued grosgrain ribbon along the top and bottom of the shade to hide my unfinished edges of fabric.

from my button collection I pulled 12 mismatched buttons that I liked and hot glued one on top of each knot of twine on the fabric strips.

I put the shade back on to the lamp base, and that's it. this was a pretty huge lamp.  the hardest part was deciding what to do.  once I had decided it wasn't as difficult as I thought it was-- it ended up pretty straight forward actually.  I still have one more lamp in it's original condition... should I try a second?

I'm linking up to Tatertots and Jello

le pouf

the past few months I have found a new household item that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!  I have seen the pouf trend for quite some time now, but most have been too "middle eastern" looking for a lack of any other term-- you know what I mean-- I picture them in jasmine and aladdin's palace.  but, I have started seeing them on design shows I watch regularly and finally fell in love when my design crush, genevieve gorder, was doing a eco friendly room and used a knit pouf-- it was perfect cozy and functional, my fave.

the pouf is the perfect room accessory--it is an ottoman, floor pillow, and aesthetically pleasing comfy-ness all rolled into one knitted beauty!  I had seen them on etsy, but didn't know how to pull the trigger.  Then one weekend afternoon the hubs and I rode our bikes downtown to a favorite local indie artists' shop, indie made, planning to drool over the hand made goodness.  once inside I found an artist's merchandise that I ALWAYS love, pepperberry knits.  little did I know that she'd begun making poufs herself!

one of pepperberry knits 'le poufs' has made its way into my home and is nestled into a corner where I can see it each day and love the coziness that it is!

meet bruno

a few weeks ago... in a moment of great joy for me... we got a puppy!  I have been wanting one for months and months, but the hubs hasn't been into it.  don't ask me how it happened because I'm not quite sure... but it did!

so here he is, our boston terrior, bruno!

he's much more active than sophie and I didn't fully realize how much work puppies are.  but we're workin' it out... and he's helping me have something to do throughout the summer.  I just love the little guy!

happy belated

sometimes the calendar moves more quickly than my schedule can handle.  may was a perfect example of this.  now, quite a few weeks after mother's day I have finally finished making the gift I had in mind for my mother-in-law.  hopefully this fun apron will make its way to summer barbeques soon.

  linking up here