Blue-Themed Bargains

Save a little green this summer with these blue-themed bargains:

This sweet little "Hush Baby Sleeping" felt door pillow is just $3 at Plum Party:























When the summer heats up, these Chris Madden Accent Pillows from JC Penney (3 styles available) are a cool deal at $11.99 each:















The Kidkraft Nantucket Blue Table Set is $67.97 (for all three pieces) at Smart Bargains.com:


















World Market offers the Madison Storage Basket in Light Blue. It's made from paper rope and priced right at $4.98:



















Here's one more "sighting" for you: the appropriately-named UFO Tealight Holder in blue is just 99 cents at Bed, Bath, and Beyond!

DIY Hammock Pillow Tutorial

With the dog days of summer upon us, there's no better place to be than in your backyard swaying in a hammock under a shade tree. OK, correction, lying on a white sand beach on Kauai while sipping a strawberry daiquiri might be a slightly better place to be, but just try to work with me here.

Assuming you're stuck with your same old hammock and your same old backyard, here's a fast, simple DIY tutorial for you. If you've got a few minutes and a handful of plastic bags, you can turn a cloth placemat into a fun hammock pillow.

Materials
For this project, you will need:

• One double-sided cloth placemat
• Two ribbons
• Plastic bags (dry cleaning bags, bread bags, newspaper bags, and produce bags work best)
• Scissors
• Sewing machine or hot glue or hemming tape
• Needle & thread or two safety pins

Instructions

1. Start with your cloth placemat. This cutie was $2 at Kmart. (Corner is folded down in photo just to illustrate that placemat is double sided.)


















2. Using scissors or a seam ripper, cut the threads on one of the short sides of the placemat. This placemat actually had two layers of threads--the decorative topstitching (#1 white threads in photo) and the seam stitches that actually held the front and back together (#2 blue thread). The easiest way to cut the threads is to start by snipping a few of the topstitching (#1) threads until the side of the placemat opens up enough for you to wedge your scissors in there and cut the #2 threads. From there you can easily cut/pull the threads until one side of the placemat is open.


















3. Stuff the placemat with plastic bags. Yes, folks, I said plastic bags. There are three advantages to using plastic bags over regular stuffing/batting: first, it's a "green" idea and keeps your hoarded plastic bags from overrunning your garage and swallowing your neighbor's house, second, the bags are essentially free, third, if you choose to leave your pillow out in the dew & the rain, it will dry quickly. Plastic dry cleaning bags, bread bags, newspaper bags, and produce bags work best for this because they're "quieter" & don't crinkle as much as grocery bags. Grocery bags will work too, but you may notice a Pampers-like crinkle sound when you rest your head on the pillow. Not so relaxing.






































4. Keep stuffing in plastic bags until your pillow is pleasantly plump, but not overstuffed. Think Christmas here, not Thanksgiving.




















5. Use your method of choice to close the seam that you cut open in step two. A sewing machine would be fastest, but hemming tape or hot glue would probably work just as well.



















6. Attach two ribbons to the back of the pillow. Ideally, these will sort of match your pillow--I used white for mine so you'd be able to see them. You can use a needle and thread or two safety pins. The third picture below shows the placement for the ribbons--my ribbons are a little shorter than you'll want yours to be. These ribbons will be used to tie the pillow onto your hammock so that the pillow doesn't fly off when your kids try to tackle you butler brings you another smoothie and you need to sit up to take a sip.




















































7. Tie your pillow onto your hammock and relax! Ahhhhh.


















Love DIY projects? This project has been linked to Great Idea Day at Infarrantly Creative, Do It Yourself Day on A Soft Place to Land and Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Chic Cottage.

For more placemat pillow (and table runner pillow) fun, visit Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick.

A Handful of Vintage Finds

Here are a few fun vintage (and vintage-inspired) items that I've discovered online and wanted to share with you.

These Found Soda Crates will be available at Pottery Barn at the end of this month. Each one is unique, as they are real wooden vintage soda crates. Previously owned stuff for sale at Pottery Barn?! Who knew?! At $15 each, these would make a fun addition to a screened porch (fill with small potted plants), a child's art space (imagine this full of jars to hold crayons, chalk, or paint brushes), or a teen room (use to corral school papers or as a holder for the ubiquitous teen mags).



















These Vintage Look Alphabet Flashcards from Paper Luxuries would make delightful wall art in a child's room or nursery. To see a similar set of cards in action, take a look at this sweet nursery.



















This Money Bag Pillow ($29) made by Etsy seller Leslie Janson is made from an actual vintage U.S. Mint bag that held $2,ooo! This just makes me smile. For some reason, I imagine a burglar laughing maniacally as he dashes away from a house clutching this little Etsy pillow to his chest.


















These darling tea light holders from Etsy seller Carolina Cottage are made using decoupaged images from an old dictionary.














Frame this 5x5 Fine Art Photograph of a 1950's typewriter and you'll have a fun piece of artwork for your home office--or a unique gift for your favorite writer. Photo is $12 from Etsy seller FriendlyMade.

Have a Safe and Happy Holiday!

Just a quick post to wish all of you a safe and happy 4th of July!

See the little red chair in the photo? Get it? Because my blog is called--well, you know!

Notice the table?If your front porch is crying out for a little chalkboard table like this one (which is ever so handy for holiday messages), you can transform any old tabletop with just two coats of chalkboard paint!

Now go sip some lemonade and enjoy the fireworks!

Light Fixtures for Food and Wine Connoisseurs

As soon as I saw this unique wineglass chandelier in a client's home, I knew that I had to write about it. It's just such a clever design! (So clever, in fact, that it took three designers to design it: Björn Stillefors, Jörgen Pudeck & Gunnar Cedervall.)

I loved the fact that homeowners can transform the fixture by changing the color and style of the wineglasses that they choose to display on it. I also appreciate the practicality: it's storage & decor in one-- designed so that the stemware can be used and then hung back up again.

My client agreed to give me her source on one condition: that I promise not to tell her husband how much the fixture had cost! I agreed, keeping my fingers crossed that her husband wasn't the one male on the planet (besides my husband) who actually reads my blog. The fixture is available in two finishes: chrome and black, and three sizes:16 glass, 40 glass, and 76 glass. If you'd like your very own, it's available here. Note: the product does not include any electrical components; you will have to purchase a pendant lamp kit separately.

While we're on the subject of unique fixtures, I wanted to share this colander pendant light that I saw awhile back in the Napa Style catalog. It's made from an actual colander. The shiny chrome look (which is actually stainless steel) makes it traditional while the repurposing of a colander keeps it fresh and whimsical--a great design surprise. Unfortunately, this item is no longer available for purchase, but it seems to me that this might be a doable DIY project...if you had patience, Band-aids, and the right kind of drill bit. Oh, and some chocolate. What do you think?

French Nature Charts

I have always loved nature charts. There's just something neat about going out into nature and knowing the names of things. It's kind of like knowing the names of people at a party--"Hey there, Pickerelweed!" "Howya doin', Bladderwort?"-- it puts me at ease and makes me feel like I belong. (Note: In case you're curious, those are North Carolina wild flower names and not characters from Harry Potter.)

These French charts, available through The French General Store (an American company selling imported French goods) take regular nature charts, which are already cool in their own right, and they make them even cooler...because they're French! In addition to the trees, apples, city dogs, and potatoes pictured here, the store also offers charts of cats, goats, pigs, chickens, horses, sheep, seafood, grains, and country dogs. Prices are a little more than you might ordinarily expect to pay for prints ($40-$50 plus shipping), but hey, they're imported from France!

I love this tree chart. When it comes down to it, what's not to love about trees?



















The colors in this apple chart would brighten up any kitchen:



















I love the fact that they offer separate charts for city & country dogs. When I visited France, I remember thinking that Parisian women seemed to choose their dogs based on whether the pups could comfortably fit in a stylish purse. Here's the city dog chart:



















And this potato chart is fun & silly. Hang a French potato chart in your kitchen and you'll have an instant conversation piece. Ooh la la!

Fun Ways To Welcome House Guests - DIY Chalkboard Tray

Have family and friends coming to visit this summer? For just a few dollars, you can make a sweet chalkboard tray to welcome them with a personalized message.

All you'll need is a tray, a can of chalkboard paint, and a foam paintbrush (the bristles on a regular paintbrush can leave streaks). The tray pictured here started out as a frumpy $2 tray with a flower painted in the center of it. I added a little chalkboard paint, and now it's "tray" chic! Get it? Tray? OK, moving on.

Start by selecting a tray. Just about any tray will do. Chalkboard paint adheres well to most smooth surfaces, but I've found that really shiny surfaces, such as glass, don't take the paint well. If you don't have a tray, you can make one by adding 2 handles to the short sides of an ornate picture frame and cutting a piece of foam core poster board to use in place of the glass.

Paint a coat of chalkboard paint over the flat portion of your tray (or on the poster board if you are using a homemade tray). In most cases, there's no need to prime first. Allow the first coat of paint to dry for 24 hours, and then add a second coat. Once the second coat has had 24 hours to dry, your tray will almost be ready for your message. Before you write on it, condition the chalkboard by rubbing the side of a piece of chalk over the entire surface once. Rub clean with a soft cloth, wipe down with a damp rag, and allow to dry before you write on it. This will prevent the "ghosts" of previous words from haunting you after you erase them.

The truth is, I'm nuts about chalkboards. For more fun chalkboard ideas, have a peek at this article that I wrote ages ago before the dawn of my blog.

This post is also linked to a bunch of neat DIY chalkboard projects at Reinvented.

Pachycephalosaurus

This is a post about dinosaurs. Well, actually, it's a post about dinosaurs and people. "What," you may ask, "do dinosaurs have to do with decorating?" Admittedly, not much, but people have a lot to do with decorating.

I love my work. I love everything about it (with the possible exception of quarterly taxes). I love applying my creativity. I love problem solving. I love the variety of tasks with which I am faced-- one day I'll organize an office and the next I'll pick paint colors for a nursery. But my favorite aspect of my work is having the opportunity to meet and work with terrific people. It sounds corny--OK, it sounds really corny--but it's true.

On Friday, I worked with a great family that included four children. When I first arrived at their home, my client's son showed me an animal poster that he'd made. I commented on his great spelling, and he announced that he could spell the names of many animals, including the name of his favorite dinosaur, pachycephalosaurus. Given that I'd never even heard of this particular dinosaur, I was impressed--I don't encounter many dinosaur experts in my line of work.

While his mom and I were busy discussing kitchen cabinet hardware, window treatments, furniture placement, and the merits of Sherwin Williams paint, the resident dinosaur expert was busy creating another poster listing every single dinosaur that he knew. Around 35 total. From memory. When it came time for me to leave, he folded up the poster and presented it to me as a gift.

Like I said, my favorite aspect of my work is having the opportunity to meet and work with terrific people. Dinosaurs don't have a lot to do with decorating, but people do.