I’m working on a bunch of spring things today – birthday parties, spring cleaning and YARDWORK! More on that tomorrow. In the meantime, have you ever made your own cleaning products? I just made this scouring powder for all of my scouring needs. Mine has polka dots. Loveyoubye, Maggie
It’s Earth Day! I swear this blog isn’t just about my excitement over holidays. But I’m sure you’ve noticed that I like science and when you like science Earth Day is important! It just so happens I’d planned this post about how to ‘Break Your Own’ geode decor accents.
Geodes are all the rage. I’ll spare you the science because you came here for design, but just know that these minerals are essentially gassy rocks. They have bad gas. But they’re beautiful because of it so we forgive them. Here are some hot sexy pink geodes posing as bookends. (via Lonny)
I have hot pink geode envy now. These guys are like, “I’ll see your amazing hot pink Agate Bookends and raise you an adorable on-trend air plant. BITCH.” (via Earth Sea Warrior)
Then we have this gaggle of teenage millionaire geodes. Huge, fantastic and untouchable. (via The Little House Blog originally from Jonathan Adler)
Geodes are everywhere these days, finding work as coasters, lamp finials, candle holders, wallpaper…you name it. They’re the whores of decor right now (more over, Mr. Owl!). They have no shame. I had an empty spot on the bookshelves in my office and needed something interesting and pretty to balance all of my doopy-doo storage boxes and reference books. I’m sayin’, when in doubt – PUT A GEODE ON IT!
To get a little geode decor in your life you can expect to drop anywhere from $30 to $5,000. This geode with white druzy from ABC Carpet and Home is pretty perfect and surprisingly reasonable at $45. But I thought a $4 break your own geode sounded like an, “In-Ya-Face!” so I went for it. I could air out my angst towards teenage millionaires and save money doing it. Sounds satisfying, right? I highly recommend it. Here’s the breakdown:
Proudly bring your new babies inside and get to work styling! It’s easy to find a home for these guys because they play so well with others.
Now I’m just trying to decide whether to seal the deal and paint the outside gold. Too much? We’ll see.
Loveyoubye, Maggie
Image credits: RaisedByDesign and Mo Lyons of OhhhhMo
I mentioned in this post that our Master Bedroom is a bit small. Someday I’ll get my act together and post a floor plan of our teensy house so you believe me. For now, just know that our home’s entire livable space is 882 square feet. Which just means that we need to be creative about a few things. Clothing storage is one of them, and in addition to our built-in shelves and a shared closet, we decided that we needed our bedside tables to double as dressers. But DAG! Bedside tables are expensive! And after scouring furniture stores and Craigslist, I found that most pieces are either on Team Tiny Nightstand or Team Full Blown Dresser. We had 36″ on either side of our queen-sized bed to work with so I needed to find something more like this:
Unfortunately, these guys weren’t available when we were redoing our bedroom, but at $500 a pop they would have been over my budget anyway. So I headed to my local antique and thrift shops and after a couple stops I came across these beauties:
I was drawn to their clean lines, quality construction and interesting pulls. Plus, I was psyched to find a matching pair (although I was open to rocking the mix + match look). Measuring 32″ x 20″ x 31″ they were the perfect dimensions for our space. And with a $500 price tag for the pair, I was scoring a pretty good deal for this muy importante piece of furniture compared to the options at the big retailers. SOLD.
The only snag was that they smelled a little funky, the wood finish was in bad shape and the pulls had been painted by a previous owner. To get rid of the musty smell, I wiped them inside and out with a solution of (very) diluted bleach and then set them outside to bake in the sun for a full day. There are a million suggestions online for curing musty smells, by the way. Anyone ever tried kitty litter?
To rehab the finish, I decided to give them a few coats of white semigloss paint (White Dove by Benjamin Moore) and to highlight those great pulls with a gray-green sample I had leftover from another project (Sag Harbor Gray by Benjamin Moore). Fast forward through a day or two of taping and painting and not taking “in progress” pics…
Here’s My Side:
And here’s James’ Side:
No, he did not voluntarily put a picture of us on our wedding day or a book about birds on his nightstand. Also, that plant does not usually live there, but it made the picture look a’nice. Whoever decorates decides what’s what.
We’re still pretty happy with our dressers two years later. Yay for Before + After projects!
Loveyoubye, Maggie
Hi. Last week I made a pair of pillow covers out of fabric scraps. I’m sure that doesn’t sound awesome to a lot of people, but here’s why it is. These fabric scraps are stored in a small pile in my studio that’s part of a bigger pile in my basement that’s becoming a mountain of half-baked craft projects. You know, “I really think I should start needle felting all my friends’ baby gifts. Hm, maybe I’ll take up oil painting en plain air and buy a stupid beret while I’m at it. Those mittens are totes adorbs – I can probably make them myself I just need 8 skeins of alpaca wool.”
Said pile has been growing for at least the last three years and making my husband worry about me. The new rule is that if I’m not going to use it, out it goes.
So I made these pillow covers out of some old samples from a design job and a random piece of cute vintage green tomato fabric from my Mom. Green Tomatoes!! It was super easy and I’m NOT an expert at sewing. I have a beginner machine that my Mom and I picked out together in college from the local Kmart. It’s a Brother LS-1217, which they don’t make anymore but is probably most comparable to this guy. It’s bare bones but it gets the job done.
So here’s how I did it. After perusing the internets for inspiration, I decided on a simple geometric pattern.
Here’s what you need:
1. 20″ SQUARE PILLOW INSERT (LIKE this one FROM IKEA)
2. THREE PIECES OF CONTRASTING FABRIC FOR YOUR GEOMETRIC PATTERN (I used a neutral woven, a black textured microsuede and a blue-gray wool)
3. ABOUT ONE YARD FABRIC FOR YOUR BACKING
4. PINS
5. GOOD FABRIC SCISSORS
6. IRON (optional)
7. SEWING MACHINE AND THREAD
STEPS:
1. Cut your triangles for the front – one large and two small as the pattern shows. I find it easiest to just drape the fabric over the pillow insert to see how much I need to cut. When you’re sewing anything, you always want about one inch of extra fabric all the way around so keep that in mind when you’re cutting your pattern.
2. Cut two rectangles from your backing fabric and set aside. Each rectangle should be bigger than half of your 20″ square…so that they will overlap by a good six inches (see pattern above). That would mean your rectangles would EACH be about 17″ x 22″. For this pillow, instead of using a zipper (too hard) or sewing the entire cover shut (too permanent), we’re going the easy/non-committal route. We’re making an overlapping fold so the pillow insert can be removed easily but won’t peek through. Like this:
3. Iron all of your pieces. This step is optional but highly recommended.
4. Back to your triangles. Take your two SMALL triangles and align the edges so the hypotenuse edges face outwards (what, you didn’t think a GEOMETRIC pillow cover would involve GEOMETRY?). You should now have two triangles that, together, are roughly the same size as your LARGE triangle. Capisce? If you have to read this step a couple times I won’t judge. I had to write it nine times so we’ll be even.
4. Now fold those two SMALL triangles onto each other so that the good sides FACE INWARDS. Muy importante! Pin along the middle edge and sew along this line. Yay.
5. I like to iron the new piece so that the seam sits flat and doesn’t cause any problems. Also optional.
6. OK OK OK. Take your two big triangles and lay them down, hypotenuses facing IN this time, to make a square! Fold those two pieces onto each other along that line, good sides IN again. Pin…and sew. Easy peasy!
7. BOOYAKASHA geometric square.
Let’s make the back now!
1. Lay your two rectangle pieces down so that they overlap by about 6″. Just check yourself here to make sure you have a square big enough to cover your whole pillow. This would be the time to adjust if you need to…
2. Hem one (22″) edge of each rectangle. This hem will be VISIBLE so use a thread color and stitch you don’t mind looking at. I have exactly two stitches available on my machine…so I chose zig-zag and used black thread. You could be super fun and use hot pink thread and a fancy pants stitch.
3. Now lay your overlapping rectangles down over your geometric square…good sides what? GOOD SIDES IN. Pin all the way around that bad boy and trim wherever you have extra fabric. You should have a nice 1″ border around a 20″ square to fit your pillow.
4. Sew all the way around…inevitably run out of bobbin thread and struggle to remember how to reload and thread a bobbin. Curse, get up and go eat something, come back and calmly finish sewing.
5. DONE! Turn it right-side out, stuff your pillow inside, and give your cat a brand new thing to shed on.
Loveyoubye, Maggie
Valentine’s Day has always been one of my most favorite holidays. There’s something about a whole day dedicated to telling people you love them that I just…well, LOVE. Looking around my home yesterday, I realized I’ve surrounded myself with little bits of Valentine love everyday, everywhere. What does your Valentine’s Day look like?
Row by row from top: Le Creuset Classic Tea Kettle, Vintage Mugs collected here and there (you can buy a legit Milton Glaser I Heart NY mug here), red Baker’s Twine, Vintage Paper House Ornament inherited from my Ma, Red Lipstick, Wedding China bowl filled with dime store heart candies, Sharpies, Essie Nail Polish in A-List and Ballet Slippers
LOVE, Maggie