Category Archives: How To

How to Polish Silver

Posted on January 24, 2012 | 5 Comments

Vintage silver is one of my favorite things. I find it all the time at thrift stores and estate sales. It’s pretty much always silverplate, or at least if a real piece of sterling has ever made it into my thrifting bounty I wasn’t astute enough to realize. I don’t mind the lower quality of silverplate. In fact, I kinda like the warm patina it develops over time when the base metal is copper.

I bring home a lot of tarnished silver, but for some reason I have never actually obtained a bottle of silver polish. To be honest, I usually just use toothpaste. True story. Toothpaste does an excellent job of gently polishing silver and I don’t have to worry about the fumes. I didn’t take any “before” pictures for this post because I didn’t realize until I was well into plan B that it might be worth posting about. I bought this silver bowl with the intention of selling it in my shop, but it was badly tarnished. I figured some toothpaste, maybe some baking soda, and some elbow grease would do the trick, but after what seemed like quite a long time of working on it all I had to show was some sore muscles and a minty-fresh smelling bowl.

I turned to my old friend google and came up with this non-toxic solution: aluminum foil, salt, baking soda, and very hot water. So I lined the bottom of my sink with tin foil and sprinkled a generous amount of salt and baking powder into the bowl.

Then I filled up the biggest pot I own with water and waited a loooong time for it to come to a boil.

It barely filled the bottom of the sink. But what it lacked in volume it made up for in dramatic steam.

I filled the sink the rest of the way with the hottest water I could get from the tap and it was still pretty hot. Then I left it to sit for a while, using tongs to tilt it around periodically so I could check the progress.

It seemed like the inside and top edges were not really coming clean as quickly, so I wrapped them in extra tin foil. Seemed like a good idea at a time.

I started to worry about the silver on the outside bottom half coming off entirely, so I took it out of the water and sat it in the empty side of the sink with the water/salt/baking soda/tin foil mixture sitting inside. I left it like that for another several minutes, checking periodically. I was totally just winging it at this point.

And I guess it worked, because by the time I finally freed the bowl of its aluminum wrapping it was looking perfectly imperfect, just the way I like it.

Look how pretty it looks now, inside and out!

I totally want to try this now on some other pieces that I could never get polished as nicely as I wanted.

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Posted in How To, my shop, Thrifting

A Little Privacy, Please?

Posted on January 19, 2012 | 9 Comments

One of the big things that has kept Nick and I from spending much time in the front room of our house (I’ve got to come up with a smoother name for it than “the family room/office”) is the completely uncovered window that looks right out onto our porch.

It’s actually a door, but we don’t use it as such and haven’t been able to get it open in months. It wasn’t a huge priority when I was making window treatments for the rest of our house because the porch affords an illusion of privacy, but you can see that the houses in our very old neighborhood are so close together that our neighbors could look right out of their window and into ours. Plus, there were more than a few awkward occasions when I found myself working in the office makeup free and liberated from the awkward confines of a bra only to look up and lock eyes with the mailman, right there on my porch. There are some days I would just much rather hide from the mailman and this window was making that impossible. After an accidental encounter with the UPS man while I was working from home on Monday, I decided something needed to be done. I rifled through my fabric stash until I found something about the right size and tacked it up there to see if it would do the job.

Perfect. I measured the window, then took the fabric down and hauled it to the laundry room for a good iron. Pretty much the only time I ever iron anything is if I want to cut it. It’s hard to get nice cuts in wrinkled fabric.

Once flat, I laid it out on my handy-dandy cardboard helper. I know that this thing is not technically intended to be used for cutting fabric, but instead some much fancier and technical endeavor like drafting patterns or some such nonsense, but it has really been a lifesaver for me in the cutting department. I used to have such a hard time figuring out how to measure and cut straight lines in fabric, but the grid makes it so easy. The squares are 1″ each so I just lined up one edge of the fabric with a line on the grid, measured over 24″ which of course lined up perfectly with another line, then used that line to guide my cutting. Spoiler alert: I forgot to add extra width for the hem. Oops.

I cut cut cut. then slid the fabric down and cut cut cut some more.

Ta-da! A perfectly 24″ wide panel. I didn’t care at all about the length. You’ll see why in a moment.

Next I sewed a hem on all four edges. It was around the time I sat down at my sewing machine that I realized I’d forgotten all about the hem allowance, so I only folded the fabric over once and kept it pretty narrow.

Then, with all four edges looking nice and neat, I tacked the panel up at the top of the window with four brass-ish thumbtacks I found at the back of a junk drawer. The panes of the window made a good guide for spacing. The fabric was just barely wide enough to cover the glass. I told myself it gave the whole thing a refreshingly casual air.

See? Just thumbtacks. I used a hammer to gently tap them in.

And now, for the most exciting part! I folded the bottom of the fabric up for a roman-shade-esque effect. I secured the folds first with straight pins until I was happy with the look, then came back and switched each pin out for a couple of stitches sewn by hand. And why yes, that is a lot of random crap you can see hanging out on the other side of our door. A lawnmower and a Christmas tree stand, to be exact. The curse of a spacious porch is that it collects clutter.

And voila! The final result! A 100% free, completely casual shade that took me less than thirty minutes to whip up on a whim.

I showed it to Nick when he got home and he actually said out loud, “Wow, this room is really starting to come together!” I about died. He pretty much never comments on home decor beyond standard grunts of approval, but it turns out that bare window had really been bugging him. It’d been bugging me too. Now I can lounge on the new sofa in any state of dress without fear of mailmen or neighbors. It’s a brave new world.

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Posted in Crafty Goodness, family room/office, How To, Projects

DIY Snow Jar

Posted on December 28, 2011 | 6 Comments

My sister always asks me for a gift card for Christmas, and I always oblige her. Our parents refuse to give cash or gift cards, which is what she always says that she wants, so I figure why not give her something she’ll appreciate, even if it is a bit impersonal. She bought her first house this year and requested a gift card to Lowe’s to help her spruce it up. I thought it’d be fun, though, to do something a little more interesting than the whole gift-card-in-envelope thing. So I put my own spin on an idea I saw on Pinterest (originally posted about on The Creative Mama, which appears to be down at the moment but will hopefully be back up and running soon). Shannon was so confused when she saw the heavy box labeled to her from me. Even after she opened it I think it took her a minute to realize that the gift card was inside.

Pretty cool, eh? I started by scavenging an old pickle jar from my stash and scrubbing it clean. I discovered that a little olive oil and a wire mesh sponge could get that pesky label off in no time. Then I soaked the jar and lid in a mixture of warm soapy water, vinegar, and lemon juice overnight to neutralize the pickle stench. Once it was all clean and (mostly) deodorized, I got down to the business of making that lid a little more festive with some red spray paint.

Once the lid was dry I gathered some smallish ornaments from my tree and locked myself and my supplies in the guest room so that no cats could interfere with the creation of my Christmas magic.

The jar that inspired me had some ornaments glued to the lid and others left to float freely, but I was in the mood to get fancy and use some fishing line I already had to suspend them at different heights in the water. First step: tie some line to each ornament.

Then I very nervously glued down the end of the line holding the bronze ornament and waited for it to dry before testing the length.

It was way too long and the ornament rested on the bottom of the jar, so I just glued down more of the string a little bit at a time until it was about the length I wanted.

Then I attached the gift card to the center of the lid with a generous strip of hot glue on either side.

See how cool it looks so far?

I continued with attaching the red ornament, using the same trial and error system to gradually raise it to the perfect height by gluing down the wire just a little bit at a time.

And the little baby ornament comes last. By this time it was old hat and I could guess pretty easily how low I wanted it to hang.

Ta-da! Sorry they’re looking a little wonky in the photo. They kept swinging all around, making photography difficult.

Next, I covered the bottom of the jar with kind of a lot of glitter. Perhaps more glitter than was necessary, but there are only so many times a year that I get to use glitter and I wanted to make the most of it.


Then I filled it with water, leaving a bit of room at the lip to account for the water that would be displaced by my ornaments.

The moment of truth: I screwed the lid on tight and turned the whole thing upside down. Oooooooh, pretty.

Unfortunately, I got a little too excited about turning it over and back repeatedly to watch the glitter swirl around, and this happened…

Womp, womp, womp. One of my ornaments broke, filled with water, and sank to the bottom. I was crestfallen for a moment before remembering this bit of advice from Ryan Gosling:

So I told myself that the broken ornament was symbolic of the imperfection of the holiday season and let it go. I don’t think Shannon even noticed until I pointed it out to her. I, personally, would hate to receive something like this as a gift, because what the heck do you do with it? It’s the kind of thing you really don’t have much use for but feel guilty throwing away. Apparently I don’t mind burdening my family with it, though. It’s the Christmas spirit.

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Posted in Christmas, Crafty Goodness, How To, Projects

Wax Paper Pouf

Posted on November 30, 2011 | 11 Comments

About two days after ordering my new sofa, I discovered that I had no business doing such a thing. Faced with state budget cuts, my wonderful boss had a choice to either lay off one third of her staff or to cut pay by 10% across the board and reduce the amount she contributes to the cost of our health coverage. She chose door #2. Sooooo, maybe I shouldn’t have just spent $500 on a couch, but I had saved up for it and the deed was done anyway, so no use crying over lovely white sofas already on their way to my door. I did decide, though, that I would try to make my Christmas more cost-effective.

One of the ways I minimized stress and spending last year was by avoiding wrapping paper like…I don’t know, I don’t have a simile here. I used brown craft paper instead and put my energy into adorning each box with a pretty bow. My biggest expense, though, was ribbon, and it did add up. So this year I decided I would only use things I already have. I’ve got some ribbon left over from last year, but I’ll be getting creative in what else I use to pretty up my boxes. Here’s my first endeavor in crafting something pretty out of crap I already had lying around:

I present to you, the wax paper pouf.

Sorry I didn’t take a more glamorous picture of it. I probably should have stuck it on a fake box or something to give you some context. If you can’t tell, it’s about the size of my fist and just purrrfect for adding charm to a brown paper package tied up with string. I added the cat reference there because it would also make a lovely cat toy. Here’s how I made it. First, I gathered my supplies. Wax paper, string, amd scissors. You could use wire instead of string, but the string was handy so I just went with it.

Roll out two roughly square pieces of wax paper.

Cut them each in half.

And in half again, giving you a stack of eight small squares. I had to trim mine a little bit to get it looking more square-ish. No biggie.

Stack your squares neatly and then begin folding them all up together like an accordion.

Then, trim the ends to the shape you desire. You can make them rounded for a softer look, or pointed for something a little more funky. I went with rounded edges.

Tie a bit of string, or twist a bit of wire, around the middle. No need to squish.

With your wire or string holding it all together in the center, start spreading out your folds.

This is the most important part. Carefully peel up one layer of paper on each side. Do a really good job of pulling it up nice and straight because you don’t want the dividing line to be obvious later.

Don’t follow my example here. I should have done a better job of pulling them up all the way, because I had to do some squishing later to camouflage the center.

Then, just keep pulling up layers. I knew I’d be using this on a gift so I kept the back flat, but if you think you might want to make a garland or hang them in the air be sure to distribute your fluffiness evenly all around.

And finally, ta-da! My completed pouf. Took only a few minutes and zero dollars.

There’s a bit of string sticking out the back side that I could tie some fishing line to and hang it up, if I so desired. Or, I could use a needle to thread a bunch on a piece of thread to make a garland. Lots of possibilities here!

Since I’ll be using this on a gift, I’ll probably just stick it on there with a bit of hot glue. And speaking of hot glue, I’ve always struggled with getting tape to adhere well to craft paper in the past, so I’m thinking I may use hot glue this year instead. More money saved, since I have a giant bag of hot glue sticks in my crafting stash and I always have to run out to get tape at the beginning of the holiday season.

I made like five of these in thirty minutes while watching TV. I’ve got a ton more ideas for decorating boxes with stuff I’ve already got, so I’m really excited to see how it all turns out. I’ll probably make more poufs like this out of book pages and tissue paper. I wonder if it would even work with scrap pieces of fabric?

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Posted in Christmas, How To

How to Solve all Your Money Problems

Posted on November 15, 2011 | 4 Comments

Just kidding. I can’t solve all your problems. But I can tell you how we solved most of ours. Nick and I have very different spending habits. I like to spend, he likes to save. Each of us to a fault. If I were on my own I’d always be living paycheck to paycheck no matter how much I made and would likely also have more than a little bit of credit card debt. If Nick were on his own, he’d have hundreds of thousands squirreled away because he’d probably still be mooching off the free rent at his parents’ house and avoiding paying for anything whenever possible. Together, we’re able to meet somewhere in the middle. Here’s what we do:

1. Respect boundaries We realized pretty early on that we needed to keep some of our money separate from each other. I needed to be able to buy an $8 martini without him blowing a blood vessel and he needed to be able to hoard his money stash without me dreaming up ways to spend it all. So, we each have our own personal checking accounts. Mine is spent down to almost $0 every two weeks and his probably has $3,000 sitting in it. I’m just guessing, as I never look at his account. He looks at mine, though (see #4)

2. Keep bills separate Some things, however, are just joint expenses. Bills, home improvement, etc. So we have a joint account. We added up how much our joint expenses average, added a little fluff for comfort, and divided it by two-giving us the amount that we each contribute to our joint account each month. I have my half moved over automatically when I get paid so I never even see it. Nick, of course, is disciplined enough to move his half over at his convenience.

3. Limit discretionary spending We put limits on discretionary spending out of our joint account. The “home decor budget” is an institution in our household. There’s a set amount I’m allowed to spend out of our joint account each month on stuff for the house-this covers everything from weatherstripping to whatnots. If I want to blow the whole budget the first week of the month, I can (and I have). If I want to save half of it for three months to save up for something big, I can do that too (although I really struggle). Nick, of course, is the one who keeps up with how much I’ve spent and how much I’ve got left. We also pay for food out of this account, and Nick has a pretty iron grip on how much we spend at the grocery store each week. We’ve recently switched to paying for meals out together from our personal accounts. One of has to offer to treat the other or we don’t go out, so it encourages us to eat out less.

4. Play to your strengths I grew up in a house where mom was in charge of the money, so I always assumed that was the role I would take, as well. But after the first year or so of marriage I realized that was stupid for us. Nick is much better at managing money than I am, plus he actually enjoys it. I absolutely hate keeping up with how much money I have and which bills are due before the next paycheck, etc. etc. So I let Nick do it. At first I just let him be in charge of our joint account. He made sure the bills got paid on time and that we didn’t run out of money. But he’s so good at it that I let him look at my account, too. He warns me when I’m running out of money and will even go back and add up for me where it all went.

5. Save for the big stuff For the past few weeks I’ve had an extra $75 automatically moved over from my account to our savings each time I get paid. By the time Christmas rolls around, I’ll have saved up a couple hundred dollars. We do the same thing when we’re planning a vacation or any other big expense. We each give a little from our personal accounts over time and it really adds up. It’s pretty painless and we never have to choose between a mortgage payment and a trip to the beach (not that we would choose a vacay over the mortgage!).

The result of all these changes? We never run out of money in our joint account, our bills are always paid on time, and we have zero credit card debt. We live a modest life but still find ways to make our house pretty, take vacations, and eat great food. I think we’re both better off together than we would have been alone because we’ve found a way to meet in the middle. Even if you don’t have a partner who’s obsessed with counting pennies, figure out what your unique strengths and weaknesses are and adjust your strategy to accommodate them. Maybe you’re really good at planning and not so great at follow-through? Draft a budget and then hire a friend or virtual assistant to track it for you for $15/week. That’s less than I used to spend on credit card interest and overdraft charges. I’m telling you, I was really bad.

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Posted in How To, On a Personal Note...

How to Prepare for Houseguests

Posted on October 25, 2011 | 4 Comments

We have houseguests almost every fall thanks to the fact that our house is super close to LSU, home of the #1 college football team in the nation. How close? From Tiger Stadium to our front door is 2.6 miles. It’s pretty awesome. We usually drive, but if our enjoyment of gameday festivities should make that unwise we can (and have) walk home in a pinch. This past weekend  was one of the biggest home games of the season and we had four extra people sleeping at our house on Saturday night. Here’s what I do to try to make them feel welcome:

  • Plenty of linens. I make sure there are fresh sheets on the guest bed, fresh towels in the closet, and extra blankets clean just in case. It’s not unusual for surprise houseguests to pop up and this time we had two extra guys sleeping on couches. Those extra blankets and towels sure came in handy.
  • Stock the medicine cabinet. Any travel or sample size toiletries we have are stashed in the downstairs bathroom medicine cabinet. Extra toothbrushes, contact lens cases, face wash, hair spray, etc. Plus the usual hangover cures easily accessible for any morning after regrets.

  • Take them to eat. Baton Rouge is full of great food. Our guests this weekend are former BR residents and major food people, so they’re really the ones taking us to all the great spots, but it’s delightful nonetheless. Chimes, Parrain’s, and the original Cane’s are all required stops for the out of town visitor. One of our favorite ways to cap off any weekend is with Sunday brunch at Parrain’s, a fantastic seafood restaurant just up the road from us.
The downside to having such fun people with us all weekend is that I get absolutely nothing done. I have zero projects to share this week. Total bummer for the blog. It was nice to get a weekend off, though, and maybe I’ll be even more energized to get some really great things accomplished next weekend!

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Posted in How To, On a Personal Note...

DIY Fabric Covered Boxes

Posted on October 18, 2011 | 1 Comment

When I was looking at the pile of clutter in my front room the other day, it occurred to me that the two pieces of this crate and barrel box were perfectly sized to be little “drawers” in the secondhand dresser we use as a media console.

I stuck ‘em in there and I really liked it! The black piece is a little taller than the white one, but that’s okay. Of course, I wasn’t just going to leave them like that. I decided to jazz ‘em up with some fabric. It was super easy. I was on the phone with my BFF the whole time and they still turned out great.

First I chose my fabric. I looked through my stash and settled on this orange floral that I got at an estate sale (it was in a plastic bag stuffed full of white and cream linen fabric. Best $1 I ever spent). The fabric remnant is too narrow to do much with, so this was a great project for using it up. I measured the height of my box (7″) and the perimeter (70″) and added two inches for good measure, meaning I needed to cut my fabric 9″ wide by 72″ long.

The handy cardboard mat (snagged at the same estate sale as the fabric) really helps me cut straight lines.

I wrapped the fabric around my box to be sure I’d measured right and then, starting at one corner, started painting mod podge onto the cardboard and then pressing and smoothing the fabric all the way around.

When I got to the end, I folded under the raw edge and glued it down.

Then I used some regular ‘ol craft glue to tuck the edges into the inside.

I didn’t really have a plan for the corners. I just sort of folded them in and glued them down.

Same thing on the back. Fold and glue. I treated the corners like I was folding a gift. True story: I used this box as a sign for our garage sale. Write on the box, put something heavy (like rocks) in it to weigh it down, and put it on the corner. Since I left the date off and just put it out as soon as we opened up I was able to use it for both of our garage sales.

‘Stash is a fan. No such thing as a bad box in her book (unless she’s being carried to the vet in it).

Ta-da!

Now onto box #2. I love the orange floral, but I felt like maybe two boxes covered in it might be a bit much (especially since they’re slightly different sizes. For this one, I chose a greigy (beige +gray) barkcloth my friend Cassie gifted to me. I basically followed the same steps as for the first box, except this time I 1) started in the center of a long side, instead of a corner, 2) used craft glue only at the beginning and end, instead of mod podge all the way around, and 3) just laid the end flat, instead of folding it under. Thanks to these changes, box #2 was much quicker to cover and the seam is almost invisible.

My intention was that the seam would be turned to the back on both boxes, but things looked so smooth that I realized hours after sticking them it the dresser that box #2 was turned around backwards.

You can see in this picture from our house tour page that this is a major improvement. Most of the drawer compartments have been empty until recently. Right before I made these boxes I had an epiphany that the Wii Fit balance board would be better off living under the couch. It’s easier to get in and out and invisible to pretty much anyone over 6″ tall.

I go back and forth about wanting to hide the cable box / Wii / DVD player. Would it really be worth the trouble?

Here’s a fun fact: this isn’t the first rodeo for either of these fabric choices. The orange floral was used for my zig-zag pillow, and the barkcloth was used for my Rorschach art (both of which can be spotted in the picture above if you look carefully).

So, in summary, to make your own fabric-covered boxes, grab yourself a cardboard box, some fabric, and some glue, then wrap it up and glue the edges under. Easy as pie. This project is especially good for using up fabric left over from other projects, since most boxes will require a long and narrow piece that would be awkward for anything else. And if you’re like me and can’t stand to throw away a good box (Crate & Barrel boxes are the best-so sturdy and nicely proportioned), then this is a good way to put them to use outside closet doors.

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Posted in Cleaning and Organizing, Crafty Goodness, How To, Living Room, Projects

Bonus Post! Updated How-To Page

Posted on October 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

Did I catch you by surprise with this unexpected post on a Saturday??? I just wanted to pop in and let y’all know that on my day off yesterday I went through and updated my How-To page. Now, all the projects I’ve ever posted about how to do are in one handy spot. Feel free to peruse at your convenience. Even I think it’s kinda fun to click back through all those posts. I feel so nostalgic reading all about the making of my zebra rug, rorschach art, laundry room shelves, and table runner, among other things. You, too, can experience such nostalgia. Or total amazement at my mad skills if this is your first time reading those posts. So check it out, if you like.

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Posted in How To

White and Silver Plate Wall

Posted on October 6, 2011 | 6 Comments

I’ve been staring at the wall above this dresser for months, thinking it needed a little oomph.

Somewhere along the line, I got the idea to fill it with plates. I started collecting plates from thrift stores and clearance racks. It took me a while to amass a small collection that felt right. I’ve got a lot of colorful plates in my stash, but every time I laid everything out and played around with combinations I was drawn to a simple palette.

Silver platters and dishes are plentiful in suburban thrift stores, but I rarely see them at the one closest to my house (in a more urban area). Lucky for me my job takes me a little further afield, where there are apparently lots of ladies with silver to spare. It’s just as easy for me to stop into that thrift store before heading home as it is to swing by the one in my neck of the woods.

Using only silver and white dishes took some of the guesswork out of this project. I love me some color, but I felt nervous mixing patterns from various eras and styles, plus making it not clash with the blue dresser directly below the plates or the mustard yellow coffee table just across the room. Silver and white it was.

I measured the area above the dresser and cut a piece of craft paper to roughly the same size.

The paper was super curly, hence the various items used to secure the corners. I didn’t really know where to start, so I just put all the plates on the paper and started playing around with arrangements. You can see the process step-by-step below. I brought in a few extra dishes, even a colorful floral saucer I’m quite fond of, but eventually ended up using only the original six I’d started with.

And finally, I had The One.

I used a Sharpie to trace first around the outside of each dish, then reached underneath to trace as best I could the area of the plate that actually touched the floor.

I stuck the whole thing up there with painter’s tape. I really wanted to keep the mannequin leg, so I thought I’d make it slightly off-center, but it just didn’t feel right.

Then I said, forget off-center, let’s go asymmetrical! I never could pull off those one-shouldered dresses so this is as edgy as I’m ever gonna get. I centered the paper above the dresser and moved the silver dish furthest to the right up and over a smidge so that it wouldn’t be blocked by the leg.

Side note, do you notice anything different in the photo below? I was using a stool to reach the wall above the dresser and Pistachio was just so fascinated by what I was doing. She jumped up on the stool to watch and just couldn’t resist the temptation to destroy my punched paper garland in a single swing of the paw. I was pretty much devastated, but comforted myself with a reminder that it was quite summery and probably would have come down soon as I transitioned to more fall/winter decor anyway.

The circles don’t photograph well, but in real life it was pretty easy to see the layout from across the room. I walked away and came back a few times, looking at it from various angles to be sure I liked what I saw.

When I was convinced that no additional tweaking was in order, I used a pair of scissors to score the center of each circle, then cut out the area that I’d drawn to indicate where the plate touched the wall, leaving a nice template for hanging.

I had some of the Command velcro picture hanging strips leftover from hanging a silver platter on my living room wall, but I didn’t feel like trekking all the way to a big box store to get more. I found these command hooks at Walgreen’s for $1.99 each and decided to poach the eight included strips. The thinner strips used for the hooks only worked with the silver dishes, since the backs of them pressed flat against the wall. The plates each had a little rim around the outside, meaning that I needed the thicker velcro strips to reach from the wall to the back of the plate. I’ll spare you the drama, but I learned that lesson the hard way. Command strips were wasted. I was bummed. So, lesson to those following along at home: be sure your strips are beefy enough to bridge the gap between wall and plate.

These strips were rated to hold one to two pounds each, so I felt pretty good about just popping one in each space. I know from experience that it’s important to follow the directions and A) press each strip for thirty seconds, B) wait an hour before hanging anything. I like to make these mistakes so you don’t have to. Nine times out of ten my corner-cutting style pays off, but occasionally I’m made to regret my decisions.

So, while I waited an hour for the adhesive to cure or whatever, I cut out the wider circles I’d drawn on the paper (to indicate the outer edges of each plate). This made it easier both to place my plates and to remove the paper afterwards.

Then, so exciting, I just referred to the last picture I’d taken of the plates laid out on the floor and began applying each dish, pressing firmly on each for a full minute before moving on. I was kind of not following the directions here so I tried to make up for it by pressing firmly for twice as long as I was required (they wanted me to let the adhesive cure on both surfaces before applying any weight, but that just wasn’t practical).

And, ta-da! It’s been a few hours now and nothing’s fallen down yet so I feel pretty good about it. I’ll let you know if I live to regret not using the velcro strips on all of them.

It’s everything I’d hoped and dreamed it would be. Seriously, I’m ob.sessed. It’s nice to have a subtle palette balancing out the bright blue dresser, but the asymmetrical arrangement and unexpected mannequin leg keep things interesting. I’m starting to get sick of those tacky fake flowers, though. They’re my next target for a makeover.

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Posted in Dining Room, How To, Thrifting

DIY Wine Cork Bathmat

Posted on September 28, 2011 | 10 Comments

297 corks

4 hot glue gun burns

one laceration

a whole lotta hot glue

Y’all, I finally made the wine cork bath mat that I’ve been talking about for months. My friend Jen works at a fancy schmancy restaurant in New Orleans (where they apparently pop a lotta bottles of wine) and gave me a HUGE paper bag full of corks last time I saw her. Seeing as I’ve only managed to accrue about six corks on my own in the months I’ve been collecting them, Jen’s donation was a major boon to the project.

I gathered my supplies: a gripping rug pad, my bag of corks, my hot glue gun, and glue sticks.

I’d been cooped up inside all day working on the wing chairs, so I chose to tackle this project on the porch. I needed some fresh air.

Look at all those corks!

I started at one end of the rug pad and just started testing out different ways to arrange the corks.

Once I was happy with the look, I glued it down cork by cork, then starting laying out the next row.

Then another. I didn’t have a set pattern, I just sort of winged it as I went.

And another, and another, and another…this was sort of a repetitive project. Dachshund present for scale.

You know what’s kind of crazy? Every row came out to be exactly 21 corks, no matter how I arranged it. Except for one that was a little wonky-that one only had 20.

Eventually I got tired of the definitely-not-fall temperature outside and moved the whole operation to the living room. But it looks like my hot glue was bleeding through the rug pad and onto the porch floor. I had to pull pretty hard to get it up, and a little bit of the rug pad was left behind. Inside I worked on a piece of cardboard and reached under the rug to loosen it every row or two, before the glue could completely dry.

And about an hour later, ta-da! I ran out of corks before I got to the end of the 2×3 rug pad. Can you believe it? 300 corks and still not enough.

I walked away for a little while midway through this project and by the time I came back Pistachio had dislodged four of the wine corks for her personal pleasure. Looks like this thing needed some cat-proofing. I went back over the entire rug and glued each cork to the ones around it. You may want to do this even if you don’t have pets, as it made the whole thing a lot more sturdy.

You’ve been foiled, Hitler cat.

There were a few gaps, so I used a sharp knife to slice a few corks up into smaller pieces to jam in wherever needed.

If you know me well you will not be at all surprised to hear that I thought I didn’t need a cutting board to cut my corks, I could just carefully hold them as I sliced. Then I sliced my thumb. I took a picture, but my friend Lauren told me people might not like to see a picture of my bloody thumb. So just imagine. And don’t worry, I’m fine.

l wasn’t a big fan of the pieces-jammed-in look, so I used them sparingly and only when really needed. But now that I have the rug in my bathroom I notice that I can’t even find the spots where I filled holes, but the remaining empty spaces are glaringly obvious to me. So I’ll probably be going back and stuffing some more little cork pieces in there.

I cut off the excess rug pad and carefully moved the rug to the bathroom. It’s very stiff and really doesn’t transport very well. It kind of snapped in half while I was carrying it, but when I laid it down flat it looked perfectly fine.

See how obvious the empty areas are? I’m definitely going to go back and fill them in.

I’m muy happy with how it looks in the room.

Next up: ruffling up a little more ribbon and permanently attaching it to the shower curtain, since it’s all still held on with pins (read about that project here). Also, replacing those towels with something more colorful to contrast the all black and white space. I got those towels from my wedding registry. At the time Nick and I were in a rental house and had no idea what the bathroom situation would be once we got our own place, so it seemed smart to go neutral. I’m really glad I did that because our upstairs bathroom A) is tiny and B) has red walls, so towels with a lot of color or pattern would probably just be too much in there. Since this bathroom is bigger and a lot more neutral, I can have a little more fun with it. Plus, since this is a guest bathroom slash someday maybe kids’ bathroom, it’s nice to bring in a little more punch and personality.

How adorable are these (from Anthro)?

Anthropologie

But of course they’re pricey. Maybe I could just get the hand towels ($18 each) and then get some more reasonably priced bath towels that coordinate? Simple, clean, white bath towels are always a good bet and easy to come by. Fun, poppy hand towels and clean white bath towels and wash cloths? What do you think?

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