Archive for October, 2009
Fab Freebie: Skulloween
***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries***
We began getting into the Halloween spirit last week (and there’s more where that came from) so we thought we’d use this week’s freebie to give one lucky person to chance to add some serious spook to their space. And we’re doing it thanks to two of our favorite collaborators: Skull-A-Day and Cardboard Safari.
Skull-A-Day is the brainchild of our good friend Noah Scalin. His yearlong project of creating skulls out of ordinary (pencils, rice) and not-so-ordinary (butterflies, vegemite) materials begat a Webby-award winning website, a book, art exhibits, an appearance on Martha Stewart and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. And now this local celeb is offering up two skull-tastic art prints for one lucky reader – the United Skull of America print (it’s a skull made out of US states!) and an Ornamental Skull print (in all of its ornate glory) – which will both bring some eerie style to your home this month (and the other eleven if you’re so inclined).
Plus, this week’s winner will score two great pieces from Cardboard Safari, who you may remember from their rhino / rocket giveaway a few months ago. This time they’re dishing out their Halloween designs – the spooky skull wreath and the tabletop puzzle skull (which was designed by Noah, btw). Both are made from recycled cardboard, in your choice of brown or white (which can also be painted any color you please).
Wanna score this eerily entertaining gift pack? Here’s how:
- PRIZE: United Skull of America & Ornamental Skull prints from Skull-A-Day, Skull Wreath & Puzzle Skull from Cardboard Safari
- TO ENTER: Comment on this post with the words “SKULL ME” and…
- BONUS QUESTION: …tell us about your best / favorite / weirdest Halloween costume of all time. Links to pictures are encouraged. :)
- GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Wednesday, October 14th at 8pm EST
- PRIZE SHIPS: USA only
- USUAL STUFF: One entry per e-mail address is permitted. The winner will be selected using random.org and announced on Thursday. Good luck!
Get more info on our freebies at our Giveaway FAQs page. Images courtesy of Cardboard Safari and Skull-A-Day.
How To Make A Magazine Monogram
Every time we post a photo that includes the frame collage above our living room’s console table like this…
…or this…
…. or this…
…. we get a slew of emails asking where we bought or how we made the big P print that’s front and center. Well, it’s actually just the first letter of an article in a magazine that we cut out in a neat little 1 x 2 inch rectangle and had blown up around 300% at Kinko’s. Here’s an example of the portion of the magazine you’d clip out and blow up (see that little box around the big first letter?):
Making it huge and putting it behind glass instantly created a customized monogram with very little work on our part, and we love how it came out! Just flip through magazines until you find your initial and head over to Kinko’s. A few dollars later it should be ready to frame (they look especially great with giant mats and pretty hefty frames to dress them up).
So you too can master the P (get it? Master P? no?) or any other letter that you’d like…
Psst- Looking for more easy DIY art ideas? Check out the bevy of links on our How To page in the “Artsy Ideas” category. And if you’re searching for framing arrangement ideas, this little video tutorial should have you covered.
Scanned magazine image (without the box that we added) found here.
We Smell Some New DIY Projects…
We’re super psyched to announce that True Value has put together a little DIY blog squad and we actually made the cut!
Yes that weird flesh squeezing sound accompanied by a soft whimper is us pinching ourselves. We’re among some pretty amazing fellow bloggers so we’ve both got jazz hands over being in such good company (one hand is pinching while the other one is jazzing). Check out our fellow squad members:
- Our girl Katie over at All Bower Power
- Layla & Kevin from The Lettered Cottage
- Josh over at Bungalow 23
- Brian & Paul with The Handyguys Podcast
Quite a bevy of brilliant bloggers, no? In fact we’re sort of spinning our wheels when it comes to choosing which projects should make the cut. You know what that means? We’ll end up doing a bunch of planned ones (yes, yes, we’ll tackle our unfinished basement!) and probably wing a few impromptu updates along the way. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves already. Leave it to an amazing opportunity like this to get us all hyper and frazzled. Here’s the deal: we’ll be blogging about a series of DIY projects that we’ll undertake over the next few months using a $1000 gift card courtesy of True Value.
Now do you see why we’re all over the place? We’re excited out of our minds. So stay tuned to see what we’ll tackle, how we’ll do it and just how far we can stretch our loot. And of course before we joined the squad we swung through True Value to see what they had on hand and we were pleased to see that not only did they have a ton of materials and tools to aid with our ever-growing to-do list, they actually welcomed Burger into the store with open arms and even offered up a chihuahua-sized cart as his mode of transportation. If that’s not the ultimate indicator of a home improvement mecca then we don’t know what is…
Just look at that tail wag. But enough about our fur baby. Maybe you’re itching to get your mitts on some cold hard home improvement cash as well. It’s a good thing True Value is actually offering 5K to the winner of their DIY Drama contest- and all you have to do is head over and tell them about a home improvement project that didn’t quite have a happy ending (sort of like our sad little string lantern attempt).
Who knows, you just might snag the grand prize for recounting that fateful day when DIY was not your favorite abbreviation. Don’t save the drama for your momma guys, go get that cash! And stay tuned to see what projects we have in the hopper…
And now for some legal mumbo jumbo: We’re super excited that True Value selected us to be one of five bloggers to work on their DIY Squad. They’ve challenged us to take on a project using materials from their stores and they’ve paid us for the materials and our time to write about it. However, our opinions are entirely our own and we have not been paid to publish positive comments. Can’t wait to share all the ideas we have up our sleeves…
Singing Our Sponsors’ Praises
It’s time once again for our monthly public showing of gratitude to the folks who help keep this little site of ours alive: our wonderful sponsors.
New to these shout outs is The Glass Mosaic Outlet, whose web site is like pure eye candy for anyone planning (or even just daydreaming) about a bathroom, kitchen or other reno that involves tiling. Plus, if you check out the Fusion style called Tsunami you’ll catch some pics of our very own reader’s kitchen (it looks great Jill G!).
We’ve also got Shades of Light, who you may remember from their fab freebie earlier this year. They offer a great selection of lighting (table lamps, chandeliers, sconces) of all styles (modern, traditional, vintage) along with furniture, rugs and mirrors. We even recently snagged a swing arm lamp from one of their local outlets for my sister’s nursery makeover on the cheap.
And right in time for the holiday season, Cardboard Safari is reminding us that they do more than quirky animal heads. They’ve got Halloween themed products like skull wreaths and a puzzle skull. Plus, once this spooky season is over, there are other holiday-related products like Christmas trees and fall leaf wreaths – all made out of cardboard (we’re especially digging the snowflake one)!
Speaking of quirky, we’re also happily welcoming Quirk Gallery to our list of sponsors. This Richmond art gallery + gift shop + general source of cool decor has long been a favorite local spot for us. If you’re local you can check them out in person this Saturday as part of Antiques on Broad (we’ll be stopping by) or if you live further away you can check out their blog for a sampling of their fun offerings and to meet their awesome staff, two of whom we’ve house crashed (see those here and here)!
Another great spot for one-of-a-kind items is Century Finds. We always have fun perusing their collection of vintage home goods – for your wall, your kitchen, your garden and even your bookshelf. Here are some things from their site that had us feeling blue… in a good way.
Also new this time around is Fresh Nest Design. This design blog by Deb and Erin covers all sorts of home-related topics and crafty ideas. We’ve been especially enjoying some of their recent posts that are really getting us into the fall spirit. Mmmm… cider….
Plus we can’t forget Name Your Design, whose custom modern artwork continues to be a fun, personalized touch for all ages. They’ve been on our minds lately with my sister’s new baby boy just right around the corner. But what to choose… the rocker, the giraffe or the silhouette?
And last but not least, The Natural Sleep Store gets our personal thanks for giving us a good, eco-friendly night’s sleep thanks to our organic mattress (after we bought our mattress from them they decided to team up with us). Check ‘em out if you’re in the market to green up your bedroom or even your nursery.
That’s all the sponsortastic gratitude we’re dishing out this month. So thanks again to all of these great folks for supporting us and making this crazy life of blogging possible.
Ania’s Design Dilemma
Ania’s living & dining room is ready for a major style overhaul. Here’s her letter:
Woohoo! I feel like I won something to score one of your fast selling custom mood boards! I need advice for my living room/dining area. My husband and I dig modern, contemporary, glamorous, and beachy styles. As for stores, we love Anthropologie, CB2, West Elm, Z Gallerie, Macy’s (where we have a major gift card) and Crate and Barrel (where we also have another big gift card). I absolutely want a new longer media cabinet. Between the sectional, coffee table, side table, and dining table, I feel like our furniture is oversized and I don’t like how everything is boxy. Any of those items can be replaced as you see fit. I also don’t like how our sectional is pushed up against the window and I’ve recently developed a crush on white circular pendant lamps and capiz chandeliers. I’d love some art for the walls (the paint color should stay). I LOVE teals, blues, oranges, greens, and yellows for accessories. I really like your use of modern patterns (like the geometric duvet in your master bedroom). I also like white furniture but need help mixing it with my espresso/mahogany stuff. We really want this room to be the starting point for our entire house, so we’d love if you could make a paint recommendation for the kitchen (which is also open to the living/dining area). We’re in the middle of replacing the window casings (which is why our windows have paper on them) but we do have white wood blinds for them. Thanks! We are soooo excited! – Ania
Here’s the plan:
And now for the mood board breakdown.
1. Ania’s brown, tan, umber, sunshine yellow and white color palette is inspired by her love of mixing and matching different wood tones with white and bringing in some pops of one of her favorite accent colors (yellow) in the accessories. We’ll take her furnishings from brown-brown-everywhere to a bit more diverse collection of pieces, and we’ll bring in some breezy patterns and prints to keep things feeling layered and textured and oh so chic.
2. We’d love to see Ania’s large sectional pulled at least 18″ away from the walls (we can ground it on a floating rug to make sense of the new floor plan) for a less crowded feeling (this will also allow Ania to use some of the central space in the room instead of pushing everything up against all the walls). Then tossing a few of these delicately patterned yellow and soft tan pillows around the sectional will further break up all the brown in the room for a more layered and luxe feeling in the space. And for extra credit when it comes to the room’s function, Ania could slide a sofa table like this behind it (since we’re replacing her existing coffee table and removing her current side table it will give her another place for guests to rest drinks and things beyond the new coffee table).
3. Ania was speaking our language when she mentioned she loves capiz chandeliers, and we dug up this super dramatic extra long one for above her new dining table to create a beachy chic little nook to dine with style to spare. It’ll really soften the entire space and the curved shape will be a nice counterpart to the more linear items like the sectional and the flatscreen TV.
4. We’d love to see an asymmetrical wall of frames on the L-shaped wall behind the sectional (check out this video for tips on putting one together). An example of something we’d love among the frames would be this cute yellow and umber ginko print (such a steal) and a few other ideas would be to frame anything else with tan, wheat, yellow and brown tones for a mixed and matched yet totally layered and lovely look (a square of yellow construction paper, some cool patterned fabrics, even pretty honey-toned scarves- the sky’s the limit!).
5. We always love to see something light, round and reflective above a boxy big screen TV, so this capiz mirror (on sale!) will really bounce light around the room and soften the TV corner while tying into the capiz chandelier on the other side of the room.
6. These breezy printed medallion curtains will really dress up the dining nook when they’re hung on either side of each window to create an elegant and enveloping effect- and the texture and interest that the pattern will add to the entire space will be priceless.
7. Ania mentioned that she wanted a longer and more solid TV stand to help her hide those unruly wires so we dug up this extra long one to easily house her big screen TV and hide all of her cords and components behind a chic combination of solid and frosted doors. Best of all, the modern metal legs will tie into the new dining room chairs that we’ll be bringing in, so stay tuned for that…
8. This large 8 x 10 rug will instantly ground the sectional that we’ll be moving at least 18″ away from the wall, and will help fill out the rest of the living room and create a welcoming and warm vibe. We love the tone on tone pattern that it adds to the space, and it even picks up the colors in the curtain medallions and the new coffee table that we’ll be introducing for a mixed yet totally cohesive vibe in the entire open area.
9. We’d love to see a chunky and traditional white pedestal table (a steal from Ikea- plus it expands to seat six!) paired with some modern metal-legged bentwood chairs to replicate the old meets new look that feels eclectic and collected over time. Not convinced? Check out an extremely similar pairing in our sunroom pictured here and here (somehow old with new just works when they’re in the same color palette- and the white will really break up all the other brown pieces in Ania’s space).
10. Ania thought her furnishings were all too dark and square, so we love the idea of bringing in a round capiz chandelier and dining table along with curvy dining chairs and even a round mirror over the TV. The last round element we’ll introduce is this rich walnut coffee table (on clearance!) which is a bit of a lighter toned wood that still ties into the other darker furnishings in the room thanks to the rug (which has both tones within it, thereby marrying everything together). This curvy little addition will add tons of flow in the living area (our favorite pairing with any sectional is always a round coffee table or ottoman), and since the old side table, coffee table, dining table and chairs will eventually be updated, Ania can Craigslist them to make some major loot (which she can put back into the space to complete the room).
Oh and we can’t forget Ania’s request for a kitchen paint color, we’d actually suggest painting it the same color as the living and dining room (since they’re so open to each other it will really keep things expansive and airy) or even sliding one shade darker on the paint swatch and going for that tone in the kitchen which will make for a coordinated yet slightly varied look with dimension and ambiance.
So there you have it. A living and dining room full of chic and modern style. We can’t wait to see what you guys think!
Update: Ania sent us her after pictures and they’re nothing short of amazing! Check them out right here.
Update #2: We sadly can no longer find the time to take on client commissioned mood boards (we now whip up general inspiration boards instead) but if we ever reinstate them we’ll make a big announcement!
