Archive for August, 2010
A Gust Of Gratitude
It’s time again to carve out some space for a big “THANK YOU” to everyone who makes Young House Love tick. This monthly burst of gratitude is aimed not only at you guys for reading, commenting, and encouraging us every day – but also at our sponsors who help us keep this site (and the family behind it) running. After all, they make the other 40+ posts that we write each month possible. So feel free to take a peek at what they’ve got and show them what the L in YHL is all about (and take advantage of a few exclusive YHL discounts while you’re at it).
Fresh Home is fairly new to the shelter mag scene, but it’s chock full of projects and inspiration that get us excited (after all, their tagline is “Easy Ideas For Hands-On People”). You can pick up this quarterly mag at your newsstand, become a charter subscriber for just $10, or even take advantage of their free issue offer to get started. Can’t beat free, eh?
Freshline is another “fresh” sponsor (see what I did there) who operates an illustration and design business where you can score custom pieces like graphics, stationery, textiles and more. So check out a bunch of her sweet wares (we’re especially digging the pillows) and take 10% off any orders with the code YHL10!
Dolan Geiman is a mixed-media artist that we’ve mentioned before, but now he’s back to mark his partnership with Fossil. They’re celebrating vintage-inspired art through store displays and product promotions as part of their “Long Live Art” campaign which feature Dolan and three other artists in cities like NYC and Dallas. Very cool.
WallQuotes.com wants your walls to say more than “I’m bored.” So browse from their collection of text-based, graphic, and nature-inspired vinyl decals (or even create your own personalized saying). They’ve got a photo gallery of inspirations if you’re stuck- and don’t forget to take 15% off of any order with the code YHL15.
The Tile Shop is filled with, you guessed it, tile. But they’ve also got all the tools, materials, and how-to guides to get your tiling job done with less- or even no- crying. It’s where we snagged the wet saw, grout, and sealer for our bathroom project earlier this year (after which they hopped on as a sponsor) and you lucky people can get 10% off when you use the code YHL10.
Shades of Light is always a pleasure to peruse, whether you’re looking for anything from a contemporary table lamp to a traditional chandelier. They’ve also got a wide range of furniture, art, rugs, and mirrors that you can browse online or in their store (we’ve got one in Richmond!) and also by catalog.
Design for Less goes by a few names: The Glass Mosaic Outlet (if you’re looking for colorful and stunning glass, metal, or stainless steel tiles) or The Natural Stone Outlet (if you’re more in the mood for a natural pebble, marble, or porcelain tile). Whichever route you go, you’re bound to find some great deals and some heartstoppingly beautiful design.
Z Gallerie is a great spot for a major dose of modern romantic style. With tons of options in glitzy metallic tones and pops of crisp white, it’s like a feast for the eyes (especially when your name is Sherry Petersik). Here are some of the items that have caught our eyes lately, but be sure to head over to their site for more Gallerie goodness.
Name Your Design is chock full of fun, personalized items to give your walls a punch of crisp modern art. Browse items for couples, little girls, little boys, and even whole families. Plus you can score free shipping with the code “freeship” through August.
Lisa Leonard Designs is not only full of handmade sterling silver necklaces, bracelets, and charms (many of which include personalized, whimsical, or touching references to family, love and, well, coffee) but also features earrings, keychains, and even ornaments to make you smile.
Ruby Plaza is a virtual marketplace where individuals can sell everything from vintage items to new and reproduced pieces for your home and you (i.e. jewelry). It’s a great spot to hunt for unique items that you might not find anywhere else- and you know what they say about the thrill of the hunt…
Frame The Date does just that – they take any date that’s special to you (an anniversary, birthday, or even the closing day of your first home) and commemorate it with graphic numerals in a stylish custom frame (seriously, check out the range of colors available). You can even include a photo of the special moment along with the special date.
Etsy Kids is in full swing with its summer shopping guide. Just take a breeze through their 26 alphabetized categories for a catalog of some of the best baby, kid, and even parent-related items on Etsy (it’s not just clothes and toys folks, there’s art and decor in there too!)
Heart & Stone is some of the best recycling we’ve seen in a while. They take old materials (like x-ray film) and turn them into meaningful silver charms and rings to commemorate loved ones and adorn your neck, finger, wrist (and more) with style to spare. Oh, and don’t forget to take 10% off with the code YHL10!
Vol. 25 doesn’t need much introduction, just take a peek below at some of the über sweet graphics she turns into prints, t-shirts, mugs, and anything else that needs a stylish pick-me-up. She’s got everything from romantic gestures to inspiring statements all captured in her charming illustrations.
Smock Paper rounds out our list of sponsors this month. They’re home to beautifully designed letterpress greeting cards, stationery, announcements, invites, and even business cards. Plus, their operation is 100% sustainably printed – so their work is easy on the eyes and the environment.
And our last big THANK YOU has to be directed at you guys. Thanks so much for dropping in to see what we’re up to here at Casa Petersik. We wish you nothing but the most amazing and DIY-filled weekend!
Put A Cork In It
You may have spotted our little DIY cork vases back in the big office reveal (and the follow up guest bedroom/playroom post). And now we’re back to share our two-different-looks tutorial. Yup, you can keep them au naturale…
… or cover the cork with fabric for a playful printed look:
We first got the idea to create cork vases for pinning up little reminders and paint swatches that we loved from seeing an expensive designer cork lamp a while back. It seemed like such a smart way to keep from forgetting Clara’s checkups along with our dental appointments- and to add some aesthetically pleasing function to the room as well. But we didn’t need a lamp, and we just happened to have two glass vases lying around (one from Ikea and one from a bouquet of flowers that we received a while back). And so the cork vase idea was born. All we picked up was a pack of cork from Target for around $5 and we were ready to go.
The four squares of cork in the pack provided more than enough material to cover both vases. And they even came with self adhesive squares that we used to stick our cut-to-size rectangles on each side of each vase. We just laid the vase on the cork, and traced an exacto knife along the edge of the vase to create our rectangles for each of the four sides for each vase. Then with a sticky square on each of the four corners for each plane we stuck them carefully to the vase (going slowly enough to ensure that they were straight and lined up with each other before firmly sticking them on).
Before we knew it we had two cork vases. Easy, peasy. Oh and here’s a tip. Since we used the white adhesive squares to secure the cork, if you look on the inside of the vases you can see them (since they’re clear vases and the squares are white). So it helps to consider what you’ll be filling your vases with to hide those white squares (a plant and some paint decks did the job for us). You could also use dabs of clear glue from a hot glue gun in each corner to adhere the cork if you plan to leave the vases less full and don’t want to worry about the white squares being seen if anyone peers down into each vase.
Although we loved the rough natural texture of the cork, we actually decided it would be fun to take things one step further with some printed fabric. The pins would still stick through the textile and grab the cork (so none of the function would be lost) and we really liked the idea of gaining some pattern and fun since we knew these babies would sit on Clara’s bookcase in our office/guest room/playroom. First we roughly cut out a strip of fabric that could easily wrap around the entire circumference of each vase (with extra fabric on the top and bottom to allow for a “hem” to create a more polished and finished look).
Then we whipped out some iron-on heavy duty hem tape…
… which instantly added those polished looking hems that we were going for.
When it came time to apply the fabric around the vase to cleanly cover the cork we knew that a tight fit was the only way to go (something loose or baggy would have looked messy and weird). So we used duct tape to hold the soon-to-be-hidden edge of the fabric in place so we could pull the other side around for a nice and tight look. We hemmed the other side of the fabric so it would have a finished edge when it overlapped the duct tape (completely hiding it for a snug fit and a professional looking result).
We debated using a glue gun to adhere the hemmed side of the fabric (the one that hides the duct tape) but couldn’t find any glue sticks so I quickly stitched the hemmed flap over the other side of fabric to create a tight fit that would really hold up over time. The seam landed right in the middle of the back of the vase, and thanks to some white heavy duty thread it looked nice and clean back there:
And of course the front looked even more seamless:
Fun right? The whole project only ran us around $5 for the cork since we already had the vases and the fabric (scored for cheap at U-Fab here in Richmond for Clara’s weekly photo project).
We love that we can use our DIY cork vases to house everything from magazines and paint decks to plants and pens in our multifunctional home office/guest bedroom/playroom.
And the fact that they help us remember all of our appointments is the icing on the cake.
Have any of you guys worked with a roll of cork or the same pre-cut cork squares to DIY something fun in your house? Do tell. And do you have any quotes that keep you going or make you smile? We pinned one of our favorites up: “Do what you love. Love what you do.” So share those cork projects and inspirational quotes!
Psst- Looking for another fun cork project? Check this out.
Stars, Butterflies & Teardrops: Freebie Winners!
Sherry and I had trouble figuring out our own answer to the bonus question in this week’s giveaway about what you might dream of reaching stardom for accomplishing. I’ll admit that I had a fleeting vision in high school of “making it” as a rock star right after I was invited to jam with my friend’s band. But I was only invited once. Why? Um, because I was “jamming” on my French Horn. Meanwhile Sherry used to dream of becoming a well known fine artist but sheepishly admits that it’s been years since she has picked up a fan brush or some charcoal (consolation prize: she picks up a paint brush and a roller quite regularly). Maybe our house is her new canvas.
Anyways, let’s talk about the papery goodness going on with this week’s duo of prizes that are about to be awarded to a duo of winners. And we’ll kick it off with a duo of special discounts. The Starcraft is giving YHL readers 15% off any order in August with the code YOUNGHOUSE…
…and This Neck of The Woods will refund the cost of shipping through August 19th (just mention Young House Love in the “notes to seller” for that reimbursement).
As for our pair of winners, we promised random.org fame and fortune by means of a blog mention and it naively provided these two random names: Dana (who wants to reach fame for her future children’s books) and Nicole (who dreams of interior design stardom). Congrats!
And don’t worry if you didn’t take home the big prize this week. Monday’s giveaway marks another pairing of prize givers – one of our favorite new magazines is teaming up with one of our favorite decor stores. Swing by next week on Monday to find out who it is!
See our Giveaway FAQs for more info. Pics from The Starcraft & This Neck of The Woods.
Reader Redesign: China Cabinet Change-Up
Taking an old thrifted piece of furniture and freshening it up is one of our favorite types of makeovers. Which is why we’ve enjoyed Tanis’ china cabinet project so much (and no, not just because it involved painting it white). Check out the beautiful transformation that she and her husband recently achieved:
A friend of mine introduced me to your blog and I’ve been hooked ever since! The love of my life and I bought our first house in May, and then 3 weeks later we got married! We’ve just started tackling a few DIY projects around the house and are particularly proud of this one: a china cabinet makeover to display our special wedding china (you can read more about why it’s so meaningful to us here).
The entire piece was washed, sanded, primed and then painted a semi-gloss pure un-tinted white. Then we wallpapered the back with a textured wallpaper from the Debbie Travis collection and painted it ‘Aegean Blue’ by Martha Stewart. I have to admit, I am beyond pleased with the result! It took a lot of elbow grease, but it was worth it!
We’re looking forward to many years of wedded bliss and many more DIY projects to tackle together. Thanks for the inspiration! – Tanis at Tanis Fiber Arts
Isn’t that blue painted wallpaper such an incredibly elegant accent? We love that Tanis and her new hubby jumped in there and fearlessly made that dated china cabinet their own. What do you guys think? Will anyone else out there be following in their very stylish footsteps?
Where Do Baby Photos Come From?
Many of you have asked questions here, on Flickr, and on Facebook about how the weekly photos that we’re taking to document Clara’s first year are really done. After answering a bunch of you individually, we figured the topic deserved a quickie “how to” post to collectively take care of anyone else out there who’s been pondering how we end up with images like this. You know we love a step by step tutorial. And documenting photos of your family can definitely fall under DIY art and decor – especially if they’re framed or even collected in a big coffee table book (which we eventually plan to do).
We’re not professional photographers, expert photoshoppers, or even seasoned baby wranglers… but after twelve weeks of taking shots of Clara on a fabric background and adding her age to her onesie “in post” we’ve developed a system that seems to work pretty well. So we made a video to share some of our basic pointers about the process. You can watch it below on Vimeo or click here to see it on YouTube.
Okay, admittedly the video is mostly gratuitous footage of our daughter with a few pointers tossed in, so if you can’t watch it because you’re at work (or you’re just opposed to seeing us move and talk) here’s a quick summary of what you missed:
- Clara wears a plain white onesie (so far the same one, although she’s about to outgrow it) and we use Photoshop to add the text later
- We’ve only need one yard of fabric for each shot at this point, which helps keep the cost of the project down
- We usually snag our fabric at discount stores like Hancock or JoAnn Fabrics and use 40% off coupons to further save money
- We’ve also used already-owned fabric (and on-hand blankets & pillow cases) as backgrounds that are 100% free
- We shoot them in the evening (around 5:30-6:30ish) because the light is indirect, which means no harsh shadows and no squinty baby
- We take the photos in our sunroom because it gets the most natural light (you might get a similar look by setting your baby on a blanket outside in the early evening).
- We use a Nikon D3000 (which we’re learning to use thanks to a lot of your advice). Note: the video was shot with a Flip Mino which isn’t as high quality, which is why the footage is darker/grainier than the still photos (which we didn’t retouch except for the final one- they come out that clear and bright thanks to the camera and the light filled location).
- To keep photos looking consistent from week-to-week we always white balance the camera against Clara’s onesie before we begin (most DLSR cameras have a setting for this)
- We usually take between 75-100 shots to get one final frame we both love (yeah, we’re a little obsessed with the beanette)
Now that we’re all caught up, I thought I’d breeze through what happens after we’ve snapped away at our tiny model and it’s time to finalizing our weekly image. First up is the sometimes long, often difficult process of selecting on our single favorite image. We use Apple’s iPhoto to sort through all of them, deleting the bad ones and flagging the good ones until we’ve narrowed it down to the one that not only represents Clara best at that age, but also isn’t too similar to past weeks’ photos (since we like them to feel as diverse as possible when it comes to composition).
Once selected, we pull the winning image into Photoshop. Again, we’re not experts, but we’ve honed a pretty good process for achieving the fairly convincing look of text printed on a onesie. First we do some basic touch-ups like cropping the photo or lightening it up a smidge if necessary, and occasionally we do a bit of virtually smoothing out if the fabric has any crazy wrinkles that the iron didn’t seem to take care of (with the Healing Brush and the Clone Stamper). As a comparison of sorts, here’s the original picture on top as it looked straight from the camera, and the slightly lightened and de-wrinkled version below it:
Then we add the text. At this point we usually just copy the text layer from the previous week’s file, but in case you’re starting from scratch we use a font call Fyra for the circled number and Otari for the word “weeks.” Both are free from the site FontSquirrel. Once dragged in we make sure the week is correct (in this case, we changed the week number to “12″) and we rotate the whole thing to line up with the angle of Clara’s body.
Then we select the color for the text. Usually we snag some color from the fabric itself (using the Color Picker tool) so the whole image coordinates, but sometimes we pick something complimentary to the fabric, like week one’s plum-magenta text that we liked against the green background.
The trick we came up with for making the text appear to be printed on the onesie is a combination of layer style and opacity. We set the text layer to “Multiply” and bring down the layer opacity to somewhere between 60% – 80% depending on how saturated the color is. Note: sometimes we have to adjust the color slightly after these steps to make sure it hasn’t gotten too light or washed out.
Here’s what the image looks likes before and after the “Multiply” and “Opacity” steps. You can see how it has subtly picked up the shading of the onesie behind it which tricks our eyes enough into thinking that it’s been there all along. Oh, and sometimes Miss Clara’s outfit is a bit wrinkled so I have to do some text chopping and skewing, but I haven’t gotten that process down enough that I’d feel comfortable advising others. Just trust me that it’s easier when her onesie is smooth (which is definitely the case lately since she’s outgrowing it)!
With that, we’re done!
Now that we’re nearly 1/4 of the way done with this year-long project we’re getting even more excited to amass all 52 images so we can get them printed in a nicely bound book for our coffee table (and the coffee tables of a few adoring grandparents). Plus we definitely think Clara herself will get a kick out of looking back at her weekly growth (and range of adorable expressions) when she gets a little older. Note: You can see bigger versions of the current dozen here on Flickr (we add the latest one every week there too).
Oh, and as for all of this fabric that we’re slowly collecting, the jury is still out on what we’ll do with it (make a quilt, sew some baby clothes, etc). Though our latest idea is that we’ll whip up an eclectic-looking banner or bunting that we can break out for birthday parties and even yearly growth pictures of Clara (sort of as an homage to her first year on Earth). At least until she gets too old and embarrassed to indulge us.
We hope this little picture play-by-play was helpful to anyone looking to adopt a similar method of documenting their child (or pooch, we could totally get behind that!). We’d also love to hear about any fun ways you guys have captured changes in your kids, family, or even your home – or if you’ve spotted someone else doing it in an interesting way (like the adorable Mila’s Daydreams project that we love). Spill those sentimental beans.
PS: If you’re looking to achieve a similar look but don’t want to bother with Photoshop, we learned of a company called Sticky Bellies that sells removable monthly milestone stickers that can be applied to any clothing.
