Office Makeover

If you’ve missed me on the internet, this is one of the things that has kept me away. I’ve been working in the office for days and have finally surfaced for air (and pictures)! This was a makeover on a serious budget so I tried to make the most cost-effective purchases I could and use almost exclusively things I already had. That’s my mom’s trunk from her days in the Navy. It’s full of pictures and scrapbooks now and I’ve repurposed it as a coffee table.

Here is one of the set of two matching glass lamps I found thrifting. They’re so beautiful and were a legitimate bargain at just $6.99 each. Kyle found shades at a big box store and I love the coppery warmth they add to the room.

I decided to brave the clearance paint aisle at a certain large store that sells things for a very low price and discovered a heatherish-gray color and a pinkish-tan for just $4.86 a pint. Kyle sanded down my grandmother’s old desk and I repainted it. I took some sand paper to the edges to make look a little more worn…I can’t decide it that was a good move or not but the color is a great improvement overall.

Oh, and yeah…hi, I’m Elizabeth and I’m a big ol’ copy cat. I no-apologies, straight-up stole this from Jenni over at Story of My Life. I justify it by saying simply that I have in my possession pictures from our childhood together that she may or may not want made public. Just kidding. ….or am I? No, I’m totally joking. I’m not. I am. No, not really. …..

I seriously love what she did to the wall in their master bedroom and will go ahead and admit that this is like one of those off-brand knock-off versions. The real thing is much, much better.

I used a combination of frames from my closet, my favorite thrift store, and the Dollar Tree. The prints are mostly clippings or postcards or photographs I’d saved, along with a couple prints from CAPow! Along the top left, you can see what my row of handsome daguerreotype boyfriends collected from flea markets and thrift stores. 

One of my favorite things I framed was a necktie-tying tutorial I had clipped out of Reader’s Digest years ago and stuck in a box. I smiled when I re-discovered it in a box of memorabilia.

I rescued the little loveseat from my neighbor Melissa who was going to throw it out when she moved. It has a couple muddy stains from where her dogs ran over it on a rainy day but other than that, it’s in great shape.

The wall-hanging is a bamboo shade that’s too small to fit any of our windows. Anyone who rents knows that leases don’t always allow you to paint a room so it’s great when I can find other ways to bring color and texture to the walls.

What do you think? And what summer project has kept you busy?

love, elizabeth

Be My Valentine: DIY

Anyone sick of me talking about Valentine’s Day yet?

This year I was craving that feeling I got when I was a little girl and used to make my own Valentines. So I got all the essentials: construction paper, Elmer’s glue, doilies, glitter. It was pretty therapeutic.

 

What about you? Any Valentine’s Day traditions for you?

love, elizabeth

DIY: Valentine’s Day Decorations

Like I said, Valentine’s Day is kind of one of my favorite holidays…and this year I had fun making my own decorations.

I wrapped some strips of newsprint around plain glass votives and tied them with ribbon.

This is a recycled metal rose that Kyle bought me at a renaissance fair a few years ago…

I glued five or six white and black hearts together and hung them staggered in the living room window.

It’s interesting how things connect in our brains. All the heart shapes and images that have shown up this February have stuck with me.

Sometimes I’m not sure who can be trusted with my heart. I have lots of wonderful friends and family and I love them all. But I think sometimes that I open myself up too much. Am I too trusting, too careless with my heart? I only have the one very vulnerable, very young heart and sometimes I worry about giving too much of myself away.  I wonder about this and I wonder about my fear and I wonder about the wisdom of really being yourself fully and totally in this world.

It’s important to let people in. But maybe I do this too easily, too much. The fact is, not everyone deserves my whole heart. Only a few, in fact. I also want to be sure that I’m the kind of person that can be trusted with the hearts of others. It’s not every day someone hands you their heart.

What about you? Who do you trust with your heart, your deepest, most personal thoughts and feelings and self? Do you always feel safe doing that? Have you ever regretted it?

love, elizabeth

DIY: Phone Book Stationery

I felt the urge to be crafty Sunday afternoon and this is what happened.

I started with some blank colored stock card stationery that I’ve been saving.

I cut out a tiny bird pattern from a craft book and traced it out on the yellow pages of an old phone book (these days, I seem to have like eight of them lying around).

I don’t even know how many of my DIY projects involve this glue but it’s my favorite. Mod-Podge – inexpensive and easy to find in lots of different stores.

I patterned several birds on each individual card.

I layered pages of the phone book with lighter card stock and bird details.

I ended up creating a similar pattern with hearts that I like, too.

This project didn’t take a whole lot of concentration or brain cells which is exactly what I was hoping for. I plan to tie up the two sets with some twine and give them as gifts.

What about you? Working on anything creative?

love, elizabeth

Papers, papers everywhere and not a drop to…

I am so tired of piles of paper littering every surface of my apartment. Junk mail and bills and syllabi and magazines and pamphlets and greeting cards. It’s. never. ending.

But no more. NO. MORE. I just read a fantastic how-to in the January 2012 issue of Better Homes and Gardens (which, incidentally, is so sneaky, it lured me into subscribing with a sneaky $5.99/12 mos introduction offer…see what I mean? PAPER EVERYWHERE!).

Anyway, I’d like to share my new attempt at keeping papers filed.

So all paper that comes in goes into the ‘Action File.’ If I can sort it everyday, I should be able to keep the mess under control. ‘Do Now’ is for stuff that has to happen THIS WEEK. ‘Do Later’ is for stuff that has to happen in the next three months. ‘Pending’ is for stuff I have to wait on – textbook orders, invoices, a call back, whatever.

This little guy is a refuge from a 1940’s department store (he used to hold ladies’ stockings). I found him in an architectural salvage here in the city. Anything else goes either in the trash, the shredder, or in one of these slots. Once a week, this gets emptied and everything filed in the filing cabinet in the office or, as Better Homes and Gardens calls it, “my long-term storage solution.”

This could be really  hard to maintain. But I’m going to try. Which brings me to my new “one-hour system.” But that’s a post for tomorrow.

What kinds of new organizational tools are you trying this year? Happy January 2nd!

love, elizabeth

Post-Christmas DIY: Recycle Your Christmas Cards

This is one of my favorite post-Christmas crafts, although it’s great for any time of year. If you’re a card saver like me, you end up with piles of them after birthdays and holidays. Here’s an easy DIY picture tutorial for folding paper boxes out of old cards. My mom shared this one with me when I was a little girl and now I’m sharing it with you…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The finished product is cute and they look great as a little pile in a basket or hung as ornaments…

What about you? What post-Christmas projects are you working on?

love, elizabeth