more and less for 2014

I want to see more:

chic deco

{white walls} I used to feel like white walls meant a naked boring undone space (or even worse, I felt like whoever lived there was too lazy to bother), but now the idea of clean white walls has really grown on me. They offer the perfect backdrop for any colour of furniture, textile, or artwork imaginable and allow you to change the look of your space instantly just by changing out throw pillows (for example). For the first time in my life, I'm actually rather pleased to be living in an all white apartment with an all white kitchen (especially since the white walls really reflect what little light we get!).

and then we saved

{geometrics} Obviously, I'm still in love with anything faceted or geometric. They're so clean and natural looking and they really fit into any space or type of decor.

odessamay society

{grey-based pink} This is a personal choice since I know Pantone's colour of the year was decidedly... bolder. I'm just overwhelmingly in love with this colour. I want it to be in the textiles in our apartment in large and small doses (with grey, white, and black mixed in, of course).

livet hemma blog

{copper} I like how copper isn't brass (this is still too old fashioned looking for me) and it isn't clinical stainless steel. The warm pinky hue works with pretty much everything.

design*sponge sneak peek

{furniture transformations} Before and afters, hacks of IKEA stuff, or thrift store junk that goes from blah to stunning will always be a welcome sight. You may not do it exactly as you see in inspirational or diy tutorials (which is sort of the point, I think), but every example gives you a new way of looking at a piece you may not have seen otherwise. I also love when transformations are easy on the pocketbook.

I want to see less:

{art collage walls} Along the lines of clean white walls, I want to see less diys and inspirational posts about collaging stuff (and I'm talking about massive hoards of art taking up half or all of a wall). Having a clutter of artwork on the wall has been done to death and it's starting to look very tired and dated. This year, pick one or two special pieces to showcase (at the very least, keep your collage to 3-5 pieces) and spend less time meticulously arranging oodles of artwork on the floor.

{piñatas} I swear if I have to see one more piñata tutorial I will scream. Don't get me wrong, most of these piñatas are really pretty and amazingly well done, but the whole concept of "I spent three days making this amazingly perfect and pretty piñata just for you to whack" really kills me. (Ditto for piñata food items, too.)

{photo booth backdrops} I don't know who's having all the parties to necessitate the photo booth backdrop tutorial a week, but it's certainly not me. I don't really need to see another example of how polka dots (or anything else for that matter) were added to a canvas or backboard, and I extra don't need to see examples of the photos that were taken (person in front of polka dots. That completely matched my expectations).

{instagram anything outside of instagram: photo walls, magnets, marshmallows, etc.} I know, we all love Instagram (me included), but they're really just tiny squared pictures. There's nothing super special or new about them. And who really wants to eat their photos, anyway? So let's just keep Instagramming to the online world and leave everything else alone.

{garlands} I liked these, too, the first couple times I saw them, but last year (and probably halfway out of the year before), I just kept hoping the posts on these would end. We really don't need another tutorial on how to string things in a straight line. Pick a thing, put it on a string. There. I diy'd all the garland tutorials for you this year. So next time you think, "Hey, how do I make a garland out of these pompoms?" You should just remind yourself that you CAN do it without reading a thousand blog posts on it. You are capable and smart enough to thread things on a string without detailed instructions, despite what the crafting community continues to tell you.

{inspirational quotes} Please please no more quotes! I liked the few well-done ones when they first came out but now they're everywhere. I can't go anywhere on the internet without stumbling on another inspirational quote poster or picture or wall sticker or suggestion to follow the wise words of such and such inspirational quote. Now my eyes just glaze over when I see them, and I don't even read them anymore. The inspiration is gone and in its place is apathy.

Those have been my likes and gripes for the last year (and beyond). Do you have anything you'd like to add? Is there any particular craft or diy that you'd like to see more or less of in 2014?

diys i {really} want to do

If you're wondering why it's a little dead for DIYs around here lately, it's for this one plain fact: I had to leave all of my crafting supplies in Canada. They simply didn't get on the plane with us (four suitcases was more than enough for us to handle and check). I'm looking into finding craft stores here, but I also don't have a mode of transportation plus, you know, jet lag, scary unknown, language barrier, want to go with a friend, have no friends, gotta wait for hubs to be off work... plus we're in a very tiny temporary apartment with only one table (that we are currently using as a desk, a dining table, and a shelf to throw all our stuff on when we come home), and it (plus the whole apartment) would be a complete disaster in a matter of minutes given my usual crafting habits.

 But I'm still thinking about DIYs!

Here're some that I really would do, like, yesterday, if I had the tools and the space.

{anthropology inspired painterly shoes} I have these exact shoes. Exact brown colour, exact style, exact everything save for the cutesy painted sides. Wanna know where I found them? In the boys shoe department at Superstore, on clearance. And they fit like a dream! But wouldn't this be a great way to feminize/update them? It would, but I have no idea where to buy fabric paint or little paint brushes.

{himmeli anything} We managed to find a small tree for our apartment and we've got lights on it and a few tiny ornaments I brought with us, but I'd really like to add a little something more. I've been thinking about trying to make some himmelis, either with straws or, as pictured here, pipe cleaners. I have no idea where to buy pipe cleaners (let alone sparkly ones) and if I bought straws, I have no idea where I'd get string or anything to put them together.

{ikea hack -- soft rocking chair} I am obsessed with this chair. We saw it at IKEA last weekend (when we went to snoop on Finnish IKEA), and it's a really really comfortable chair. With rocking feet, it would be amazing. Alas, I no longer have any power tools or a tape measure or screws or paint stuff -- pretty much everything that's needed for this hack.

{dior double-pearl earrings} If you know me at all, you'll know I'm pretty fixated on earrings. If there's one piece of jewelry I'll always wear, it's a pair of earrings -- I never leave the house without them. Something about these double-pearl ones really makes me want to have them. Badly. The hack is so easy it literally breaks my heart that I no longer have access to my kicky jewelry supply shop, and, naturally, I have no idea where to find one here (goodness, it took me five years to find one in Edmonton and even then I pretty much accidentally tripped into it).

{pretty much anything that requires printing or paper} I'm working on a new calendar for myself but I've just realized we no longer have a printer or any paper, and I have no idea what the Finnish equivalent of a Staples would be. Plus Christmas cards would be really fun to make and send... speaking of sending, where the heck is the post office, even?

I know, I know, I should just order some of this stuff off the internet. Maybe I will... some day... once our mail gets sorted out.

In the meantime, if you want to see what's been inspiring me and interesting me in the world of, pretty much everything, just check out my Pinterest boards. I've been A LOT busier over there than normal!

walking shoes

After much scurrying around, it became pretty obvious that we couldn't do anything remotely helpful to the process of moving to Finland in Edmonton, so we had to take an impromptu trip to Ottawa. We were there for a night and a day, and dummy here forgot the memory card for her camera, so I don't have many pictures of the trip. You're not missing much, though, as most of it was spent at the Finnish embassy or in taxis or in the House of Commons where pictures are not allowed anyway. (We super lucked out as it was in session that day and we had the opportunity to see the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition go at it over the most recent Canadian scandal. I won't bore you with details, but it was really exciting to be right there!)

Anyway, the Ottawa trip was pretty much the last straw for me. As someone who's always relied on thrift store shoes (I know. I should probably stay away from thrift shoes as I stay away from thrift underwear), I found myself pretty much out of shoe choices when deciding what to wear. Since the trip was so short, I had to pack ultra-light (and by that I mean, no suitcase) so my choices were made based on whether I wanted to lug a heavy bag across my shoulder all day or not. That meant I could only take one pair of shoes and they had to be on my feet. (Imagine how annoyed I was to find I was lugging around my big camera for absolutely no reason!)

Quite obviously, this was the second trip where I've been laid up with blisters, sore ankles and toes, and a limp exactly one hour after walking in shoes that were only meant to skip across a store for 20 minutes and then come off. Actually, I really couldn't have chosen the worst pair for this particular trip, either, as that pair is almost not even acceptable for skipping across a store for 20 minutes. Did they go with the clothes I'd be wearing the whole time? Sure! But they are practically like walking barefooted (little pebbles were my worst nightmare).

So that's it for me. I'll forego the shoes that work with everything, that are super cheap (the ones I wore to Ottawa still have the price tag on them -- $3.99), that are even super cute in support of comfort and all-day walkability. Nothing ruins a trip more than when your feet are aching and you still have to push yourself to walk another 2-3 hours. And nothing's worse than returning home and having to hobble around the house in loose socks, soft slippers, keeping your legs elevated for a day or more. So after what I would call an extensive search online (because I had to read through a multitude of comments), these are the brands and shoes that stood out the most to me.

{1} Clark's Wave.Trek: This shoe is first on my list since it's garnered the most positive reviews and the most mentions wherever I read about walking shoes. The Wave.Trek is designed with a rocker sole that conserves energy, absorbs shock, and cushions the joints which is probably perfect for walking over cobblestoned streets (of which I've been encountering a lot). I also like that it's waterproof as we found ourselves in cold, drizzly weather in Ottawa and literally had no where to go (unless we wanted to eat lunch again). The negative reviews center mainly on fit so I would definitely want to try these on and walk about the store a bit. My own negative is that I don't like how they look from the side (I don't like how the sole looks) and I wish there were more colour choices, but when I think about that, then walk to get a glass of water right now, I think, "Stop being so damned fussy!"

{2} New Balance 980 and New Balance 895 V2: The New Balance brand came up an awful lot in every comment section I read through, though I'm not yet decided on which type I like best. I love that the 980 is leather (I always seem to have a problem with my toe working its way through a fabric upper and leather is a really nice option in winter climates), and I like that the rubber is really subdued (meaning it doesn't have all the knobs and cleats and bumps sport shoes are all designed with) which makes it a little more of a stylish option. The few reviews I found on it were all positive, I just wish there were more reviews. The 895, however, has a lot of great reviews plus it's lightweight with a heel pillow and REVlite cushioning. It's also got more interesting colour options. I think I'd like to try them both on for a side-by-side comparison, though it might be smart to have two pairs in your suitcase to switch out during a trip. I find my feet get less tired if I change up my shoes every once in a while. And if the 980s are a little heavier, the 895s could go in the carry-on and the 980s could be your plane shoes (you don't have to remove your shoes through security anymore, thank god).

{3}  Merrell's Ascend Glove: Boasting that it's cushioned, lightweight, and durable makes this shoe sound perfect for travel. Not to mention the many times I came across the Merrell brand name during my searches. Breathable, washable, and good for long runs and treks over tough terrain, plus it looks like a fashionable sporty sneaker and comes in some pretty kicky colours (I'm starting to realize that if you're going to go with sporty sneaker, you might as well choose out-of-the-box colours so it looks like you were going more fashion than comfort the whole time, right?).

{4} Rockport TruWalkZero Pod Lace-up: These are lightweight, mimic the natural motion of walking, and have shock absorption that reduces foot and leg fatigue. As with the others, I chose them because the name kept coming up and I also liked the look of them. The sole itself looks tough and durable (read: thick) and the fact that it doesn't completely overwhelm the style makes all the difference. The colour choices are pretty nice, too. I think they would even look ok with a longer skirt, I mean, if you had to.

And I'm not the only one obsessed with sneakers right now! Check out this post by Miss Moss to find some kicky sneaks. What I like out of her choices are the Asics X Liberty London printed pair -- So sweet! And I surprised myself because I actually really dig the Nike Air Max bright yellow and beige pair. When I see them on someone, they look more like kicky loafers than chunky running shoes. What's really interesting is that the New Balance 980s show up on her list, too. They might be rising to the top of my pile!

Also, after walking on the extremely slippery streets of my neighbourhood (ONE snowfall. ONE. And I can't even walk out there), I've narrowed down on some winter walking shoes. I'm liking the Teva Forge Pro Winter Mid Insulated waterproof hiking boot and the Merrell Arctic Fox. Finland's a winter country as well, so I'll definitely need a good boot there, too (though we've talked to someone who lived in Finland and is now living in Edmonton, and she pretty much laughed her face off about how poorly Edmonton handles winter snow. I guess what we consider winter snow removal is almost a joke compared to what happens over there -- i.e. we're crap at it -- no surprise there.)

bunny desktop and easter ideas

I know, I know. You're getting sick of desktop wallpapers, aren't you? Well, I can't help it. I've been feeling very uninspired this month and when I get even a hint of an idea, it turns into a complete flop.

Maybe it's because Easter was early this year and coincides with my birthday or maybe it's because I don't can't eat eggs (they make me so sick!), or maybe (just maybe!) I still haven't gotten over the parking lot bunnies eating a lot of my garden plants last summer. So really, everything that goes along with Easter elicits a big "why bother?" or a "what's the point?" ala Aunt Linda (facial expressions, eye rolls and all).

I might also just have the winter blues. It feels like everyone's talking about crocuses, while we're still trudging around through snow and ice (it literally felt like I was walking through a glacier after they finally plowed out all the huge snow drifts on the walking path yesterday. The snow is me-high in some places!).

Anyway! Enough of my poor-me story. I was in a thrift shop last week and found this super cute little ceramic bunny. There were other ones there, too, and I wanted to say that you should look in your local thrift shop for Easter stuff. If you find some bunnies but don't like how they're painted, just get the ones with the shape you like and spray paint them. Gold seems to be trending right now for eggs, why not spray paint a bunny gold?

I liked the look of this one, blue (like how I'm feeling) and modern looking (which is a lot to ask of thrift store merchandise). I also like that his face isn't too sweet.

So the best part about this guy? I think he was (or is) a cotton ball dispenser.

Behold:

There's a hole right where his little fluffy tail should be and it's the perfect size for a cotton ball.

I'm sure you know where to go to download the desktop wallpapers by now. They're all in my Flickr photostream. I like the iPhone and iPod ones. Bunny face for the lock page and bunny bum for the homescreen. Due to an error on my part, I'm without a Flickr page and all of my Flickr photos have been binned. You can now find the photos here:

1920 x1080

1680 x 1050

ipad

iphone/ipod

You'll give me extra points for this, though, right?

Oh yes. And I thought I would share some of my favourite Easter Pinterest pins with you in a post, but those amounted to a whole three of them (whoa!). There are lots of others that I like on my Spring and Easter board that might tickle your fancy, too. Especially if you needed some last minute ideas.

My top three (that I would probably do if I weren't so grumpy):

I would use the Paint Chip Carrots on cards instead of as a garland.

These bunny ear sachets are so cute! I just wish I had some use for them! I wish it so hard!

I love anything having to do with origami (cuz it's easy and cheap!). Actually, I should rephrase that. I'm more into origami shapes right now than I normally am because they're so graphic and geometric! I love these paper bunnies and these bunny treat holders. I mean, if you were doing an Easter supper, I can really see either of these sitting at every place setting. And I forgot about this origami bunny print which you could use as wrapping or on a card.

Also, I have to tell you. When I went to Greece, we did a lot of family visiting, and, well, obviously, for me there's this huge language barrier that pretty much leaves me just sitting and smiling quietly for hours on end. My one moment of grace came when there were children around and paper and I created the two origami figures I have memorized -- the paper crane and the paper balloon. And they were such. a. hit. Words cannot express how quickly I went from "that Canadian girl who knows nothing" to the superstar hero cool dude of the room. If you were to just learn how to fold a bunny (or anything, really), you'll be the friggin' star of any party you go to forever. And finally, don't forget to blow their minds when you make one out of a gum wrapper. Trust me. Parlor tricks. You should really have some up your sleeve.

my meh projects

Just to prove that I haven't been doing absolutely nothing in the DIY and food department, I thought I'd share a few projects that I originally did up for the blog. The problem was that once I started going through the pictures and thinking more about how to write them up, I decided to scrap them. They're still in my house and I still love them, I just couldn't come up with enough stuff to say in order to write a whole post on them. And I'm still struggling. Nice.

{spray painted fridge magnets} I've been trying to grow up my style in the house lately so one of my first projects towards that goal was spray painting our alphabet magnets. See, it would be really easy to get rid of them, yes, but I still love them and half of them are Greek letters from a set I found on our first trip to Greece together. So I can't really just toss them aside carelessly, and yet, their rainbow colours were really annoying me. A quick spray with some silver spray paint and now they fit right in with our stainless appliances. That's the whole DIY. If you can't stand the rainbow effect your magnets are giving you, spray paint them. They'll look better, I promise.

{muted artwork} In the process of putting our basement back together (after the flooding), I needed a large piece of art for the wall that's opposite the staircase. I got a large canvas at the thrift store with someone's terrible painting on it (again, should've taken a picture of that), then simply painted right over it with regular wall paint I had sitting around. Do you know how much large canvases are to buy new? It's crazy! But do you know how much a crappy piece of art painted on a large piece of canvas is at the thrift store? Like, $5.99! So if you need some cheap art, get a used canvas, paint it white, then paint it however the heck you like!

{no bake cheesecake} I'm torn on this one cuz if you made it, you'd be like, this isn't cheesecake. Well, you're right there. It isn't proper cheesecake. But if you're trying to cut down on sugar AND have your cake, too, this might be straight up your alley. See, the main problem with this picture is that I didn't like it paired with the crust. The crust absolutely ruined it for me. Normally when I make cheesecake, I make the filling and pour it into individual ramikins and eat it without a crust. Don't get me wrong, I am all about pie crust. Most of the time, I could really care less about the filling (unless it's pumpkin), but for cheesecakes, all I want is the cream cheese. This crusted one made me so angry over the waste of cream cheese. I thought to make it again without a crust for your viewing pleasure, but I just haven't had the desire to make it again and I probably won't until Thanksgiving. And the pictures from this pie were so pretty! See? Torn! I'd also really like to give you the recipe now, but it's been so long since I made this that I can't remember if I used one block of cream cheese or two. I'm officially the world's worst blogger.

I have a few projects on the go now. Let's hope I get them right!

DIY: shower curtain

I never mentioned it but I first attempted this in my own bathroom. I used a double sheet and sewed in some buttonholes to attach it. The whole task seemed rather simple in my head but executing it took me a couple days and a few headaches. Not from the sewing itself, but from the calculating and measuring and figuring. It was all worth it, though, because, let me tell you, I've never had a fabric shower curtain. I've always had a plastic one, and you know what? The fabric makes all the difference!

My next mission was a curtain for Idle Husband's bathroom, so when I stumbled on this adorable Space Invaders sheet, it was like fate! Making a curtain the second time around was much easier than the first. I think I picked up a few tips that would help anyone sew up one of these bad boys and you, too, can spend at the very least 3 bucks (yes!) and an hour or two of time on a brand new shower curtain.

{one} Use a template! The first shower curtain I made out of a sheet, I used measurements to figure the length, width, and distance between buttonholes. I thought it would save me so much time but it ended up frustrating the hell out of me and made me do a whole lot of figuring and math (which I really don't like doing). So even if it pains you (and trust me, it pains all of us), remove your existing shower curtain or curtain liner and use it as a guide for your new one. Lay it out, lay the sheet on top of it and mark and copy everything.

{two} Use the hems you've got! If you play it smart, you should only have to hem two sides of your sheet --the sides you cut. If you're using a twin sheet, even better! As I discovered with the Space Invaders sheet (obviously a twin, duh!), you'll only have to hem the bottom as the width is just a touch too small to bother cutting.

{three} Practice making buttonholes on the actual fabric!  It's very important that you practice the stitches on some of the scrap fabric you get from hemming the sheet to size. Thread tension is really important for buttonholes otherwise, you get a lot of pulling and bunching and weird stitches. The only way to make sure it's 100% correct is to practice on the fabric you're actually going to use. My first curtain has a few wonky buttonholes because I used a different sheet material for practice (eh, I thought, all sheets are the same! NOPE). As it turned out, the tension was all wrong for the actual sheet material I used and I didn't realize it until after I'd screwed up a few stitches. The only real saving grace is the fact that the buttonholes aren't very noticeable once the curtain is hung up, so if they are a little crooked don't worry so much about it. And don't forget, it's not like these buttonholes are going to get the use that an actual button would give them, so you don't have to be too technical about getting the stitches spot on.

If this is your first time sewing buttonholes, you'll have to practice making them anyway, and do practice -- a lot! I would give you a tutorial for doing buttonholes, but every machine is different so it's best to look to your particular model to figure it out. Most machines should come with a buttonhole foot (an absolute must) and, hopefully, a manual which will tell you exactly how to do them. There are a lot of great tutorials on the internet if you need visual help, too.

{four} Don't cut out the buttonholes until you do a final check! Make sure you've hemmed it the right way (if your fabric has an up and down), make sure the buttonholes are evenly spaced, and make sure the buttonholes are on the right end of the fabric before sewing. It's a pain in the ass to take out all of your stitches if you've gotten it wrong but it's completely impossible to fix it once you've cut open the slits! I checked the sheet for hemming. Then I marked the buttonhole locations with a pin, which I then traced over with pencil, then I held it up and visually checked it again. Then I sewed the button stitches first, double checked them again, THEN I ripped out the middles. It's a lot of checking but better safe than sorry!

Anyway, the picture doesn't really do it justice, but the curtain is so adorable! It always makes me smile when I see it (the bathroom is just off the stairs so it's the first thing you see when you come up), it lends a brightness and uniqueness to the bathroom (where are you gonna find that curtain in the stores these days?), and the fabric cost me all of $3! Would it be overkill to have curtains for summer and winter? I feel like making more!

friday fixations: peony tulips

If you're a peony lover like I am, plant peony tulips so you can experience the ruffle of a peony well before they actually bloom. These look so much like real peonies that I'm never planting regular tulips again.

Also, if you happen to follow my twitter, you probably would have guessed that our basement flooded last night. Thankfully, we caught it early so the damage is pretty minimal, but our basement is a complete mess and there are four huge fans and a dehumidifier running like jet planes down there. So I'm truthfully more fixated on that today.

These things always happen on a Friday when you've got a million things to do, don't they? (I would have been completely fixated on the tulips today -- as I have been all week -- but they're really more to cheer me up now than anything.)

dream decorating project

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it before, but my ultimate decorating fantasy (well, at the moment, anyway) is to redo Idle Husband's apartment in Athens.

There's nothing inherently wrong with the apartment or the furnishings. It would be perfectly acceptable if one person stayed there but now that I'm around, that apartment has become the most uncomfortable place ever in the history of ever.

I'll start in the bedroom which has really good bones, i.e. a built in closet. The furnishings include:

• 1 hard-as-rock twin bed
• 1 pretty useless desk covered in stuff
• 1 pretty useless shelf with doors also full of stuff no one's using (duh useless!)

The living room/kitchen/dining room, again, has pretty good bones, i.e. the kitchen cabinets are nice and all along one wall. The furnishings include:

• 1 probably too large tv stand and 1 older model tv
• 1 six-seater dining room table
• 4 extra large dining room chairs
• 1 three seat sofa that (get this) converts into a twin bunk bed (a twin set of bunk beds! I discovered this after I insisted I had to know what it converted into after one particularly sleepless night)
• there might be a couple side tables doing nothing but taking up space, too, I just can't seem to focus on the little details anymore

In theory, that doesn't sound so dismal, right? But when I tell you this apartment is 388 square feet and this stuff is literally squished into it, do you understand now?

Let me describe to you a typical stay there. Since the bedroom is pretty much useless to us (twin bed and all), we leave our suitcases in there and live out of them. I know, I said there's a super nice built-in closet? Well, there's stuff in there or no hangers... or some reason why we never use it.

Therefore, we find ourselves pulling out the sofa "mattresses" that are really just foam pads that are a part of the twin bunk bed shenanigans. They don't really function as a double mattress but, pushed together, they kind of work (except they always slide apart mid-night). There are no sheets, no comforters, no suitable pillows for some reason, just blankets, and the mattresses go straight on the floor in the kitchen (my layouts are not to scale, so, to answer your thought, no we can't put the mattress on the bedroom floor. There's not enough space). To give you an idea of space in the living area, once the mattresses are on the floor, in front of the sofa frame, the bottom of the mattress (i.e. where our feet are) wedges right up against the kitchen counters. That's the width of the whole living area.

Now we're wedged on the floor and we have to get up off the floor, go around the dining room chairs -- let's hope we remembered to push them in the night before so no one stubs their toe -- and each other (sad is the person close to the window wall), to access the bathroom (and as much as I don't want to admit it, the older you get, the harder it is to get up off the floor in the middle of the night).

Furthermore, the tv is on the other side of the dining room table, so we can either sit in upright dining room chairs to watch shows at night or we can lay on the floor and angle ourselves so we can watch tv through the dining room chair legs from our makeshift bed (since the couch is unusable with all of its cushions on the floor for sleeping -- not like it was usable for tv viewing before since it's not even facing in the direction of the tv -- it's too wide to be placed that way).

Sounds like a relaxing vacation, right? And the jet lag going to Greece is absolute murder (coming back is much easier on the system). We're usually so tired from the trip itself that all we want to do for the first day is sleep and these are the accommodations we're arriving to. It's better than the chairs at the airport but not by much.

So I have suggested many times that the most awesome gift Idle Husband's parents could ever give us would be to empty the apartment of all the furniture and stuff. They don't have to do anything else to it. Just empty it (cuz for the life of me I have no idea how they got that stuff in there in the first place).

Then I could do something like this:

With this stuff:

Greek apartment by idlewife on polyvore.com

Everything is from IKEA since they make a lot of cheap furniture (this is definitely a project for a small budget) designed for small spaces like this (and it would be easy to get most of it up the spiral staircase or the tiny elevator).

I might go with a different sofa once at the store but I actually had this one when I lived in the NAIT apartment and I like that it's small and can convert into a small double bed (good for anyone else -- especially with kids -- who happens to stay at the apartment when we're not there) and it's relatively comfortable (couple of throw pillows would round it out). The splurge is really the dining room set. I could be talked into another, cheaper version, but I've always liked the look of that particular set plus I love that the chairs slide under the table like pieces of a puzzle which makes the whole set only as large as the table itself. I also chose a small laptop desk that would double as a side console and a room divider when placed behind the sofa. We'd be able to use it as a table for drinks etc. when sitting on the sofa, a sideboard for dining, and we could swing a chair over from the dining room set and use it as a desk as well (multi-functional!).

The final total doesn't include the price of a double mattress (and I would definitely agree to a cheaper IKEA mattress, too. Any actual mattress will do!), and the price of the curtains are included, but they're probably not necessary since I think the existing curtains were just fine -- I just wanted to add some nice cheery colour to my layout.

I would also use existing lighting and accessories, I just can't really remember what they were. If anything, these are the things that should be collected over time, here and there, so that's why I haven't included them. I would definitely use this as an excuse to drag Idle Husband to the Monastiraki flea market again! And despite my usual disgust with fake plants, I think some of the fakes IKEA offers would be really perfect for the place since they'd provide that necessary green life without having to worry about keeping them alive while no one is there (shown: house bamboo, succulent, maidenhair tree -- nothing with flowers because I find fake plants with flowers look... faker than a leafy plant. It's not about the design of the flowers, but the fact that your plant seems to always be flowering and that's not natural).

One final thing, the tiles in the apartment are amazing! They're a coppery browny orange and shiny like glass, so I think blues and greys would work the best in the space because of them. And I'm envisioning a blue-grey tone for the walls. Perhaps a feature wall in the living area to make the space appear wider and then carrying that tone into the bedroom as well.

Pretend decorating can be so much fun. Do you have any dream decorating projects that you'd love to make a reality some day?

diy: window film pattern

Problem: Our neighbours have highly functioning, industrial strength, two-pronged, motion-detecting spotlights at the door to their garage. Or, in other words, they have two high-beam, vehicle-sized headlights attached to their garage that turn on whenever we leave our backdoor or a moth flitters by. This spotlight is in a direct line that goes through our backdoor window, to the kitchen and hits me directly in the eyes. Amazingly, it's been installed at the most perfect in-my-kitchen, through-my-door eyeline. Wonderful.

We don't really need privacy on our backdoor window. No one enters there except us and it's pretty near impossible to see through it from the alley or another yard. The doors aren't metal -- there goes my magnetic curtain rod idea -- but there's really not enough room for swishy curtains anyway (if the closet door is open -- which it almost always is -- the door bumps into it. It's a poorly designed entry. I'll be fixing that). So I thought I should put some window film up. I had some oddly sized leftover pieces from the old house that were just too damn pretty to throw away (i.e. it's my favourite window film pattern to date and I almost always hate throwing bits and pieces away if I think they could be used somehow). The floral pattern is not exactly an easy pattern to piece together, though, so if I tried to make the larger pieces work, it just would have looked like I was... trying to make the larger pieces work. And that wouldn't have worked at all.

What I did:

- printed out a simple hexagon after drawing it in photoshop -- i.e. clicking the shape tool, and dragging out the shape until it was approximately the size I thought looked good.

- cut out said hexagon for a template.

- tediously traced and cut out about ten hexagons (to start) from the scraps of window film I had. (I still have a scab on my thumb from using scissors all day.)

- found the exact middle of the window, and placed my first hexagon dead centre of that. I used a wet piece of paper towel to wet the window for each hexagon, then smoothed out the bubbles as best I could (I should restick some of the top ones to get the bubbles out, but bubbles are more visible from the outside, so it's not a humongous deal).

- eyeballed the distances between each subsequent hexagon thereafter. (Once wet, the film is really easy to move around and reposition.) I would have made another template that could have acted as a marker between the hexagons so I'd get the perfect distance each time, but I didn't want to get OCD about it.

- since I was working with limited window film, I made sure to do the important side of the window first (the right side) and I stopped cutting whole hexagons rather frequently to cut out edge and corner pieces so I was sure I'd have enough.

- to cut edge and corner pieces, I took the discarded backing from previously cut hexagons and put them on the window where I needed them, then folded them and cut them to fit. Essentially making new templates for the half and quarter hexagons.

And then I ran out of window film. But no matter. The left side isn't the offensive side. It's the right. And now that it's covered up, the eye-blasting spotlights create a soft, flowery glow seen from the kitchen which is a whole lot prettier and (come to think of it) safer. Especially when trying to use a sharp knife after being eye assaulted by burning harsh yellow high-beams. Check out the night shot. Now imagine a world without pretty window film.

If I actually look into the original source for this film, I might be able to get more and I'll do the window up properly (and the window in the stairs because I'd much rather look at this than poop brown siding). Until then, the hexagon look is really fun and interesting. I'd definitely make my own pattern using shapes again (I'm imagining triangles now!) particularly if my only option was plain, rice paper style window film -- which is seriously the best looking option at Home Depot. (Hello, grape-vine window film. I'm talking to you.)

don't-DIY: wallpaper covered lampshade

I really wish this idea had gone better. Smoother. Nicer. But it just didn't. And sometimes, that's what happens in the DIY world. You have this great idea and about halfway into it you think, "This is not working. Please stop." But you can't stop. You just keep doing it, determined to have it work out like it did in your mind.

This is one of those projects.

I'm sure you remember this lamp. The lamp from my how to fix a vintage lamp post.

Well, it was determined that the lampshade was quite dull and very boring.

I had two different ideas on how to fix it up.

One involved fabric flowers and ribbons; the other involved using my scroll-y vintage wallpaper.

I had really lusted after the flower idea. I really did. The problem was in finding the fabric. It had to be (in my mind) that perfect shade of pink. Pink like the flowers on the base. Any other shade would (and did) look wrong.

I had the wallpaper idea one day as I was cleaning scraps up and realized the yellow kinda worked with the stem and the pattern kinda made sense towards the whole flower scheme (climbing vines? lattice work? whatever). And since I had the wallpaper already in my possession and since I discovered it was the perfect width, I decided to go ahead with option two. Even though it was the less desirable option.

The first challenge was in making a pattern or template for the shade. Thank goodness I had the foresight to do this with some inexpensive craft paper instead of cutting up my roll of wallpaper a dozen times. I'm sure there's somewhere on the internet that can teach you the mathematics involved with doing this, but I greatly underestimated the difficulty of this first step and besides, math doesn't usually play fair with me.

Eventually (through pure frustration and annoyance at my whole craft room and table being taken up with this project for weeks), I ended up putting the lampshade back on the base and wrapping, taping, and cutting the craft paper while on the shade. Definitely not smart. Definitely don't do it.

Then I stewed for another week over how to attach the paper to the shade.

Eventually (and more through my sheer annoyance at not having a single ounce of table to take pictures or do other projects), I made the decision to go with hot glue and just frickin' do it already damned the consequences. At least with hot glue, I can pull it off later. I'm pretty sure I can pull it off later. I've picked it off other things before...

The resulting shade isn't... that bad, I guess. The photo makes the edge appear very crinkled and unruly, but it doesn't look like that in person. Or at least not until you're very close up. And it's very "oh. damn." if you happen to get a peak inside the shade. That's when you realize it's kind of a chop-shop job.

I'm going back to the flower concept even if it takes me 5 years to find fabric. It took me 10 years to fix the lamp in the first place. Five years will feel like a cake walk.

friday fixations

{tattly} I'll be totally honest. I'm really not into tattoos. It's not that I don't like them. I think they're fine. But I'm just such a terrible flip-flopper that I could never commit to something as permanent as a real tattoo. I'd love it the first year, but by year two, I'd definitely regret my decision and wish I had picked something different. So I really quite like these tattoos from Tattly. They're cute and stylish and different and temporary.

{sleeping beauty's paris apartment} I wish I could find larger, hi-res photos of this amazing treasure chest -- and more of them, actually. The story goes that a woman left her apartment in Paris before WWII, and never returned but dutifully paid the rent over all of these years. She recently died (at 91!) and hence her secret apartment was found. The story mostly revolves around a famous artist's painting BUT I'm more interested in viewing the apartment's decor and her other 'regular' things. Anyone who owns a stuffed ostrich has GOT to have far more amazing things than just one singular painting.

{amy poehleroids} Oh Amy, you're the best.

{vintage jewelry boxes} We stayed at mom's house for a good chunk of our vacation and she had the most amazing jewelry box in the guest room. Some vintage red and gold find she picked up for pennies at a thrift store in town. I remember her getting it and I remember I kinda liked it okay, but I left it with her since I don't have a dresser or anything on which to put a jewelry box. If I'm being totally honest, it was more in my 'meh' feelings category. But once I saw it filled, it totally flipped a switch in my brain and now all I can think about is going to thrift stores and looking for boxes. (I have to vent about this suede travelling jewelry box I found on vacation. It didn't have a price on it and once I got to the counter, I found out that the store's new policy was to send everything back to get repriced and then put on display to be resold another day. I am so mad about that. SO. MAD. It was AMAZING. It had spots for everything from necklaces to rings and it had a little snap clasp so you could just grab it and throw it in a bag for vacationing and all it needed was a little cleaning. That's about THE worst sin a thrift store can commit. Taking a find away from you. I'm also rather mad I didn't demand to speak to the manager.)

{food photography} I guess it's no surprise that I love this subject, but I extra love it when it's done a little differently like these fab photos (the mushroom and radish photos and all of the little food vignettes are my faves). I wish I were more of an artist...

{tulips} Finally the bulbs are out! We got a boat load of frilly pastel peony tulips and some manly black Queen of the Night tulips. As a tip, it's much easier to plant them if you dig a large enough trench for all of them at once. It seems like more work, but it helps a lot in spacing and arranging (also fingers crossed our annoying mystery digging animal doesn't root them up). If bulbs are still available when things go on sale, I might get some alliums and galanthus, too (although I have no idea where I'd put them!).

{plant paintings} Wow. That's so neat! Isn't that neat?

DIY: wrapped feather gel pens

I got this idea from Design Sponge's feature on making your own old fashioned feather pen. I really did intend to do it completely the way indicated, but then I found myself in the dollar store face to face with a bag of multi-coloured feathers for a buck. It kind of excited me because if I bought them, I wouldn't have to go about dying my own feather AND they were only a buck. For a whole bag!

Then I scrounged around for pen refills. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any (you'd think a dollar store would have that), but I did find cute miniature gel pens for a buck. I thought my feather pen idea would be so much cuter if I used pens to match the feather and oh, the rainbow-y coloured cuteness that would ensue!

Until I got home, cut into my first feather, unscrewed my first gel pen and realized the feather was too small and the gel pen too thick. The pen wouldn't go into the feather as instructed in the original DIY. Bummer.

At first, I was going to drive all over town looking for feathers to fit the gel pens and if I'd have to, I guess I could buy some proper pen refills. Until I had a little brain storm/dream revelation that night about wrapping them with some thread to keep the pen on. And hence was born the wrapped feather gel pen!

There are a lot of feathers to choose from, so try to pick one with the thickest and longest quill (that's the long non-feathery part). Cut the tip off, then use a sharp blade to cut half of the quill away. Basically, you want to cut enough out so the pen fits as flat to the feather as possible.

It doesn't take very much force to cut it, but it's best to work at it incrementally. It'll hold up to some pretty good jabs, but it's still delicate.

Keep referencing your pen to make sure you've cut enough. I also cut the end off my gel pens just above where the air bubble was to make them a little shorter.

I used a binder clip to hold the two together while preparing and starting the string.

Measure out a lot of embroidery thread. Maybe more than you think you need (it's better to have too much than too little). Tie a knot at the top of the pen and start knotting around the pen and feather with a basic friendship knot.

This took me forever to photograph and then I realized it would be better with a video. Therefore, the knots on the blue pen aren't as tight as they should be, and you can't really see the swirl. But if you're not doing it in front of a camera very awkwardly (it's so hard to do something like that while looking through a camera screen, and if I didn't look in the screen, I'd end up moving the whole project off camera), the swirl will come pretty easily. Just let the string move around the pen as you're knotting it and keep pushing it together tightly.

If all goes accordingly, it should look like this.

If you want fancy black tips, just grab a felt marker and put them on however you'd like. Just make sure to wipe off any excess and allow to dry before using.

Finally, I capped the ends with a removed quill tip to keep the ink from getting all over everything (just find one out of your feathers that will stay on firmly. It doesn't have to be from the feather you used). Gel ink comes out onto everything really easily, trust me and my rainbow hands.

That's it! It took me about 15 minutes to do one, so it's a really fast project and a nice little gift for yourself or someone else. I still prefer the sophisticated Design Sponge feather, but these have a fun playfulness that I really love, too, and they're a lot smaller so they'll fit perfectly into an envelope (which is exactly where mine are going).