Aug
Arthur Singer Portfolio of Bird Prints
This is another find from Nana’s camp. I saw potential in these. Now I just need to find some nice frames to put them in. There is a set of 8 here and they were in the original folder. The folder says “Portfolio of Bird Prints Painted by Arthur Singer for American Home.” I looked these prints up on Ebay to see what people were selling them for and it really varies. They are on average $30 per print unframed. The framed ones are going for an average of $90 each. The copyright on the prints says 1977.
Arthur Singer was an amazing artist and illustrated more than 20 books. Read more about him here. I really like the composition and layout of his prints. The colors are very vivid and these prints in particular are in great shape.
Here are a few of my favorites from this collection.
I love this picture of Arthur Singer illustrating out in the field. It looks like he enjoyed getting up close and personal with his subjects.
Tags: Art, design, Illustration, Interior Design, vintage
Aug
DIY Scrabble Letter Coasters
When I was helping my grandmother clean out her camp I found 2 Scrabble games that were in rough shape, so she decided to give them away. I decided I would try doing something with the letters. I found a couple of examples online of other scrabble letter coasters, so I thought I would give it a try.
- I bought a ROLL OF CORK that is sold to use in the bottom of your kitchen drawers.
- I used HOT GLUE to glue down the pieces on the cork.
- An X-ACTO KNIFE to cut the cork.
- MOD PODGE to make everything stick together and give the coaster a finished look.
- HIGH GLOSS SPRAY to make the coaster water resistant.
It was a fun little project. Eric is always putting my glass in the dishwasher, when I intend to reuse it throughout the day, so hopefully this new coaster with my name will lay claim to my glass and save us some water!
Aug
Antique School Desk
My husband and I have been watching American Pickers quite a bit lately. It is such a great show! It has apparently been having an amazing influence on Eric! He spotted this desk on the roadside the other day. He came home and consulted me before picking it up. I had no idea it would be this cool OR this old. From what I have read this is a 1920′s school desk. It is in pretty rough shape, but we intend to paint it and fix it up for Savannah. As you can see she already loves it to pieces!
I searched around and found this same style desk selling on Ebay for $200. He seems to think his is from the 1940′s. However, this company has a similar desk that they are saying is circa 1920′s. Wikapedia says that the ballpoint pen was not invented until 1938 so children were most likely still using ink wells in school up until the early 1940′s. This will be a fun little project for Eric. I will let him join in the fun of showing you AFTER pics when he is finished.
Aug
DIY Wedding: Anniversary Edition
It has been 3 years since Eric and I tied the knot. Our official anniversary is the 19th, but I thought I would put together a little blog post about some of the DIY moments and graphic design pieces that went along with the wedding planning. We had a spectacular day for our wedding. It was almost a little chilly for August. I think I prayed so hard that it wouldn’t be too hot or rain, that I made it cold. I didn’t mind the chill in the air because we had an English Tea reception and hot tea was waiting for our guests after the ceremony. Our wedding was very unconventional. In all honesty it was to save money! We had our wedding on a Sunday. We got married at the Ye Olde England Inne in Stowe, Vermont. They have a perfect spot there to have a small reception and they even have a banquet hall in case of rain. It was very affordable and working with Chris and his staff was great. We had scones, tea, finger sandwiches and other assorted finger foods. I really didn’t miss the sit-down meal and I don’t believe my guests minded too much. We had music and “cake” from Mirabelle’s Cafe in Burlington, Vermont. They made us chocolate torte squares that are to DIE FOR! No cake?! I told you my wedding was unconventional! The little treats worked out great since we had a lot of other sweets there for the non-chocolate people.
I arranged all of my own flowers. I bought them wholesale and spent the days before the wedding trimming and arranging. This was a huge success for me. I didn’t know if I could pull it off, but it worked out so well, that I would encourage any bride to do her own flowers.
My Mother-in-Law, Sue Small of Sue Small Bridal made my dress and did alterations on my Sister-In-Law’s dress. I loved being able to work with her on exactly what I wanted and it was everything I could have hoped for.
All photos are courtesy of Closed Circle Photo. Kelly was amazing and was such a pleasure to work with.
I designed and printed all of the invitations and programs for the wedding.
I designed and printed all of my wedding paper at home using a photo printer
and special ordered paper from The Paper Mill Store.
I was so pleased with how my DIY bouquet came out.
I did loose leaf mint tea and chocolate biscotti for favors with a sticker
on the inside that said “mint to be together”.
The kids favors were purple and lime green jelly bellies.
My Dad made a cupcake stand for the chocolate torte squares.
I got these beautiful glass vases for free and spruced them up with ribbon and river rocks.
Unconventional guest book. I put all of the well wishes into a scrapbook after the wedding.
Our card box
An English Tea reception was perfect for this chilly August day.
Happy Anniversary to us and many more to come!
Aug
Back to School Small Byte: Easy Washable Labels
I can’t believe it’s already August! All of the recent back to school talk has inspired my post today.
When Savannah was an infant, I made her baby food (for another post) and sent it to daycare with her in little containers. The school fridge was a bit of a cluster, so I was sure to label everything VERY clearly with her name. My husband is the manager of a sporting good store that specializes in hockey equipment and one day I asked him to bring home some of that cute pink hockey tape I saw hanging behind the register. I figured that tape must hold up to getting wet really well and must be fairly durable. Little did I know it would become an EXCELLENT solution for labeling all of Savannah’s things! It goes through the dishwasher with no problem. Here is how I use it most:
Hockey tape comes in all different colors and can be found at sporting good stores. Labeling sticky suntan lotion is so much easier with this tape, label your kids shoes (put on the inside tongue), label tote bags and so much more!
Aug
Glider Before and After
This is a chair that was given to us after my Grandfather passed away. My Mother-In-Law, Sue Small reworked the cushions before Savannah was born because this chair went in the nursery. I painted this chair because it really doesn’t match anything in her room with the light wood and the finish on the arms is wearing off and has gotten sticky over the years. The task of painting this chair was overwhelming to me because of the all the moving parts and tough to reach areas on the bottom. I sanded, primed and spray painted it. I ended up deciding to spray paint after seeing that there were impossible areas to reach while I was priming. I think it came out great and I am only a little dizzy from the fumes. I wore a mask, but that stuff is pretty toxic no matter what you do! The good part about spray paint was that I was done in about 20 minutes. This is a chair that we will have for a while, so I am glad I was able to psych myself up to tackle it.
I have a love/hate relationship with the ottoman. It is a little tough to justify the space it takes up, but sometimes it is just nice to have something to put your feet up on.
Aug
Just Frame It!
I finally bought a frame that fit this piece! This is one of my favorite drawings from high school. It was done in ’97, so I was a sophomore at The Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, CT. My art teacher, Mr. Coster was amazing. He allowed me to pretty much do what I wanted and gave me the skills to take my art to the next level. I really miss drawing and should get back into it. I am not sure what is stopping me. I still have a lot of the supplies and I know where I can buy paper. Maybe having this piece on the wall will finally push me to get the conté crayons out again. Eventually, I will splurge on getting some of my art professionally framed, but this cheapo frame will do for now.
Aug
Bedroom Revamp
This blog seems to be a lot of DIY and home decorating these days, but I have wanted to do a lot of this stuff for a while and now I have the TIME! Since we broke the bed … go ahead joke all you want, but the bed was REALLY old, I have wanted wanted to make a fabric headboard. My parents bought the bed and dressers when they got married. On Saturday I just knew I had to make it happen. I had the idea of what I wanted for fabric and after I watched Grace from Design*Sponge create her headboard, I was ready! I didn’t do a step-by- step for this because Grace did such a wonderful job with her video, that it’s really all you need to get started.
The fabric I chose is slightly off white and black, which goes fairly well with the rest of the furniture (white) that is in the room. I am a little disappointed that I couldn’t find anything I liked with a pure white and black, but I am learning to live with it and I am probably the only one that will notice. We plan to get a new duvet that isn’t beige, but we have a hard time with white duvets with a toddler in the house. I am having a tough time deciding which one I want and I am waiting for some deals on Overstock.com bedding clearance. They have some amazing prices on duvets and sheets if you have never checked them out! We bought the end tables for dirt cheap. One thing you may not notice in these photos that made a huge difference to us, is that we brought the bed up about 6 inches with risers. Our bed is on a cheap frame and we felt like something was really making the room seem small. Bringing the bed up and having side tables that are a bit tall makes the room feel so much larger. The pattern also helps to draw your eye up when you walk into the room. We also are able to put the lovely under-the-bed boxes that Savannah is standing on UNDER the bed now.
***Small Byte*** One thing I learned while doing this project is that foam is VERY expensive, so save those coupons or try to find a place online that sells foam cheaper than the fabric store. I paid more for foam than I did on fabric and wood! I also found this great website that I will buy from next time I shop for upholstery grade fabric. I found very similar fabric at the local fabric store for $5-$6 more a yard!
I am going to attempt to make a pillow from the leftover fabric from the headboard. My sewing skills are quite lacking, so we will see if I come up with something presentable!
Tags: DIY
Jul
Junk vs. Gem
I am helping my grandmother clean out her camp and we are attempting to have a yard sale. She is 88 years old and has always had a love for collecting things and absolutely hates to throw anything away. My grandmother and I understand each other and I have a way of being able to connect with her on certain things. I have continuously told her I would be willing to help her with a yard sale and help her get the camp organized. I know it is difficult for her to throw things away and I know it will not happen in a week or even a month, but I hope to help her in any way that I can. I want to get as many pictures into albums as possible and have some time to sit with her and write a bit about each picture. My “Nana” had a lot of great adventures in her younger years and they are all well photographed. I would be so disappointed if all of those stories went untold.
Nana has some great pieces and a whole lot of junk. Today I learned to slow down and take a look at things closer before I deemed them junk. There was a box of old pictures and 2 Saturday Evening Posts that might be worth holding on to (gems) that I was quick to judge because it had a pile of bills from 1965 on top. I also remembered seeing this yellow filing cabinet (gem) years ago when she moved her stuff out of this house. We bought her house 5 years ago (gem) and most of her things went to the camp or to a storage unit that has gone untouched. I am so glad I was able to find this again and was happy that she let me have this filing cabinet. I think it goes great in my office. Filing cabinets are not cheap. A new filing cabinet of this size goes for $75 and although I have needed one for a while, I am certainly glad I waited because this goes much better with the colors down here than a boring black one would. Although, the thought of going through all of her stuff (a lot of which is junk) is daunting, I am actually really looking forward to the possibility of finding some gems. The photographs, which I know are there are enough to keep me going.
Jul
DIY Magnetic Bulletin Board
I finally found an affordable magnetic surface to create a magnet board with! I bought a cookie sheet at Christmas Tree Shops for $4.95. It was so easy.
Cookie Sheet from Christmas Tree Shop
I downloaded this pattern from a free vectors website and changed the colors to go with my theme.
I printed it out on 2 sheets of 11×17.
I sprayed the cookie sheet with spray mount adhesive.
Then put the paper on the cookie sheet, cut the excess paper off and this is the final product. The glue was still a little wet from where I tiled the two pieces of paper together, but you can hardly notice it in person.
