Encyclopedia Side Table

If you kept up with me via social media while I was off the blog grid then you saw me post this fabo table not too long ago. This was one of those projects that I had all the pieces laying around for ages and I just never did anything. But then I did and I instantly didn't want to sell it. 

Reed and I finished this piece off back in about February but I just never found a spot I wanted to photograph it. Then I did, right in my own living room and I fell even more in love. But alas, I do not need another table, despite how cool this one is so it's up for grabs. 

This awesome side table features some 1950's  world encyclopedias, mid century modern table legs, vintage beveled glass, and hardware. 

That list is sure full of history. Each material has so many story lines etched on its surface and I am IN LOVE with it. I wanted the table to feel like it was made from history and I think that was achieved nicely by the simple design. 

The best part of the table is the negative space between the binding on the books and the glass top. 

Such beautiful lines that allow each material to stand on its own. 

 I hope the home that this little table finds loves it as much as I do.

All this history needs a place to be the center of attention, and those lines need some loving too :)

I am hoping to pump out a new furniture design every month for the remainder of the year. Join me on Instagram to keep up to date on the progress and I will be sharing the final products here!!

Ordering Custom Art & Home Decor (Why it's awesome!)

Last week I shared with y'all how to love a creative person. It was really fun to write because it kinda made me understand myself a little better, and totally made me appreciate Reed so much. As I was writing that post I was about to start three HUGE projects I have had on my plate for  a while and so I was still very much in the excited stage. Now I am in the midst of those projects and I'm still pumped but I'm a little bit nervous too. Every time I start a project for a client I always have to explain myself to the people who help me along the way. I don't want that to sound bad, it's always good explaining but I start off with "Well, my dream is to be a furniture builder, so I am starting this for a lady..." and what I have learned from Reed is I need to give myself more credit. I AM  furniture builder, I AM designing and building this for a CLIENT.

So as a kind of transition from last weeks post on how to love a creative person I thought I would write a post about why supporting a creative person is important, and how you can do that while also getting awesome work for your home :)

I don't want this to be a "buy my product" post, so I am not going to post any thing "for sale" but I am using images of pieces I have built and sold in the past. I want this to be a post that will talk about the benefits from buying from a maker and helping support THEM while getting awesome unique work for YOU.  

So anyway, in this world of IKEA furniture at awesome prices, everyone falling head over heals for chalk paint thrift finds, I have found that often times it is hard to convince people that purchasing custom work is worth it. I get it that custom work can cost more than a thrift shop, and some cases IKEA. But when you are purchasing work made by a small time, small business you are doing so much more than purchasing an item for your home.

You are supporting a dream.

You are helping pay the bills.

You are funding a new business. 

You are telling them they have a talent. 

You let them know they are worth it. 

Now, those are not meant to be cheesy gooey "quick go buy something from ETSY" reasons. Those are legit things that every time I get a purchase of any item, $15- $1,500, will run through my mind. I am always so encouraged when someone thinks my product is WORTH their money. They don't ask for discounts, they don't try and barter or bargain with me. They treat me like they would a real business. THAT means so much! 

Now, I also wanted to share a few reasons on why purchasing custom work benefits YOU!

You are getting a quality piece.

  - Usually. Now I get that some ETSY shops may not produce the "best" work. But for the most part, people that are wanting this to be a career. They are producing QUALITY work for  a crazy good deal. Think about it, when you purchase something from IKEA, 1. it's not real wood and 2. you have to put it together when you get home. If you order a handmade cusotm piece of furniture from a local builder, they will put in HOURS of work, and use the best materials and you don't have to worry about assembling it when you get home! 

You are getting something totally unique. 

- You know how when you see an HGTV home and it always has the coolest stuff, like so many unique pieces that you can never find. Usually, it's because you are right, you can't just find those. They are having pieces made for the space, or reworked specifically for them. Guess what YOU CAN DO THAT TOO! It may sounds crazy, but you don't have to copy an entire room from the Pottery Barn magazine, you can make one that functions and looks the way YOU want when you work with a custom builder/maker. 

You are getting a story.

- This is my favorite part about buying from small businesses. I love to tell people, "Yeah I found this girl in town that does custom work, she has a sweet little studio where she does everything in her yard." Or whatever the story was. There is always a story, how you found them, the process you went through to design the piece, a new friendship, SO MANY STORIES! 

Basically, buying custom art and home decor isn't as scary and expensive as you may think. Do your research find a local maker that can help you build a dining room table to fit YOUR space AND your BUDGET. Find someone that you want to support their dream of painting for a living. ETSY has made this a little easier, but if you want something local to you, usually the good ole google can help you find someone local. Just put in a little bit of time and you could end up with something you never dreamed could be apart of your home. 

Find someone and be apart of their story. 

Master Bedroom Revamp!

Back in January I mentioned that after 2 and a half years I finally decided to tackle our "master bedroom". It isn't really a master, its just got the better windows than the other bedroom, there is no on-suit or walk in closet. But hey, saying it's a master bedroom makes me feel a little grown up :)

Anyway,  I was finally ready to make this room be a place I enjoyed. We had moved furniture around multiple times and I had even painted the walls but I never attempted to make it look like anything special. With a few minor tweaks and a teeny tiny budget I was able to take our hodge-podge college-esque room and make it feel like adults live in it.

The first part of that revamp involved figuring out a space to put all of our clothes and shoes. Like I said before there is no walk-in closet so I have the one closet in the room, Reed has the one in the guest room and before we had a metal rod that Reed hung his work clothes on. Not so pretty.... 

These built-ins where a hassle because we didn't really plan super well, but they are a god send now!!  (Just check out this before picture... ugh horrible.)

After we got the built-ins in place I realized I needed a new bedside table. I just didn't have enough space between the bed and the built-ins. So this lovely galvanized tray turned hanging table was perrrfecct! 

Then I needed to make our furniture match. This dresser is one we've had since Reeds high-school days but it was kinda orange and didn't match the stain on the bed or the new built-ins. So I fixed that one lovely afternoon with a can of paint and stain :) Now it may possibly be my favorite piece of furniture in the house.

 Last but certainly not least, we got new bedding. I found this lovely ruffle quilt set online, to be honest it wasn't exactly what I wanted. It's more dingy than ivory, but hey it hides Tepes hair and dirty paws quite well :) And now I get to enjoy my room. All the little details fit, and it's a space I feel like belongs to the rest of our house.

It may not be a big room, it may not have a walk-in closet or on-suit, but it fits us well. It's a lovely "first" master bedroom. I'm sure it will be changed again before we leave this house but for now I'm extremely happy and so proud of us for finally finishing moving in after almost three years :)

PS> Check out these links for the posts on each one of the projects that completed this Master Bedroom Revamp! 

Vol. 1 -Dresser Makeover 

Vol. 2 - DIY Hanging Bedside Table 

Vol. 3- DIY Built-Ins 

Ikea Frame Hack

Fall is here! 

Well, football and school are here but the summer weather is still in full swing. But who cares, I'm going to get the house ready for all those cool nights and warm colored leaves. So first up is changing out our living room decorations to something a bit more "festive" :) 

So I bought this frame from Ikea a couple of weeks ago for a different reason. But then it wasn't the right size so I figured I'd come up with another use for it. It was the perfect size to replace the butterfly collection we had on the mantel before, but the clean white wasn't really meshing with everything else. To fix that I found a piece of scrap wood from the old horse barn on our property, and luckily is was just enough!

Then I measured, and cut the board in to 4 strips. 

Then angled the corners so they fit together "seamlessly".
Then I clamped the strips to the frame and flipped all of it over so we could see the frame. 

And finally I just pre-drilled and screwed the frame to its "new" face! 

So, there it is! My first Ikea hack!! And my first fall themed post for the year :) 

I love the way the old boards look with all of the other decor. And even though my cuts were a bit wonky and the boards didn't line up perfect, I think that just adds to the character of the wood!
This was a 2 hour revamp of our mantel so I can't wait until I really get to sit down with new decorations to give this room that cool autumn feel!

How are you welcoming in this cooler season?

Chalkboard Murphy Bed

Have you ever wished you had more space? Well, we have a tiny house and so I'm constantly wishing we had more space. But we love the house and I'm slowly figuring out ways to make the space we have work for us! 

Now that we have been in the house for 6 months and had a few visitors and are planning to have family over during the Holidays I was really motivated to figure out how to make our guest room function as a guest room and a craft room.
This is what it looked like before, just a twin bed. So it didn't do so well when we had guests. Plus these pictures make it look good, it was NOT this good. There were little piles all over the place and you could never see the bed. Basically, it desperately needed an update to make it functional!

 What we ended up doing is 1. moving most of my art stuff out to the studio. All that is left is just my craft paint and some of my nicer art supplies. 2. we took the twin bed out and made a murphy bed! That way when we didn't have guests I could use the floor space!  The twin bed we had was actually two mattresses (no box spring) so we took out the frame and built the box for the murphy bed big enough to fit both mattresses side by side. I scored a nice mattress topper for super cheap and got some sheets to fit and TA DA!! A guest room that our guests can actually use!

Reed is an amazing husband. He thought it was crazy and didn't want to do it, but he loves me and trusted that I knew what I was doing. So we loaded up and built the murphy bed one night after work. Yep he stayed up past mid-night with me getting it all together :) Now he likes it and doesn't think I'm quite so crazy.

Now we are ready for family to visit, and for when we don't have guests too :)  I'm gonna write up a post later about how we made the entire bed and how you can do it too! It was so easy, once we planned it out and got the materials it took just a few hours to get it totally put together. And now I have this rad chalkboard to keep track of projects, or just write pretty notes on!

I'm one happy girl! 

Natural Cotton & Burlap Christmas Tree

Decembers Giveaway is up and going until the 14th!! Go enter to win everything you need to set up your mantel for Christmas!! GIVEAWAY >>>>>>>

I've said this about a thousand times this season but this is the first year Reed and I really get to do Christmas. And what I mean by that is last year we were in school, had an itty bitty house, and went out of the country for 2 weeks for Christmas with his family. So this year I have the time and a little more space to actually decorate! But with it being our first year we didn't have a lot to work with. 

I would love to take credit for this idea but I can't. I have a friend who is an interior designer with Erin Galloway Interiors and she had her Christmas show at the beginning of November and this is how she decorated one of her trees. The natural cotton was STUNNING! She did it a little different than I did, but it was originally her idea so all credit goes to her!

First of all this awesome tree is pre-lit and was originally $200 from Lowe's, buttttttt my hubs worked at Lowe's last year and got it for $40 after Christmas!! I know it isn't super unique but for now it will have to do :) And we have our precious baby to be unique enough for the tree too. While we were putting up the tree Tepe decided to play around in the garland from the Dollar Store. She even put one of her toys (a stick from outside, we buy her toys but she prefers natural) on the bottom limbs of the tree. Ooo this baby girl melts my heart!

To spruce up this pre-lit stiff tree I got out the burlap bunting I made last year. (Last year we didn't have a tree and didn't have room to get one so I made my own out of burlap. Check it out here) I'm glad I saved it because I didn't have any other garland type thing to add! But I just wrapped the tree with it making sure it didn't look perfect ;)
Then I took this bundle (is that what you call it?) of cotton and got Reed to cut off each little bloom. Erin did it differently and actually took some of the entire twigs with the blooms on them and stuck them in to the tree. That made her tree have loads more dimension and I kinda wish I did it that way. But hey, live and learn!

I just love how the tree turned out! I was planning to make some other ornaments and try and buy a few but I love the way the cotton looks like ornaments and seems to glow with the lights. I think I may just leave it all natural this year and pick up some ornaments after the holidays :)

So there is our Christmas tree that cost $40 total! I just can't get over it, some one come visit so we can sit by my tree and sip hot coco!!

Don't forget to go enter the giveaway that Rachel and I are holding! Enter before the 14th and you can win loads of new Christmas decorations!!  GIVEAWAY

Paper Star Tutorial [Christmas Mantel 2013]

Ok, I may have started a bad addiction  tradition. I am totally decorated for Christmas (minus the outside) and we still are still over a week away from Thanksgiving! But my excuse is that I have no one but me and the hubs coming over until after Thanksgiving, so why decorate when no one will see it???

Anyway, blogging is supporting this addiction tradition so I am going to take full advantage and show yall some tutorials for my super cheap and easy decorations! So far I've shared how I got the weathered wood look and how I made that pretty dang good looking wreath (if I do say so myself). Now it is time to share the fabulous paper stars that I've got pretty much everywhere and never wanna take down :)

First things first. You need some sort of glue (I used modge podge because I use it for everything.) paper, and scissors. Thats it! Then all you do is head over to Home Made Gifts Made Easy and check out their PDF download for the pattern. (She has a tutorial too, but I'm some one who basically never reads directions. I glance then do it how every I want.. oops!)

Second, make sure you have your baby cuddled in your lap and the best TV marathon you can think of. Yes, it is easy enough that you can do cuddled up with your pup while watching TV!! 

Third. Use those scissors and cut out all your pieces. The PDF has 3 different sizes and you can even resize them to fit what you are looking for. This is actually smaller than the smallest file provided. 

Once everything is cut out grab a ruler/straight edge. (sorry I forgot that in my materials pictures!) line it up with the dotted line and bend. Do this to each dotted line. Once you have folded and creased the paper nicely add glue to your right hand tab. This will be the tab that you tuck in to create the "cone" point of the stars. 

Fourth. Repeat that process for all 5 pieces of your star. Then once you have all of your "cones" put together you can start attaching them to one another. This was a bit tricky. Apparently I needed more elbow room and was annoying Tepe so she left. 

To attach them simple put a small amount of glue on the OUTSIDE of the two tabs on the top of your cone. Then you simply fit the taps to the underside of your next cone. If you are using double sided tape or a faster drying glue it would probably be less hectic. But I enjoyed the elbow flailing so I contorted my fingers to pinch the pieces together until they dried. 

Getting the first two together is relatively easy, attaching the next 2 are a bit harder but you can do it!
 

Fifth. Once you have four of your cones together it really looks like a star. I've found that it is easier to attach the final point if you 1. wait until the glue is totally dry. 2. pinch them all down flat. Yes, these stars can be folded and stored "flat"! But what this does is make it easier for you to get your fingers inside to attach the final point. 

Sixth. Attach your final point! It is a bit tricky and totally requires some strange finger twists and probably lots of elbow room. But it is possible! However, all you will be doing is attaching ONE SIDE of your final point. You can see in the first picture below that if you hold it by one end there is a slight gap. You can fix it by 1. tying some fishing line between your final ends or 2. glueing it together. I left mine alone because I'm lazy and I messed with them enough that it wasn't super noticeable :)  But leaving the unfinished side allows you to fold up your star and store flat once you are ready to take them down, or you can affix the side permanently and just never take them down :) 

And thats it! Just repeat that process as many times as stars your heart desires! I have 1 large, 2 mediums, 4 smalls, and 3 extra smalls all around our house. 

For our mantel I hung the stars by pocking a hole the through top point and threading fishing line through it and tying that to a thumb tack. I love that you can't see the fishing line, it makes them look like they are just floating!  

And thats my third tutorial for this mantel. I LOVE the way it is going. I may just have to keep it up forever... just kidding, but maybe. Don't forget to check out how I made the Faux Weathered Boards, and the Easy DIY Wreath! I'll be adding a few more tutorials next week too so be sure to check them out!!