it's all about the details...

I think most of my close friends + family would agree when I say that I'm a pretty big-picture thinker in most areas of life but often surprise myself by my acute attention to detail...sometimes to a fault. In any case, I think you can gain a lot by putting your senses to work and noticing the little things in life. Given my thoughts on the matter, I guess that's why my favorite things to shop for are assesories, and my favorite home decor projects to work on are the quick and easy ones like adding fun knobs to a dresser or replacing old fabric on a chair...they take so little but add so much, in my opinion.

After a few months of sitting at my desk on a rinky-dink stool, I finally found the chair I had been loooking for...a sturdy one with a removable seat that I could cover with a fabric to match the striped desk I posted about last week ($7 at a garage sale).

The wood was a tad bit too light for my liking so my first step was to remove the seat cover and do some staining...just a shade or two darker than the original wood. 

I then took a trip to the most adorable, grass roots fabric store in the city, Peadpod Fabrics, to pick out a fabric that would match my desk. And given the whole "mixing prints" trend going around these days, I was very happy to find a floral that matched my stripes...

Next step was to cover the seat, which as you can see, had been done just a few times before...

To do this, I first removed the top layer of fabric. I could have left it on for more cushion, but you could see the pattern through my new fabric. Then I made sure to line the fabric up on the seat and used a simple staple gun around the perimeter to make sure it was on there smooooth.

I then simply screwed the seat back to the chair's frame...so easy!

Materials.

And check out some of the other fun fabrics at Peapod Fabrics...I believe they're all shipped from Japan.

YIKES STRIPES!

Sooo, about that whole "consistency" plan I mentioned a few posts back...it's been 25 days since my last post which means one thing's been consistent for sure; my ability to consistently slack on posting weekly. Oh well, it's summAtime and that's my excuse :)

I found this beat-up, royal blue piece of junk desk at my most frequently visited retailer, Urban Ore. I have to say, the mere $10 I paid for this thing would've hardly been justifiable had I not seen some potential. I was on the market for something small that I could do something unique to, this being just that something...

I contemplated going all green but thought the paneled wood gave me a great excuse to add some dimension...STRIPES!

The paint colors are a light moss green shade, not sure the name, and a purple pear looking color they call "Teddy Bear"...don't ask.

I found these baskets/drawers at Target- $6.99, or something close to that.

The hardest part about this project was taking these very pictures of the desk in my room. I had to take 'em all at an angle so as to avoid getting my perrrty face in the pictures through the mirror also...much more difficult than you'd think ;)

strength, humility, and wisdom: it must be hereditary

There are an endless number of things in my life that I absolutely take for granted. At the top of that list, hands down, is my most inspirational and unconditionally loving mother. If I had to compound all of my love and appreciation for her into just one day I don't even know where I'd begin because, although wonderful, a Hallmark card hardly seems appropriate.

So supplement to the sentimental Hallmark, I decided to dig deep this year and pay tribute twofold by giving my mother a remembrance of my grandmother. After all, every bit of strength, humility, and wisdom that I admire in my mom, I admired just the same in my wonderful grandmother, Mimi.

So here's to you, Meems! Now may you always have fresh flowers around your gravestone :)

Have you ever tried to do a gravestone rubbing? If so, then you know they are sure as hell a lot harder than they seem. I tried one a while back and had some silly idea that the thicker the paper the better so as to prevent breakage. FALSE. Think rice paper or something like it...regardless of what they call it, if it feels like it could break during any sort of "rubbing" situation, buy that one!

Wise words often spoken by my Grams (above).

The second most important variable to consider is the rubbing utensil. I used acrylic chalk but I hear colored pencils work too? If you go with chalk, be careful, it can get messy which is why you also need a finish spray to hold everything in place after rubbing (3 coats recommended).

I think that three little bundles of dried lavender would also look great in these little mason jars. And I don't know what these metal things are called but they can be found at any hardware store. To replicate this look, drill a hole in the back (gentleman at hardware store was nice enough to do the dirty work for me), screw into wood, place mason jar inside, and tighten...super easy!

Materials (some not included in image): rice paper, chalk or colored pencils, finish spray to hold chalk, wooden board or canvas, spray paint to paint wood, adhesive spray to adhere rice paper rubbing to wooden surface, metal thingies, screws, mason jars...done!

"For your kindness I'm in debt to you. For your selflessness, my admiration. And for everything you've done...I want to thank you". Happy Mother's Day, mom!

Miss you muchisimo.

sweet dreams...

Someone asked me in a job interview the other day what I value most when it comes to a business. My response? Consistency.

May sound silly but I consider a blog to be kind of like a business, its premise being to attract consumers (readers) and to keep them as such. In my opinion then, you kind of need a business plan or else you risk losing sight of where you came from and where you're headed all the while consumers (readers) come and go. The extent of my business plan didn't include P&L sheets or marketing plans though, just a simple "my plan is to be consistent with what I post and when I post it". Oops, so much for posting every Monday (as if you noticed). In my defense, it's that dreaded last two weeks of the school semester with not.a.minute.to.spare. But ya, maybe I'll be easier on myself and say a "post a week"...cause there's definitely nothing special about Mondays anyway.Now on to more important things...

What do you love most about wine barrels? That they produce one of the most delicious things on earth? Ya, me too. A slight second though, I love how they can be turned into shiny little bedside tables...

 Not the biggest fan of light wood so I tend to always go for the stain. I think this one is a red oak stain? Or sedona? I forget but I like a hint of the red as opposed to a flat dark brown. Before staining I did some sanding to open up the grain and further darken the wood. I used steel wool to polish the metal....or to try to. And I have to admit the above barrel isn't the exact barrel below but looked basically identical.

 Another great purchase from Theisen Glass- this already cut scrap piece of glass which fit perfectly with the circumference of this barrel...they also cut pieces of mirror like this one

 I decided it would add some flavor to fill the space on top of the barrel with wine corks. But not just any old wine corks, Shafer wine corks which my doll of a friend, Katie Shafer, hooked me up with. I have some wonderful memories spent at Shafer Vineyards and probably just a few more spent drinking Shafer wine :)

On another note, I think doing this type of thing under any glass table would be cute especially if you did it with special corks you've saved from special bottles you've opened. Actually, if I had a little kitchen nook I'd get a much larger piece of round glass and a few tallboy bar stools and use this as a kitchen table :)

 One of the best things about this barrel being by my bedside is that every once in a while it will give off a misty odor of crushed grapes...and this, I think, is the reason for all my sweet dreams of home (sigh).

You know how as you grow up you develop those "like parent" relationships with your best friends' parents? Mr. Shafer was one of those for me. One wise piece of advice from him I'll probably never forget went something like this: "if you want to sell something with ease (advice, a commodity etc.), sell it with a story." Referring that back to the corks pictured above, they don't call it "One Point Five" for kicks. Check out its story here. They also make a wine they call "Relentless". It's gotta be my favorite name for a wine...ever.

it's amphibious!

If driftwood could talk, I bet it would have some pretty wild stories to tell, don't ya think? That must be why I enjoy it so much- something about that weathered look really adds character knowing it's the end product of a pretty thrilling life :)

I found this piece of driftwood while walking the 'beaches' of San Francisco...not too big, not too small and just enough asymmetry to build character without making it impossible to work with. Too much asymmetry gets a little tricky if you're trying to hang it on a wall, you know?

The question was, how was I going to use it?

Who doesn't love flowers?

And aren't mason jars just the cutest thing?

Once I knew I wanted to incorporate flowers and mason jars, I had to figure out how I'd adhere them to the driftwood. I must have seen these "half circle metal things with holes for screws" somewhere before because I was able to describe them just like that when I walked into the hardware store. Not to pull gender generalizations into this, but it's a funny thing watching people (more often females than males) describe what they're looking for in hardware stores. It's as if, through some crazy process of osmosis, we suddenly become fluent in sign language because we sure has hell can't describe what we're looking for in words. Anyways, 3 hardware store attendants and an exhausting lesson in signing later, I came to find out that these "half circle metal things" do have a name and that they're called pipe clamps. They vary in diameter; I think these are 3''.

In terms of hanging, you can find endless variations of hanging equipment, you just need to make sure they will hold the weight of what you're hanging (says on each box). This type (above) is pretty heavy duty and easy to work with. Going back to asymmetry, the trick to this was finding the driftwood's center of gravity in order to know where to put the screws on either side...I had to test out a few holes so it's a good thing driftwood is already holey :)

Three mason jars and three "pipe clamps"...the cheapest materials around!

functionality meets functionality

I love estate sales, especially when I stumble upon them a short 2 blocks from my house. They're similar to garage sales in that people will drive for miles to be the first in line with high hopes of walking away with those few crown jewels while leaving the remainder of junk behind for the stragglers who neglected to set their alarm clocks. In this case though, joke's on those early risers because it was I who walked away with the crown jewel...this rusty old rake which I paid a mere $5 for.

I think the woman running the estate sale was a bit confused by my shopping habits as she curiously watched me stare at this rake for a good 10 minutes. I'm sure she was thinking something like "it's a rake for gosh sakes, it'll either serve it's purpose or not!" Little did she know, I have not a single square footage of yard to rake but instead was dreaming up all the other ways it could be used...obviously!

The thing I love most about this jewelry hanger is that it doesn't take up surface space like some of those other [ugly] ones that sit on your desk or dresser. And I love that something so simple will hang necklaces, bracelets, watches AND rings. 

Would be cute next to a wine rack!

Hanging by an oven?

"you're so vain"...the Carly Simon way

So, I stumbled upon this door while browsing the isles of, quite possibly, my most favorite retailer in all of the Bay Area world. Well, slight exaggeration but I love this place so much that I am developing a bit of anxiety over the thought of disclosing the name of such a hidden gem. Athough if you have trouble living out that good ol' idiom "one man's trash is another man's treasure", this place isn't for you because it's literally full of just that...trash. Okay okay, it's called Urban Ore and it's where I go when I'm feeling creative...veeery creative. It takes a lot of creativity to see potential in trash, you know.

I mean come on, muted lime green is so in these days and the length made it simply perfect for acting as that full length mirror my room has been missing.

You can never have enough mirrors, right? Vanity aside, they are great for creating the illusion of space in any room!

Anthropologie door knob ($42)...Me + their home decor = love

Anthropologie Letter Hook ($14). And sometimes I'm all for the whole sanding down and painting over look but in this case I stuck with the aged look...it's a door with character!

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I brought the measurements into Theisen Glass and they cut the mirror right then and there. Service with a smile...they're great!

Instead of charging me the $50 extra for "labor and installation" (whatever that means), Theisen Glass sold me the mirror instal. equipment for $10 and offered thoughtful instruction on doing it myself...super easy and definitely not worth paying somebody else an extra $50!