DIY: No-Sew Summer Curtains

Our bedroom is decorated in red, black and white with red velvet Ikea curtains.
Those red velvet curtains are warm and cozy during fall and winter, but for the summer months i wanted something ligther, preferrably white.


The thing with white however is that it is quite see-through, which is a real problem when you're living in the middle of a major city surrounded by traffic lights and such.
Then i remembered that I've had this bale of fabric; thick and solid white fabric with a beautiful black and gray floral print. You won't believe the next part: i purchased it a few years ago at Ikea for... wait for it....25 cents!

Pinned and Purchased: Z Lamp

This pin:

And my new lamp:

"Z" lamp by Leitmotiv, on sale in white for 19€ instead of 35€, and free shipping- a great deal!

Thrift Store Finds

Look at this beauty!

Can anyone please try to convince me that this is the ugliest thing ever and there is absolutely no reason for me to be sad about not being able to buy it?
We saw it two weeks ago at our favorite store and that kind of furniture usually sells really fast. But this cabinet was still unsold yesterday. I think it is gorgeous, it offers plenty of space and would fit into our hallway perfectly. The price is unbeatable but we cannot justify spending the money on it right now. Not enough Cents in our piggybank.
My heart breaks and looking at this photo almost makes my cry. 
Oh well, it is just a piece of furniture...

Instead i bought this wooden sign:

Moreover i am now the owner of a collection of beautiful crystal glasses and a jewelry box, both heirloom from my grandmother who passed away two months ago.

The box itself is terribly ugly, totally 80s style but i plan to give her a makeover soon. It is filled with some amazing pieces, nothing of monetary value but still very pretty and i will definitely wear some of them and then use the rest for some crafts.

Oh, and we found some cheap stuff at Ikea, e.g. vases for 10 cents and finally, after 2 years of searching they finally had a white bargain door in the "as is" section. We already bought one last year after the sales person assured us it would be a Billy door. But it isn't. I have yet to find a good use for it.
This one is Billy Olesbo, half panel half glass and it was 9€ instead of 40€. Perfect!

Thrifty Finds!

We went to IKEA today to buy new pillows, and of course we left that damn store with hands full of stuff. WHY do they always have to put things on sale???

I wanted to have a red rug so badly because the multicolored LISBET rug underneath our coffee table doesn't match festive christmas decoration at all.
This red and white ALSLEV rug was half price and it is perfect for the holidays! 

My favorite picture frames were greatly reduced as well, so i had to buy them.

We bought some more useless knickknack and when we arrived back home one of our neighbors still had this box in front of his house, a large moving box that says "Take everything for free". This box had already been there on Saturday, but at that moment the only thing inside were kids ice skates and we definitely do not need those.
Today I took a peek nonetheless and the neighbor had restocked!
The box was full of items again but with MisterT grouching in the background i did not dare to look closer and quickly grabbed the one piece that caught my attention immediately.

His words are so true, i complain about all the junk we have and yet i can not resist dragging along even more. But how could i not have taken this beautiful old zinc planter??

It is charming! It was free!!

Is there anyone out there in blogland who can relate to my grabby behaviour?

DIY: Beachy Treasure Trove

The object of hate:  A green wicker chest

I found that chest at the thrift store last year and funnily it was painted in a similar shade of green like my ugly mirror, before i gave it a makeover. Needless to say that i never intended to keep it that way and had a paintjob in mind the moment i saw it in the store.
I knew i wanted a white or pale color to match our bedroom and actually had the vision of a shabby chic look, but I changed my mind while spraypainting the chest.



Total material costs: 11,21€ ( as always: i'm not counting the basic items)

Time: Two hours

Level of difficulty: Easy

Materials/ Tools:

- 1 ugly old chest, 6€
- 1 bottle of white spray paint, 4,99€
- Used potatoe netting, 0€
- Sanding Paper, 0€ ( gift from hubby)
- Modelling Paste, 4,50€ per 1kg ( i used approx. 50g, that makes 22 Cent for this project)
- Shells, 0€
- Hot Glue Gun
- Saltdough Starfish
- Wool
- Black Tea
- Acrylic Paint ( just a small dab)



There were three possibilities how to paint the chest.

#1: Applying paint with a paintbrush at zero costs

I did not like the way it looked, moreover i wasn't willing to waste my precious white acrylic paint. It's expensive and i need it for more important projects.

#2: Thoroughly sanding off the chest to restore the wicker's orginal color, instead of painting it ( another no-cost option)

Again, i did not like the look, moreover that would have taken forever and wasted tons of sandpaper sheets

#3: Spray Paint: Probably the quickest and easiest solution.

Ok, so i had to bite the bullet and spend money on a bottle of white spray paint. I chose a matte white from the cheapest brand i could find.
At first i sanded off the chest's surface slightly to roughen the structure. It didn't remove much of the green color and probably wasn't necessary at all, but i wanted to do an accurate job.

I guess the next step doesn't need any further instructions: I spraypainted the chest
( Little sidenote to myself: Never use spray paint on a windy day again! )

While i applied the first coat of paint i thought i could as well freshen up the paint of my two starfish that i made from saltdough several months ago:

Frugal me did not want to waste any spraypaint, therefore i used the chest as an underlay while treating the starfish so that the wicker could soak up the swirling paint drizzle. And that's when i developed the idea of creating a "beachy treasure trove".

I grew up at the North Sea and my parents still live there. Last week i asked them to collect a bunch of shells as part of my birthday gift and when they came to visit us this week they gave me a shopping bag full of shells. Perfect!

I wanted to include a fishing net but of course i do not own one.
I began to prepare dinner since the painted chest needed time to dry anyway. MisterT and i rarely eat potatoes but luckily my parents insisted on having potatoes that day, et voilà: while peeling the potatoes i thought "Hey, i could use that potatoe netting as my fishing net!"

However the orange color does not really look like a fishing net. So i mixed a droplet of grey and brown acrylic paint with a little bit of water and painted the netting until i liked the result. Um wait, i intended to use acrylic paint, but stupid me grabbed oil paint instead and wondered about its weird consistency in combination with water...

I let it dry, cut it apart and hot-glued on some shells in a random order. I even found small pieces of algaes among the shells. Great!
Then i carefully attached the finished netting and both starfish to the chest's lid with hot glue.

Up next i made six sand dollars from air dry modelling paste.
I really like sand dollars but i but have never seen one in reality. I guess they do not live here hence i only know them from photos, so i did a quick Google search to find some inspiration pics and even learned that sand dollars are living creatures. How cute is that? Seriously, i didn't know they are alive, i always assumed they are like stones or cuttlebones.

Working with modelling paste is fun and pretty easy. I took a small amount of paste ( ca. the size of a hazelnut), rolled it between my palms to form a ball and pressed it flat with a rolling pin. Modelling paste turns bright white once it's dry, so i damped the surface with black tea to achieve a more natural look. Lastly i carved the pattern into the surface with a wooden skewer.

I let the sand dollars dry over night, threaded them on a piece of wool and knotted the sand dollar garland to the chest.

And that's it!

P.S. I call it the "treasure trove" because the chest is the place where i store my favorite and most precious christmas items, stockings and special tree ornaments. My treasures!





I'm linking this project up to the Linky Parties of my favorite blogs,and i'm also linking up to the 31 days of Spray Paint challenge at the DIY Club.
I would LOVE to win that awesome 6-pack of KRYLON spray-paint!

HOME: Home Improvement & Free Stuff

I check my favorite classifieds daily and it's amazing how many people give away used but intact furniture and household goods. I'm talking about expensive high quality furniture and rare antique gems. Oh, if only i could pick up all these wonderful things...
But you know our place is small and we don't have much space to store or display non-essential items, so unfortunately i am doomed to concentrate on the useful stuff.

Last week a woman advertised three white Ikea Billy bookcases but i wasn't fast enough and the cabinets were already promised to another lady when i contacted her. After two days she sent me an email that the largest bookcase was still available because it didn't fit into the lady's car. Twelve hours and a box of Toffifee later the Billy was ours, plus a height extension unit. Total value: ~ 50€

I am not a huge fan of Ikea after several disappointments with their item's quality and bad customer service. However, we already have a white Billy and some white/birch "Magiker" cabinets ( another awesome steal) and want to stay in that style and color range. Moreover the Billys have a small depth which makes them look less massive than a regular cabinet and it is no financial loss should we ever decide to refurnish.

So we squeezed the Billy into our little dinner table corner aka my craft bench.
Before:

I "covered" the blue paintings as they might be a bit too revealing for some readers.

And after:

Much, much better.

After we got home with our new Billy we noticed a car trailer in front of our house and on that trailer were the most darling chairs you can imagine! Antique victorian chairs with precious upholstery and incredibly charming floral carvings on the legs. Swoooooon!!
The door to our neighbour's appartment ( below ours) stood open and we could look into his hallway. Oh my goodness, that man is living in a palace, haha.
Seriously, that appartment is HUGE! It has the combined size of our appartment and the one right next to us, probably at least 150qm² plus the garden and a beautiful patio, which he never uses. His hallway is a dream! It has one large wall covered with framed pictures.
Envision this with ultra high ceilings and a collection of opulent mismatched antique frames:

Photo by Pieter Esthersohn via Elle Decor

And that wall has a window, a beautiful multi-colored antique built-in window just for show!
Holy cow, i cannot describe the charme of that wall and window. MisterT and i were blown away!!

It was obvious that these wonderful chairs on the trailer belonged to our neighbour and my heart stood still upon the the thought that he would just give these beauties away, away to some heartless stranger or even worse: the dump! Noooooo, how could he do that?!?!?!!

I desperately wanted to catch another glimpse and find out what was going on there, so i went back to our car pretending i had forgotten something, and when i re-entered the house i met said neighbour.
I have never talked to him because he always looks so grumpy but i couldn't resist asking him if he was moving out, because of the trailer outside ( stupid question but i couldn't think of anything better that moment). And he explained that the chairs need some restoration from time to time and they would get new paint and upholstery. I was relieved, tremendously relieved that these beauties would not end up on the dump. I told him how much i loved his chairs and old furniture and he smiled! My compliment and passion for antique stuff made him happy!

And then he even offered me a box full of vintage magazines he was about to throw away. Yeah, i know what you think and that i should have rejected this. I clearly do not need these and we don't have much space anyhow. But hey, we have a new bookcase and i can sacrifice one half of a shelf, right??? Oh well, i took his offer and now i am the proud new owner of a collection of vintage upscale art magazines and Sotheby's catalogues. Aww, awesome!