An Organized Library

Kathleen from Twig & Thistle posted the greatest idea/project I've seen in a very long time: A diy library kit. 

The templates are colored with brown, but I'm pretty sure that if you printed it in black & white that it would look pretty as well (I'm not a huge fan of brown -- I've always been a b&w girl, myself).

She has graciously provided pdf files with very detailed directions on how to do this project yourself.  I think I'm definitely going to have to do this for my library.  I've been wanting to make some bookplates for a very long time, but I like the idea of the library cards much better!

I'm going to assume that folding all those little card holders is going to be pretty tedious, but luckily my library is relatively small!

Another Project to Add to The List.

I have a cheap, laminate dresser from Target in my bedroom that is awful and ugly.  We're eventually going to get a new bedroom set, but until then, I think I'm going to do this to it:

image from here.

I found a great tutorial on how to paint laminate furniture (plus this blog, Living with Lindsay is a great resource for other creative diy projects -- check it out) and have some fabrics in mind.  I have a lot of projects on The List, so this one will probably be put off for a bit, but I love how bright and happy this picture is with all the yellow.  I'm definitely on a yellow kick lately!

Purple Heart.

 

I've been wanting to do a project like this for a long time, but didn't have the vintage stamps with which to do it.  Finally, I came across Verde Studio, an Etsy shop loaded with tons of vintage stamp collections.  The thing I love about this shop, is that she sells color blocks of stamps.  She sells both used and unused stamps, so if you're looking for some cool vintage stamps for your correspondence, check it out.  

Anyway, this project was a piece of cake.  I just arranged all of my stamps on a piece of paper to get a shape I liked, then glued them all down and put it in a frame.  Simple.  It seriously only took me twenty minutes, max.  I did use acid-free glue, so that it won't damage the stamps, if I decide to keep this piece for ever and ever (unlikely).  I love that the stamps are used, so they have all kinds of postage markings on them to make it a little bit more interesting. 

I think I got this idea from somewhere, but I can't remember where I saw it... 

Poppies on a rainy Saturday night.

I've always been a huge fan of botanical illustrations and paintings, but have never been able to find any to buy (I probably haven't been looking hard enough, or at all).  I have always loved drawing, so I figured that I could just make one of my own.  I drew up a sketch of a poppy a few months ago and finally got around to using the watercolors my grandmother gave me this past Saturday night:

It's not a traditional botanical illustration with the diagramming of seed pods and petals and such, but it didn't take very long, considering I haven't touched watercolors in at least 14 years.  It's not perfect (the highlights are a bit off), but it's a start, and I finally convinced myself that watercolors aren't as scary as I thought they were.... not impossible, at least!

I had an extremely creative weekend, and have a couple more posts lined up for the week to show you what I was up to...  Hope you all had a fabulous weekend and are easing into the week with an easy Monday! 

If you have a Case of the Mondays, however, check out Melita's blog for a little pick-me-up!

Adventures in Letterpress & Bookbinding

A couple weekends ago, I had the pleasure of taking a two day letterpress and bookbinding class. The class was held at Albertine Press in Somerville, and was taught by Shelley Barandes of Albertine Press, and Angela Liguori of Carta, Inc. I cannot say enough about how interesting and fun the class was, so I'll let most of the pictures speak for themselves.

On the first day, we learned about the basics of letterpress and how to hand-set lead type, prep, and print designs on vintage presses. We each designed a two-color piece and then type-set and printed them ourselves.



I have absolutely no design experience, and usually take my time when I come up with the rudimentary designs that I do, so this was a little daunting for me to conceptualize a design, arrange all of the lead type letter-by-letter, figure out how to lay-out the two colors (because they were printed on two different presses), and then print them. It took me a long time to do, and I was the last to finish. :o( But, that's what I get for being a chemist.

To print our two colors, we used a motorized Chandler & Price platen for the yellow, and a table-top 9x13" Kelsey press for the navy (pictured above in order). We were all asked to bring in an inspirational or favorite quote, haiku, or mantra, so I chose this one by John Wayne (yes, the cowboy):

“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.”

I love this quote, because I often become disenchanted and frustrated by day-to-day life, and this reminds me that tomorrow is a fresh start, no matter how poorly today turned out. I ended up having to shorten it a bit, because I was so damn frustrated setting the type!! I wasn't thrilled with the way my print turned out, because I was rushing to line everything up. I wish that the rising sun icon was centered underneath the text better, but c'est la vie, right?


The second day consisted of us learning about the art of binding books (the real way), exchanging our letterpress prints with our classmates, and binding them into a limited edition book using the "sewing on tapes" method of bookbinding. To give you the gist of the method, these books are held together by two cotton ribbons, or "tapes," and linen thread. The sewing is done so that you link each signature (stack of paper) together using a looping method, which you can kind of make out from the pictures below. I was doing really well until I realized, as I was sewing in my second to last signature, that I had sewn all of my pages in upside down. I had to cut out all of the stitches and start from scratch. I ended up binding my book twice, which was kind of a good thing, because I got extra practice. I still finished at the same time everyone else did, though, so it wasn't too terrible.



The whole experience was absolutely inspiring, and I'm so glad that I took the class. I was a little intimidated going into it, because almost everyone there had more design experience than I, but I got over it and ended up having a lot of fun. Angela and Shelley were amazing teachers, and the nicest people you'll ever meet (click on the links to check out their Etsy shops)!

I ended up buying a starter set of bookbinding supplies so that I can continue this craft on my own. I already have some ideas for new items to add to the shop, and it will be good for me to get the creative juices rolling again! I'm still planning on buying a letterpress (like the table-top Kelsey we used in class) in the future, but it will be a huge investment and will need its own space, which our current apartment cannot accomodate, so it will have to wait awhile.


For more pictures, please see Angela's blog (or just go there, because it's an inspiring read).

guess what i did today?

here's a hint:



I'll post some more soon!

Farmhouse Inspired Bedside Tables

My Father-In-Law is one of the most talented men I have ever met. He designs and crafts some of the most beautiful wooden pieces I've ever seen, including these:

excuse the cords... I really need to find a way to hide them better. They ruin the whole thing!

The inspiration piece:


I can't get over how great they look! They're a bit lighter in these photos, because I had to adjust the lighting so you can see the details. I love how you can see the wood grain through the stain, and I think they're going to age beautifully. I haven't decided whether I'm going to keep the lanterns there or not. I think they look kind of small on the tables, but I can't bear to put them somewhere else...

I also need to change our comforter to this:



I just haven't gotten around to purchasing the king size (I have it in full, but we recently upgraded out mattress and I'm still trying to catch up on upgrading all of our bedding). The comforter on there now was one I bought awhile ago. I dumped it on there as a place holder, but it's much too heavy for summer and is currently driving me crazy in my sleep!

i labeled this as diy, because it technically is... i just didn't do it myself.

DIY Project: Linen Pinboard

I finally got around to completing this project!! The inspiration came from a much coveted piece from Pottery Barn:

image from here.

I really wanted this for my office, but did not want to pay the $129.00 price tag associated with it! (fyi -- it's now listed for $149.00 on the website!) I started out with a sheet of 2'x3' plywood (cut down from 2'x4' -- they'll usually do it for free at Home Depot). I decided that I wanted it a little bit smaller than the one from Pottery Barn, since I have limited wall space. I found some cork tiles at Target that were on clearance. I don't remember how much they cost, but I'm pretty sure it was next to nothing. The cork tiles came with their own adhesive squares, so I just used them to attach the cork to the plywood:

I was afraid that the lines between the tiles would show through the linen I had bought, plus I didn't like the look of the really flat, hard surface under the fabric, so I decided to attach some really low-end batting using a staple gun:

I used the crib-sized batting (pre-packaged) and it was a nearly perfect fit:

I then attached the linen fabric using a staple gun. I made sure to iron it before attaching it to the board, because it was extremely wrinkled (as is typical of all linen). I stapled the top and bottom sides of the fabric before tackling the corners, but forgot to take a picture of that step. I also ended up trimming all of the loose fabric and batting on the backside to make it more aesthetically pleasing (but didn't take a picture of that, either).

For the corners, I just folded the fabric on the back until the front was smooth, then stapled it:

I think I pulled the fabric too taught, because you can see that it looks a little pinched, but this is the finished product:

I still have to attach the proper hardware to hang it on the wall, but that should be relatively straightforward.

In all, this project took me about 2 hours including ironing and decorating it. It's really, really a simple project, and highly recommend it to anyone who would like to add a little something to their regular cork bulletin board! Here's a tutorial for using a store-bought bulletin board. It's also where I got my inspiration to make my own.

My Next Household Project

I have been coveting this linen pinboard from Pottery Barn for my office for quite some time now...

from here.

The problem is, that I have a serious problem with forking over $129 (!) for it, when I could easily make one on my own...

from here.

Thanks to this lovely post, by Bethany at Emmy Lu: "Pretty in the City, Lovely in the Country," I'm going to have one of my very own for much less!! Yippee! I love the blogging community... so resourceful and helpful! I will post pics when I finish it (which probably won't be for awhile, knowing me).

from here.

Check out the blog... it's really fun! Plus, the ladies just launched a line of beautiful wedding stationery...