All in the details…

May 23, 2012 6 Comments

Now that my mind is no longer consumed by our wedding, I’ve had a lot of time to think about other parts of my life. As you now know (down to the last painful detail), I’m focusing a lot of my mental energy on coming up with ways to balance the facets of my life (husband, blog, career, me-time). But I think another big part of brainstorming and restructuring is meditation – i.e. sitting back and NOT thinking. Sometimes my most creative ideas have come to me in moments of complete and utter relaxation. In fact, my best time for constructive thought is in bed as I’m falling asleep – Although this also has its drawbacks as I’ve been known to forget my “genius” ideas come morning…

The point is, a few positive changes I could be making to my life have “come to me” recently in moments of quiet reflection and I am excited to put them into play. One such change (or really ADDITION) happens to deal with the blog and I’m unveiling it to the world today!

Welcome to the newest feature on DreamGreenDIY: All in the details.

After getting an exciting response from last week’s “My top 20 most inspiring spaces” post, I decided to continue focusing on those spaces (and then some). I’ll be breaking down the elements of each room that work and why. It’ll give all of us a chance to really analyze what makes good design good and maybe help us hone in on what we can do in our own spaces to take it up a notch.

I hope that you guys will be part of this new feature by commenting away with your own thoughts on what makes these details work.

Source

First up, we have this gorgeous mid-century mod space complete with vintage details, pops of color and a great mix of textures.

THE COUCH

This couch could very well be the thing that makes this room such an inspiration for me. The shape is a perfect blend of 1970′s mod with contemporary textiles and finishes. If you want your living space to feel modern, the quickest way to get the look is with a sofa devoid of curves. Sure, curvaceous seating can read as modern with a good balance of sharp accessories and art, but getting it “just so” takes time. The sleek look of this sofa is contemporary to a “T.” And we can’t talk about the couch without mentioning the color. Coral is one of the “it” colors this season, but it’s also a great take on a neutral – At least it CAN be, when done like this. It’s pale and soft so as not to punch you in the face when you lay eyes on it, but against white walls it still serves as a great pop of a focal point.

THE ART

This is another one of those things that can be a bit tricky to get right. A vintage art gallery wall (when done well) is a great way to give an eclectic feel to a room. The idea is to collect mismatched prints and paintings and stagger them on a wall, as though thrown together. It can tone down a potentially formal space and is a great way to put that pile of unhung art in your closet to good use.

TABLETOP BOOKS

You guys know I love decorating with books (as seen here and here and probably a dozen other places I’m forgetting at the moment). I think it’s safe to say that we all have books lying around our houses, so why not put them to good use? They add color, like in this case, but don’t end up crowding a surface since they still offer a landing pad for things like your coffee mug of favorite owl trinket. Here, the stack of books is topped with an equally functional box, great for stowing away a remote or pack of playing cards.

THE TEXTURES

This space is a great study in mixing textures. From the heather finish on the couch and high pile shag rug, to the woven throw and fur accent pillow…It just goes to show that there’s nothing scary about mixing texture – If you are afraid to go bold blending colors, try mixing up the textures (in a single color) instead. All rooms need a little dimension and you can easily create it with texture.

Feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts in the comments section and take a look at all of my inspiring spaces here.

Filed Under: All in the details, How-To, Inspiring, Living Room, Our Influences Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Pinspiration Monday (a day late): DIY Paper Bunting Flag

May 9, 2012 6 Comments

This is the story of a very tired girl…She was a week and a half away from her wedding day, scrambling to get the last few projects out of the way. “I’d love to have a beautiful, whimsical bunting flag to hang as decoration, but where oh where am I going to find the time to cut and sew multiple little fabric flags??!” she lamented to herself. It was a terrible, terrible predicament to be in. But hark! What’s this?! A knight in shining armor that went by the name of “Pinterest” galloped to the rescue and saved the poor tired bride from expending her last little bit of energy on one final project!! The solution was presented and the day was saved…The end.

Source: A Subtle Revelry 

The magical solution? Instead of wasting hours and hours on cutting, hemming, sewing and stringing a dozen little triangles of fabric to a line, I was inspired to simplify into paper triangles. Eliminating the need to sew was the biggest time-saver and it gave me the motivation I needed to knock this last little project off of my mental to-do list. (I do apologize for the quality of the photos in this post…I started the project late in the afternoon of a rainy day, so there was little natural light to speak of)

Supplies:

  • Scrapbooking paper
  • Twine
  • Hot glue gun and glue stick refills
  • Wooden clothespins
  • A pen
  • Ruler
  • Scissors

First of all, I needed a template – A thick paper triangle to use as my guide for all of the little triangle “flags” I would cut out. I didn’t have any thick cardstock on hand, but I did have the back of my scrapbook paper book, which just so happened to be made of thick cardboard.

To make my flag template, I used the ruler as a straightedge and just eye-balled it. The top of the flag was shorter than the two sides. It’s not exactly perfect, but I didn’t really need it to be – You all know by now that organic is A-OK by my standards.

Then it was just a matter of cutting out my flags. I used this scrapbooking paper scrap that I had on hand as a guinea pig of sorts, just to see if the project would actually work. I  flipped the scrapbook paper over, used the pen to draw around the template and then cut it out. To my glee, it worked like a charm.

Now to cut out a dozen or so more…I wanted the bunting line to be as colorful as possible, so I didn’t bother trying to find pages that necessarily matched. I wanted vibrancy, pattern and texture – I think I managed to achieve that with my selection. Goodness gracious, I LOVE scrapbooking paper!

Fast forward twenty-five minutes or so, and we were all done with the flag portion of the project.

Next, I needed to attach them to some kind of a string. To continue the organic, garden-y feel of the piece, I used plain natural twine. To attach the paper flags, I flipped the flags over, ran a thin line of hot glue at the top and gently settled the twine into the gooey adhesive.

Using the ruler to measure out approximately an inch, I grabbed my next paper flag and ran another line of hot glue at the top and attached that to the twine – And so on and so forth…

Flipping the string over and seeing all of the pretty colors and patterns work with one another down the line, I started to get really giddy…

But I wasn’t done yet. To finish off the bunting, I took a cue from my Pinspiration image and clipped a wooden clothespin to the center of each paper flag – It obviously serves more of a decorative purpose since the hot glue is what actually holds the flag to the line, but again, it’s that little styling that gives it the casual look I was going for.

Sorry to make you guys wait for the actual “After” photo of the line decorating the reception venue, but I’ll be sure to update you once we get the wedding photos back from our (AMAZING) photographer. Stay tuned!

Filed Under: DIY Projects, How-To, Seasonal/Holiday, Wedding, Weekly Pinspiration Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Guest Post: 3 tips make eating right a breeze

May 4, 2012 Leave a Comment

Thank goodness it’s Friday!! Although maybe I shouldn’t be saying that since it means we only have 1½ more days here in the tropics…No doubt, we are having the time of our lives, but family, our furry kiddos and home are definitely calling our names. To keep you occupied on your Friday morning, we have Jessi Haggerty of Bee Rooted with us to talk about good health. You may remember her from this post of yore, where I expressed my deepest thanks for her help in steering me in the right direction when it comes to my diet. Her advice has been invaluable and I am so pleased that she is here to share some more tips with you, my faithful, enthusiastic, creative readers. We’ve all made excuses for ignoring the facts when it comes to eating a balanced diet. She’s here today to kick those excuses to the curb and supply you with the motivation to get back on track.

At 13 years old, I learned how to make excuses for things before I even had to. Sitting in my room participating in some mindless activity like watching re-runs of Friends, or chatting on the phone with my best friend (she’s still my best friend, by the way), I knew to pause and make up an excuse after I heard my mom yell “JESS!” from the office downstairs. Despite what I thought at the time, I didn’t really have a whole lot going on so things like “I have to do my homework,” and “I have to apply for summer jobs” were sometimes sufficient. But usually, when my mom came to me with a simple chore like cleaning up the (already clean) bathroom, or picking up my shoes that trailed throughout the house, I would find a way to say “later” in its many forms: “Not now,” “in a bit,” “after I finish this…” etc. Yet, no matter what the excuse, she and I always ended up in the same place: Mom pointing out that in the time that I spent arguing and making excuses, the task could have been done already. Touche, Mom. Touche.

Ironically, today it seems like all I do is listen to lists and lists of excuses people have for eating unhealthfully. Most common excuses are that there’s not enough time, it’s too expensive, and I’m not a good cook. What I’ve learned from my experience as a 13-year-old is this – Most of the barriers to “doing my chores” were barriers I put there myself. So, in an effort to break these 3 simple barriers to good health, I decided to find solutions by teaching you a simple method to preparing healthy food fast and cheap, while implementing simple cooking techniques that you can apply to pretty much any meal.  

Step 1:  Keep your kitchen stocked with the following…AKA the cheapest grocery list you’ll ever follow.

  • Whole Wheat Pasta (or any other whole grain like barley, quinoa or brown rice)
  • Green Frozen Vegetable (spinach, kale, broccoli)
  • Vegetable Broth
  • Canned Diced Tomatoes
  • Canned Beans (white beans have a nice neutral flavor that compliment most dishes)
  • Garlic and Onion (perishable, but keep much longer than most vegetables)
  • Salt, Pepper, Crushed Red Pepper

Step 2:  Mise En Place.  

A french term for having all of the ingredients in a recipe measured, chopped and in place before getting started. This little piece of advice was taken from Fiona Gubelmann (costar in the hit series Wilfred) in her interview in Vegetarian Times Magazine.  

For amateur cooks, or avid kitchen experimenters like myself, this is SO KEY to preventing burning, forgetting and mis-stepping (like baking your cookies before you add the sugar). It makes my least favorite part (clean-up) a breeze and makes you feel like you’re on a hit day-time cooking show. The best part? Once all of the ingredients are measured out (which can be done pretty much at any time), putting your meal together takes no time at all! 

For this meal: Chop 1 onion and 3 to 5 cloves of garlic, open all cans and spice containers and measure out about ¼ cup of vegetable broth. Place one large (empty pot) on the stove at medium heat, and 1 medium size pot filled with water for pasta or grain at medium heat. If cooking barley or rice, you will need 3 parts water to 1 part grain

Step 3:  Prepare Your Quick Dinner

Saute onion and garlic in a hot pan in a few tablespoons of vegetable broth, until tender. Mix in a dash of salt, pepper and crushed red pepper. Add 1 can of diced tomatoes, cover and let simmer.  

While that’s cooking, boil water and cook pasta or grain according to package. When tender, drain and add to tomatoes. Add 1 package of frozen greens and cover just until defrosted (over-cooking leads to nutrient degradation). Add can of beans, give it a quick stir so everything is mixed throughout. Top with optional parmesan or pecorrino cheese.    

Serve and be proud of your 15-minute healthy meal.  

It’s not rocket science, it’s faster than ordering out and all it requires is some inexpensive pantry items and the ability to boil water.  

What are some of your barriers to good health?  How do you overcome them?

Jessi is the creator of Bee Rooted a blog and business that offers a broader perspective on food and nutrition. “Healthy” is not defined by the nutrition facts label on the back of a grocery store item, but by the impact a food has from our earth, to your body. All of her advice and recipes are compiled together to provide you with solutions to sustain our earth and our food system, sustain your health and sustain your lifestyle – The ultimate definition of “sustainability.” With a love for food and knowledge, and passion for teaching others, she is always prepared with helpful tips, time-friendly, delicious recipes and creative life-management suggestions. Subscribe to her blog at www.BeeRooted.com or contact her at bee.rooted@gmail.com.

Filed Under: Healthy Living, How-To, Inspiring, Kitchen, Kitchen Overhaul, Our Influences, Simple Fixes, Yummmm Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Guest Post: Keep things balanced

May 2, 2012 Leave a Comment

Good morning! Hope you are enjoying a wonderful week. Who knows what we are up to at this moment…Could be lounging on beach chairs by the pool, or maybe even floating over to the swim-up bar for a drink. Heck, we MIGHT even be sprawled out on one of the canopy beds on our private beach, ordering margaritas! Whatever the case, I am missing you guys and the blog…Luckily, I know you are in capable hands. Today, Lisa of SpareFoot Storage Finder is spilling the beans on keeping your home organized and beautiful this season.

Top Three Ways to De-Clutter Your Home

You can own a lot of attractive things, but those things won’t look good if you’re home is cluttered. De-cluttering isn’t always incredibly simple, though, especially if you’ve let things pile up in your home for a while. If your clutter situation is a little out of control, don’t worry. There are things you can do to salvage your home from disorganization and chaos. Here are some tips to help you organize your living space and minimize what you own:

Let Go

You don’t need two blenders in case one of them breaks, and you don’t need a pirate costume you wore on Halloween when you were a senior in college. If you’re holding on to things you simply don’t need or won’t use in the near future, consider letting those things go. Go through each of the rooms of your home and make piles of everything you want to keep and everything you don’t need. Donate what you won’t need any time soon to a good cause, give it to your sister, or find a way to recycle it.

Stow Away

Your living space simply may not be big enough for you to showcase all of your favorite paintings, furniture and decorations. However, you may not want to get rid of these things. If this is the case, turn to your closets and garage and try to store what you can there. If you have a bunch of antique furniture you don’t want to part with, consider storing the furniture in a self-storage unit until you move into a bigger place. There’s no reason for everything you own to be on display, especially if the space in your home is limited. So, stow what you can away and out of sight.

Keep Things Balanced

Having four coffee tables and one sofa in your living room doesn’t quite create the kind of balance you probably want in your home. Assess each of your rooms and look for things that disrupt the balance of the rooms. We’re talking about extra things that just don’t quite “fit.” Once you identify the things that do disrupt the balance of the rooms in your home (such as the three extra coffee tables in your living room), take those things out. Put them in another room of your home, store them in your closets or garage or get rid of them.

Clearing out clutter requires physical effort and time, and it also requires mental and emotional effort. For a de-cluttering project to be successful, you have to get rid of things that might have sentimental value, and you have to commit to living a more simplistic, minimalistic lifestyle (if you want things to stay de-cluttered). Change isn’t always easy, but you’ll be surprised by how much the energy of your home is affected when you clear out the clutter. Chances are, you won’t ever want to go back to having a disorganized, cluttered home again.

Lisa is a guest blogger who writes about getting the most out of a small living space, home organization, and storage units, including storage units in Colorado Springs and storage units in McAllen.

Check back on Friday for our final guest poster, Jessi of Bee Rooted (gushed about here for her invaluable help with my own diet routine) – She’ll be sharing her top three tips for incorporating healthy eating into your busy lifestyle. 

(Photo credit for “Just let it go”: here; garage storage: here; balanced living room: here)

Filed Under: Bathroom, Bedroom, DIY Projects, How-To, Inspiring, Kitchen, Living Room, Simple Fixes Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Pinspiration Monday: Wooden hangers

April 23, 2012 16 Comments

I have really been into fashion lately…Not sure when my focus shifted from home style to clothing and accessories, but I can’t deny my love of a great outfit any longer. Now, I wake up every morning motivated to craft a colorful, cohesive ensemble down to the bracelet. It’s fun to mix and match patterns, colors and metals to make a balanced and sophisticated look – In fact, it’s really not much different than styling a shelf or arranging fabrics in a living space. The same principles still count here, just in clothes.

Obviously, a new love and longing for style means a little shopping was in order. I’ve bought a good amount of new clothes in the last month, but to keep myself on track I kept a list of must-have essentials with me and have kept to it like it was the law. So now I am rewarded with a closet of thought out pieces – Here’s my latest (and, as promised to my bank account, my LAST) big haul, this time from Target and T.J. Maxx.

One of the most affordable ways I’ve been able to feed my new need for fashion and style in my closet (beyond sticking to a list when shopping) is to work on making the most of what I already have. In the past month I have spent long periods of time in my closet getting rid of things I no longer fit into or that no longer fit into my style. Shout out to our local consignment shop though (Salvaged), I don’t donate clothes anymore – I bag them up and take them straight to consignment. So far, I’ve made over $100 – Pretty fabulous when I think about how I was just going to take everything to Goodwill for zero profit…

Another thing I decided to do was find ways to amp up the display in my closet, right on down to the hangers…After seeing these two Pinterest images of clothing hung on natural wood hangers and how it gave it a high-end boutique look, I knew I had to upgrade.

Source: The Everygirl

 

Source: barefoot contessa

My closet as it was, came dominated by plastic hangers. Now, I do think that plastic is a big upgrade from plain wire hangers, which tend to bend…But I could envision just how much better and more cohesive the space would look with matching wooden hangers.

Have you guys seen on Pinterest or heard this tip from a friend? Essentially, to make the most of your clothing, you turn all of the hangers backwards and then, as you wear something, you turn the hanger right-ways. That way at the end of the season, you’ll know what clothes you didn’t utilize by seeing their hangers still turned backwards – Time to get rid of them. I attempted this at one point (as you can see in the photo above and below), but eventually gave up. I have a pretty good handle on what piece make me feel good and what don’t. It was just about finding the motivation to actually get rid of things that I’d been holding onto for years.

My motivation? Upgrading the hangers. I eventually found my collection on Ebay for about $50 shipped for 80 wooden hangers (with pant bar in the middle). I knew that 80 wouldn’t be enough for the amount of clothes I had, but figured it would be that motivator for purging that I was looking for – Only the best and most important pieces would get hung back up in the closet, while the rest would get consigned.

First things to get lovingly hung on their new boutique hangers? The three pieces I bought for myself at T.J. Maxx. I could already get the sense that the new wooden hangers made them feel straight out of a fancy designer clothing store – In my own home, no less! Exciting news for a girl like me…

I spent about two hours in my closet that afternoon, making sure to choose wisely as to what stayed and what would be bagged up for consignment. With each new hanger put into place on the bar, the whole feel of the wardrobe started to shift from cheap to luxurious. It really is amazing how wooden hangers can do that to your clothes. As I purged and rehung, I started a new pile of plastic hangers – They eventually made their way into the box that the wooden hangers came in. SO MANY HANGERS!! I plan on donating them to a thrift store soon.

And now to show off the new look – Again, I just love how things look more high-end after the hanger upgrade. No more light “click click” of plastic hangers when I go to pick out an outfit. I’m loving the more substantial wooden ones.

Unfortunately, despite letting go of what felt like a TON of clothes and half of my wardrobe, I still ran out of wooden hangers. I just couldn’t muster the will to get rid of the last bit of dresses to make it even. I resolved to get some more hangers later on to remedy the mismatched situation.

UPDATE:  I went out to Target over the weekend for wooden hanger supplements hoping to buy no more than 10, but left with a value pack of 24 hangers for only $14. They don’t match the Ebay hangers perfectly, but they certainly do the trick, and I doubt anyone would notice the inconsistency other than me.

So what tricks do you all have up your sleeves (pun intended) for making the most of your closet space and wardrobe? How do you “dress things up”?

Filed Under: Simple Fixes, Product Search, Product Review, Inspiring, Weekly Pinspiration, Bedroom Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Kitchen drawer reorganization

March 28, 2012 8 Comments

Is there anything more annoying than trying and failing to get your cake spatula to fit into the utensil drawer? Well, yeah…there probably is. Like having to wait more than THREE WEEKS for your sizable tax return (::grumble grumble::) – But that pesky over-filled drawer is still up there on my list of pet peeves.

Our kitchen is, for whatever reason, cursed with the skinniest drawers in the world. They are full-depth, but the width is only about a splayed-hand’s-worth (as you’ll see, literally, in a moment). We couldn’t even fit a standard size silverware organizer in the drawer to nicely separate our knives from forks and forks from spoons. To compensate, we’ve had to put them into plastic boxes meant for pens and pencils – Not ideal, if you ask me. The rest of the kitchen utensil drawers (think garlic press,  spatulas, measuring spoons, etc.) were stuffed willy nilly into the only other two available drawers right next to the oven.

Oh, and would you like to see what I mean by a “splayed-hand’s-worth” of room? Behold the proof:

We needed to come up with a solution and fast. With our wedding right around the corner and the possibility of an influx of kitchen supplies, we needed to be sure that our space could handle it – And as it was, it couldn’t. I had no clue what we could do, though, besides heavily purging. Maybe we could live without the cake spatula? ::dejected sigh::

But then John came to the rescue with another of his brilliant ideas.

You see, we have two massive drawers inside our kitchen island. Like probably THREE-splayed-hand’s-worth. Each. At the moment, they were being used for our laughably large supply of junk – Anything from a label maker and rolls of assorted tape, to an address book and batteries.

I suppose it hadn’t occurred to us to use these drawers for kitchen utensils because they are about three whole steps away from the oven/fridge work area. I’ll sacrifice a tiny bit of convenience in order to have some semblance of order though…Thus, John and I decided to switch the contents of the two big junk drawers with that of the three skinny utensil drawers.

The first step of the transfer was to take everything out of the drawers. While they were empty, I went ahead and brushed out all of the crumbs (P.S. how is it that drawers get so crumby? It’s not as though we eat over them!). I also took the opportunity to lay down some fresh cabinet liner paper – I use a vinyl patterned version that I’ve used and reused throughout three different homes.

We decided to use one of the big drawers for the small utensils and the silverware (still in their pencil cases, but hope to replace those after the wedding with something a little classier), and the other big drawer was filled up with the larger, long-handled utensils. It has actually worked out really well to have the utensils in the island drawers – Apparently I do a lot more prep work on that counter top than I realized, and it’s nice to be able to grab something quickly when I need it. And the big square footage means that I don’t have to paw through everything to find what I need or practically empty out the drawer to get to something on the bottom.

They might not look super organized and beautiful, but for practicality’s sake, it’s awesome.

As for the other drawers, we did our best to purge or redistribute things from our junk drawers (which always seem to exponentially grow over time). What was left got separated into the three skinny drawers – One for office things (stamps, batteries, notepads, address book, label maker, etc.), one for random honest-to-goodness junk (gum, tape, chalk, sewing kit, spare change, etc.) and the last one is all John (iPod cables and earbuds, checkbook, old Blackberry phone, business cards, CDs, etc.).

It’s taking us a bit of time to get used to things. I probably reach for the old silverware drawer about five times a day only to remember that it has moved…But, once we get the hang of things, I’m sure the practicality will be a huge stress-relief.

So tell me, what sorts of random things do you have in your junk drawer? We’ve all got ‘em – What do you hide in there? Pet stuff? Flashlights? Photos? Hidden stash of candy? Spill the beans!

Filed Under: Kitchen, Simple Fixes Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Top three spring cleaning tips

March 21, 2012 8 Comments

With the new season happily underway, let’s chat about spring cleaning. I’ll readily admit that I winter, fall, quarter-fall, summer and mid-summer clean in addition to the requisite purge session in March/April. My OCD tenancies often get the very best of me and I clean and organize as I go.

But for you sane normal people who are able to stave off the harried need to clean 365 days a year, here are my top 3 tips for getting your home in ship shape after winter’s hibernation:

  • Piles: When starting any organization project, I pull everything out of a storage space and sort – One pile for trash, one for donate and one for somewhere else in the house. Anything that goes back as it was can be carefully situated in the now-empty space, free of distraction. And be liberal with your “donate pile” – Purging is tough but it is SO satisfying when your home isn’t weighed down by stuff.
  • Baskets: We have baskets on our entry-way table for holding things like car keys and gloves. We’ve got baskets by the television to hold playing cards and CDs, and baskets in the kitchen to corral coffee supplies. I’ve even screwed a basket to the wall in our bathroom as a towel holder! Not a fan of wicker? Check out Bed Bath & Beyond’s selection of decorative boxes instead.
 
  • Wipe down: Come spring, it’s probably safe to say that things could use a good swipe with a rag. I use a clean microfiber rag (Crate & Barrel has some great options) to wipe down mirrors, baseboards and shelves. There’s nothing like a spotless, dust-free baseboard, even if it is just for a couple of weeks out of the year…
.
Now it’s your turn! What are your top 3 tips for spring-time cleaning?
.
.
Filed Under: DIY Projects, Product Search, Product Review, How-To, Bathroom, Studio, Kitchen, Living Room, Bedroom Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Pinspiration Monday: Counter top styling

March 19, 2012 4 Comments

Time for another installment of “Pinspiration Monday” – This time we are talking about the kitchen counter and a couple of quick ways to dress up those every-day things that we need to have on hand that aren’t exactly the most stylish of kitchen accessories.

The first is a “pretty” way to corral the usual won’t-ft-in-the-cabinet-because-they’re-too-tall suspects – For us that includes a coffee French press, an assortment of bottled vinegar and oil, a jar of napkins and my owl measuring cups (although that last one isn’t an eye-sore at all – You know me and my hoot obsession…). To remedy the situation, I took a cue from this pin:

Source: Better Homes and Gardens

The idea is to put all of the random pieces inside a simple wicker basket. Having a special spot for these seemingly-unrelated pieces would allegedly bring a sense of order to the counter top. SPOILER ALERT: It worked.

Here’s a quick peek at those kitchen essentials in question (oh, and please ignore the open upper cabinet doors – I did some paint touchups and they were drying):

They aren’t the most unsightly pieces in the world (again, isn’t that little owl just adorable?? – Thanks to my bff, Beth, for that sweet addition to your kitchen!), but I’m the kind of homemaker that likes “a place for everything and everything in its place.” For whatever reason, putting it all inside a basket would alleviate my stress just a touch and that’s good enough reason for me. Anyone else out there just as crazy and agree??

First, I needed a basket.

When I went out-of-town two weekends ago to visit friends and my sister for my bachelorette party, I ended up getting my first chance to check out a Hobby Lobby. I had a blast curling around each and every aisle looking for fun things to decorate and/or organize the house. One thing I came home with was this pretty rectangular basket – At only $5.99, I couldn’t say “no.” I thought the angled weave was a tad unique and modern – At least as far as baskets go…

Taking yet another cue from my Pinterest image, I tucked a patterned linen napkin inside the basket, a gift from John’s mom at my bridal shower last month.

Here is the newly arranged basket, full of our favorite kitchen accessories! I really do feel like they look a bit better grouped together in an orderly way – I know…My OCD is clearly out of control in this moment…

The next Pinterest counter-related project I worked on was pretty easy and not mind-blowingly creative, but I love it nonetheless. I wanted to join the bandwagon of folks who keep their dry pasta in pretty glass jars on the counter. It looks good, keeps noodles fresh and empties out a little extra room in the pantry – All good enough reasons for me to give it a shot.

Source: beach bungalow 8

 Source: Better Homes and Gardens

These three glass jars below, complete with brushed nickel metal screw tops, also came from my maiden adventure to Hobby Lobby. I walked out with one tall jar for only $4.99 and two medium, shorter jars for $4.79 apiece. Definitely didn’t break the bank on this project.

Here’s a quick look at our pantry, one I’m embarrassed to show you since it’s not very organized. Hopefully someday soon I can tackle it, armed with Tupperware and my label maker. But that’s another day…As you can see, we have a pretty good collection of pastas going (to the right of the photo).

Once I got all of it onto the counter, I was able to take stock – We’ve got an assortment of long pastas (is there a technical term for this?) such as spaghetti, fettuccine and angel hair, and then we’ve got the bite-size options like rotini and penne. We are trying to weed out our plain pastas to make way for whole wheat options (read up on our new dietary goals in this post from last week), and you’ll even see some gluten-free options from that phase of our eating habits.

The penne and rotini got their own jars (to be revealed in full in a moment), and the tall jar was saved for the long pastas. Now to decide who to put in there…So many varieties to choose from!

In the end, I decided to dump all of the boxes except for the gluten-free option into the jar. With the exception of the rice, gluten-free pasta, the rest were too similar to segregate. Our pasta dishes might look a little wonky until we run out of our multi-shaped supply, but I’m happy to get rid of all of those boxes. The jar had more than enough room to fit the four boxes-worth.

Here they are all filled up:

And they are now happily gracing the corner of our counter top. I love the balanced symmetry and there’s something really organic and natural about seeing plain dry pasta outside of those brightly colored and labeled boxes. I feel like Giada would approve.

All together now!!

All in a good day’s work…

What have you guys been organizing lately?

Filed Under: Our Influences, Simple Fixes, Product Search, Inspiring, Weekly Pinspiration, Yummmm, Kitchen Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Simple card art

March 14, 2012 10 Comments

This year for Valentine’s Day, John and I decided to save a little moolah by forgoing a gift exchange. Instead, we simply swapped cards to express our L-O-V-E for one another. After getting a brilliant recommendation from a blog (one I have since forgotten the name of and can’t link to…kicking myself) I went ahead and purchased this little beauty to give to my beloved:

Simple. To the point. Perfection.

It originated from My Little Buffalo Design – Affordable and oh-so-cute, the assortment of cards and art listed on this Etsy shop are worth your time even if you just gaze longingly at them…

But I digress. So after writing a little something special inside the blank card and giving it to John the morning of February 14th, I decided that I wasn’t done with it yet. While John isn’t the type of guy to toss my cards in the trash after reading them, I knew I wanted to put it on display rather than let it be put in a box for safe-keeping.

Enter one of the extra painted frames that we recently made over for the wedding:

This fun, punchy yellow frame was the perfect little place to memorialize the card. All I did was cut a piece of white computer paper to fit in the back of the frame since the card was a bit smaller than true 4×6 dimensions. I layered the card on top, put it behind the glass and tucked it all inside the frame – Voila!

I love the combination of the rose-colored text against the pale yellow frame – Pastel hues are sooooo pretty together. The perfect way to celebrate my Valentine and how we really do go together like bread and butter…

Filed Under: DIY Projects, Gifts, How-To, Seasonal/Holiday, Simple Fixes Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Fit for a wedding: Thrift store frames

March 7, 2012 6 Comments

We are continuing a run down of our epic wedding craft day this past weekend – Monday I chatted about our DIY favors made from glass test tubes filled with things like wildflower seeds and bath salts. We are moving onward and upward today with a quick, affordable craft involving my favorite DIY supply: spray paint. The goal was to create a colorful collection of frames to sit on various tables throughout our reception space to denote things like gifts, cupcakes, favors, guest book, etc. Rather than pay top dollar for said frames, I scoured our local thrift stores to find affordable options that I could give a face lift.

Here are my victims:

I was hoping to find elaborate, traditional frames with scroll work and filigree because all of those beautiful details really pop when painted a bright color. Alas, as you can see, I only found one that was even close to what I was searching for, but that’s okay. This was one such project that I didn’t feel needed a ton of leg work and multiple shopping stops. The frames didn’t really need to be the stars of the show anyway.

Can’t beat the final price tag! Only $10.05 for seven frames.

Time for their fashion-forward makeovers! I removed their “fillings” of glass and backing board and then put them out on the front sidewalk on top of some cardboard. Then my sweet and accommodating fiance did the rest – Spray painting each with either a pop of neon teal or canary yellow. We don’t actually have any specific color scheme for the wedding since we are using colorful mismatched vintage china in place of rented serving ware, and we are also just using whatever wildflowers are in season for the centerpieces, so I simply chose two of my favorite spray paint colors that we had in stock in the garage.

While John took care of the painting, I got to work on what went inside of the frames. To do so, I typed up a few quick phrases for sections I knew I wanted to label for guests’ benefit:

  • “Enjoy a celebratory cupcake!”
  • “In lieu of a guest book, please seal a note of encouragement or advice and toss it in the suitcase for future reading.” (I’ll explain this project in a post very soon)
  • “Favors – Please take your pick:” and “Grow a plot of wild flowers,” “Indulge in sweet candy pieces,” “Relax with aromatic bath salts” (these will all go into the one frame I bought that has two openings in the mat board)
  • “Thank you for your thoughtful gift!”

Oh, and don’t worry – I’m now aware that I misspelled the word “Indulge”…Will need to redo that one at some point ::sigh::

To cut them to size, I used the glass that I had removed as templates. Since the glass is clear, I was able to lay the glass on top of each phrase and then eye-ball it until it looked centered. Then, using a pen, I traced around the edges of the glass and got the perfect line to cut across to fit inside the finished frames. For the two phrases going inside of the mat board, I centered the words in the middle of the mats and traced the edges. I cut a little outside of those lines though so that the mat would overlap the edge of the paper.

Before I show you the final results of our newly-stylish collection of wedding frames, I have to show you one last quick fix. When purchasing anything from a thrift store, you have to know that there might be some less-than-perfect conditions to deal with. Case in point, one of my frames (the largest, in fact) was feeling a little unsteady due to a bent/creased backing arm.

I debated reinforcing it was a dowel rod, but in the end I went with a piece of ribbon and some tape. I cut the ribbon to the length of the distance I wanted the frame arm to swing out (with a little extra on the front and tail of the ribbon). After it was cut to size, I taped one end of the ribbon to the frame’s backing board and then the other end to the arm. This meant that the arm could swing out only so far from the frame, steadying it on whatever surface it sat on.

It’s not the prettiest thing you’ll ever see, but it did the trick.

Here are the finished thrift store frames looking lovely, colorful and definitely fit for our big day in April.

As you can see, we didn’t touch the little brass guy (you know how much I am digging brass these days), and we also didn’t fill all seven frames. I stole one for a project I’ll tell you all about next week, but the rest are empty and waiting should we think of anything else needing signage. Once I fix the spelling of “Indulge,” we will be golden (or should I say “teal”).

Hope you have a great Wednesday!

Filed Under: DIY Projects, Inspiring, Our Wedding, Product Search, Simple Fixes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Posts
Copyright © 2012 DreamGreenDIY.