Fish bowl terrarium

Apologies! My laptop had a milk related toddler incident so I haven't been able to post...it does mean I have several projects that are ready and waiting for me to get them on here though :)  #silverlinings


It seems like I keep seeing little glass terrariums with succulents in them all over the internet at the moment, and it's one of those situations where I don't know if I just started noticing them because I decided I loved them and wanted one, or if it really is a new trend and I'm finally getting in  at the start of something! I know which is more likely.... :)

So having seen these all over, and most particularly on one of my favorite blogs, Vintage Revivals I decided that I was going to make one when I got the chance.

 *if you've never visited you need to head over there as soon as you finish reading this because Mandi's style is amazing. Like out of this world, I want to rub myself all over her furniture amazing.......aaaand that just got weird....


 Now, succulents not being in abundant supply here in Limerick I had to content myself with checking every garden center in town every time I passed them, and last week I got lucky (wait for it) in a place called "Lucky Lane" on Catherine st.

It's really cute in there, kind of a craft collective where people sell home baking, up-cycled furniture etc, and there's also a garden section that has lovely plants, and there I found my succulents. I got 3 for €10, so I was fairly happy with myself.

Then all I needed was a glass globe to plant them in, and I figured the easiest (and cheapest!) thing to get was a fish bowl. So off I trotted to the pet shop to get one...only to be faced with nothing but rows of hideous plastic bowls, not the look I was going for! 

I was so annoyed, thinking I was going to have to trek out to the bigger Petmania outside town, but then I called in for my usual look in the Limerick Animal Welfare charity shop (they often have great furniture for ridiculously low prices, like the solid wood mid-century sideboard I picked up for €50....though I did nearly have to fight someone for it) and lo and behold, sitting in the middle of the shelf full of glassware, is a fricking perfect glass fishbowl!!

Seriously, I couldn't believe it, how lucky was that! And the next great thing was I technically got it for free, cos I bought a little copper sugar bowl at the same time, and the lady in the shop thought it was priced a little high (€3!!) so she just charged me that for the two (?!!). I love it when things work out like that! :D

You can just see my little helper in the reflection, as well as me in my pyjamas....glamorous.

So I hauled it home, filled the bottom with gravel and compost, planted my succulents and put in some marble pebbles I gathered when I was walking in the Glen of Aherlow last week. The only thing that went wrong with this is that I'm a novice when it comes to planting so at first I out the compost in and then tried to plant, but I quickly realised that that meant I had way too much soil in there so I had to start over, placing the plants first and then adding the compost around them. I could have avoided a serious mess if I'd realised that beforehand!

So there you have it, I love it! It's now sitting in the middle of my dining table, where I try to always have a plant or flowers, and I think the whole thing looks really modern, but in a retro way which works really well with the Eames inspired chairs and the Ikea lighting in there.

Apologies for this terrible picture, my excuse is that I have two small kids who try to "help" if I try to do anything while they are awake, so I had about five seconds to take daytime photos!

 

So what do you think? I think all I need is a couple of plastic dinosaurs to stick in there and it'll be perfect.......and I'm not even joking :)

I have a couple of really great projects (great in that they weren't difficult, didn't take forever and saved me a butt load of money) completed for the kids rooms that I'll be sharing in the next free days.

Until then, I'd love you to say hi in the comments!

Linda XXX

Really useful chalkboard wall....

In the year I spent pinning images for inspiration while we tried, and failed, and tried again to buy a house for our growing family, one thing that kept popping up in homes I admired was chalkboard walls. So, when we finally moved into our new house and started to look around and see what we could do to make it our own on our little budget, it didn't take long for me to look at this wall beside the fridge and decide that black was definitely the colour for here!

I wanted our chalkboard wall to be functional as well as decorative so this really was the perfect place for it. I am a maker of lists, however, if they're not right in front of me I totally forget to check them. Also I have an artistic two year old who thinks walls are the ultimate canvas so this wall was going to be a place I could solve both problems, and having it right beside the fridge meant I couldn't miss it and I could keep an eye on Em as she drew while I was cooking, perfect!

I used less than 1 ltr of paint that I picked up in Aldi for €5.99 (I actually bought two but I didn't need the second tin), but they sell it in all the big hardware shops, and you can even get it in different colours or with metal added to it to make it magnetic, adding another dimension to your wall :) I did two quick coats, and that was plenty.

I also made these little cork boards so that I can pin things I want to keep, or need to make sure I don't lose! I bought two packs of three cork pot stands from Ikea (I think they were a couple of euro a pack), I taped them off and painted them with geometric shapes that compliment the colours in my kitchen, dining and living room (which are connected) and then I stuck them on the wall with command strip velcro strips.

And there you have it! We really love it, and honestly it's been the most useful thing we've put into this house so far, it gets used every day. It's holding up really well, even though I often use a wet cloth to clean it down properly.

                                                           
                                                                Em loves it!

What do you think? Have you ever used chalkboard paint in your home? Have any good ideas for what I can do with my second can? :) 

Linda

What a difference a spray makes....

Let me introduce you to my best friend.....

hey girl......

This is my go-to, absolute favourite type of gold spray paint, and I've used it on an embarrassing amount of stuff in my house! In my opinion gold is a neutral (don't disagree, I will fight you on this!), and I often pick up accessories etc in charity shops that I paint to freshen them up and make them match my other decor, and this is by far the best one. It's really bright and shiny, and a nice deep antique-y type of gold that's really beautiful.

So when I needed a side table for my sitting room (we don't have room for a coffee table in front of the couch so we use side and occasional tables instead) and picked up the Klingsbo metal and glass one from Ikea for €30, it didn't take me long to decide to give it the spray paint treatment. 

The original black wasn't offensive or anything, but it was too harsh with my colour scheme of gray/white/pink, and I had also seen many beautiful pics of metal work Ikea pieces that had been spray painted gold on pinterest and absolutely loved how glam they were, so I was itching to try it!

So I started with this......

And two quick coats of spray paint later I had this.....

I think it makes a huge difference, and really brings out the detail in the metal work underneath. It's added a little bit of luxury to my living room :)

What about you? Have you ever "hacked" something from Ikea? Used spray paint to make something fit a room better?



Linda

Easy diy headbord cover-up

                        So a few weeks after we moved in our bedroom looked like this........

I feel like that photo speaks for itself. The puke green walls were bad, but add the too short curtains, tacky white pleather bed and cold, cheap laminate floor and you're not looking at the best nights sleep you've ever had in your life!

So clearly something had to be done, and urgently. My bedroom has always been a place I like to retreat to, somewhere cosy and comfortable that I can close the door of and relax in. It's somewhere I've always tried to keep "adult" no matter how much kid-plastic makes it's way into our home.

With this in mind our bedroom was top of our list for a quick makeover when we moved in....quick, because baby number 2 was due 5 weeks after we got the keys to this, our first house!

We started by painting the walls a deep grey. This may seem like a dangerous choice for the first room we had ever painted, but I'd spent so long thinking about the colours I wanted in my house and researching options that I was pretty sure I would be happy with my choice. Also, our bedroom is at the front of the house, which never gets any direct sunlight through the windows, so I thought "why fight it?", this room was never going to be filled with light, and to be honest I'm a fan of a cosy, cave-like bedroom anyway, so a dark colour should fit the bill. So after looking at many paint chips in the room I settled on a colour called clockhouse by colourtrend, and I love it! It really makes the white and gold of the rest of the furnishings really stand out, and it's such a neutral that I can swap out the accessories really easily.

After the paint we needed some furniture, so we hacked some ikea rast dressers and argos nightstands, adding white paint and gold hardwear to glam them up, and hopefully make them look a lot more expensive than they are ;) I painted some pictures to go above the nightstands, and made the diy sunburst mirror for over the bed. I also hung floor length white curtains from ikea and swapped the curtain pole for a gold one that was in the playroom downstairs.

                                                          And then we had the bed.......

Yes, you're right, that IS a plastic skeleton on the floor. Why you ask? Because Emilia found it in  a bag of Halloween decorations when we moved and decided to use it as a teddy for about a week. Checking on your two year old and finding that in bed with her was an experience....I love that crazy child.

The bed is awesome, in that it has a very comfortable memory foam mattress and the whole top is spring loaded so it lifts up really easily to get at everything stored tidily (and dust-free!) beneath, but......it's butt-ugly. White pleather may be fine on the base, but the headboard is awful, too short, has a strange curve to it and is covered in an awful material. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, just get rid of it and hang a new one on the wall behind the bed right? Wrong! The thing was part of the frame of the bed...which is made of metal, so in other words it 'aint going nowhere.

And this is the part of the story where the husband steps in, all McGuyver like, and says he's going to come up with something to sort it out, and lo and behold, a couple of days later he presents me with this.......

"This" is basically a piece of plywood, cut to size, with three batons attached to it that will slot between the existing headboard and the wall, holding in braced in place without using any other means of attaching it (makes it really easy to remove or change out the fabric too). It's ingenious! It mean the headboard now sits a foot higher, with the new piece just resting on top of the existing one, held in place by the batons, it's totally solid but also non-permanent! (makes it a great option for those renting too)


So now that I had this great new headboard extension I just needed to cover it in a great fabric to complement the room. I wanted something with a soft white background, and a graphic, floral print that was also modern. I finally found what I wanted in Ikea for €8 (I think) a metre. It's great quality, heavy weight fabric, bargain!


I laid batting that I got in Hickeys over the plywood and stapled it on with my trusty staple gun. I then lined up where I wanted the pattern to fall on the headboard and stapled that on at the top and sides.

The whole thing was then slotted over the existing headboard, and the extra fabric fell down over it and covered it. I then attached this with a few staples to pull it tight.

And there you have it!

A brand new look for the room for a total cost of around €35, and the best thing is if I decide to change the room around all I have to do is pull out a few staples and I can have a new headboard in about half an hour, and the old fabric will even be re-usable :)

I'm really happy with it, I think it really changes the feel of the room, the extra height makes the bed look much more luxurious and hotel-y, and I love it!

What do you think?


Linda xxx

  Visit Linda's profile on Pinterest.

DIY paper sunburst mirror!

Who doesn't love a good starburst mirror?

 Seems like everyone and their sister is getting in on the trend at the moment,

(which incidentally always makes me wonder if I'm just so cool that people follow in my footsteps, taste-wise...or if I'm just so oblivious that I've been seeing these things subliminally for ages and then think I came upon the inspiration  honestly......the latter I suspect!)

but with their retro style and gorgeous gold glam-ness (totally a word) I think they are the perfect addition to any room. Any of MY rooms anyway ;)

So, I decided I wanted one for the big lonely space over my bed, which once our new diy headboard was in place just cried out for something dramatic (and round) to balance out the room. I had two options, pay over €100 for one from a home decor shop, or stalk my local secondhand shops in the hopes of getting incredibly lucky......

Now, I am both very cheap and very impatient, so clearly neither of these options was going to work. 

Enter option three....try and make one myself!!!

So I typed "diy sunbirst mirror" into pinterest and quickly realised that you could make one out of paper, woohoo!! So that's what I did.

First, I decided on the style of mirror that I wanted, and from my research on pinterest it was clear that I favored the ones with angled edges. So my first step was to draw out templates for a longer and a shorter piece. The longer was 8 inches long, and the shorter 6.

I cut these out, and then used them to cut approximately 20 of each from white card. Once they were all cut out I folded them down the center so that they would have a 3D effect on my mirror.

pardon my pyjama-clad knee

I then laid the out in a circle and added a styrofoam ring (bought in a craft shop for a couple of euro) on top to get an idea of the spacing and what looked best.

Then it was out with the trusty hot glue gun to attach them all to the back of the ring. A dab on the folded point of each piece did the job.

I worked my way around the ring, alternating the long and short pieces, and keeping them very close together to make sure they "popped up" and didn't end up looking flat. When I finished and flipped it over this is what I had.....

I then spray painted this with Rustoleum gold (the regular kind, not the "bright metallic" I usually use as they were out of it when I went o buy it...but I think the duller, less brassy gold actually works better in this room, lucky!).

This is where I must admit I made a big mistake....apparently styrofoam really doesn't like spraypaint....as in, it melts on contact with it! So I was left with a kind of weird looking, melty surround for my mirror, but I decided it had character!...and also, I was not willing to go back and re-do the whole thing at that point. So I stuck my mirror (bought on ebay, but you can get them in B&Q) to the back of that sucker, glued sone string to the back so it could be hung off a command strip hook over the bed, and called it a day.

And here she is again in all her wonky glory.......

I must admit I love it, I think it really finishes off that wall, and works really well with the grey.

Anyone else made something interesting out of paper?

Linda

DIY mini marquee sign!

 I've always been obsessed with marquee signs (blame my carny heritage), I think they can add such incredible drama and interest to a space, and also I firmly believe that there is no such thing as too much lighting, so there's that....

However, anytime I've seen proper marquee signs for sale they have always run into the hundreds of euros, and as my budget for something so frivolous is pretty non-existent I knew if I wanted one I'd just have to make it myself. (Also, I always seem to take it as a personal insult when I see things that I KNOW are simple and inexpensive to make going for such high prices. Mostly when I try to make these things there's a big element of "I'll show you!"...I know, I have issues)

So, I know that at some point in the future I want to make a proper, large scale marquee sign with full size bulbs, but first I thought I'd try my hand at making something really simple, with supplies anyone could get in a good stationary shop, and this is what I came up with.....

It cost me less than €12 all told, and I think it looks great! It really gives the effect of a proper marquee sign but is small enough that it can go on any mantel/shelf. Plus it's battery powered so it doesn't need to be anywhere near a socket, bonus!

First, I bought cardboard letters from a local stationers for €1.95 each....

 and sprayed them gold with this paint.......

I used a craft knife to slice off the back of these (be careful!), and then poked holes where I wanted the lights to come through. I didn't take a pic of this stage but you can see in this photo of the finished sign from the back what I ended up with.

Then I hot glued the letters to a piece of scrap wood that I had also painted gold, to form a base for the light.

And finally, I poked the battery powered LED lights through the holes I'd made. I got the lights in Penneys at Christmas and I used 2 sets, totaling 60 lights and costing €3.60, but any small LED string lights will work. (I would advise stocking up on those lights any time you see them, I'm constantly finding new uses for them)

And there you have it! I LOVE it, I think it looks really impressive for something that cost less than €12 and took just an hour to make. It was one of those ideas that just worked out really well, and I had a lot of fun making it.






                                  

What do you think? :)

Linda xxxx

Visit Linda's profile on Pinterest.