DIY Gallery Wall

Gallery walls stress me out.  Especially the random 50 pictures in all those different frames.  Scattered.  Without a reason.  Or a purpose.  Yikes!  Somehow, my sister's eclectic style makes it all work, but I would rather paint my walls Home Depot orange.  However, this Phoebe Howard room is a lovely balance of neatness and calm.  My two favorites. 

Since our living room's long and narrow 1950's layout was not made for a TV, we struggled with the layout (Part I and Part II).  The best part of changing moving the cable outlet is the open space.  The worst part is the giant 17 foot long wall behind the sofa.  In a perfect world, my husband and I would agree on an oversize abstract painting of blues, grays, and taupe.  Yeah right.  He thinks a blown up print of the New York City skyline would be just right.  Umm, do we even live in the same house?

Lately I've been eying some different arrangements and thinking about prints.  At first I though I would use some of our photos from Europe, but then I saw a set of bridge etchings or a set of botanical prints.  Wait.  I am not going to use botanical prints in my living room.  I do love all things traditional, and that is standard traditional artwork, but I am 27 years old and do not live at or near the beach.  Good thing Pinterest has a bazillion awesomely styled homes to brows.

Last fall, my friend Jayne kindly gave me an early preview to her moving sale, and I immediately found a set of six Pimpernel place mats straight out of 1980.  Her mother-in-law had given them to her as a Christmas gift, and she never even used them.  As soon as I saw the blues, grays, and greens of the Scottish castles, I knew they would match my home.

Where would I find frames for these odd size place mats?  No way would I pay for custom frames and mats, so I figured Hobby Lobby  may have their 50% off sale.  No luck, but they did have 11x14 mats that looked great.  While I was shopping for a planter for my deck at Garden Ridge, I randomly stopped to look at the frames.  I found six 11x14 frames for $7.99 each!  The only problem was two were pale gold, two were antique gold, and two were brown.  There really was no way I would find cheaper frames with the glass and the backing, so I brought them home and started my weekend project.

 Mismatched colors.

 Equal parts Glorious Gold and Rich Espresso metallic paint. 

 Antique frames using dry brush technique.

Wax paper templates.

All done!!

DIY Decisions...

Every time the New Year comes around, I get excited to clean out the closets, organize under the beds, and start a new project.  After traveling for 10 of the 13 days of my winter break, I found myself daydreaming while I unpacked my suitcase again.  Two years ago, we started the year by renovating this little house (and here).  It took many months to get to this, and then one year ago we changed up the living room.  This year I am satisfied with the furniture, but I am looking to add a little charm.  Thanks to Pinterest, I cannot escape the DIY inspiration.  This is my latest project:

(Source)

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Board and batten in the hallway! I can't wait to add a little architectural detail to the house and an organized place to put photographs.

This is the hallway connecting two of the bedrooms.  I want to have two horizontal rows and a two-inch shelf on the top.  The hardest part is finding the best distance between the battens and the height of the top shelf.  The attic light and the thermostat won't be moved, so there are only a few ways to measure.  Right now the two horizontal strips of tape are at 5' and 4' high, and the "battens" are 15" apart.  I like that the photo frames will be seen from the living room if I don't make it much higher.  The decision part is not whether to go ahead with the project but if it should just be that one wall, the entire hall, or also doing the adjoining hallway.  What to do?

DIY Bina Wrap Cardigan

Every time I scroll through my craft/DIY pins, I can't find any spur-of-the-moment projects where I have all the necessary materials and hours on end. Ok, it's summer, so I technically do have hours on end, but when I'm feeling crafty, I really like to see the light at the end of the tunnel by the two hour mark.  Not many projects can be researched, completed, and cleaned up in one morning.  But the Bina wrap immediately caught my eye.  Of course, it was a Tumblr link, meaning I had to search and search to get the actual links, so here are the three I used: the Wardrobe Must-Have article (best visuals), the One Cloth Five Ways post, and The Bina How-To.  Using my scrap peachy-pink jersey knit I though I was going to use for this top, I laid it out and started piecing my "pattern."

This pattern shows a "no sew" approach (hindsight!).

I disagree with the above tutorials about using three times the width of your hips.  I originally went with these measurements, and I could not do any of the Bina styles because the back had entirely too much fabric.  Instead, I did what all seamstresses loathe--I took out my stitches, re-cut my pattern, and sewed it again.  Double work is not my forte.  My motto is do it right the first time.  

 

I used my 18" ruler to round up my measurements and make this project a little quicker.  The pieces I ended up with were 18" side panels and a 36" center panel.  Top to bottom, the wrap measures 30".  Each slit was 10" long, leaving 8" of fabric on either side of the slits.  I didn't bother hemming the edges because jersey does not fray. Next time, I will make the slits 9" and the length 36".  The snaps are sewn on opposite corners.  I had to guess at this part, but after trying the shrug and the blouse styles, the snaps worked perfectly. 

All in all, I spent 15 minutes laying out my fabric, measuring, and cutting, 15 minutes sewing, 15 minutes hand stitching the snaps, and at least 30 minutes playing with all the different styles in front of the mirror.  I'm definitely going to need more practice.  The versatility of this wrap is perfect for lounge wear or put-together-enough-to-go-to-the-store-in-yoga-pants.  Now really want to go to the fabric store and get more jersey!  I'm thinking gray would be perfect.

In with the Old

As I was searching for a place to store 11 hand-me-down round tablecloths, I started to go through the linen drawer in the china cabinet.  I haven't really touched any of the crocheted linens of my grandmother's since I got them a few years back.  After opening the tissue paper wrapping, I found all of these doilies that my grandmother made!!  Some of them seem to be store-bought, but it is really obvious which ones were handmade because of the way they feel.  Most of the doilies are ivory, but some are tea stained a deeper tan and some are just plain stained. 

These are the big ones.

My favorite.

I ended up refolding and storing all of the larger ones because they are too big for my tiny table.  But I still wanted to try to doily table runner I saw on Under the Sycamore blog. Using the small doilies only, I ended up just safety pinning them in place since I do not want to stitch them--at least not until I'm 100% sure I like the arrangement.  Now for a centerpiece...