How is it December already?!  Life has been busy, and as it always is in December, it will remain that way for a while.  Luckily I’ve had a good start on the kids’ Christmas presents. And I’m very happy to have L’s little doll quilt finished.

I must say, it was delightful to pick through my stash and select all of the prettiest, girliest fabrics I could find.

And I had just enough of this lovely scalloped lace to adorn the top edge.  It was in a bag of lace and trim I received years ago from my mother-in-law, and I’m so glad I finally have a special enough project to use it on.

I’m dying to give L her doll crib right now - I know she’ll love it and use it a lot!  But alas, I’ll have to wait until Christmas.  Besides, it still needs to be sanded and painted.

All in all the quilt was a pretty quick and straightforward project… All the satisfaction of quilting, yet only a fraction of the time and frustration!

 I realize that it’s crooked and imperfect - but I’ve resigned to the fact that I’ll never be a straight quilter.  And I think quilts can get away with imperfection.  It’s called “charm”, right? ;)

Is it just me, or have ginger jars been everywhere lately?  They’re totally classic and traditional - so they’re nothing new (well, not since ancient China, anyways).  But I’ve seen them a lot lately; they were all over this month’s Lonny Mag:

They’re pretty, and interesting.  And I really like it when they’re juxtaposed against some modern elements.

So when I found this creamy-peachy-beigey lamp at Value Village I noticed it looked like some of the hexagonal ginger jars I’ve seen (and the top looked like the domed lid of a ginger jar).

(Ginger jar above from Ruby Lane)

And I wanted to recreate the look of ginger jar lamps I’d seen, like this lovely Ralph Lauren one:

All I used was some spray paint, a blue Sharpie marker, and some patience!

I started by taking off the price tag.  Side note: this is one of those pet peeves I have where the rage I feel for such an annoyance is completely unproportional to the actual amount of inconvenience.  But seriously.  I hate price sticker goo!  There is, however, a way to remove it: rub canola oil on it, and scrape it off with an old gift card (or some other plastic scraping device.)  Just keep rubbing the oil in and scraping it off, and it’ll be shiny and new in a couple minutes.

I prepped the lamp for spray painting by covering the cord, harp, and bulb area with tin foil (it doesn’t come loose like painter’s tape).  I sprayed the lamp with a primer, then a semigloss white. (I chose semigloss white because that’s what I had in my paint stash.  You could use a gloss, but you may have to be extra careful about not smudging the marker.)

While the paint cured I spent some time studying ginger jars - what motifs/designs/patterns are common?  What do I like?  And I drew out some possible designs for my lamp.

After the paint was fully dry (like, a couple days later), I lightly drew on the main shapes of my design with pencil.

Tip: Try to keep your pencil lines to just map out the basic shapes of the design (not the intricate designs), because you don’t want to be erasing a ton later (it takes time to do all that erasing and you have to be careful about streaking the marker ink.)

Then I used my blue Sharpie to draw on the main shapes of the design, drawing the same thing on each side.

At this point go back and erase your pencil lines.

A few things to consider…

… for the ‘type A’ personalities: Don’t get too hung up on making everything precisely identical.  Repeat the same design around your lamp, but if things are slightly crooked or different I think it is actually the right look - more like an antique that would have been made by hand, and less like it is mass produced.

…if you’re working with a lamp with rounded sides it may be harder to create symmetrical designs, so maybe plan something that is more curving and unsymmetrical - like vines, trees, dragons, etc.

After the main shapes were on the vase I just kept adding layers of design (while the kids napped and I was watching a good chick flick).  Every now and then give yourself a break to let the ink dry a bit (so you don’t end up streaking and smudging it) and also to study the design and see what you need to add.

Here are some pictures of the stages (this was done at different times often day, so forgive some of the poor lighting.)

It’s obviously not a DIY for everyone - but I LOVE doodling, so I really enjoyed doing it.  And you don’t have to stick to a traditional ginger jar look either - you could do all sorts of doodles on any lamp, and I think it could look really great!  Here’s a close up of some of the design:

And here’s my finished lamp:

(And do you like the painting?  I commissioned it from an artist I love.  He’s two.  Ha ha!  I specifically asked my son to paint me a picture with blue and orange.)

There you go!  My DIY ginger jar lamp.

A big trend for 2012 is semi-precious stones and gems.  The concentric, marbleized patterns, and the deep vibrant colours of stones like agate or malachite are popping up all over. 

Agate Trendwatch from Ampersand Design Studio

Feature on malachite as a trend in January 2012 Style at Home Magazine 

Malachite patterned roman shades. Photograph by Simon Upton for Elle Decor

Agate sconces.  Lauren Stern Design.

But for me, it’s not the easiest trend to incorporate - it’s pretty in-your-face, hard to find, and potentially pretty expensive.  But the other day I was painting with watercolours with Little M (watercolours, by the way, are another big trend right now), and figured they’d be the perfect combination for some pretty and trendy art.

SUPPLIES:

• heavy-weight watercolour paper
• watercolour paints
• water in a dish
• paint brush
• paper towel
• painter’s tape 

TIP: In my opinion you need to splurge on the paper with watercolours.  Go to an art supply store and get some pretty heavy stuff, or your paper will warp, tear, peel, and be a general mess of gross-ness.  As far as paints go it depends on how saturated you want your colours.  A cheaper paint set will generally give you paler colours, and a more expensive set will give deeper colours because it will have more concentrated pigment.  That being said, mine was a middle-of-the-road set from DeSerres.

Tape your paper down to your table, or to a large, smooth board.  This not only gives you a nice clean border, but keep the paper taped down until the painting is dry and it will prevent some warping.

I did a few versions of this to try some different techniques…

I’ll share what I thought worked best:

TIP: Pick a colour scheme of harmonious colours - greens and yellows, or reds and oranges, etc.  This is typical of the stones, and it will look better if your colours overlap or bleed into one another.  If you specifically want the malachite look use shades of green.

I found it worked best to put water on the paper first, then get the brush filled with paint and trace along the edge of the water.  The colour bleeds into the water and creates the wavy patterns you want.  

While still wet I added some other colours at times.  Other times I waited until the rings dried then did another puddle.

If the paper is ever too wet and creates more pooling than you want, just use the edge of a piece of paper towel to soak some of it up.

Sometimes if my lines looked too much like a brush stroke I would go over them again with just water to blur the edges.

It’s a pretty random process, so have fun with it and experiment.  It may not look exactly like a chunk of agate, but that’s OK - it can still look interesting and pretty.

And there you go!  A relaxing morning of painting, and a pretty and easy way to incorporate a trend.  And cheap art for your walls!

***UPDATE: See my malachite-inspired art here.

Sometimes in icy cold mornings, when we stay in our p.j.’s and Baby L naps nicely, Little M and I pull out the pencil crayons. (Side note: it makes me proud when I ask what he wants to draw with and he says he wants white paper and pencil crayons…)

I usually end up taking requests as to what to draw (and usually end up sketching basketballs, triangles, and Buzz Lightyear). But one morning he was content to work on his own, and I was free to create whatever I liked.

I’ve been working on a gallery wall in the master bedroom and there was one larger area to fill. I needed a gap filler for the spot. I wanted to make something colourful and a bit more fun to juxtapose against some of the other art nearby.

I decided to do a geometric, deconstructed zig-zag look (inspired by this AMAZING Etsy artist, whose art I still want to purchase). I felt like I was in grade 3 art class again. It’s very relaxing to have no rules sometimes when you draw.

And I love the way its modern, playful vibe plays against the vintage portrait of the Royals I bought on UsdRegina a while back. Pretty good for a gap-filler.

pretty front page of anthropologie site tonight

Any Canadians with a house full of kids this Thanksgiving long weekend, or anyone feeling crafty can check out my two easy pumpkin crafts (that don’t involve pumpkins, mostly ‘cuz I’m cheap).  And the jar-o-lantern can be done with toddlers!  (Well, I did it with my toddler… I shouldn’t guarantee all toddlers will sit and do this.)

Have a great weekend!

jongenandmeisje:

(via Alexandra Grablewski Photography)

A little more nursery progress: quilt completed!

It’s a crib-size quilt, so I thought it might go on the crib - but it fits Little M’s toddler bed better than the other quilt, so it ended up there.  The coordinating alphabet quilt will be kept on hand, though, for play time (forts, tummy time, picnics, snuggling… aren’t quilts the best?).

I got the basic idea for the quilt from this picture on Pinterest.  (Unfortunately the link dies on the way to the original blog post… sorry.)

Somebody has decided he likes it!

Though there are so many gorgeous Japanese fabrics, I usually pass them by because I can’t handle paying so much for them.  But these ones.  Hoooo boy.  I may just have to save some pennies and splurge on such water-coloury prettiness.

This fabric is from the Kokka Nani Iro fabric line, designed by Naomi Ito, available through Purl Soho.  And this lap quilt project featured on their blog, the Purlbee, is perfect because it beautifully showcases such pretty fabric.

But I can see myself treasuring a piece of this fabric and being scared to sew anything with it, for fear of ruining it.  Because I do that.

*Sigh*  Love it!

(All pictures from the Purlbee)

So, I can be pretty cheap.  Luckily I’m also thrifty and creative, so it can work out pretty well.  Like today when I was working on a pillow cover and decided it would look better with piping, but had none on hand, I had to come up with a way to make piping.  I didn’t really want to go to the only fabric store in our city to find out whether or not they had piping cord to make my own, so I used my thrifty ways to come up with a plan with what I had on hand.  My supplies?

Chunky yarn and bias tape!

The yarn’s been sitting around for a long time (since the days when I crocheted more), and I had a pile of brown bias tape for some reason.

First I cut the bias tape down the centre, ironed it out, and placed the yarn inside.

Then I sewed right alongside the yarn…

And ta da!  Piping!  The yarn’s a little softer than piping cord, perhaps, but it should work just fine for my purposes.

How easy is that?  And I didn’t even have to buy anything!  Score!

(Up next: I’m going to see if I can use my DIY piping idea to make double welt cord for my Louis chair using a tutorial like this one…)

Sew your own wall pocket organizer!  (featured in Lotta Jansdotter’s book Simple Sewing)

Small Home Office Design

Check out this great DIY: Graphic clipboard and tray DIY 

Small Home Office Design

(via Sarah Jane Studios Blog) Love this colourway.