Throwing some (lamp)shade... a diy'd industrial lamp!

The cashier, a man with an alarmingly bushy moustache, gazed upon all the stuff we had dumped upon his counter (two books, a slatted bed base, cd's, some kitchen stuff and the star of this blog:an enormous lamp) scratched his equally bushy ear and announced in a loud voice: "madam, sir, 10 euros please!"

DIY || yarn-wrapped porcelain painting!

Ah blue.... the colour of summery blue skies, calm seas, tranquility, and probably the most loved colour in the world.
And ironically.... also the name of a mood that pictures none of the above.

And boy, I was feeling it.  Might be autumn, might be stress, I don't know, but I just couldn't get myself to be creative. But as the saying goes: if you're feeling blue, paint yourself a different colour.. or just put that blue onto something else and make good use of it ;)

So, I made these painted mugs. Except that they weren't actually painted: I did something far easier: I wrapped them with paint-dipped yarn. So no painting skills needed at all!

Cant ignore the past: the upcycled sideboard.

moving files: the upcycled kitchen, part 1

"errhmm.... You might want to put in a new kitchen...." the broker said, when he first showed us the house. Although brokers are usually not too happy pointing out necessary investments to a potential buyer, he just couldn't deny this one: the kitchen was indeed beyond hope.

Wait, would you like to see it?

hmpff...

What you are looking at is a patchwork of everything: a small vintage kitchen with beside it some weird extra cabinet with a piece of weathered wood, and a gap next to it where our oven just didn't quite fit in. Oh, and did I mention the styrofoam ceiling, the range hood that didn't fit and the tiles with a color of moldy eggnog?

Something definitely needed to be done, but buying a new kitchen, as the broker suggested? no..... we have something much more fun in mind!

DIY leaf printed fabric

After the heavy rainfall of last week ( which created a temporary rivier in front of the house), the plants and trees in our garden are growing with such an astonishing speed, that I almost suspect that Hagrid has been toying around with them. So of course; what else could I do but giving today's blog post a botanic twist?

I really love the recent (well, kind of recent) botanic trend, but rather than hopping off to the nearest interior shop and buy the same botanic inspired that everyone else buys, I decided to make my own version of it, by printing fabric with leafs!  And guess what; it's really simple, and gives an awesome result! So why don't you give it a try as well?

a geeky rocking horse

Last Saturday, Joost and I looked at each other in slight panic: we had a birthday coming up for the son of one of Joost's friends, and we had completely forgotten to buy something for the child.

In my opinion, buying gifts for a one-year old is a headache anyway: they are too young for the really cool things, and too old for the baby-gifts. Fortunately, the father of this child has a not-so-subtle hobby: Star wars.

Well, yeah.. something like that!

So instead of doing the sensible thing and just buy a book or something alike, we decided to thrift something and turn it into something Star wars related.
So, ( with a trunk loaded with things to donate) we happily hopped off to the thrift shop!

And there we found this faded little friend:

a rocking horse! We thought it was perfect for a one-year old, but the paint was a little faded, and the wooden rockers were slightly spotted.
So, we cued the Star Wars music ( PAM PAM PAM PAMPAPAM PAMPAPAM....) and set to work!

Trash chique! Shrinking plastic trash into jewelry.

I pride myself for making things out of trash. Thing is, usually the materials I use are not exactly trash. Tacky, old and unloved maybe... but if you can still find it in a thrift shop, it's not trash, is it?

Well, today that is going to change: I'm going to make jewelry from plastic that I actually saved form my garbage bin. Yucky, you say?
No!!
Behold the magic of shrinking plastic!!

you've got mail... + a giveaway!

I remember how I used to love getting mail as a child. Because as a child, there existed only two kinds of mail: postcards and letters, which are both great. I really couldn't understand why my parents didn't like mail as much as I did, especially not those in the pretty blue envelopes. Well, at least now I understand..

But I still love postcards, so I jumped up in enthusiasm when my former housemate told me about postcrossing. Mail that did not consist in bills and 50 shades of bureaucracy? I was in!

The idea behind it is very simple: whenever you feel like it, you request an address, write a postcard to someone somewhere in the world. Then, after a while you receive a postcard from someone else. You don't keep in touch, you don't have to write when you don't feel like it, you just occasionally send and receive postcards :)

Today I decided to send some postcards. Only trouble was that our stash of postcards consists out of horrific cards. It was bad, really bad. Over the years we had picked all the acceptable ones out, and what was left was a staple of pure horror. Like the cards that you wouldn't even send to your least favorite family member. So, of course, I decided to paint some of them by myself. I mean, why walk to the shop if you've got paint? Here's a few that I made:

a hand-printed skirt

A while ago, I found a second hand grey skirt that was still in awesome condition. By the look of it, it probably had once belonged to a secretary. A quite boring secretary, that is. But since I have a bit of a soft spot for boring skirts (upcycling is so much easier when something is ugly in the first place!), I took it home with me.

There I decided to give it a little print. There are many techniques of doing so. You can buy stamps, or cut them out of some vinyl or a potato ( yes you've done that in pre-school, I guarantee it) 

Since I didn't feel like cutting stamps out of a potato, I decided to try it in another way: by cutting a form out of a chammy.

just a little giftbox

Joost's father recently made a trip to China. When he came back he brought us two lovely Chinese cups. Since not only these cups, but also the box that they came in were very pretty, I thought that it would be nice to give the box a second purpose.

not pictured, but... it shimmers!!

So, when Joost was out of town for the evening, I grabbed some pencils and paint, thought a bit about what I would like to paint on it, and started painting.

I didn't want to put too much effort in it, and I sort of made an illustration up while painting it. It's not too special, but still, I had a nice evening watching some series while painting it.  

A jewelry box, a gift box..? I'm not sure yet.. 

kintsugi, the beauty of being broken.

Kintsugi ( or kintsukuroi) is a Japanese tradition of repairing broken pottery with gold. The idea behind this method, is that breakages are beautiful in themselves because they are part of the history of an object. This history, with all its flaws and lines, should be displayed rather than being disguised. 

My experience with western culture is that we are very reluctant about showing imperfections lines or history in all areas of our lifes. We are ashamed of the lines in our faces, our clothes must show no wear and tear, giving a guest a chipped tea-cup would be insulting, etc. Everything needs to be as good as new. I also often feel a bit ashamed for the fact that almost everything that I own is in some way second-hand.

Kintsugi - closely linked to the Wabi-sabi worldview- shows us a new refreshing perspective: that of showcasing flaws and history. I think we can learn a lot from this perspective. Therefore, when I broke one of my favorite plates -ironically one of the very few that was bought at Ikea instead of at a thrift shop-I decided to try my hand at Kintsugi. 

Experiments. Painting on plastic: the ugly duckling brush

We all have those items in our home that are useful, but not specifically pretty. In my case a hot-pink plastic brush. It originates from my days as a student, and I think my mum bought it for me, since I can't imagine having bought something this pink for myself (sorry mum!) It once matched an equally hot-pink plastic dustpan, which has now magically disappeared. I still use it quite a lot. Unfortunately, I really have outgrown hot pink, but since I hate throwing away something that still works perfectly fine, I figured: Why not paint it?

In general plastic is not a material that easily allows you to paint it. The surface doesn't absorb the paint, thus the paint stays as a layer on top of it, which usually ends in a misery of scratching, flaking and horrors alike. But with some experimenting I've done over the past years (read: failing a lot of times), I learned that it can be done if you consider several guidelines.

For those of you who are now wondering: why spend so much energy a brush that costs only €1? You are right. But it was an experiment to see how easily you can paint on plastic items. And since I only used materials that I had leftover from painting the house, so it didn't cost me a thing. If you do buy a whole can of paint for a brush, I suggest you paint a frickin' masterpiece on it to make it worthwhile. Got something ugly that you want to paint? Here we go!

'everyone can be a princess'

My blog is on a roll today! It's valentines day today, so my loved one, known as Joost, and I are celebrating it properly by both working (and blogging, I admit) on our computers, while occasionally shouting inappropriate jokes to each other. My other loved ones are currently licking their own butts (my parents, okay... cats, cats!) so it is time for another blog.

My niece, Jinthe, is obsessed with princesses. She has her own incredibly cute version of 'Let it go' from Frozen ("Leddit goat..."), and dances around the house with a long scarf on her head to resemble Ranpunzel ("Rapoezzel") all the time. So last Sinterklaas (our Dutch december-tradition with gifts and poems) I wanted to give her a little princess for herself. But since I don't really agree with Disney or Barbie on what princesses look like, I wanted to give her a more down to earth version.  And so I did, with the inspiration of the beautiful lady behind Tree change dolls.

the rescued and painted chair

There are a lot of reasons why I am so fond of second-hand things. It's cheap, it's the best option for the environment, you don't stimulate child-labour or bad working conditions by buying it, and most importantly: finding a great second-hand item is adventurous: it's like treasure-hunting.

And I happen to love the adventure of treasure-hunting :)