It hasn’t rained in Oakland for weeks, even months, but that hasn’t stopped me from stockpiling a list of projects for those overcast days ahead, when all I’ll want to do is to curl up on the couch with some good music, a mug of tea and a glue gun. Grace and I both gravitated…
A hanging leather shelving project has been on my to-do list for a while; to be honest, the biggest delay was just finding the right belts. Has anyone else discovered that thrift-shop leather belts are often unreasonably overpriced? Regardless, a little patience yielded some great finds: one super long thick black belt and a couple…
Balsa is one of my all-time favorite materials: It’s cheap and lightweight and easily handles bending, cutting, staining, painting, glueing and pretty much every other technique that comes to mind. It’s also a great resource for creating professional-quality results with few tools, as you can see in this awesome balsa lampshade project from Jamie Samples…
This project stems from a conversation I had with Grace and Amy on my last visit; they had seen an image of a rolling pin held in place with two simple straps, and thought it could adapt nicely to become a wall scroll for organizing ideas. I managed to score three long branches from a…
Math was never my strongest subject, but lately I’ve felt a strong desire to play around with geometry. Inspired by the awesome tape artwork of artist Alex Menocal, I wanted to focus my geometric experiments on my walls but actually make a piece that is three-dimensional. 3D structures can be tricky to mount on walls,…
we have an abundance of useless sconces in our apartment. they are a pain in the neck to turn on and they provide illumination for about six inches of a small hallway leading to our back door, but the kicker: they’re ugly. in fact, if i hadn’t been walking through my local salvage yard and…
i’ve always wanted to live in a loft, not only for their airy spacious qualities, but also because i love industrial style furniture, and hard as i try, i cannot seem to make it work in my 1920′s apartment (blast those crooked lines and over abundant molding!). i love tae’s cup holder coffee table because…
We love the look of staghorn ferns. Unlike most ferns that grow from the ground, staghorn ferns make root in the nooks and crannies of other plants, on bark and branches. When taken out of their natural environment, their antler-like fronds look amazing mounted in a grouping on a wall, but sometimes maintenance of these…
i was really inspired by the faceted designs grace noticed at ICFF, so for this week’s diy project i decided to spiff up my cheapo alarm clock with a faceted wood cover. i have become very attached to the sound my basic alarm clock makes, but the plastic body of the clock is not the…
i don’t know why, but i have clocks on the brain. i like the idea of having a clock in every room, not because i always want to be aware of the time, but because i find the rhythm of clock movements is quite soothing. if you have the depressing image of me sitting in…
we have a big tree in our back yard that has become somewhat problematic. it grows at a very perilous 45 degree angle; i think it’s because its roots were dislodged by the placement of the neighboring fence and paved ground. anyway, our landlord has ordered a landscaper to come in and occasionally hack off…
i’m always excited when a new ebook from curbly is launched. their last title, make it! mid century modern, was a big hit and i was excited to hear that they were moving on to tackle my favorite subject: reusing found and secondhand objects to create great new home designs. i couldn’t wait to get…
i’m a sucker for beautiful flowers, so i couldn’t resist the chance to share a fun floral how-to this morning. janie medley at the bride’s cafe and jmflora specializes in beautiful wedding flowers, and offered to share a fun how-to that’s perfect for spring (and doesn’t require a wedding). janie knows the way to my…
when we decided to move our bedroom to a different room in the house, we no longer had the space for our old bedside tables. i decided to use an old chair because it was narrow enough and it looked pretty good. unfortunately, i lost two important things in the switch: a place for private…
ikea really does have some amazing finds! while i do love some of their more unique, signature products, my favorites are the very plain, simple accessories; they allow you to customize them in so many ways to fit your own style. they beg for hacking! i’ve had my eye on the skala tray ($14.99) for…
This week we’ll continue with the theme of hanging containers and share a simple flower girl’s basket we created for an upcoming event. Birch bark tubes are a popular way to add a little rustic beauty to a DIY wedding reception, so we thought it would be fun to show you how to incorporate them…
i love the seventies feel of the colors on these giant wood beads, so i decided to embrace it and make a cozy little chandelier for over my small dining table. the softness of the yarn and the smooth beads makes this a very fun lamp, perfect for winter evenings. you could also spray paint…
since fall has officially arrived, i decided to make autumnal nature the theme for this month’s projects. sometimes i wish i could be a squirrel so i could stow away a giant collection of acorns, seeds, nuts, etc. in my little home inside a tree. when i stow a collection like that in my house…
This project was born out of pure necessity. I’ve been pressing flowers all season long, tucking them into little books on my bookshelf. Honestly, I was pretty proud of myself, as pressing flowers is the kind of thing one loves but never remembers to do. But here’s the catch- I know I stashed dozens of…
recently, we’ve been exploring the amazing selection of loose leaf teas at our local hippie coop grocery store (oh, san francisco….). We’ve been collecting little samples of calming herbals, invigorating blacks, and exotic mixes of every plant and herb you can imagine. taking a cue from grandpa’s garage workshop, we put together a simple organized…
