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…
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 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…
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…
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…
today i’m thrilled to welcome nicole of well worn to the d*s guest blog! this will be our final guest blog stint until the new year so i’m happy to end with nicole’s theme: organization. after the initial break of the holiday, it’s always nice to use that extra time off to clean up and…
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…
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…
april showers bring may flowers, right? let’s hope so, even though oakland is still in the showers mode. I found some gorgeous spring floral papers from snow & graham at my local art store and have decided to make may the month of pretty paper diys. have fun! – kate CLICK HERE for the full…
we received a beautiful new set of silverware for our wedding and lately i’ve been sitting around trying to figure out what to do with our older, not so nice, silverware. i couldn’t bring myself to throw it out, so this project from d*s reader liz bloeser is just the ticket. liz decided to use…
karyn from make something is helping me keep the chalkboard love going today with this awesome diy project she made for her home. not content to just have a beautiful chalkboard in her home, karyn decided to get extra crafty and drill holes through which twinkle lights from urban outfitters could shine. i love the…
during these chilly winter months, we always like to have a hot beverage close at hand. whether we’re eating at the dining room table, or responding to emails from the couch, or even reading in bed, having a little heat-proof tray we can bring from room to room is a big help. this project is…
since it’s the season for entertaining (and i chipped a couple plates in my plate set) i decided to turn some of my old plates into a two tiered serving platter that has a bit of nature meets modernism. when i showed it to my boyfriend his first reaction was – i don’t want to…
we’ve been wanting to get a bird feeder to hang outside our living room window for some time now. (hopefully it won’t drive our cats nuts!) this little feeder was inexpensive and easy to make, and we were able to customize it with paint to look like a little snack stand at an amusement park!…
there’s nothing better than emptying your pockets as soon as you get home after a long day, but we find that we leave little piles of change, keys, and bills all over the house unless we have a designated place to put them. this ubiquitous wooden magazine holder from ikea turned out to be the…
a few months ago, the nice people from the nest magazine paid a visit to our home and shoppe here in san francisco. they were interested in all the crafty diy elements of our home, so in honor of the occasion we made this special little clock. it’s a really fun project, using techniques we’ve…
