By Julie Finn •
November 14, 2009
At an Upcycle Exchange event a couple of months ago, I scored the awesomest vintage wallpaper swatchbook ever. I have loads of vintage upholstery swatchbooks that I craft with probably every day, so I was super-stoked to receive a wallpaper swatchbook.
Until I actually tried to work with it. After totally thrashing the cutting mat for my Cricut, I realized that the wallpaper in this particular swatchbook was waaaaay too brittle to do most of the wallpaper craft projects that I’d had in mind.
And of course, there’s no point in actually wallpapering with any of the hundred or so 20″x20″ samples.
Or is there? Imagine a huge number of wallpaper swatches, all in complementary colors and patterns. Are you imagining what I’m imagining?
You betcha! Decoupage!
By Julie Finn •
March 31, 2009
Our house is chock-full of vinyl mini-blinds, and one of the things that I’d most loooooove to do is to chuck them all in favor of something natural and something less likely to strangle my dear babies. I haven’t yet, however, because they are perfectly serviceable still and I can’t stand to just throw them in the trash just because I want to upgrade.
And then I thought, “Why do I hate vinyl so much?” Because it will basically never, ever decompose back into the earth.
Where, however, could such a quality ever be an asset?
In the garden, that’s where! No matter what happens between spring and fall–rain, sun, heck, the apocolypse could strike at any second–I am always going to know exactly where my chives are.
Here’s how you can transform your crap blinds into indestructable chives markers, too:
By Julie Finn •
February 24, 2009
I’ve mentioned before that one of my New Year’s Resolutions is to have an organized and awesome craft room. An ability to walk through it without slipping on colored pencils and felted wool and the odd button would be nice, but I also want quirky decorations and cheerful accessories and inspiring color schemes–have you seen Yummygoods’ craft room? Basically, I want Yummygoods’ craft room, only I want it to belong to me, not her.
In our last makeover, we talked about how nice it is to store your craft supplies in vintage containers instead of mass-market plastic bins–this was basically an excuse for me to show off my thrifted Pyrex, the Fiestaware coffee mug that the handle broke off of, and the other mug that PROVES that I did, indeed, go to Space Camp.
Today, however, we’re getting our inspiration board on. We are going to cover a ratty corkboard with a rockin’ T-shirt (Funny story: I never lost the baby weight after my second baby, and now my entire pre-baby rockin’ T-shirt collection basically gets to be turned into other stuff. Sigh). With a rockin’ T-shirt corkboard, you get to remember your rockin’ days, and not have to see how teeny-tiny slim your T-shirts used to be.
