Black Copper DIY: January 2010

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Ooh La La!

After the kiddo was tucked in bed last night, I dug out some black paint, brown kraft paper, burlap, ribbon, and my trusty glue gun to turn a $3 thrift store find into a much more appealing French memo board. Ooh la la!

Here's the result:

And here's how it started out:

I started by removing the canvas panel from the frame. Then I sanded the frame a bit, wiped it down, and gave it a coat of black paint. While the frame was drying, I covered the canvas panel with brown kraft paper and then burlap. I added criss-crossing ribbon and secured the "intersection points" (that's the math teacher in me coming out) with pushpins. Popped it all back into the frame and it was done!

I think the "after" is much better than the "before".

Partyin' it up at:
Remodelaholic ~ RA Meeting
Funky Junk Interiors ~ Saturday Nite Special
Thrifty Decor Chick ~ Before and After Party
Between Naps on the Porch ~ Metamorphosis Monday
A Soft Place to Land ~ DIY Day
The Girl Creative ~ Just Something I Whipped Up
The Twice Remembered Cottage ~ Make Your Monday
Reinvented ~ Trash to Treasure Tuesday
My Frugal Family ~ Talented Tuesday
Silly Little Sparrow ~ Toot your Horn Tuesday
Today's Creative Blog ~ Get Your Craft On
Domestically Speaking ~ Power of Paint Party
The Shabby Chic Cottage ~ Transformation Thursday
Finding Fabulous ~ Frugalicious Friday

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Blog Browsing Highlights

We need a new kitchen table. The little 4-seater that I've had since my days as a single gal is simply not big enough. I have been thinking that I'd love an old farmhouse-type table and six mismatched chairs - natural wood for the table and black paint for the chairs.

When I saw this on The Decorating Diaries, I fell in love. Her chairs are white and they look divine! I still think I'd go black for my kitchen, though.

Rita at Curbside Creations dressed up some lined baskets with ribbon.

Such a simple thing to do and so so cute! I have some lined baskets on a stand in my bathroom and I've been thinking they look a bit plain. This could be a perfect solution!

Nicole at Kicking it in the Suburbs has made an amazing transformation in her bathroom.

I love the artwork on the wall - closeups of old-fashioned cross faucet handles.

Jen at Notes from the Heartland has been busy sprucing up her entryway.

What a radical change! Truly remarkable! Any adjective I can think of seems an inadequate description.

Kim at Starshine Chic gives a tutorial on creating letter art.

So fun! I have to try this!

I'm a sucker for quilts and this one at Brown Paper Packages is just so darned cute.

I love the colours!

Okay. Enough procrastinating...tomorrow is the first day of exam week...work,work,work!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Signage

The Nester is featuring Danielson Studio Designs and offering a giveaway. I tried out the design studio and had a ball playing around with all of the different options. I made myself stop before I got completely sucked in and ended up wasting an inordinate amount of time. Here are a couple I came up with.

I think I like the second one better...but the first one is nice, too...

Hop over to the Nesting Place and check it out for yourself!

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Out with the Old and in with the New (window treatments)

For over a year now, the windows in our basement family room have been sporting these beauties:

They were kindly left to us by the previous owners, but, well, they just weren't our style. Y'know? So I went fabric shopping and a few months later I finally got around to sewing. It was then that I realized I didn't have enough fabric for all three windows so I had to scrap my original plan. I ended up settling for one single panel for each window -- just big enough to fit inside the casing.

I wanted an easy way to gather the panel up in the middle so I finally came up with a jute twine loop and a button. It works perfectly. We can drop it and let the panel hang down if we want to block out light from that window and when we want to raise it again, it's as easy as placing a loop over a button. No fussy tying. No obsessing over the bow.

Please note, these pictures were taken at night and I had to use the dreaded flash. The paint colour on the walls is not really powder blue! And yes, I know I still have to remove the brackets from the old curtain rod...

I'm linking up to Saturday Nite Special, Frugalicious Friday, DIY Day, and Just Something I Whipped Up Monday.

Friday, January 1, 2010

My Top 10 Picks from Blogland 2009

Okay, so since I just started this blog a few weeks ago and since I don't even have a grand total of 10 posts under my belt, I can't possibly list 10 of my own highlights from 2009. Instead, I've chosen 10 of my favourites from out there in Blogland.

The list is in no particular order. Well, that's not exactly true. It's not in order of rank/preference, but it is in alphabetical order. I'm just a tad too anal to type the list all willy-nilly with no order at all.