Bliss & Miscellaneous

I think this is the slowest I have ever been putting up our tree. Probably because I couldn’t stand having to unpack any more boxes after the move. Decorating the new house I’m having to figure out what works and what doesn’t…my single wreath looks kinda lonely on our double front doors…but I love it and I’ll never find another one that matches so until I find a pair I like, it’s going to stay that way.

It seems like every few years I like to change up the decorations on our tree. It’s been multicolored, black & white, red & gold…notice the baby under the tree keeps changing too!

This year I got inspired by this Pottery Barn tree.

I like the neutral palette of white and gold and browns.

I ended up making a lot of my ornaments since I didn’t really want to spend anything on the new look.

These cute paper mache ornaments are from Hobby Lobby and were $1 a piece (regularly $1.99 on sale for 50% off).
I imagine you are suppose to paint/decoupage them but I just added some glitter polka dots.

I also made some fan ornaments from some kraft paper I’d used when figuring out the layout of one of our gallery walls. They turned out quite cute embellished with some buttons and rhinestones.

Wanna make one? If you have a silhouette cameo download the SVG file here for free!
Just cut out, fold, staple in the middle and glue the tabs. Then decorate!

I had a bag of pinecones that were scented in a previous life.
Since they lost most of their smell I painted the edges with some liquid gold leaf and added some bows.

Lastly I made some honeycomb ornaments based on this fabulous tutorial. Very easy to make but a little time consuming.

The awesome part about my new ornaments?!? Other than being cheap (of course), is when Baby N inevitably pulls the tree over there will be less broken glass. 

During my recent office update I decided I wanted to include pink and gold accents. That got me looking for artwork to include which sparked my current obsession…gold foil prints. I love these because the gold adds a little something special.

SS Print Shop  |  Pencil Shavings Studio |  MadeByGirl  |  Sugar Paper

However, if like me you have time and a pile of craft supplies but no extra money to spend on these beautiful prints you can do what I did and make your own! Since foil is a technique performed by professionally printers and not easily duplicated at home (unless you have a silkscreen), I used my Silhouette Cameo to make my one of a kind faux-gold-foil prints. If you don’t have a digital cutter you might be limited to designs you can cut by hand.

I created my design printed the background and cut the part i wanted to be gold out of vinyl. I used green vinyl because that’s what I had, any color will do. Can you BUY gold vinyl? Sure…but this project was about using what I had.

So I simply spray painted my design with Rustolium’s Metallic Gold. Did you know you can spray paint vinyl?! It works amazingly well and dries almost instantly (depending on how you plan on using the vinyl the paint may eventually rub off but that wasn’t an issue since I was just going to frame my design).

After it dried I transferred the design on the printed piece and my new artwork as ready to hang! Obviously I could have used gold scrapbook paper for this but for more intricate designs or lettering I think vinyl would produce the best results since using transfer paper lets me move a design without having to individually place each piece.

Okay so here is my non-reveal of our halfway updated office (if that isn’t anti-climatic I don’t know what is) but since I now have to focus on packing and taking things OFF shelves I didn’t have time to complete or style it (sad face). Anyhow…

Remember this desk?

Here’s how it turned out!

Pretty spiffy! Definitely blends with the other white furniture. The stool I snagged from my sewing table since I didn’t have room for it.

The hardware was antiqued brass so I just polished it up to reveal the original color. Just took a little scrubbing and now I have “new” hardware.

I’m pretty happy with the transformation!

Furniture

Even though the rest of the space isn’t really finished I thought I’d share a few photos.

This is the workspace with lots of room for my cutter and to spread out (no more taking over the dining room table).

And my new CLOSED storage. Loooove this bookshelf because I can “hide” stuff on the bottom shelves and put all the “pretty” books on display up top. Plus the doors keep little fingers from pulling everything off while I’m trying to get work done.

Artwork

I didn’t really get to do much with the fun finishing details but I did pick a few pieces.
This frame was from our wedding (as were the flowers and vase) and I recently found this adorable little owl at Homegoods and couldn’t pass him up.

Here are a few new fun pieces. The ampersand was inspired by Two Twenty One’s “Glitter State Art” (check out her blog – I love so many of her projects).

I just used a piece of the glitter covered scrapbook paper and drew the design in revers on the back to save some time and mess because glitter near a toddler = big time regret. When I finished it, E said “You MADE that?! I LIKE it!” – I’m glad I have his approval.

The rest of the prints I’ve had for a while but I still love them all.

Just FYI – that print says ”Enjoy the little THINGS” even though it totally looks like it says “Enjoy the little THONGS”  (which was not quite the inspiration I was looking for).

This guy…

…was originally a dark brown and was a cast off from a co-worker when I worked at an advertising agency. It sat in my office for forever and when I quit to become a stay-at-home-mom I brought him home and plopped in the corner because I figured one day I would find a place for him. A coat of metallic gold spray paint and he fits in nicely.

I found this fabric and figured I could use it as a pillow…or a seat cover…or something. I haven’t quite figured it out – perhaps I’ll just frame a swatch of it, since I may or may not have a couch in our new office.

I hope our buyer enjoys his freshly painted office!

The Before

And the After (ish)