inspiration

Tradition With a Twist

Everyday Adventures

I might be a little behind the eight-ball getting my Yuletide mojo working, but I think we’ve got it where it counts, now!

Monday night was the 3 year anniversary of our frantic move into this house. That first year there was barely time to unpack the common areas before Christmas Eve supper with my family, much less put up a real tree, so we went with a small, table-top fake tree that I had in the garage. The next year (aka last year) we bought a real tree and set it up in pretty much the only space we had available, our dining room-cum-library. It worked, but it was a tight squeeze and it blocked the bookcases.

So this year I wasn’t really feeling the real-tree vibe. Or the decorate every inch of the house vibe, for that matter!

Todd took this fairly well, I think, and I dreamed up a compromise that would still let us hang up our festive monkey ornaments (you’d expect nothing less, right?) without sacrificing floor space or getting pine needles everywhere.

While my plan had originally consisted of concentric circles of something (later planned to be embroidery hoops) linked together by chain or ribbon and then painted to serve as our “tree,” at the last minute I had a flash of inspiration that led us on a hunt, one Thursday night, for tomato cages.

With a box of old garland I had in the garage, a little floral tape, some chain, wire, and our existing ornaments I turned a pair of these:

into a pair of these:

(with Todd’s help, of course!) for around $10 (all we bought were the cages, chain, and some s-hooks that didn’t really fit).

It was somewhat inspired by a ceiling-hung inverted Christmas tree that I saw in the Frontgate catalog many years ago–I thought it was fabulous to have the ornaments hanging down, not lost in the branches, while leaving maximum space underneath for presents!

Then, while checking my Google Reader I came across the tuTORIal: DIY Ornament Garland post on ToriSpelling.com and knew it would be perfect for our unused ball ornaments that weren’t going to fit on our hanging trees this year.

It really was a simple project for maximum impact. To keep the ornaments from bumping against the mantle I left my strings a little long, but I’m thinking they need a pretty bow at each end of the garland, especially on the right where the stocking doesn’t cover up the excess the way the left one does. To do it justice I’ll need to pick up some wider ribbon, but it still qualifies as a super-frugal craft since I had everything else on hand.

This is pretty much the extent of our decorations. We’re both pretty okay with a low-key Christmas, and it’ll mean more room to move around in when we have guests over the coming week.

Now, if they’ll just get around to fixing our oven, we’ll be all set for Christmas!

Inspiration Everywhere

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

My re-introduction to the “modern” online-inspired wedding came several months before Todd and I got engaged.

Hell, I hadn’t even decided that I wanted to get married again, yet!

But I was looking for diy outdoor lighting options that wouldn’t break the bank when I search brought up the concept of LED throwies on a site called Weddingbee. I ended up not going the way of the throwies, but I did remember the ‘bee and would check back from time to time as I started to think more and more about the prospect of having another wedding, myself.

It was a bit of an eye-opener, all the things that were popping up in wedding-world compared to what I knew of weddings in the pre-Internet planning era (aka the Dark Ages).

And, of course, as soon as we’d talked it over and decided that marriage was back on the table, I started picking up all and sundry bridal magazines I could find. I also added a wedding folder to Google Reader and subscribed to some of the major wedding blogs around.

Easily obsessed? A bit. But I think it’s okay to go through that you-mean-I-get-another-shot-at-this-party phase, especially when it’s not your first time down the aisle and you might have some tiny detail-oriented regrets about the first (or second) walk.

But it doesn’t take long, really, to start noticing patterns. Like certain sites have a penchant for the “vintage-rustic” vibe, others love the washed out photography and Anthropology-inspired compositions. Others corner the market on non-traditional with pride. And each have their place, but they pretty much cover the same bases just in different ways.

Overload sets in, and you think you’ve “seen it all.”

At this point it’s good to do two things:

  1. Step away from the wedding media
  2. Look for your inspiration elsewhere

The first one is simple: set the magazines aside, don’t open the blogs or reader folders, and don’t watch those DVR’d episodes of Say Yes to the Dress.

The second? Well, where else do you look for wedding inspiration if not in the wedding-centric magazines, blogs and shows?!

This is where having a theme can really help. If your theme is circus or carnival, rent movies on those subject, do some research into circus history, or visit one if you have the opportunity. Soak in the details and let that guide some of your decisions. Find a hobbyist-level blog or magazine to subscribe to on your theme.

If you’re working with a color scheme but no other theme, do some mind-mapping or free association of items and ideas that those colors inspire, and find the threads that you want to tug and add to the event.

For Todd and I, with wine as our theme, a subscription to Food & Wine might be a smidgen more useful than one to Brides. I picked up a wine course book when Borders was liquidating (a moment of silence, please…) and have gotten a lot of design inspiration for our invitations from the scads of wine labels throughout the book.

And, then, once you’ve had time to take a tulle-free breath, you can wade back into the wedding industry buzz, feeling a little more in control, a little less frantic, and more sure of what does and doesn’t fit your idea for your wedding.

Pretty Book and Flower Icon

 

Do you ever feel the need to step away from the wedding magazines? 

Traditional, Digital or Fusion?

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

Organizing some of the bridal-show take-aways had me thinking about how much wedding planning has changed over the last 20 years.

2 decades ago–maybe even only 1–most of the planning was done on paper in one of those massive binders or spiral-bound books that you can still find in bookstores. Online involvement was spotty at best, and we definitely didn’t have tools like Pinterest!

These days, the temptation to go 100% digital with the planning is strong. It’s eco-friendly, easily portable if you can access the files via your phone, laptop or tablet, and with so much inspiration online it just. makes. sense.

And yet.

If you go to bridal shows, if you pick up magazines, what do you do?

Are you fully digital or 100% traditional?

A Digital Bride keeps everything on her iPhone or Droid. There’s an app (or 3!) for that. If she picked up a business card or flyer at a show: click and it’s on her phone. If it’s in a magazine it’s online somewhere, and she’s blowing up Pinterest with inspiration.

Meanwhile, the Traditional Bride has subscriptions to every bridal magazine being published and keeps her tear-sheets in individual binders or a complex filing system. Her moleskine is color-coordinated and her Filofax has a separate tab just for wedding plans. Online might be where she finds her vendors, but all the details are in hard copy.

Do either describe you?

Or are you like me, and a little bit of both, a Fusion Bride.

I have my Pinterest boards, but I also have my binder full of business cards, price sheets and tear sheets. I’ve got various wedding site to-do lists and a column for wedding tasks in my Planner Pad. And even though I’ve got spreadsheets galore in the cloud a la Google Docs, I have paper versions of a lot of it because scratching around with a pencil is just so much more comforting.

So, are you traditional, digital or fashionably fusion-tastic?

Inspiration for Change

64 Arts

Have you gotten the itch, yet, to make your bedroom into a true sanctuary? To make it lush and inviting? Relaxing or invigorating?

If I didn’t have quite a bit of work still to do on our living room (namely custom slipcovers for 2 sofas and a love seat, throw pillows* and art for the walls) I’d be heading to the hardware store to pick up just the right shade of antique gold paint and a few spare curtain rods (closet doors bug me, especially the hanging roller-track things of the 70s that are in our home; solution: take ’em down and hang curtains!)–that and a nice picture frame or two would go far to making our room that more cozy.

But where do the ideas come from? If you’re looking for a change, where do you go for inspiration?

I found the inspiration for our living room while wandering the aisles of a Tuesday Morning (overstock housewares store for those unfamiliar) where I came upon a small box in a blue and black pattern. We had some blue lamps and brown walls–tadaa!

Other places I like to browse for ideas: Better Homes & Gardens’ website, Apartment Therapy, and IKEA showrooms (they have the power to make me believe I could actually live in 700 square feet if it was laid out correctly). Sometimes it’s a complete room image that seizes my imagination, other times it’s just a single thing or piece of fabric. Touring open houses is also a good way to get ideas; even if you’re not in the market for a new home, professionally staged homes are a fount of inspiration.

A couple of blogs that come to mind are The Cottage Nest and Making it Lovely. I learned about both of these blogs through a BHG competition a while back and have remained a fan and subscriber since then. The former in is in the midst of a move right now but has, in the past, posted great pictures of cottage-style decorating and her own transformation of her (now former) home in the charming cottage style. The latter, though, not only runs her own stationery & more store, pink loves brown, but she is also is in the process of transforming her home. In addition to her own progress pictures and stories, she frequently puts together series taking one or more key pieces and takes them through various rooms and living situations giving a host of options for using investment pieces in your decorating.

What are your favorite spots for interior decoration inspiration?

*I’m not a devotee of shabby chic but I do like some of the elements of it. I created a technique I call “shabby applique” for my living room throw pillows and show the complete how-to in one of my articles for eHow.com.

Link Love: Paper Cuts

64 Arts

That’s the good, intentional, artistic type of paper cuts. Not the accidental owie type.

As promised, I wanted to share a few resources for paper cutting/scherenschnitte for those who might want to explore the technique a little more or just like the very pretty things to look at.

Rob Ryan
rob-ryan.blogspot.com and misterrob.co.uk

Rob Ryan does these intricate, funky, organic, word-filled papercuts that just blow my mind. His style is very distinctive and it’s really something to check out if you like the more freeform types of art as opposed to some of the more stylized examples you might see elsewhere.

allaboutPapercutting
elsita.typepad.com/allaboutpapercutting/ by Elsa Mora

Elsita’s paper cuts are absolutely exquisite and I get a little thrill when she posts a new piece. Her papers are just so detailed I could look at them for hours and even a quick glance will teach you something about the craft. I especially like the way she’s able to add textures so effectively. Take a close look at her pieces and see the fantastic details she adds in every corner. Exquisite! (wait, I already said that, but it’s true enough to say twice!)

“Scherenschnitte”
papercutting.blogspot.com by Cindy

She does amazing work and is totally generous, too. Check out her archives for the Template Tuesday posts where she has a printable image you can use to make your own paper-cut art. I especially love the beginner templates she posted as Papercuts for Kids. Don’t be fooled by the name–those medium templates include some adorable creatures and a wee monster!

Okay, those are my top 3 paper-cutting posts. I hope you check them out and become inspired to do something creative, whether it involves paper cutting or not 🙂 What will you create today?