I've only, once in my life, had a bed frame. All other times my mattress and box spring have sat on the ground. For some reason, when my bed is on the ground I feel like it's more secure. This may be residual trauma from the one frame I had -- an antique that felt like it was going to collapse every time my 12 year old body jumped into it. Either way, I'm a grounded bed kinda gal, but that doesn't mean I don't crave a fancy headboard.
As an avid Apartment Therapy reader (full disclosure, I blog for the company's tech site) I've always drooled over the DIY headboards the contributors feature. Not too long ago I decided to stop drooling and just make my own.
After a canvas and x-mas light project went wrong (don't ask) I decided to salvage the stretched canvas and turn it into a makeshift headboard. How I did it, below...
Continue reading "A Simple, DIY Headboard" »
I am so in love with this flower. The arrangement in this photo, blogged on Design*Sponge, makes me lust for it even more. The flower is the Anemone Coronaria. These flowers are available from November to April. They come in shades of white, blue, pink or red, and are distinguished by their blue/black center.
Sarah Ryhanen of Saipua in Red Hook, Brooklyn made the arangments found in this post. For the large bouquet she used added quince blossoms, salmon
parrot tulips, poppies, roses, and eucalyptus. Love, love, love! Two more photos after the jump.
Continue reading "To Do List: Fill Home with Anemone Coronaria" »
I know this is an out-of-season post. However, the pain is still fresh and I wanted to make it right. Let me backtrack, my dude and I recently moved to a new house with a basement. Naively and haphazardly, I stored my Christmas ornaments in cardboard boxes down in the four-foot high, unfinished basement. Moisture and mold ruined all of my ornaments! I was crushed and mad at myself.
Yesterday, I made new ornaments out of clothespins, scrap paper, felt and buttons. It was so easy and fun giving them personalities and dressing them up. For their hair and eyes, I used a marker and for the hanging loop, I used fishing line. Now, I have handmade ornaments and a lesson in storage. One more photo after the jump...
Continue reading "Clothespin Doll Ornaments" »
Argh, I hate the winter. Other than snow days, the winter in New York can eat it. My main complaint is the cold, and more precisely, the cold that seeps into my ground floor apartment. Since I pay for my own heating, I try to be very conscious of how much the heat is on. That usually means that I'm walking around with four layers and under a blanket most days.
The main problem is the draft that comes in from the windows. Even though my apartment is relatively new, the windows seem to be single paned. Not good. At first I simply had one pair of relatively sheer curtains covering the windows, but that just doesn't do the trick, so I decided to install another set of curtains.
Continue reading "Keeping the Draft Out on the Cheap" »
I somehow amassed a ridiculous amount of artwork during 2008. For a few months there I became addicted to scoring low cost prints from Tiny Showcase. Have you guys heard of this place? OMG. It's the best thing ever. Each week the online art gallery
offers a limited edition print from up-and-coming artists like Jeff Soto, Josh Keyes, and Brendan Monroe. For $20, you get a miniature letterpress reproduction of an original artwork worth anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to over a grand. The editions top off at 200 so you still feel like you have a limited edition piece of art.
So with my stack of prints I was losing wall space. That's when I decided to take everything down and start over, this time avoiding the sparse museum look and instead going for clusters. I've seen more and more walls of clustered artwork on Flickr which caught my eye. I wanted to do the same thing but was scared of screwing up the coveted haphazard look and leaving my wall with a ton of tiny holes. I needed to plan out my organic look first...
Continue reading "Seeing in Clusters: Hanging Art and Maximizing Space" »

I absolutely love Snow & Graham's gift wrap. Whenever I buy it to wrap someone's present I end up getting greedy and thinking, "Oh I can just wrap their present in butcher paper. This is much too pretty to be ripped up and thrown away." It becomes the gift wrap that's only used for people who will truly appreciate it.
That said, gift wrap doesn't only have to be used for beautifying presents. Recently I used the paper to spruce up some Ikea display boxes.
Continue reading "Let it Snow!" »