We recently moved into our new house, and I’ve been busy arranging and re-arranging things to get us settled. In this process, I was fortunate to receive a beautiful new sideboard cabinet from Hernest.com. This item was generously gifted, but … Continue reading
You might know that I caught the macrame bug last summer. There is just something so magical about transforming a simple piece of rope! Once I figured out the basics, I wanted to be able to create some more original designs as well. Here are my posts on macrame plant hangers:
Even with my love of plants and hanging planters, I was running low on things to make with rope, so I was very excited to see this I discovered macrame pendant lights. I first caught sight of Windy Chien’s Helix light in the Apartment 34’s One Room Challenge:
And then, I began spotting it everywhere, like in this beautiful bedroom from Katie Monkhouse:
Mandi Gruber (my idol!) also has a funky version of this simple and gorgeous idea, as does Holly Wade on Curbly.
I was looking for bedside lamps for our guest room and teen’s room, and I knew that I just had to try my own version of these lights!
Here’s what you’ll need:
Here’s how to do it:
Here are some pictures of the hanging lights – the navy cord was made with 5mm cord and the denim cord with 9mm rope.
I don’t know about you, but I want to make another one (or ten) soon.
Happy knotting!
Julie aka “Jewels”
I’m really excited to be a Guest Participant again in the One Room Challenge! This is a great way to get inspiration and motivation for your home. This spring, I re-decorated our boys’ bathroom. For this fall’s challenge, I’m transforming our teen’s … Continue reading
I’m really excited to be a Guest Participant again in the One Room Challenge! This is a great way to get inspiration and motivation for your home. This spring, I re-decorated our boys’ bathroom. For this fall’s challenge, I’m transforming our teen’s bedroom. His new space is inspired by an industrial loft, with an exposed brick wall and other great features! Thanks for following along!
Kai is a quiet kid who doesn’t share much or ask for much. When the boys wanted their own rooms last fall, he ended up in my former craft room, and I made very few changes when I moved him in, other than adding a bed. Although he does not ask for much, he does show his appreciation, and I was excited to do something special for him, before he goes off to college in a few more years – sniff, wah!
I know how fast they grow, so I wanted an adult space, where we could add a few personal touches. I also imagine that some day, I’ll gain this room back as a craft studio, so I kept all that in mind in choosing a simple loft-inspired design scheme. There are vintage, industrial, and hand-made touches that will allow this space to endure and adapt to our family in the years to come.
Image sources:
Are you as excited as I am?!
I created my design plan the way I usually do, looking for inspiration spaces and then identifying the elements and themes that I want to incorporate into our home. The Design Cookbook has more details on how you can use this approach to create spaces you love!
Here are two of my inspiration spaces for this project. I could not find an original source for the first picture, so please let me know if you find it, so I can give credit!
This second room was featured on the Street Easy blog.
The features I loved in both of these spaces – and that I knew I wanted to recreate – are:
I’ve done a little bit of sourcing and preparation already, but there is a lot of work left to do in the next five weeks! I can’t wait to share all the projects and see the final space!
A huge thank you to Linda for creating the One Room Challenge community, and high fives to all my fellow bloggers whose hard work and creativity were great inspirations! Be sure to go back to the One Room Challenge blog and check out all the other projects!
Julie aka “Jewels”
I’ve decided to call my crafting style “serial crafting monogamy.” I definitely go on streaks where I fall in love with a new technique and can’t get enough of it. Right now, I’m sure you have noticed, I am addicted to macrame. Once I got the hang of it, I have so many ideas to try!
Today’s post is about adding color to your plant hangers – I did this with dyeing an ombre pattern as well as with adding colorful embroidery floss.
If you want to go back and see other posts on macrame, here are the links:
First, check out these beautiful ombré plant hangers. I made them with cotton clothesline and created the ombre pattern with navy fabric dye.
To get the ombré effect, I dipped the plant hanger in a container of dye solution and then pulled it out and hung it with just the bottom sitting in the dye for 20-30 minutes.
The other way I added color to the plant hangers was by adding gathering knots in different colors of embroidery floss.
And I just recently discovered Bobbiny cotton rope from Poland. It’s so soft, recycled, and beautiful, so I’m definitely scheming to add more color to my macrame projects that way!
“Jewels”
I’m really excited to be a Guest Participant in my first One Room Challenge! This is a great way to get inspiration and motivation for your home. For this challenge, I’ve decided to re-do our kids’ bath. It started out with a cute beach theme that seemed perfect when the boys were little, but now I am ready for it to grow up with them. Our new look features neutral colors, natural touches, and enough personality to stand up to three boys! Thanks for following along!
Fortunately, we renovated this bath when we moved into our house a few years ago, and all the “bones” are still good. Without doing a major renovation, I have a feeling I can still completely change our look! I’ve been so inspired by the clean palette of today’s most popular design styles – whether it’s “Scandinavian-inspired,” “California Casual,” or “Modern Farmhouse,” everyone – myself included – is loving white walls and lots of natural materials.
For week one, my task was make this room a blank slate! I took down all the decorations, touched up the existing vanity, sealed the marble, and got some help painting the walls from our friend Joe.
The new wall color is “Feather Down” from Benjamin Moore. I’ve used it in our master bath as well, and I love the warm neutral feel.
Here are a few “before” (or “old after”) and “after” (or “new before”) pictures. I am so excited to get to work rebuilding this space!
Go check out all the other exciting guest great projects over at the Spring 2018 One Room Challenge!
I hope you come back to see the rest of this room’s transformation!
“Jewels”
You know decorating for Christmas is a serious thing in our house, and to keep my sanity, I usually try to start planning early. This fall, though, every spare moment outside of work and basic survival has been consumed with stuff for the boys’ school and birthdays! Now, I’m starting to feel a bit of breathing room – or I’m forcing myself to maintain some sanity.
I honestly had so much fun with last year’s retro Christmas that I thought about recreating it. I’ve decided, however, to try a new variation I’m going to call a “Mod Metallic Christmas.”
Here is an inspiration photo (source):
Three years ago, I did simple white and grey Christmas theme, and I’m excited to add some glitter and glam this time around!
Taking inspiration from The Design Cookbook, I created a “recipe” to help me focus my vision for this project and keep it on track:
Some projects I’d like to work on include:
Metallic garland (source):
Tin can luminaries (source):
Dip-painted wooden ornaments (source):
Painted pine cones (source):
Felt garland (source):
And here are some more inspiration photos (source):
What do you have in mind for holiday decorating?
Cheers,
“Jewels”
Happy New Year!
I am feel super-stoked about work this year. I have my long-time work “family,” and we have added some strong new staff as well. We are moving to new offices, and I am part of building a new clinic, which is a bit daunting but mostly exciting. To help kick off the new year at work, I decided to make myself a cute laptop sleeve.
I was inspired by this pattern from Mandi at A Beautiful Mess. I made a few adaptations, like a velcro closure, a sewn-in name tag, and a rectangular flap.
To make your laptop sleeve, you’ll need
Start by cutting rectangles out of all three materials. For the width, the fabric should be 1 3/4 inches wider than your laptop on either side. For the length, wrap the fabric around your laptop and add about 6 inches for the flap. I’m lucky the print on my fabric worked out perfectly to line up… I mean I carefully planned and lined up the pattern on my fabric!
I made a label out of scrap muslin and put my name and contact information on it, in case I should ever be so unfortunate as to lose my laptop by fortunate enough to have someone host find it… I sewed this onto the lining fabric, as show below.
Next, I laid all three layers together and pinned them to keep them in place. I sewed quilting lines through all three fabrics for most of the sleeve, but I did want to sew across my name tag, so for the top section, I used some scrap fabric for backing and just sewed the outside fabric and batting to the scrap fabric, also shown below (folded over).
Next, I added the velcro. For the velcro on the body of the bag, I sewed all the way through, since the velcro is on the outside fabric, and I didn’t mind having stitching on the inside. However, for the velcro on the inside of the flap, I didn’t want the stitching to show on the outside, so I used more scrap fabric for backing, and I sewed the velcro to the inside fabric, batting, and scrap fabric, as shown below.
You can see the sleeve taking shape now! I finished one short end of the rectangle with bias binding (shown bel0w) and folded the entire piece to make the sleeve and trimmed some excess from the sides for a snug fit. I pinned the fabric in place to form the shape of the sleeve.
I sewed the sides together with a zig zag stitch and then added bias binding to the sides of the sleeve and top of the flap.
This was a pretty quick and easy project, and I love how it turned out. I think Steve is eyeing the laptop sleeve, and I offered to make one for him, but he does work from home most days and so he has turned me down so far…
Here are some pictures of the finished product!
Looking forward to many adventures both at work and “at home” in 2016!
“Jewels”
I know it is only November, but I am already getting excited about the upcoming Christmas season. The last few years, I’ve changed up our decorations to have a different theme each season. This year, I decided to go with a retro mid-century Christmas theme. You may remember that I am a big fan of the TV series Mad Men, and I really wanted to have a party to mark the series finale this spring, but life is way too busy, so I decided to have some Mid-Century fun for Christmas. One of my inspirations was this Christmas tree skirt that I saw advertised on mod cloth last year.
It’s sold out now, and it was also smaller than I wanted, so of course I decided to make my own. If you are feeling inspired, here’s how I did it.
You’ll need:
Instructions:
I’m waiting a few more weeks to set up our decorations, and I am so excited to see this pretty skirt under our tree!
Update: Here are some pictures of the skirt under our tree!
With two of my friends at work expecting babies, I realize I’ve crossed a strange line. Our family is complete, and while little J is just 3 years old, there is a part of me that feels a bit like a doting grandma, looking back on those long-gone days of pregnancy and first-time motherhood.
In any case, I wanted to make something special for my friend Kate’s baby boy, so I put together this patchwork of whimsical prints and backed it with warm fleece fabric.
Congrats, Kate and Rob. You have a lot of fun ahead! And try to get some sleep and date nights in…
“Jewels”
Jewels at Home 
