Not that I have the space or anything, but I've started a new collection: vintage copper cookware. I'm obsessed. It all started with a few skillets I found at my local Goodwill. The pans were cheap and unmarked, but pretty. I hung them on the wall. But lately, copper has been popping up at my regular thrifting haunts on a regular basis. And I can't resist! I'm buying it like crazy! I now have the three little pans I started with. Small, medium and large sauce pots/pans, and a big, heavy sauté pan (all with lids, natch). I heard tell of people finding copper awesomeness at thrift stores in the past, but I never thought I would get so lucky. The stuff I've been finding has been tarnished, but it turns out, cleaning copper is super duper easy. Lemon juice and salt, plus a little patience, gets it shining in no time. Of course, it doesn't look "like new" but a little patina is right up my alley anyway. So my point? No point! I just want to urge you to consider hunting down some vintage copper cookware. Mine comes from all over the world and most of it is marked. I have a piece of "Paul Revere-ware" from the States, a pot from Portugal, another from Chile and one from France. It's all slightly different, but you would never know it wasn't a real set. Plus, it's beautiful and fun, and great for cooking. Copper is super conductive and I find it very easy to use. Cooks meat perfectly, for example. Responds very quickly to temperature changes on the stove dial. Yes, the tinning on the insides will wear out over time, but even though my new/old pans have been around for awhile, the tinning in them seems fine. And besides, copper cookware is WILDLY expensive new. (The Mauviel line, carried at Williams Sonoma, costs $2,800 for a 12 piece set. I already have many more pieces in my collection, in practically new condition, and I paid less than $10 per piece.) Think about that. You could buy a single pan from Williams Sonoma (or register for one as a wedding gift, putting the burden of purchasing an idiotic $300 piece of metal on your poor friends), or you could keep your eyes peeled at your local Goodwill and get something that will work wonderfully, look amazing, and cost less than $10. No one will know the difference!
Hey guys,
Remember the post I did about Dollarama awhile back? Remember those adorable animal-lidded jars I mentioned being obsessed with? Well, I finished making a set of my own and I wanted to show them to you.
It's a very simple project.
Supplies
Clean glass jars with metal lids (like old olive jars).
Plastic animals from the dollar store.
Epoxy glue.
White primer or other well-adhering paint in the colour(s) of your choice.
All you need to do is glue the animals to the jar lids and then paint the lids (and the animals) a solid colour. My animals were a bit too big for some of my jars, so I cut them in half (with a sturdy utility knife). The effect is a bit more surreal, with animal bums on some jars and partial torsos on others, but I like it. Here are the snaps:
Plastic animals before.
Project in progress.
After: the jars, completed.
Initially, I made these planning to give them to my niece, but I love them so much, I may have to keep them for myself.
I have a weakness for Dollarama.
There. I said it.
For the most part, I avoid mass-market consumption. I buy my clothes at Goodwill, I eschew Walmart. I shop at mainstream supermarkets, but I try to hit up the farmer's markets too. I'm not perfect by any means, but I TRY.
But somehow, when it comes to Dollarama, my ethics fly out the window and my cheap, miserly self comes to the fore.
I can't help it. I'm OBSESSED with Dollarama.
A new location opened up near my place in the last month, and it's so bright and shiny and well stocked. I feel lured there by the bright florescent lights and cheap craft supplies.
And lest you think I'm just a crazy lady, I wanted to post today about some of my absolute-favourite Dollarama deals. Because they have some GREAT stuff, yo.
Case in point: Art Blanc notebooks. These sweet, hard-backed, high quality babies come from Russia and are sold in gift shops for $12 (or more). They're $2 a piece at Dollarama. They're authentic. AND they're gorgeous. Lots of patterns are available.
For the crafty among you, the Dollarama possibilities are endless, but my latest thing is making these storage containers for my niece (who has a million little bits and bobs to organize). You can get everything you need for this project at Dollarama: the hard animals (usually 4 or more for $1), the jars, the paint, and the epoxy glue. Amazeballs.
And if you want some insta-pretty (no crafting required) check out these glass rose votive/tea-light holders. (I have resisted buying any so far, because we can't handle more knick knacks, but I'm very tempted.) Dollarama stock photo.
Finally, I check out the garden section, where there is a seemingly endless supply of cute animals that can be spray painted and turned into chic book ends and that sort of thing. My house is turning into a menagerie. No joke.
Lion photos by the crafty lady over at Sweetsuite10. Check out her blog for DIY instructions.
I love Dollarama. I really do. But I truly feel guilty about it. In fact, I semi-hate myself... but I just can't stop shopping there. I'm addicted.
Is there a Dollarama addicts support group? Anyone? Anyone?
P.S. What's wrong with Dollarama? Well, I haven't done a LOT of research, but it's pretty safe to assume that many of their products, like those at Wal-Mart, are produced in sweat shop conditions, quite possibly by child labour. This is exactly the opposite of the sort of thing I would like to support with my consumer dollars... Sigh.
Hey dudes... guess what!?
We're getting close to Apartment Therapy day! Apparently, my house tour is set to be posted next week. (Woo woo!)
In the meantime, I have one sneak peek photo to show you, taken by the lovely Abby Cook (who shot our place for the feature). AND, it's a great picture to share because it really highlights one of my recent projects: bright door edging.
I was inspired to paint the edge of every door in our apartment after I saw the September 2001 issue of Martha Stewart Living. The mag featured this project among other easy ways to jazz up your doors and it seemed so simple, I couldn't wait to try it.
I did a different, complimentary or contrasting colour on every door. The guest room (shown above) has green accents, so I chose a bright acid green edge for that room. Our bathroom is dark chocolate brown, and I used a hot pink in there. In our dark blue bedroom, the door edge is now pumpkin orange, and in the dining room, it's teal. You could use any acrylic paint for this project, and I would recommend you apply it with a plain old artist paint brush. Don't bother taping. The door itself will guide you, and if you slip up, just wipe away your mistake with a wet rag. Acrylic is very easy to work with.In order to get a REALLY bright look, I went with some of the new colours/paints from the Mantegna line, purchased at Woolfit's in Toronto. (Any art store will have good paints. I went to Woolfit's because it's around the corner from my office.) You only need a little tube of any one colour to do each door, and you'll have paint left over. _See the "Luminous Green" shown on the right of the top-most line of colours? That's what you see in the first picture above.
This is an EXTREMELY fast and easy project. I highly recommend you try it. When your doors are closed, you won't notice the change at all, but when they're open, you get that pop of colour and it's fun and happy. Think about it.
Back in May, during our east coast road trip, I found these lamps at the Value Village in Fredericton for $1.99 each (including shades). They're a sort of white glass and I thought they'd make for a good (and easy) makeover. Here's the before:I covered the white bits with tape and plastic wrap and spray painted the shiny metal bits flat white.
Then I hand-painted the paper shades with some left-over wall paint. Notice the brush strokes? That wasn't working for me, so half-way through, I switched to using a small foam roller and had much better results.
Here are the finished lamps. For the moment, they live on the buffet with several other white pieces, and my grandmother's tea set.
Decent little project, right?
It's more than a month away, but Halloween is already in full swing in the retail sphere. I know this because I popped in to Dollarama this morning and was assaulted by a full aisle of spooky, mass-produced paraphernalia. Pretty intense.
But I love Halloween. (Spooky Halloween, not sexy Halloween, but let's not get in to that.) And In my mind, no one really does it better than Martha. Here are just a few of the projects I've seen her do that I think can be mimicked with supplies from the dollar store.
Actually, just tooling around the Dollarama gave me a lot of original ideas as well. Their Halloween stock seems particularly good this year.
I think really successful holiday decorating is about doing creative things (and sometimes, cutting corners by using pre-fab materials). I never like to do anything that's straight out of the box, if you know what I mean.
This year, though, there are almost too many options.
What are you thinking about for Halloween decor this year? (Or is it too early to be thinking about it at all?)
I know I've been flooding the chic blog with semi-boring posts about odd thrift store finds of late, but bear with me. I've been doing more thrifting and less DIYing over the last few months in an effort to spend as much time as possible OUTSIDE of my stifling apartment.
Now that it looks like fall is here (or at least, imminent), the winds are sure to shift.
But in the meantime, here's one more post about a weird thrifted object: the lady's head vase.
Popular in the 1950s, the lady's head vase is a kind of "florists ware." Often ceramic, in my opinion, the vases were kind of ugly and overdone, but nonetheless appealing in a kitchy sort of way.
And this weekend, I found one for $0.50 that suited me perfectly: A milk-glass version from around 1980.
Not exactly gorgeous, I know, but it's a nice addition to my milk glass collection and I find it charming. And remember, it was only $0.50. I've been thinking that this sort of piece may have given way to (or influenced) folks like Jonathan Adler. After all, he did all those Dora Maar vases. In a way, they seem to be of the same ilk. Hard to say if it's really evolution. All I know is that I like it.
I've always wanted to and I've finally done it... I've made a pallet headboard!
You can do it too!
Here's how: get a cast off skip or pallet (you can pinch these curbside, or find some warehouse or industrial area in your city/town and beg for one). Look behind the local supermarket, in the loading area. You'll probably find a few. And the dudes who work in trucking will likely be happy to give you some, gratis.
Separating the boards is the hardest part of the project. You'll have to take apart the original pallet in order to reuse the boards. Admittedly, this is no fun. It's grunt work. But once the grunt work is done, the rest is easy.
Here are my admittedly amateur building instructions. (Note that I'm calling the dismantled boards "pallets" here.)
The vertical boards will be the headboard itself. The two horizontal boards are for support only. They are what will keep the vertical boards together. Get it?
In addition to the glue, I drilled two screws through the back of the horizontal supports into EACH vertical board. This meant using LOTS of screws. More than 24. Keep this in mind and buy the right number of screws (plus some extras) before you begin.
Also, be careful to buy the right LENGTH. Even though I measured, I actually bought screws that were too short. (I had been worried about getting screws that were too long and having the tips poke out the front of the headboard, which would have been very bad.) Alas, I overcompensated and the screws were too short. I solved the problem by countersinking them through the supports, which took extra drilling, but saved me a return trip to the hardware store.
Confession: I cleaned this baby like a mofo (because the pallets I used had been VERY dirty), but I did NOT stain or seal the wood. I treated it with orange oil only. I wanted it to look rustic. So for this step, just do what feels right for you. Anyway. That's it! Done! Pallet headboard complete! I gave this baby to Pete, and since his bed is currently a mattress and box spring on the floor, we just propped the headboard up behind. (Later, when he gets a frame, we'll raise the headboard and secure it directly to the wall with additional screws.) Now... for the reveal! See how I deliberately preserved the "Product of Canada" stamps that appeared on some of the pallet boards? More character!And notice how the colour of the board varies. Gives the whole thing a weathered quality.
Alas, Pete is not the sort of man who makes his bed. So I doubt it will ever look quite as I hoped. Nonetheless, I think it works.
Not only does it work, it's cool, right?
I THINK IT'S COOL.
Hello strange, miniature, industrially-styled two-hole punch.
You are green, you are adorable, you are $1, and you are COMING WITH ME.
 Today's DIY is extremely simple.
Basically, it's a variation on the gold birds I've been making recently, only this time, instead of gold, I've spray painted the birds matte white, in order to imitate the look of plaster.
To do this project, start with an object with an interesting or appealing shape.
I began with two plastic peacocks from my local Salvation Army (@2.99 each).
As you can see from this before photo, the birds were an ugly black/bronze colour initially. This sort of ugliness is what you have to look past when choosing your object. Think ONLY about shape. Ignore colour completely.
Next, choose your paint. I went with an outdoor, rust-proofing spray for metal and wood. I know, I know, my object is plastic, but this was the only spray I could find at my local hardware store that was flat/matte enough for my purposes. Just apply the spray in light coats, letting each coat dry for a good 30 minutes before you add another. Work slowly and the paint will likely adhere well enough for indoor display, even if it's not an ideal paint for your object's base material.
Don't forget to spray in a well-ventilated area. (This alkyd stuff is pretty toxic.)
And that's it. Once the paint is dry, you have a matte, white object, reminiscent of plaster.
Do you like it? I think I like it. I was inspired to give it a go when I saw Mr. Goodwill Hunting do a similar makeover on a object shaped like a horse's head. (Thanks for the idea, Rashon!)
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