Look What I Found!

Apologies for the weeks of nothingness on the blog! Nothing's really happened on the home front except... Ikea came to my house! They came for a little interview and to take a look at my home. It was a team of three wonderful gals dressed in those not so wonderful yellow Ikea shirts. We ate J's famous snickerdoodles and went over some questions, took some pictures, had an amazing time, blah blah. They probably say it to everyone, but they said our home was the BEST! I'll take it.

Other than that, the real meaning of this post is to go over my lucky garage sale finds. I forgot to take a picture of the items as they were on the street, but this is one of them:

They were two for $20! The seller's grandma lived in Japan in the 40's and 50's. Everything is solid wood, although the finish on them was bad, the metal was tarnished, and some hardware (those decorative circles) was missing. I wanted to modernize it a bit so I took off the handles (there are tiny knobs on the circle plates in the middle) and the decorative circles and painted it charcoal. All those metal details were hammered in so I had to painstakingly paint around every edge. Each one took about 90 minutes. Below is when the paint was still drying. 

Good ole' after. 

Total cost for this project was $20 but if you don't have paint and a brush, those would cost you about $15. Have you found any bargains lately? 

DIY: Succulent Babies and Fake Mushrooms

I have had one succulent plant from last summer that sprouted three babies that started to hang over the pot on our patio, so I trimmed them off. I just made sure to keep the stems long on the succulent babies cause the stems will be what gets planted under the dirt. I originally wanted to put them in these speckled planters (the white round ones) from West Elm but I didn't have $89 to spend on a pot that was going to get filled with dirt.

So I just used an old thrifted fruit bowl I spruced up a few years ago by painting the rim a metallic golden bronze. It's almost the same mixture of paint I used on the top of the fake mushrooms I made a while back also. Here's what you'll need for those:

• wire 
• oven-bake clay and an oven, unless you are Daenerys Targaryen and have fire breathing dragon babies
• craft paint and a brush

Cut your wire to the length desired for your mushrooms. I did lengths between two and three inches. Make the stem of your mushrooms by creating rolls of clay (wiener style) around the wire. The point of the wire is to give this stem structure and to help it stand up in the ground. I left a little wire at the bottoms to stick further into the dirt later. Now created tiny saucers out of clay and attach them to your stems. Bake in the oven as stated on your specific clay product. When cool, paint! Wit and Whistle has a way better tutorial with full on pictures if needed which is where I first saw it ever. 

Now that you have trimmed succulent babies and fake mushrooms, fill your spruced up trash to treasure bowl with some rocks at the bottom for drainage, then dirt, then plants and mushrooms.

Here is the finished product which was completely free thanks to using what I already had. 

Clearly these are iPhone pics... since... you can see the reflection... 

Mini Alcoholic

On our recent trip to World Market J actually spotted something he really, really wanted. This little guy:

It's a mini cocktail shaker! It's barely six inches tall, stainless steel, and waiting on my desk while we build up a bar to go on top the dresser in our bedroom. Just a little Mad Men corner for us to enjoy in the evenings. Meanwhile, it sits here:

Patio Dreaming

My patio has blue floors. Like a dirty, murky," I was once sky blue but now I'm a sad piece of crap" kinda floor. I'm on the third floor and right in front is a giant oak tree that creates such beautiful leafy canopies for us in the summer. It currently holds old spray cans of paint and a strawberry plant that I have loved for years and is still thriving, despite the odds - I have a notorious black thumb. Hand. Soul? Somehow that strawberry and the succulent next to it are still alive though! With the warm weather and summer rolling in, I'm itching to get the patio finished although in reality it'll probably be "finished" next summer. In the meantime I whipped up a mood board of the direction I want our little outside oasis to go in, on a small budget of course. We really love clean, simple lines and little clutter and I wanted to extend that to the outside. I do want to go all out on the greenery but aside from that, very simple. Here it is:

Clockwise from top left: via Canadian House and Home, FALSTER Bistro Set, Fly By Bird Feeder, LILLON Grill, Edison String Lights, Himalayan Plants, Ficus/Fig

Apartment Sneak Peak