To all my incredible followers. I’ve decided to move this blog to a Blogger account. The address will still be the same knowhowshedoesit.com but I can guarantee that the design of the page will be better. Please, keep supporting me by showing some love and following me to my new home. I can’t wait to see you there… My best to you!
- Gloribell
To all my faithful followers, happy New Year! May 2013 bring you and your loved ones peace, love, happiness, and good health!
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Stars, constellations, lights, you name it. This year’s Christmas display, for me, is out of this world. For this piece, besides mixing old items with new ones, I also incorporated branches and silver tones (the mercury vases and owl). Although in theory it might sound contrasting, the beauty of it relies on opposites: nature with man made materials, darkness with brightness. Also it is very important to create a balance so that the display won’t seem to fall on one side. So, to create a symmetric view, I counter balance the height of the branches with a wide piece on the opposite side (the pine cone Christmas tree). The idea when designing a display like this or a fire mantel, is to play with the ornaments and to develop a rhythm among each of the objects.
Do you have your Santa’s wish list ready? If so, stop right there and don’t forget to add this book: House Beautiful The Apartment Book. I was recently invited to review it, and was I “WOWed”…. This book is packed with lots of great design ideas for every decor taste; from the traditional everyday inspired to the contemporary ones.
House Beautiful The Apartment Book did not forgot about anyone in this book. If you are a proud owner of a Louis XVI chair for sure, you’ll find ideas here on how to pair this fabulous accent chair with your surrounding furniture.
Divided by room areas: living room, dining areas, kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, foyers, libraries, and offices; this book is perfect for the apartment owner who seeks to find the best design choices for limited spaces.
Here are some points that I loved:
No matter how big or small is your room, here you’ll find a muse that will inspire you to create and decorate. Look for the before and after sections distributed around the book. The final results will leave you breathless. They’ve addressed on this examples some good pointers to keep in mind when renovating or redecorating certain areas in your apartment.
For the collectors, they have 10 great pointers for showing off your treasures In doubt of how to play with a neutral palette? Don’t despair, here you’ll find tons of ideas for the minimalist taste, but also for the traditional ones.
I would suggest to look for this great pages:
So there you have it. Now remember to ask Santa for House Beautiful The Apartment Book (now available onBarnes and Noble or your bookstore of choice). I’m sure he won’t mind if you’ve been naughty or nice!
Tired of the same old red, green and blue combinations on my Christmas tree, this year I opted to keep it delicate and simple with hints of green combined with white. What I like the most about my tree is the fact that most of my ornaments either are recycled from previous years, or made by me.
During one of my trips to Michaels, I bought some vintage inspired scrapbook papers and used them to make origami doves. I admit this was he first time I’ve ever made anything origami, but what worked for me was some Youtube tutorials. I used two different dove’s designs, one with a medium level of difficulty, and the other was very easy to do. To hang my Japanese masterpieces, I used some natural fiber strings that mixed very well with the burlap ribbon used in the rest of the tree.
For the recycled ornaments, I had a couple of brown metal and some wooden snowflakes from Target that I bought two years ago. I painted them all with white spray paint but from the wooden ones, left the metal part intact. Last year I bought (also from Target) some felt snowflakes in orange and green. The material of the center was in wood, so from the orange ones I took this part and with spray glue added some green glitter. They now look more Christmassy than before.
At this point I knew I needed something white, so I remembered that I always wanted to try one idea I found on Pinterest where, with some cornstarch and baking soda, one can do clay decorations. You can find the recipe here. When I did this at home, my recipe ended up needing more baking soda since the consistency was a bit watery and damp, making it difficult to cut with the cookie cutters. For the texture of both the angels and stars, I bought some inexpensive rubber stamps available at Michaels.
To cover some blank spots here and there, I bought some fiber hearts and used some small crystal balls to finish what now I call my Country/natural Christmas tree. Hope you enjoyed my recycled/almost-hand-made tree. Have a Merry Christmas!
Now that Christmas is a couple of days away, I took some time to make used of the leftover branches from our tree. In our house we’ve always preferred natural Christmas trees because nothing can beat the evergreen smell around the house. This year the tree we bought was larger at the bottom, so my husband took down some branches which I used in the making of our door wreath. In this video from Youtube, you can see how easy it is to make a wreath with some tree branches, a wire hanger, and some floral wire. My wreath was shaped into a square, since I fell in love with one from West Elm, and wanted to apply the same principle to mine. Besides, the look is different from the common round ones and even more sophisticated.
The trick when doing this wreath is to make it in layers. After the first layer is done, check to see where there are areas that need to be fill. To decorate my wreath I used inexpensive (a box of 12 for $2.50) plastic white snowflakes from Walgreens and some pine cones from a last year’s Christmas pine cone project. To finish it all, I recycled the bow from the Fall Inspired Wreath.
Hope I got you inspired to do your own wreath. Please share with me your Holiday projects and feel free to pin this on Pinterest. Happy Holidays!
Here is my take on the famous Halloween pumpkin. With just some glitter, feathers, small fabric flowers and a couple of butterfly parts, I assemble what I like to call the “Lady Moth-pire” (my version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but with a vampire twist). You can find all these materials and more at Michaels or your favorite craft store. To see more great ideas on Halloween, take a peek at my Pinterest Halloween board.
Oh please, someone make Halloween last at least until November 15!!! Did you know that I definitively love this holiday? Although it might seem like an irony, on this new project I used silhouettes and mice which have always make me shriek. There are some people who believe that in order to overcome your fears, you have to confront them. So here I tried to do so by combining all those things that I might have a little fright to, and convert them into a creative opportunity for my front door.
The rest of the elements I used were templates from Martha Stewart’s website. You can find the cat template here, and the mice here. Remember to print these to the desire size. Since I did not have the chance to go and print them, I drew them by looking at the computer. Not so bad, ah?!?! (P.S. the creature at the right is a hybrid between a cat and a dog jajajaja)
The final items for my Halloween spooky door were some spiders I bought at Target. The bag had like 50, but I did not used them all. In order to place them on the door, I used strips of magnets which I cut in smaller sizes. These come with glue on one side, making this task very easy to do. I also used the magnets on all my silhouettes, since I did not want to ruin the door with double tape.
For the spiderwebs I placed here and there, I used Halloween wall decals (also available at Target). These are peel-and-stick and were very easy to reposition in case I did not like how they looked.
At the end I guess I conquer my fears, and the best part is, I’m very proud of the effort. Let me know what are you using on your door on this Halloween. Remember you can also see more great ideas on my Halloween Pinterest board here. Hope you liked my spooky door idea!
