diy wreath

Inspired by trips to the flower mart, I decided to try to make my own wreath this year. I didn't really know what I was doing, but after looking at some Pinterest inspiration and reading a few tutorials, I gave it a shot - and was pretty pleased with the results. It's a little time consuming, and will make a big mess of your living room, but it's not difficult and makes for a nice afternoon project. I highly recommend inviting a friend over and enjoying a little spiked apple cider (it really helps with the hours of wire twisting). I bought my foliage at the SF Flower Mart, but local florists or even well-stocked grocery stores usually carry a good selection at this time of year. Or you can always go foraging for branches in your neighborhood or backyard!

See below for the how-to:

diy inspiration garland

I've been adding some bright and fun decorations to our office so my desk will seem like a more pleasant place to work (it's totally worked and I'm definitely not typing this post from our living room couch, btw). Hanging this colorful inspiration garland added a big splash of color and pattern to the wall with a minimal amount of money and effort.

After making my ribbon hanger, I thought I might be able to use twine to hang even more things above my desk. I wanted something akin to a bulletin board (remember those?) for hanging up photos, magazine clippings, and cards I find inspiring. Even though I love Pinterest, it's still nice to physically pin things up now and then. Rather than buying and having to hang a bulletin board, I just used mini clothespins (which I'd been wanting to buy for ages, they're so adorable!). 

If you want to make your own, all you need is twine, mini clothespins, and tacks. I used mini clips from Cavallini, but Knot & Bow also has some that are even smaller. Just measure out one or two lengths of twine, hang it between two tacks, and then start pinning up your favorite images!

The best part is, it's easy to change what's hanging up without putting more holes in the wall. If I get tired of looking at one image, I just unclip it and and replace it with another. So easy!
Or if I get tired of the whole thing, I'll just pull it down and there will only be 4 tiny tack holes in the wall. No commitment!

diy ribbon hanger

I've been working on organizing and decorating our office lately, particularly my desk area. I've been looking for ways to make my desk pretty and inspiring without spending much, so I turned to the craft supplies I already have on hand. I came up with this ribbon hanger as a fun way to put my ribbon collection on display. It's easy, cheap, and a great two-for-one: it livens up the wall with colorful ribbon, and makes it easier to access ribbon for gift wrapping and projects. 

This hanger is not hard to make (you're basically just tying some twine to a stick), but I've outlined the steps below for you:

paper rosette tips

It's no accident that I'm not calling this post a how-to guide. I don't quite feel qualified to give anyone a guide after the terrible time I had making these %*@&#! rosettes. I wouldn't consider myself an extremely crafty person, but I can usually follow directions and get a pretty decent result. That was not the case with these suckers- they are more complicated than they look! I ended up trying out quite a few tutorials, so I thought I'd share what I learned along the way. Perhaps you can avoid some of my mistakes...

I bought most of the paper I used from Paper Source, so I figured their website would be a good place to find a tutorial. Wrong! Using the measurements they gave, I could barely get the two strips of paper to meet. When attached, they formed a sort of cone shape that would not lay flat without tearing. Fail!

Next stop, Martha Stewart. Oh Queen of craftiness, why is your tutorial even less clear than Paper Source's?! Would some photos of the steps kill you?

OK, time to find some DIYers who know what's up. I found several tutorials using the method explained on Catch my Party. It's similar to the Paper Source method, but you attach 3 fans of folded paper together instead of two. This worked a little better. I could actually get something resembling a rosette shape, but had a hard time attaching the fans with a stapler. I ended up with gaps where the fans of paper were attached (in the photo above, the top white rosette was made with this method). 

The final method I tried worked the best for me. This tutorial from the Broke-Ass Bride produced the cleanest and best-looking rosettes. One VERY IMPORTANT note: in this guide, you're using two 12" sheets of paper, cutting them both in half, and then glueing the four strips of paper together to make one long 6" x 48" strip.  Hopefully your reading comprehension is better than mine, but this wasn't 100% clear to me in the first read-through. I made one using a 6" x 24" strip of paper and ended up with another cone. You can adjust the paper size to make bigger or smaller rosettes, but the length of your paper should always be at least six times the width for this method to work. 

A final note on supplies: I used several types of paper with varying results. A medium-weight paper similar to construction paper will work best. I don't recommend using card stock, it is too thick and really a pain to fold. Paper Source's rolls of solid gift wrap are a good weight, and a good value. The fancy fine papers I used really were mighty fine. They were so soft and had a bit of stretch, but beware- they're ridiculously expensive. In retrospect, I probably should have just used scrapbook paper, but I really, really didn't want to go to Michael's...

Have you ever made rosettes? Am I the only one craft-impaired with these? 

graduation party

My good friend Kait graduated from medical school a few weeks ago, and I helped throw a party to celebrate. I partnered with Oakland Bakes to create a festive dessert bar for the occasion. 

We chose an olde timey apothecary theme with a color palette of minty hospital green, white and silver as a nod to the medical profession. We used apothecary style jars and vases, and displayed the cookies on quarter-sheet trays to suggest surgical instrument trays. I incorporated the colors into the decor by crafting rosettes and pom poms in the same palette.

Read on for more photos:

grocery store bouquets

Planning on buying flowers for Mother's Day? I'm here to help with a guide for giving flowers this Sunday- or really any time you want to brighten someone's day!

If you're looking to get creative and save some cash, it is possible to put together a pretty bouquet using grocery store flowers. All it takes to make them look great is a little forethought and a few extra minutes of work.

Read on for the how-to:

monday links

Happy Monday! It's rainy and cold here today, but I've got Spring on the mind thanks to this genius project from Jenny Komenda- DIY concrete planters. Big, outdoor planters can be so expensive and ugly, but they don't have to be if you can make them yourself! I'm thinking about trying to make some of these for our outdoor driveway, er, patio. 

Have you ever tried contouring your makeup? There seems to be a ton of dramatic before-and-afters going around the web these days. As someone who is lucky to get out the door with a little eyeshadow and mascara most mornings, I can't imagine wearing that much makeup - unless maybe I had to assume a new identity and needed to look completely different? Check out this round-up of dramatic transformations, and a how-to from The Beauty Department for a less extreme technique. 

Should you go out tonight? Let Morrissey help you decide with this awesome flow chart (spoiler alert: don't go looking for an optimistic answer).

Did you watch the season finale of The Walking Dead last night? Are you thoroughly terrified of the zombie apocalypse? Refinery29 has put together a Zombie Survivial Guide to help you get prepared. I don't think I'm going to bother stocking up on supplies though- I know I'll be too scared to survive if the zombies ever really come!

[Concrete planters photo from Little Green Notebook, Makeup photo from Loulou's Star Fashions, Morrissey photo via American Songwriter, The Walking Dead photo via Collider]

cane chair fix

Design*Sponge just featured the most amazing fix for a broken cane-seat chair. I love the look of cane and always see great deals on beautiful chairs with broken cane, but I never buy them because I know it can be expensive and complicated to fix. It never occurred to me to just MAKE MY OWN CANE OUT OF YARN! and colorful yarn at that. Mind = blown. 

Check out the genius DIY here. 

[photo by Joëlle Fabbri  via Design*Sponge]

easy quilt hanger

My husband and I purchased an Otomi tapestry on our honeymoon in Mexico two years ago, and last weekend I finally figured out a way to hang it up. I'd looked for tapestry or quilt hangers online, but most of them were big and bulky, or just plain ugly. I wanted something simple and delicate to keep the focus on the beautiful embroidery.

The simple technique I came up with ended up being super easy and required less than $10 in supplies from the hardware store. It could be easily adapted to hang quilts, tea towels, or any piece of fabric you'd like to hang. 

Click through for the step by step instructions:

house full of plants

Inspired by my friend Michael's lovely collection of houseplants, I've been trying to add more plants to my home. I love the fresh pop of green they add to a room, there's something so cheerful about a little potted plant. 

Our current apartment doesn't get a ton of natural light, so its been a bit of a challenge to find plants that will survive in our mostly indirect light conditions. Click below for tips and photos of the plants I have been able to keep alive, as well as the ones that didn't make it...

bathroom makeover

Like most buildings that were built a century ago, our apartment has many flaws and quirky features. Many of them are charming and give the place character. When it comes to bathrooms, however, old quirks are often more gross than charming. Old tile usually just looks, well, old. If I had my way, I'd have a beautifully restored old house with a re-tiled bathroom (and while I'm dreaming, let's update the tile in the kitchen too). Unfortunately, as we're still renting, gutting the bathroom wasn't an option for this apartment. In the past, I haven't put much effort into fixing up rental bathrooms, but this one needed some serious help.

burger cook-off

We held our annual Burger Cook-off on Labor Day, and the competition was pretty fierce. Everyone really stepped up their game in the burger department this year- maybe because they wanted to bring home one of these magnificent specimens:

I was able to modify these thrift store finds (see the before photo here) into official burger trophies with the help of some gold foil plaques. I found some gold foil card stock in the (shudder) scrapbooking section of the craft store, and was shocked that I was actually able to print on it (note: I did use a fancy office laser printer, an inkjet might not be as successful). Once I got the printer to print on the gold foil, it was only a matter of glueing the plaques on and voila! Official USA World Champion Trophies!

cutoffs

It's summer, and that means I pretty much want to live in cutoffs. I've been on the hunt for a new pair after my trusty old favorites finally bit the dust. I was eyeing a pair at Madewell, but I just can't justify paying big bucks for something that is so easy to make yourself. Unfortunately, I didn't have any old jeans I could just cut (why can't my jeans ever get holes in the knees instead of the inseam??), so I decided to hit up my local thrift store. 

a spectrum of napkins

For a new twist on ombre table linens, I thought it would be pretty if the ombre effect ran the full length of the table, with the napkins getting progressively darker from one end to the other. To achieve this look, I dyed a set of napkins in a spectrum of shades of pink.

I started with a set of twelve white napkins. Its important to wash them before dyeing to remove any finishes that could interfere with the absorption of the dyes.