Chez Larsson

Craft Corner Details

 

Today I thought I'd show you parts of my craft corner in more detail as I've had some questions on it. One question was how do I keep it so uncluttered?

 

Because the mess is in contained in a box! Large craft projects like carpentry is done in the garage and sewing in my sewing nook downstairs. Paper crafts, giftwrapping is done in this little craft corner and I toss all the unfinished little projects in this box. At the moment there are some Martha Stewart and Purl Bee craft instructions in there along with some small frames I've been meaning to fill with something, some lampshade ideas and materials, a fabric swatch, some etsy ideas etc etc. I put the lid on and the mess is hidden away until I get a chance to craft.

  

The metal box is one of many that I get from work. Samples from India arrive in them and they are thrown away because they are so covered in packing tape that no one (other than me) wants them.

   

I keep some of the not so pretty craft things in there, like the paper cutter, the Letratag label maker, screen printing ink, spray mount glue and empty bead containers.

 

Those little red , white and orange tips are...

 

... the tops of my glues. I keep all the different glues in one basket and can easily find the right one for the particular craft I'm doing. The basket is above eye level so I don't see the bottles but I know they are there easily accessible.

 

When we built the craft unit we based it around the milky white Muji drawers but I also needed a spot for all the gift wrapping rolls so I added this vertical space simply by adding a front to the side of the unit so the rolls won't fall out. Other ways to store gift wrap can be found here if you don't have this kind of space. Another option is to use a cylinder waste paper basket and pop then in there.

I hope that answers some of your questions.

Travel Scrapping

ROME 2006

I know quite a few of you are scrapbookers. I only keep a travel scrapbook for Wille and I'm waaaaay behind. I'm hoping this post will inspire myself to add some pages from more recent trips than these.

I made my first travel scrapbook when I went to England for language classes when I was thirteen. 31 years ago. I know, I'm old. I kept all the receipts, tickets, candy wrappers etc and pasted them into a notebook. I don't have that scrapbook anymore but I still do the layouts with the same types of items and adding one or two photos to keep track of Wille's age.

CORFU 2004

I love using the local map as the general theme throughout. One) Because I love maps Two) Because they are such a big part of the trips. I either get duplicate maps while there or photo copy the one I have so I still have one map intact.

I also like adding the little things Wille likes to keep  from travels like the ice-cream spoons and fancy drinks decorations. Receipts are fun because they remind you of stuff you bought that you no longer have (like the PokemonWille bought on this trip but has now passed on to his little cousins). Also in the future it will be fun to look back at what things used to cost.

 

EGYPT 2003

Sometimes I add found shells and rocks to the layouts. They are a bit tricky to stick but I really like the way they look in there.

 

 

 

Local bottle caps and candy wrappers also give local flavor to the pages like the Mentos with Arabic print.

So I'm curious, do you or your family members bring this stuff home with you after trips and what do you do with it afterward?  I get rid of the stuff that doesn't fit in the scrapbook unless Wille really wants to hold on to it, then it goes into his memory box.

To Berlin and Back

 

So I've been to Berlin. I pre-published the two previous posts so you wouldn't miss me too much :)

 

Viktor & Rolf Display

I left early on Wednesday and returned late last night so it was really a quick trip to gather some Easter inspiration for next years Easter campaigns at work.

 

I have to say it's not my favorite city so far but I'm sure it's partly because the weather was pretty bad most of the time. In this shot the sun shines, and maybe that's one of the reasons I really liked Sophienstrasse.

 

Not so many shops that interest me in Berlin as I had hoped. Quite a lot of clothing, not so much interiors but an abundance of coffee shops, bakeries and bars. 

 

I covered quite a large portion of the the city in two days, visited Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain, Mitte and Charlottenburg where I stayed.

 

The guy outside this shop had the unfortunate task of replacing the large sequins that passers-by had pryed off the night before.

 

I had to check out Checkpoint Charlie of course. This was one of the few places in town that was somewhat crowded. It was kind of weird being in such a big city and to see so few people out and about. Hey, 4 million people live there and I felt on my own on Kurfürstendamm. I guess Wednesdays and Thursdays are slow.

 

Trabant for sale. 3750 Euros and it can be yours! Or if you feel that's to pricey you can go on a Trabi safari for about 25.

 

I stayed at the Bleibtreu Hotel in Bleibtreu Strasse just off Kurfürstendamm. Nice hotel, friendly staff and some nice design features.

 

My travel souvenirs include cute sugar "cubes" and polka dot paper napkins. It's nice to be back home.

Thanks so much to those of you who gave me Berlin travel advice a while back, it was great and I visited quite a few of the places you mentioned. My advice for anyone going there would be to visit in the summer time. I think it would be very different from a couple of cold and rainy days in March.

~

Did you notice my new banner? I felt it was time for a change. Thanks Martin for helping me! Hope you guys like it.

Also you may have noticed that the comment section looks different. I saw the new Typepad Connect feature over at Ali's blog and liked it so here it is. You can communicate more directly with other commenters now by clicking on the reply link under each comment.

Happy weekend!!!

A Simple Window Treatment

 

The windows in our house are not very consistent. Some are opened outwards and some inwards. I guess it has to do with what type of panes the windows had originally. Both our stained glass windows are  opened inwards so I guess the hallway window above which is the only other window in our house that opens inwards used to have stained glass but was switched to regular glass at some point. The inward bit make it tricky when considering window treatments as the window hardware is flush with the wall.

I don't want big curtains or even a blind  but I do want something there so the window doesn't look like a black hole at night. After my window cleaner guy came last Friday (Yay!) and the windows are now sparkling I decided to sew a fresh little linen curtain to replace the old one.

 

I love the simplicity of this treatment. It's just a curtain wire with hooks and eye hooks screwn into the window frame. You want a little tension here so the wire doesn't sag after adding the fabric so cut it shorter than the length you want and stretch to reach the hook at the other end.

 

The curtain itself is just a pre-washed piece of white linen fabric hemmed on the sides and at the bottom and with a channel for the wire to run through at the top. I like.

Zip. Zoom. Swoosh.

Beep. Beep. Something extra terrestrial landed in our garden on Sunday.

Well actually this was one of my weekend projects and it's not really a how-to because I can't really explain well how I made it. And maybe after seeing the top photo you are not interested in knowing.

Anyway my idea was to sew a cover for our seldomly used barbecue. A) Because it sits in the garage nine months a year collecting dust from our carpentry sessions B) Because it's an ugly barbecue so for the few months it can go outside I prefer not seeing it when it's not in action. And to be frank it rarely is. I don't think we even BBQ'ed once last summer. It's just not our first choice of food.  We own one because when we have city dwellers over for summer dinners it's almost expected to have a BBQ. Last year we did not comply to any of those requests. I know, we are bad.

Anyway, to explain a little bit how I made the cover here are a few steps.

I started off by measuring the depth and width and height of the barbecue and bought the oil cloth for it. I then traced the corner shape by placing a paper pad under the hood and drawing around it.

 

I cut a square piece out of the oil cloth having added a tiny bit for seam allowance. I then cut out the corner shape and used it as a template on all four corners so I'd get the shape right.

 

I laid the cut out piece on top of the barbecue to make sure I'd cut it correctly and then made a mark with a pen for where I wanted the skirt to start at the handle.

 

I pinned the skirt onto my reluctant model on the reverse. This is where the how-to gets a little blurred because I just winged it all the way.... a little nip here, a little tuck there and quite a lot of blood shed on my part as I was pricking myself with the pins.

I can't really explain where to cut and how to do it and I only succeeded on my third attempt at pinning the skirt to the top. Let me put it this way. It's a trial and error process as your barbecue is probably not like mine anyhow and you need to figure out the hole for your particular handle etc.

The reason for the lack of close-ups is simply because this is not my finest work. And it's not a project for beginners. The oil cloth is both slippery at the same time as the presser foot gets caught in the rubberyness. Not the easiest material to maneuver.

I did finish it and did so by hemming the bottom and adding Velcro to the opening. I think the result is ok'ish and I like it better than the naked thing anyhow.

Oh and if you do decide to attempt this, there are probably similar ones you can buy ready made. And don't forget to wait until the barbecue is completely cool before putting it on or you're going to end up with something resembling melted cheese.

Easter Tree

I didn't give up completely on the mini bunting for the easter tree. I just had to adapt it slightly.

Again, one of the quickest decorations I've ever made. I think it took about five minutes to cut the triangles and punch the holes. Then they were ready to be hung on the birch twigs. The little left over rounds are really cute too so I saved them, maybe I'll pop them in an Easter egg as surprize confetti.

 

And there you have our Easter tree. Do you have one? What's in yours?

 

 

Mini Bunting

  

I know it's difficult but you're not supposed to be looking at Mini in this photo.

You're meant to look at the mini bunting behind her.

I made it with the intention to put it in our Easter tree, but with all the strings it ended up too busy so instead I hung it straight down where the fairy lights used to hang.

     

The bunting is probably the simplest, quickest and fun'est decoration I've ever made. I cut little triangles out of craft paper...

 

...stitched them together on my sewing machine, just adding one after the other...

 

...and I love the result!

More Green

 

There's a lot of green going on at the moment, isn't there? When I posted about my newly papered closet doors I had a comment from Jaqcueline who wondered if I had other ideas for spreading the green around my home. Then I read this post and it linked to this one and this morning I saw this one and I had already prepared a collage of greens a few months ago that I never used in a post. Green all around it seems.

I love green. It has been my favorite color for quite a few years. To me it's not so much a color but a neutral as I've said before. It's the color of the outdoors and using it indoors sort of brings the outside in.

 

Also green goes well with most colors, yummy in a Yvestown pink and green way, fresh and citrusy with yellow, beachy with blue, Christmassy with red and the list goes on.

         

My greens around the house are some of the ones you see here. Green fabric on pillows, growing greens, Stan Smith green and other little green details here and there.

  This morning the window cleaner came and did my windows! Yay, I can see outside again! AND I saw some snowdrops in my garden! It's spring!!!

Larsson Window

     

A while back I was asked about the name on our front door. Did we make it ourselves? No, not this time around. This one we had made by a glazier. The reason being that the window that was originally in that door was just a single pane. With the weather being like it is here during the winters it got very cold and damp on the inside all the time so we had this double glazing made. We did fit it ourselves though.

The technique here is that they cut the name out of frosted adhesive film and  place it on the inside, in between the panes. We chose French script and Martin tweeked the font a little bit to make the L look better as a first capital letter.

We did make one version ourselves quite a few years ago though. This was the only photo I could find but if you click on it you can see a little bit better. We bought frosted adhesive film, Martin drew his own font and cut the name out with an exacto knife. So here we basically did the reverse, the name is see-through and the rest is frosted. And yes, the door was fire engine red. Those where the days according to Martin...

   

We do still have one window using the same technique. This is the window to the garage and it annoyed me that when I was down there in the evenings everyone could see straight inside. I did want to see what the weather was like though so I cut out some holes with a rotary cutter before sticking the adhesive film to the window.

The best way to stick these adhesive films is to:

1. Add a drop of dish washing liquid to water in a spray bottle.

2. Spray both the window AND the adhesive side of the film.

3. Place the film on the window. The water enables you to move the film around.

4. When you are happy with the position you use a credit card or similar and scrape the water away by pushing it towards the sides where you wipe it away with a cloth.

5. If you get an air bubble prick it with a needle and scrape with the card to ket he air out through the minuscule hole.

6. The film will still be moving about for a few days if you touch it but it dries after a while and sticks well after that.

Oh, we've talked about repainting the door again. Martin thinks orange, I'm more into kelly green. Any other suggestions?

Sprucing Up an Old Lamp Shade

I've had such a hard time finding replacement drum lamp shades that don't cost a fortune. The cheapest I could find was $35 for a small one and I need four... I also want a white look and a white glow as opposed to most who want the warmer yellow glow, so while a lot of shades look white unlit the inside is tinted and when you light it it's yellow. I realised I could probably make the shade I want better myself.

   

So from this shade that used to be white but has yellowed with age to this white, bright, clean looking one. Well actually I made two in one go. Only two more to go and then maybe I'll attack a bigger one too. It was easier than I expected. And fun too!

   

First I stripped the old fabric and laminate (the shade part) from the frame. The frame consists of one bottom ring and one top with bulb holder.

 

Here's what I used: The original frame, sticky back shade laminate from a local craft store, white linen fabric, white cotton ribbon, fabric glue, super attack glue and glue stick. Measure the circumference of your shade frame and cut the astralite accordingly.

   

I started off by sticking the laminate onto the fabric and trimmed off the excess. I did leave 1 cm / 1/4" at one end so the overlapped part would be easier to glue.

Then I put some fabric glue to the outside at one end and inside of the other end and let dry until tacky. This is the part I'm least happy about because the glue dries yellow and with the fabric being linen you can see a hint of yellow on the back of the finished shade.

To fit the shade onto the frame I placed the top frame ring down and pulled the ends of the shade together over it. I added a strip of cotton ribbon stuck down with a glue stick along the inside over the seam to make it look neater.

Then I removed the ring and put super attack glue along it on the outside, placed it on a plastic sheet (don't put paper down or your shade will stick to it) and placed the shade over it. I used the weight of my scissors to hold it in place while it dried. Then I did the same with the bottom ring.

     

After both rings had been attached I added the cotton ribbon trim to the top and bottom. I used glue stick for this.

After folding the edge of the cotton ribbon to the inside I ran my thumb nail along to make sure it stuck well everywhere.

 

Here's what it looks on the inside after it's done.

 

Et voilà, la lampe!