DIY Archives - Satori Design for Living

Thrifting: My Latest Finds and What I’ve Learned

Mar

2013

As many of you know, I like to go hunting for vintage or upcyle type pieces quite frequently. After cleaning out our basement storage rooms at the completion of the renovation, I vowed I wouldn’t bring home any more fix-me-up pieces until I had dealt with the ones I already had stockpiled. I’m like the addict who starts to make excuses or hide things so her dirty little secret isn’t found out!

Instead of quitting cold turkey, I decided instead that nothing would come home with me if I didn’t have a plan for it within the next few months. That criteria has paid off and my “collection” has been able to stay within the manageable and “safe” range. (Okay that still sounds a little crazy coming from someone who helps people de-clutter and organize their homes for a living!)

Since the basement purge, I have found a few treasures in my shopping adventures I just couldn’t leave behind. I started collecting milk glass (authentic and reproduction) a while ago and love how it all looks together. Pieces I picked up have ranged anywhere from $.25 to $4. Eventually I’d like to display them on an open shelf in our kitchen.

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Filed Under: DIY, Fab Finds Tagged With: DIY, Repurposing, Thrifting, vintage

Freshening Up With Paint {Guest Post}

Feb

2013

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With spring lurking around the corner (I’m at least hoping so), it’s the perfect time to freshen up your space. Looking around my house, I see a whole whack of projects I’ve been putting off through the cold winter months. So far this year I’ve been focused on purging and organizing our home, but I have paint, fabric, new hardware, and more stock-piled in the basement just waiting to come out. It’s taken a lot of willpower to leave it alone, but I promised myself I’d finish one project before I moved on to the next. Basically I have one closet and our laundry room to organize before the freshening process gets underway.

To get the ball rolling, I’ve asked Barbara from Hodgepodge to share some of the ways she likes to freshen up her space. Barbara has done a fantastic job of decorating her home without breaking the bank. She has a knack for reinventing tired-looking furniture and accessories, and I’m excited for you to see the transformations!

So happy to be visiting here at Shauna’s blog! I feel silly contributing to her blog as I think she has it all covered in the organizational and freshening up department! While I am not an ultra-ogranized individual, I do love freshening things up. As an avid DIYer and lover of paint, I love to freshen things up with paint! When I get tired of a piece of furniture or when I stumble across something that could use some freshening up, out comes some spray paint or a can of paint, and when I feel a bit adventurous, some rub’n”buff!

Here are a few things that were transformed by paint and/or simply adding some new hardware to freshen things up.

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Filed Under: Decorating, DIY Tagged With: Furniture Refinishing, Guest Blogger, Paint Projects

Creative and Personalized Gift Wrapping Ideas

Dec

2012

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Although I do purchase ready-made gift wrapping materials from time to time, most often I prefer to use rolls of solid paper, craft paper bags, and plain gift tags that I decorate while keeping in mind each person’s style. You may recall the hand-printed gift wrap I made last year or the easy button gift embellishments I created quite recently. Both were a hit with the recipients. Perhaps it’s the decorator in me, but how the package is wrapped is almost as important as the gift inside.

As many of you know, wrapping presents is one of my favorite things to do around the holidays. I’m so fortunate this year to have a wrapping room (a project/storage room that has been taken over by wrapping materials), and I don’t have to haul everything up to our dining table, wrap some presents, and then pack it all up again so we can eat. It’s made the whole experience even more enjoyable, and I highly recommend having a dedicated area in your house for these kinds of projects if you have the extra room.

Wrapping gifts doesn’t have to be expensive. This year I found so many items around the house, as well as free printables online. As a result I only had to purchase a few gift bags and a bit of ribbon.

Creative & Personalized Gift Wrap Ideas

Button Gift Tags

While I was preparing for projects earlier this fall, I came across containers full of buttons I thought would be perfect for creating something for Christmas. Recently, while my husband was in Europe for work (so jealous!) and my son was snowboarding (again, so jealous!), I took advantage of the free time and hand made a series of gift tags for specific people on my list.

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Filed Under: DIY, Holiday & Seasonal Tagged With: Christmas, Crafts, Gift Giving, Gift Wrap

Christmas Decorating and Ideas Project E-book

Dec

2012

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As you may recall, a couple weeks ago I participated in a Christmas project blog hop thanks to Shannon from AKA Design. I had so much fun getting to know the other fantastic bloggers partaking in this series, and was inspired by all the amazing creativity. Projects like fun faux taxidermy ornaments, pretty spring snowflake ornaments, and a unique garland made from office supply materials are only a few.

As promised, Shannon compiled our holiday ornament and decor tutorials into one book, and I’m so happy to be able to share it with you!

DIY Christmas Ornaments and Decor Digital Download (PDF)

To download your free digital copy, simply click on the image above to get to the PDF and save (or right click the image and save).

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Filed Under: DIY, Holiday & Seasonal Tagged With: Aka Design, Books, Christmas, Crafts, DIY, Holiday Decor

Jingle Bell Ornaments

Dec

2012

13 Comments

As I was going through my Christmas storage totes last week to see what I had for wrapping supplies, I came across a package of tiny silver jingle bells I bought at the end of last year’s holiday season. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know what I was going to do with them back then, but it’s hard to pass up on a great deal, especially when it’s something so adorable.

Last year, I made simple jingle bell ornaments to dress up some handmade gifts using large, colorful, and sparkly options that seemed to stand alone. However, I knew these smaller ones would require a little more work to create something with impact. Luckily, I had a little motivation from my friend Shannon at AKA Design, who inspired a group of design bloggers to create a Christmas ornament or other holiday decorating element to share in an upcoming book. So much fun!

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Filed Under: DIY, Holiday & Seasonal Tagged With: Aka Design, Christmas, Crafts, DIY, Gift Wrap, Seasonal Decorating

Easy Button Gift Embellishments + Gold Necklace Giveaway!

Nov

2012

27 Comments

Welcome to the last installment of the One Item Project Challenge. We’ve had a lot of fun over the past few weeks getting creative with fabric paint and gold leafing. This week I chose buttons as the craft supply we all had to work with, since most of us already have some on hand and they’re relatively inexpensive. To me, there’s something beautiful about buttons, no matter how intricate or simple they are.

After going through my rather large supply of buttons, I immediately knew what I was going to do. As some of you already know, one of my favorite things to do is wrap presents. Throughout the year, I’m always on the hunt for unique paper, bags, boxes, tags and other wrapping supplies, as well as creative ways to use them. I see beauty in the details, and my heart always sings when I’m inspired by a simple and inexpensive idea for embellishing gifts.

To create your own button gift embellishments, you will need a kit for covering buttons, scissors, assortment of printed and/or solid fabrics and elasticized ribbon or cording. I had all of these supplies on hand, except the ribbon, which is available at Michaels. Just look for “elasticized” printed on the clear film that covers the ribbon.

Gold Gilded Bird Art

Nov

2012

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I was really impressed with the fabric paint projects the gals came up with last week, and I’m certain this round of the One Item Project Challenge will be no different. If you missed the introduction to this series and want to be brought up to speed, you can check it out the details and previous projects here.

This time I chose gold leafing or gilding as the supply. I’ve been wanting to introduce a bit of gold into our home for a while now, and thought this was the perfect opportunity. After working with silver leafing in the past, I thought it would be fun to give something new a try, so I picked up Martha Stewart’s liquid gilding on one of my trips to Michaels. After pondering what I could do with it for a couple weeks, I remembered a beautiful bird tray I saw at Pier 1 Imports in the spring, and decided to use it as a source of inspiration for an art project.

To create your own gold gilded bird art, you will need cardstock (I used a 12″ x 12″ piece of glossy linen-look called glass slipper from the scrapbooking section of Michaels), small paint brushes, gold gilding, bird graphic (I found mine here), fine pencil, scissors, and a frame.

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Filed Under: Decorating, DIY Tagged With: Decorating With Metallics, DIY, Martha Stewart, One Item Project Challenge

Printed Tea Towels {One Item Project Challenge}

Nov

2012

22 Comments

As some of you may remember, way back in May and June, I was part of the Outdoor Extravaganza. I had so much fun collaborating with a few of my blogger friends during the series that I decided to create something similar this fall, but with a new twist.

For the One Item Project Challenge, each blogger was given a specific craft supply to work with per week and had to create or decorate something with it. To kick off this 3-week series, we started with fabric paint.

I have been wanting to try Martha Stewart’s fabric paint medium for a while now. It can be mixed with an array of colors of acrylic paint to make it soft and adhere to fabric, even through a delicate wash cycle. Although I’ve done a lot of fabric painting projects in my textile design classes at university, I never got to try my hand at screen printing. Martha Stewart makes a good selection of pre-made silkscreens, and I thought it would be fun to try them out.

What you’ll need for this project is two white tea towels (or fabric to make your own), fabric paint medium, acrylic paint in a few colors, silkscreens, small squeegee, painter’s tape and an iron.

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Filed Under: DIY, Holiday & Seasonal Tagged With: Crafts, DIY, Fabric, Martha Stewart, One Item Project Challenge, Paint Projects