Change of plan !

Sorry about the inactive-ness on the blog lately, the problem is that I've been busy with my Tumblr site, it's a more product, industrial and interior based blog, I don't think I'll have time to do both, but I'll comebine the two, so if you still want to fallow me, you can go to modifydesign.tumblr.
Thank you all so much and I hope you stay with me, and I can keep giving people ideas and help them get inspired.

Minecraft

Sorry, but I'm going to do a little promoting now, I'll blog later today.
I've been busy designing the earth for a video game competition, and it's up for voting right now and I'd really love it if you could rate my design and hopefully help me win so my design will get printed.

It's called Mine your own world and as the name of the game suggest, there's a lot of mining in this game, and your suppose to make your own world, so I connected the two together.

here's the link if the other one doesn't work.
Mine Your Own World

DIY Furniture

I'm going to take on furniture today, because they are so important in a home.
And sometimes it's hard to spot what will look good, what's worth saving, and what will be a lot of work.
It all depends on what you are willing to, and trust yourself to do, because everyone can reupholster a chair, giving enough time and the right tutorial.

And most importantly the will to do it.

First of all, don't look as the furniture as a whole, if you like a piece of it then you can use that in a more practical way, like this desk, you may not need a desk but this nightstand is one so cute, with minimum work.
See the blog on Sugarbeecrafts.

 Reupholstering a chair can often be hard work, but look how beautiful, elegant and different it can look with a little piece of fabric, but maybe a little bit more of patience.

You can see the tutorial on how she does it on centsationalgirl.

And it's often seeing the possibilities in the detail, if it has some custom detail, some fascinating lines or even if it's just box shaped, if you can picture it fitting in your room with another color, it's almost a must.
It's really amazing how much difference just white paint can make, and painting wooden furniture white is really trending right now, and sandpapering the edges to make the furniture look old is also a neat trick, but note that it looks better on dark wood, or painting dark texture before the white on top.

This is a huge difference on this rather plain looking sideboard, but the wood sometimes adds to much texture that sometimes it's better to tone it down and make it simple. and for the ones that aren't afraid of color could also have some fun with the details on the middle doors, or get handles in fun bright color.

Sometimes the wood can be the splash of color, mixing different wood types is a good way to reuse old materials, and it gives a lot of personality and has different texture on each wood type, just watch out for splinters and sandpaper everything down good, specially when you're handling old wood.

And don't be afraid of something different, in color choice, method or style, you can with the right attitude give almost any furniture the right personality for your home. This is a painted glass table top, and you can see how to do this on designsponge

Now let your personalities shine and turn this 

Into this.
What an amazing transformation, just by paint!
see tutorial on momentswiththemontanos

Have fun repainting old furniture and giving them new life !

un-clustering your bookshelf

I wish I had time to blog more often, but here we go again! 

Firstly, I want to talk about books, I love books, I love reading them but I don't like how clustered and unorganized they can get in the shelves.
Make your own book covers, maybe just some splashes of color that can bring a book case together and un-cluster it.

Or if you're not to much of a color-person, get some old maps or newspapers to have them the same color, and hand write the book titles on them so they'll be easier to find.

And it also matters if you don't have time or the patience for that you can cluster them beautifully, yes, that's possible.

Things like this I don't find pleasing to the eye at all, I don't want to check out the books, it's very un-welcoming to me. Everything is lined up and not one book is really put in a special place, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of thought being put into it to an outsider, even though the owner knows exactly where each book is.

It's cluster like this that makes me happy, there are a little bit of a color organization, but the books don't have to stack the same way in all the shelves, and put some character in there, some vases, statues, flowers or pictures, it looks like someone really loves their books and wants to make them as pleasing to the eye as they are to the mind.

This is probably hard to do, firstly there aren't a lot of books that come in so many varieties of color, at least not here in Iceland, you can make this yourself like with the rainbow books in the first picture, but it's going to be hard.

Having the books make a big picture is a great fun way to make the bookcase pop, like taking a picture of the family and gluing them on the ends of the books, it could make a really fun DIY !  

cement transformed

Hello ! And I'm sorry that I've been slacking, it's been crazy at work and inspiration hasn't been at it's best.
But I'll make up for it right now, I'll show you some youtube videos that I'm super excited about.
Firstly, there's a guy who's faking a stone wall and tree planks affect from cement.
This means that you can do this in your livingroom, bedroom, wherever you want different texture, and maybe make it a little bit more romantic.

Now, when I saw this I thought that he must have made these stencils by hand, and I still don't know if he did.
But I found this school/shop called Decorative Concrete Training, and they had this beauty.
Their website is terrible if you press "home", but in the link you can see the stencils they offer with many different textures.

So you can make your own, not exactly the same, but still very nice, maybe even better, depending on the project.

At betterpaths.com are more stamps you can buy online, there are some tree stamps there I like a lot.
And on that note I want to show you this video.

This is a great way to give your door some character, even some of your character, because no one makes things the same way twice by hand, plus you can't really see the difference between a real grain and a fake one.

 I think this lamp from Brigg looks gorgeous.
(and they also tell you how to do this!)

These concrete coasters would look even better with some stamps on them, or paint them, for those who are good with a paint brush.
see more about these coasters here.

 

And here's a site and a project I'll leave you with, I want to make this when I'll need a countertop.
With a wood grain in it and a glass top on it.
It's a plan.

And since this blog now is about tree, I found this on my facebook wall while making this blog, this is an artist here in Iceland that makes these wonderful paintings, and she just posted this, trying new things and painting her artwork on tree drumbs, Her art is called Helma ART and you can see pictures of her work.
Wonderful stuff.

paint-dipped

Hello again, sorry for no activity, I hope today's blog makes up for it.
Let's start with the paint-dipped trend, and how my favorite paint-dipped items look.

These spoons for example are so stunning, this is exactly what I think paint-dipping is about, connecting the old, with a new personal flare. Having different colors and even paint-dip your glasses to match like you can see here

Now, pinecones make a great decoration any time of the year, but to spice it up a little, dip them in paint and mix them in with normal ones or different colors, have half of the pinecone painted.

Originally found here

And of course, you should play with it and make it personal, I love this idea to make the paint drip up, by turning the pot upside-down, mix colors and have a good time ! 

Make the edges soft and feminine like ohhappyday.com did.

Or make it look like a fun mistake like seen on home-dzine.co.za

This is a wonderful way to decorate and I hope it will inspire some of you ! 

decorative accessories

This blog will be a little bit of an inspiration for the little accessories you can add to your home, I'll try to have it every style, I for example love raw accessories, like these cement office equipments.

It's named Solid Desk Accessories designed and hand-cast at Magnus Pettersen Studio 

The only thing I have a problem with here is there it seems to raw, there's always suppose to a little color, or else it seems boring and without any personality.

Woodcut Maps is amazing, they make a map of NY for example, made by wood, I love it.

You can choose the place you want to have on the picture.

This board has a personality, there's a great tutorial here.

Here's another great one from design sponge, This fish scale pendant lamp is amazing, click here to see the beautiful transformation.

I love it when old decorative frames are painted the same color, they match without matching, it mixes this personal factor with the raw basic minimalism.

Another great use of doilies.

What a great way to mix frames and plants together, the 3d affect is beautiful. I'd love to experiment with other kinds of flowers to match the wallpaper like these do, I think it looks amazing.

Again, the 3d affect is so crucial, it makes this beautiful and easy DIY project bring the colors of the wall and the naturistic forms mix with the plants.