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 !

Honeycomb

I've been seeing a lot of DIY projects inspired by honeycombs lately, and since it's summer I'd like to show you my favorites ! 

Honeycomb smocking, it's a really easy tutorial, and it doesn't strain your hands as much as many other smocking tutorials do.
See tutorial here
If you have old curtains you'd like to freshen up, this would be a great solution, maybe a scarf.
I see some great ideas bobbling up in my head. 

Honeycomb shelves. These are precious, and you can make as many connect together as you want, have them randomized across the wall or just have one or two. I you've read my blog at all you'll know how much I love driftwood and pallets, so I'd suggest old wood for the part, just make sure it handles pressure, that it's not to old.
See tutorial here

Now, I know this ottoman tub has been given a new life, and it looks amazing, but as for me, I don't know where to get a tub like this, so I saw this as a great idea to recreate the shelves you see above, if you re-size the shelve tutorial you can make an ottoman out of old wood.
There's not a tutorial for this item, but you can buy it here, it's a little pricey, so if you decide to make this yourself hope you'll e-mail me the results, I'd love to see it, my e-mail is guffaakristins@gmail.com.

That's it for today, I'll be posting blogs at least on mondays and thursdays from now on.
And hopefully more. Like my Facebook page to see updates, I always post there when I post a blog.

PVC pipes and books DIY

These ideas are some that I feel that will personalize a bit more the small details in your home, so maybe we'll call it decoration tips part II !
Firstly the PVC pipes;

PVC pipes, there are some awesome things I found out you could do with those, like this candlestick, you could paint them to fit your room or make it stand out, either cold (when everything else is colorful) or vise versa.

Or as flower vases since it's summer, and the "Pretty Vase Collection by Francois Xavier Ballery" is in fact really pretty and a great DIY project !

I know this is a holiday craft, but I see so many possibilities !
Firstly, just as a work of art, in different colors and make some funky shapes out of it, constructions under a shelf or a table. storage for spices in the kitchen, for toothpastes and toothbrushes in the bathroom or to hold the shampoo, and I could go on and on.

Keep your laptop from overheating, and it just looks so cute !

And now to the books;

Personalized Iphone dock, it's so easy to make and it's a wonderful way to personalize your nightstand. Your favorite books or just some pretty covers, it's extremely easy to make like you can see here on Curbly.

This idea is made from a hardcover book, a 5$ lamp from IKEA and a rubber band, so extremely affordable, and with the right book, this can look super cool, if you have many books on a table, like in the picture, and have the "book lamp" in the middle, it can look really good.
See more here

Book planters, how cute is this !
See it here on homedit.

decoration tips

Decorations are important, small, tiny changes in a room can mean a lot, even just one candlestick.
So if your unhappy with a room start by looking at the details, what can you add and what can you take out.
It can make a whole new room for you, without spending almost any money.
And here are some easy, affordable ideas.

 Need new bookends ?
This is such an easy DIY task, and it doesn't cost that much.
you can use all kinds of plastic animals & toys, just find what you like the most.
See the whole tutorial here

Now, this is an easy decorating tip, you can take any picture and print it out, nail by the outlines on a plank of wood, and you could also just nail one nail in the middle, if you don't want a heart, have the nails any color, the wood any color and the string any color! this screams creative ideas for me, how about you ?

I like this idea a lot, you can't always find a flowerpot that works for you or they are too expensive, but this way, you don't need to buy, or make, a flowerpot at all, you just need a little bit of heavy clay mud, or bonsai soil, potting soil, moss and twine, and of course a small plant.
See the how to here

This is a wonderful way to display books in your house, and it's perfect in little kids room, they have a harder time hurting themselves on this then on pointy corners on a shelf.

Like Marisa did on her blog

the full tutorial is here

This idea from apartment therapy is wonderful. It's easy, affordable and looks amazing.
See the tutorial here

And like you may have noticed already, wood done right is one of my favorite DIY.

Recyclable summer

Today I want to bring you some fun and recyclable ideas.

You can make these out of any jars, and it's a wonderful way to make your own glasses, I'd like a tall one for a jam that I love.

This one I have at home, and I've always loved how tall these jars are, and with a little detail in the bottom.
You can buy a cut out mason lid here and save you some trouble because depending on the jar lid, some might be hard to cut out, but you can always take a screw and a hammer and nail in a few holes if you don't need or want a fancy lid in the shape of a flower or something like that.

  This star shaped lid is also fun idea, can be bought here.

These old cans used as yarn stash, the cans are covered with contact paper and glued together, it's easy and eye-catching, it's time to start knitting this summer!
Fun and easy how-to here

Save some money on school supplies next winter and make a notepad out of your kid's favorite cereal.

This is so cool and easy and the kids will love this !
tutorial here

This chandelier is made from plastic bottles.

 And this wonderful decoration, which can also be turned into a chandelier like this one.

These are all such wonderful and inspiring recyclable ideas that I hope you get inspired and make some use of your trash this summer.


I'd like to point out this website: earth911, it has some wonderful ways to reuse your household packaging and waste in a beautiful way, please go to their website and be inspired.

candles and lamps

We don't need candles and lamps here in Iceland over the summer, due to the fact that the sun doesn't really set here. But that means we need a new way to decorate them if we don't want to put them in storage.
So here are some beautiful ideas that you can also do.

Here are sticks used as decoration on some basic glass candle holders, we have a lot of skinny trees here in Iceland so we can go out in the yard and cut some off while trimming. I'd use some bushes also if I could, some sticks with leafs on them, and you can buy spray that protects decorations from catching on fire.
So I'd think it could really brighten it up to have a little green in there.
Get the how to here

I love this, the orange candle is one of the greatest and easiest DIY I've seen, if you eat oranges that is.
It's simple and it got such a lovely summer feeling to it, and it's very cheap.
see the DIY here

Concrete candlesticks, now this I want!
It's so easy and so beautiful, and I need to try this with some textured paper or something like that to get a simple texture on it, just glue it inside of the paper cup before putting the concrete in. Please, if you try this let me know if it works out with thick paper or if you needed something thicker.
See the how to here

Here are some egg candles, same basic idea as the orange one, this is so cute !
how to here

These thread lights look amazing, see the whole how to here.
This is a hybrid candlestick though, because it's recommended not to use a real flame for obvious reasons, but you can buy little LED candles, and I recommend using more than one color if that matches your room colors, it would put a nice little detail to the room.

Here are chandeliers with the same technique.
See how here

If you're looking for something different this might be your solution, I can picture this on the floor in the bedroom or the bathroom to get around without waking people up in the middle of the night.
Use waterproof lights though, no matter where you're going to put it, it's better to be safe than sorry.

See how to here

And of course the doily chandeliers, these are so elegant, and surprisingly easy to make !
See how here 

And there are endless options with this idea, color the doilies in different colors, put them on the screen of your old table lamp, and so on and so on.

I hope some of this inspired you to make your home more personal in the easiest way possible.

DIY bookshelves and wall decals.

Bookshelves

I love the bridge bookshelf, and now I've found the DIY for it !
This is so simple but also it breaks up the normality of a bookshelf.
See how to make one here

Skateboards are often a beautiful substitute for shelves, skateboards often have beautiful graffiti on them and the sandpaper on top of them can keep books from slipping if you tilt the shelves like this, but here the wheels have been used to support the books in some places.

This one may be a bit pricey, you probably don't have many tables lying around that you have no use for, but if you got 2-3 it might work because you saw the tables in half and paint them the same color or different colors to add a bit of artistic flair to it.

Wall decals.

This one is from the same website, I love this idea because it gives you complete control on what you want to do, it's just contact paper cut down and glued on, you can read more here.
And it can a simple form like bricks or if you're handy and patient, something like this;

And you can always find pictures online and with a little photoshop skill, make an outlines of that image that you can print out and draw on the contact paper.

And if you have no such talent, then I recommend you check out Etsy.com, and search for wall decals(you have already did that if you press the link above), there are thousands of different wall stickers in all sizes and price ranges, you can definitely find something you like there.
Here are some of my favorites;

The cutest thing ever for a newborn.
buy it here

Here's another one, and if want this click here, and you can customize the name!

This beautiful Buddah only costs 20$.
Click here

This romantic sticker for a headboard is 21.99$ here

The wall decals go from around 20$ up to 80$, that's usually huge pieces.
Please let me know if you have any requests and thank you for coming.