Tukiyeem

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

A Gift For Mom

You don't always have to spend money to create a nice gift for Mom. I had all of these items on hand and made a useful gift for Mother's Day.

I am going to show you how to make a little jelly jar sewing kit.

You will need:

canning jar with ring

cardboard

plain fabric, lace or doily

vintage buttons

thread

needles

pins

scissors

thimble

tape measure

The contents can vary you might put something different in yours based on what the person sews.

Use your ring for the jar as a guide and cut two circles to fit inside your lid.

You can use a thin small doily or just lace for the cushion. I am going to use lace.

Attach a small handful of fiberfill to the cardboard circle using a tacky craft glue. Cut a circle of fabric and lace to go over your fiberfill. Wrap the fabric with the lace on top and glue to back of cardboard circle covered in fiberfill. Cut off any excess fabric. Press the whole thing into your ring.

Glue the remaining circle to the bottom of your fiberfill circle. Press the whole thing back into your ring.

Collect your vintage sewing accessories that you will use in your kit.

Fill your jar and place the lid on and fill pincushion with pins. A practical gift anyone could appreciate.

I will link this to Someday Crafts Whatever Goes Wednesday Party.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Before & After Guest Blogger: Ally of From the Right Bank

Please welcome Ally of From the Right Bank. Her style is amazing & she moves often, so lucky for us readers!! :)
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Hello, I'm Ally of From the Right Bank and I can't believe it's been four months since Lauren asked me to be guest blog here. Let's see . . . back then, cutie pie Justin was still on the way and I was in the middle of moving across the country from Seattle to Atlanta. Lauren asked for a "Before and After" post and I thought, "Sure, no problem. By April, I'll have lots of Before and After's to choose from."

Well, I clearly overestimated my abilities. Or rather, underestimated my slacker tendencies. In any case, I have yet to "finish" a single room in our house. And of course, this just makes how much Lauren has done in her new home that much more mind-boggling! And oh yeah, let's not forget that little business of giving birth
somewhere in there too! I tell you, I would hate her if I didn't love her so much(!)

Well, the closest to a finished project I have to share with you is our kitchen. Here are a few photos of the kitchen just before we moved in:

As you can see, it was a perfectly fine kitchen. Pretty marble, farmhouse sink, custom cabinets . . . nothing offensive. But my issue with it was that everything was a cream/ivory color. While I didn't hate it, I've always preferred pure white to off-white. And for a couple of years now, I've been on a gray kick and I especially wanted gray kitchen cabinets so I thought now was my chance. So after agonizing over paint colors for

weeks, looking at hundreds of swatches and lying awake at night contemplating just how many shades of gray exist in this world (Doesn't everyone?), I finally decided on Benjamin Moore's "Trout Gray." I wanted a true gray - one that wasn't too blue, too green, or too purple and Trout Gray fit that bill.

The painters removed all of the doors, drawers, shelves and hardware and then sprayed. They also painted the walls (Benjamin Moore White #1). It took days (and days) and this was the state of things during the process:

And here is how it turned out:

I'm still looking for the perfect sconces to go over the sink and I'll be replacing the faucet as well as the lights over the island but it's close. Now as for the rest of my house, that's another story!

Thank you so much for having me today, Lauren! You're a real inspiration to so many of us

and it's been an honor to be your guest!

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Ally it's so beautiful!!! The gray is perfect and I am seriously jealous!! Thanks for sharing the process with us & can't wait to see the rest of your new house!!!!
xoxo,
lauren

ps- Ally- what are you doing with the faucet you're ditching?? ;) ;)

White Wednesday

I did a post this week for Mother's Day. It was my Mother's Day gift used as a centerpiece on my table. I happen to hit filtered black and white when I was editing the photos and I liked it so much I decided to use it in White Wednesday. Most of the items were all white anyway.

You can go here to view the post in color.

I will be linking this to White Wednesday at Faded Charm.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Guest Blogger Before & After: Trina from A Country Farmhouse

Please welcome Trina of A Country Farmhouse!!!
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I am so happy to be a guest blogger for Lauren at Pure Style Home. From the first day I discovered her blog, I've been a devoted follower as she continually inspires me with her fresh, beautiful designs.

In keeping with the before and after theme of her guest bloggers, I thought I'd share with you a few snippets from our farmhouse renovation. Just to give a little background, my husband and I purchased a 1923 farmhouse about four years ago. We hadn't anticipated buying a place that would become a whole house remodel, but it was in our price range and the property had everything we were looking for in a country home...land, privacy, peace and quiet, and scenic views of the surrounding farmland.

Exterior: Before

Exterior: After

Exterior Side: After

The farmhouse was built back in the early 1920's, but over time had gone through 1950's, 1960's and 1970's era remodels which stripped the home of much of its original charm. Our goals were to restore the charm and to create a home reflective of its surroundings...calm, quiet and relaxing.

Working from the original structure you see in the before photo, we added a wraparound porch, a shed dormer to the half story, and a dining room, replaced the roof, siding, windows and doors, and gave the house a fresh coat of paint.

We used an array of inspiration photos of historic homes in our area and from magazines to guide our design decisions.

Kitchen: Before

Kitchen: After

Kitchen: Before

Kitchen: After

Kitchen: Before

Kitchen: After

We wanted all of our renovations to look appropriate to the era of the house. This goal inspired us to do a simple farmhouse-style kitchen with painted custom wood cabinets, a farmhouse sink, restored wood fir floors, and open shelving.

Living Room: Before

Living Room: After

Living Room: Before

Living Room: After

We stripped the paneling off the walls and mantle, removed the stove insert and the pea green carpeting, covered both bookcases, and restored the fireplace with a new custom mantle. We also replaced the single-paned picture window with three large casement windows, replaced the door with a french door, and added new crown moulding throughout.

Entry: Before

Entry: After

The entry was lined with plastic shelving and parquet flooring when we bought the place. We decided to create a more inviting entry by restoring the original wood flooring, and adding a new casement window, a replacement french door, new crown and base mouldings, and an antique hall tree.

Downstairs Bathroom: Before

Downstairs Bathroom: After

This room has one of my favorite before photos as it pretty much sums up the tone of the house when we bought it. We ended up completely gutting this room in order to update plumbing and electrical. We also used this time to plumb in lines for a new upstairs bathroom.

We put down historic tile floors, replaced the double hung window, installed new drywall, crown and base mouldings, and added a new claw foot bathtub, sink and toilet.

The Den: Before

The Den: After

This room was covered in paneling as well. We removed it, removed the gray carpeting, installed base moulding, and added new double hung windows. It's a small room and serves us well as a den. All furnishings, besides the jute rug and the armchair, were things we had on hand thus helping with our budget.

Bedroom: Before

Bedroom: After

The addition of a shed dormer on the existing half story offered us the ability to expand our living space upwards. Before the dormer, the space was used seasonally and was very dark and cramped. With the dormer, we turned the seasonal half-story space into an entire master suite, including master bedroom and bath, walk-in closet and home office.

Bath: Before

Bath: After

I hope you've enjoyed our renovation story! The blogging community has been such an inspiration and provided us with that extra motivation to keep plugging away at our projects!

Trina
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Trina- thank you so much for sharing your perfect home with us!!! I love how light & airy you've made it and you've got such a restrained touch. Everything isjust beautiful and your photos belong in a magazine. Thanks for the tour!!!
xoxo,
lauren

ps- Hope everyone had a grrrrrrreat weekend!! ;)

Mother's Day Centerpiece

I got inspired today and decided to swap out my dining room table decor. I wanted to highlight, on the table, my gift for my Mother this week before Mother's Day.

But, first of all, here is the way my table has looked for spring.

Now for the new Mother's Day centerpiece.

I find myself really trying hard to hold off bringing out the shells. But the coastal vintage look is what I am loving. It is so hard not to put the beach in everything!

The gift is two Spode Blue Italian plates with a little cottage style tea set. I wrapped it in an open basket and there is a flour sack towel hanging out of the front of the basket. I wrote about the flour sack towel in a earlier post you can read about that here.

The beach styled candle is easy to do. I have my candle down in a hurricane. I filled the hurricane with a small layer of sand, surrounded the candle with shells, and a white sea star. My Mother was born in Florida and so was my Grandfather. Having been there many times; gave me a love of the beach and coastal style. My Grandfather always said, "If you return home (from Florida) with sand in your shoes you'll be back."