the before shot

i've been putting together a laptop bag this past week (the countdown to my last day of maternity leave is on), and i was going to post the finished product...but, i came across a site yesterday that ties in to an old project of mine and is too great not to share.

the photo above is a before shot of our spare bedroom that's getting the overhaul. the wall above the bed was my 'statement wall', a great black and white photo of waves that i blew up and then printed on over 80 sheets of paper (then pinned each sheet to the wall! tell me i'm not regretting that decision as i renovate). crazy me did all this via photoshop and a grid pattern. it took too long to figure out. had i known at the time that the rasterbator existed i would have been all set.

the rasterbator is a software that some genius of a person (who had fun coming up with the name, i'm sure) put together to create huge wall murals, posters, etc. from regular sized photos. you upload a photo, specify the size you want and it comes out with a pdf document that you simply send to print. seriously, check it out. it does all the work for you. i think i may have to use this in some fun way soon.

when i was looking for the photo above i found a photo of my old bathroom 'statement wall'. i know, i went through this whole crazy phase.


what i did here is cover a whole wall in mactac and then cover that sheet with hundreds of individual 2" wide photos. the photos were thumbnail prints found on sites like gettyimages and shutterstock . don't ask how long this took...

my friends tell me there is a fine line between creativity and mental illness! but, hey, you always had something to look at when you were in the bathroom!

sue's very fun lightbox

most of my project time this past week has gone in to painting our spare bedroom, which is getting a much-needed reno. i love painting in theory and those first couple of brush strokes are gratifying...but then, by about the 10th stroke, it quickly becomes a chore (then gets handed over to the husband, who ends up doing most of the work!).

so, as exciting as a newly painted (and very empty) room can be i'm instead showing you sue rose's very cool lightbox. sue gave me this lightbox years ago and it continues to be one of my favourite pieces in the house.

it's just so clever in its simplicity. sue made a wooden frame, covered the front and sides with canvas, filled the inside of the box with twinkle lights (the ones with different settings) and created a velcro canvas cover for the back so you can change the setting on the lights or switch them out. a wire picture frame hanger is secured to the back for hanging. it's beautiful when all lit up at night.

thank you to sue for letting me share! you continually amaze me with your talent (seriously, there is nothing this amazing women can't do!).

a shelf and a jumper

i know now that i use some of my projects as an excuse to sit myself in front of the tv for hours on end! i'm a total tv junkie and this latest project gave me an excuse to get hooked on dexter !


i'm hhmming and haaing about this shelf. not totally convinced now that it's up and running (it's a little borg starship), but i'll give it a chance.

the shelf hangs from either side of the mirror and opens up to reveal storage using a piano hinge.


the surfacing was made using prepackaged wood squares .




MY LITTLE JOLLY JUMPER

hanging in a door jam just wasn't going to cut it for my little dare devil. so, i took eden's jolly jumper out of the door and jimmied up a little contraption to hook it up to a beam in our living room. now she has all the space she needs to bounce, swing and twirl. you should see her go!

make-shift dresser

before my daughter was born we used her room as our home office. i'd built a crazy big desk for our computer, complete with all sorts of open storage. well, the computer had to come out to make room for eden and the desk was honestly too huge to go anywhere else in our little house...so, i turned it into a dresser.


first i removed the actual desk part of the unit and then i built little storage bins out of 1/4 MDF that slide in and out of the shelves.

the painted design was the fun part. i knew i wanted circles and a designed that flowed from one box to the other....so, i first tied all of the boxes together, then i traced out different sized circles on them using things like cd's and drinking glasses as my template. then i got out my paint and painted a thick ring around each traced out circle. i placed colour coded sticker labels in a circle over each painted ring, painted the whole thing white and then peeled off the stickers. looks kind of neat, i think!


WEEKLY POSTING

i've scaled myself back to weekly posting. i've discovered that i have an affinity for making crazy time-consuming things...either that or i'm pretty pokey! either way i'll try to stick to publishing a new post every monday, unless i have something to say or show before then.

enia storage variation

i've been working on an impossible shelf design for just over a week now. i know what i want it to look like and do, but i just can't get it right. i hacked straight through two prototypes and three sheets of mdf! i think i may have it now...we'll see. so, because i have nothing new to show you this week i'm going to cheat and show you something old.


these little boxes are a variation of my enia boxes. they hold my odds and ends...including one stuffed full of Canadian Tire money! (i'm waiting for all my 5 cent bills to add up!). truth be told i originally built them to house my bizzarely large nail polish collection. i'm still not quite sure why i have so many bottles of nail polish...