a little Halloween decor and celebration

Last weekend I took a break from working on the master bedroom for the ORC, and decorated a corner of the house for Halloween. It is one of my favorite holidays. I like it campy and not scary, and this year I am going for a black and copper look, inspired by a trip by some paper plates from Target for our traditional party.

I was never into the copper craze, so I do not have any copper accessories, luckily most things can be fixed by a can of spray paint! I had an older grey lantern in need of attention, and now it fits the decor perfectly.

I also slightly modified this cool Halloween banner from On Sutton Place. It is a downloadable and print banner. I printed it black and white (out of color inks!) then I rubbed on some brown stamping ink. I cut 1/4 inch wide stripes of copper contact paper (from Home Depot) and applied it around each letter.

After cutting them all out, I made some holes and strong them on the fireplace: perfect! Of course, the last touch is the food:

cheeses, "bones", cupcakes and mini apple pies!
Here are some pics of our previous Halloween Parties:
Here in 2016:
 
and here in 2015:

Happy Halloween!

updating the master bedroom {the ORC edition}: week 4

There are only a few more weeks on the One Room Challenge before the big reveal! Wow, this is going a little too fast,  note to self: work faster! After repainting the bedroom, fixing the closet doors  ( I am still working on that part, lot of caulking, priming and painting..) I am tackling the bathroom for a mini makeover.
And the best place to start is of course with paint. I used Benjamin Moore Sea Salt in satin, and just right there, it felt like the tile in the shower and the granite countertop were finally meant to be together!

Of course after painting, I could not put back the same shower curtain... so I found a new one with grays and blues (Bed bath and beyond) that goes perfectly with our current towels (even better than the previous one!)

Then we tackled the light situation. It was a tired looking light fixture in chrome and we switched it for a retro modern one in brush nickel (Home Depot).

I want to remove the big glued on mirror with a giant scratch. I thought about putting a frame on it but that would not fix the scratch. So instead I have ordered 2 nice mirrors (also Home Depot), they should arrive this week end. That should take me closer to my inspiration board:

And finally I also updated the door, with molding like the closet doors:

I still need to paint the door and molding.....

Until next time, happy DIYing!

 

updating the master bedroom {the ORC edition}: week 3

It is already half way point of the One Room Challenge, and I feel I already made some good progress after painting the bedroom a nice fresh coat of Palladium Blue, just like in my inspiration board.
This week I started working on our 6 closet doors! Yep 6! 
I cannot complain about having closets,  but the doors themselves were quite plain.

Well this is no longer true! (I still need to paint....)
The first thing I did was removing the old door handles, they were the same than the actual door handles.

Modern, long handles from Home Depot. I thought that was so easy, especially for the first 2 sets of closet doors, but then:

Huge, giant holes! The one on the right is a 1 1/8 inch hole, and the one on the left is a mix of 4 1 1/8 inch holes!

So I cut some circles out of wood and patched up those holes, and with a lot putty and sanding, it looks OK, not perfect but the doors are 50 years old....
Finally I decided to play with some molding to dress them up. I thought about doing some fancy cutting, but I value my fingers (chop shaw!) and my sanity, so I went simple:

The molding is glued and nailed in a few places, then I put some putty to hide the holes and help the corners.

Now I still need to sand, prime and paint it all!

As a reminder here is my mood board:

Until next time,

happy DIYing!

a oh so sweet baby quilt

Is there a better reason to make a quilt than a baby?

My upcoming niece was the perfect excuse to play with beautiful fabrics

in pretty color.

I mixed 7 different Liberty of London prints with about 12 solids,

following the pattern from Amy's book: Sweetly Stitched Handmades.

These prints are quite special as 2 of them are reprints of my sister's clothes!

It is a very simple quilt, perfect for a beginner, 

all straight seams, just rectangles.

The little linen bear looks especially snuggly with it.

For the back of the quilt, I used the same Provence fabric than I used for the Beary pillow,

it has just the right mix of blue and pink.

And of course the Bebe bunting is the perfect accessory:

Happy sewing!

updating the master bedroom {the ORC edition}: week 2

Last weekend, I started strong on this One Room Challenge, and repainted the bedroom BM Palladium Blue, just like on my inspiration board. And wow, that was a lot of work...

I never realized how big that room was until I painted it!

But also what a difference a coat of paint makes, so clean and bright!

(and messy, I put everything in the middle and painted around...)
Now of course, the paint on the trims around the windows and the doors looks super ugly and dirty, so more painting for me in the future.

I need to wait a little as my hand needs some time to recover.... But it is ok as next I want to fix my closet doors, all 6 of them!
Inspiration for the room: Until next time, Happy DIYing!