Neat Old Stuff: Coolest thing in our house!

(Besides Matt, of course.)

Turn of the century wood stove from Matt's Grandma's old house

Probably ain't gonna run into one of these at the local Goodwill! Many thanks to Matt's parents for this gem. There isn't really a place to hook it up as an actual stove for now, so we're going to use it as a dining room sideboard. I love the apple green enamel! When the rest of the room is decorated to its standard, will post more pics.

Not your mama's craft fair

We're going tomorrow. Totally pumped!

Happy Easter!

 {Me-likey: Berkley Illustration}

In honor of Easter, I present to you these hilariously sweet animal portraits by Etsy seller Berkley Illustration!.  Check out the whole series - they have formals of everything from a little robin to a T-rex.  How can you not smile at these?

Me-likey: Dish Bunny

If there is any way of actually enjoying doing the dishes, I think it might be this:

Ok, so probably a dishwasher would make me enjoy doing the dishes even more, but this is a start.  And way cuter.

$25 at Dutchbydesign.com

Dream House: Crate Flooring

Today, I kick-off a new, totally self indulgent series called "Dream House," in which I document awesome details that I'd like to see incorporate into our house some day ... after paying off my mortgage-sized student loans, that is.

First up, a flooring idea.  I've always loved the idea of reclaimed barnwood floors, but look at these!!!  

(via Remodelista)

Wine and fruit crate floors from the german company Parador!  Totally.  Awsome.  Drool.

Chalk boards and you

Set aside those sore memories of the classroom and embrace the fabulousness that I will call, for the sake of being annoying, "chalkboard chic"!

Here are some neato chalkboard-finished items available on the market:

(via uma)

(via uma)

"But wait," you say, "I can't find knick knack X in a chalkboard finish!"  Never fear, dear reader.  As many of you know there are chalkboard paints available (in both traditional paint out o' the can and spray paint forms), so the possibilities are endless!  These products are available in black and green, but other colors are rare, so if you want to change up the colors, or you just want to be thrifty with some paint you already own, use a DIY recipe like this one.  I am told by a 17-year-old "expert" working in the paint department at Lowes that any flat darkly- colored paint will do the trick as well, but I'm skeptical that it would stand up to repeated uses. 

On with the projects ... 

(Via Fancy Schmancy)

(via design is mine)

(via make)

(via Martha)

(via Viva Full House)  It uses magnetic paint too!  Mind.  Blown.

 

Ooh!  And lookey here at this product - chalkboard oilcloth!  Imagine a kitchen tablecloth or placemat made out of this stuff?

(via Bell'occhio)

I have got some chalkboard details planned for our wedding decor.  More on that in our wedding debriefing series ... coming in late May. 

Neat Old Stuff: We're fans o' these fans!

Look at these!

We bought this first one on ebay because, well ... it is called the "Wizard Husky."  Hard to argue with that.  It has holes and hardware such that could have been mounted on a dashboard.  I am not sure what advantage this has over rolling down a window, but it sure is cute!  The only problem is, with the sturdy steel blades and sparse wire cage, one is at risk of turning a perfectly good arm into, as my father would say, "a three-fingered elbow."  I refuse to let Matt turn it on, and keep threatening to snip the cord off when we have children.

This next beauty is also really neat looking, and it is safe enough to actually use!  We bought it for $40 at a flea market, probably a steal considering it still works great and it was HOT that day.

The flea market, by the way, is called the Antiques Garage, located on West 25th between 6th and 7th.  Open Sat-Sun 9am-5pm.  Highly recommend it!

Nostalgic deliciousness, served daily!

If you're into those vintage posters Matt discussed in an earlier post, have we got the link for you!  Behold: Millie Motts, a blog where you can find images from 1940s-60s print ads, magazines, books, and photographs -- yummy!

I dont know about you guys, but I feel like this material has great decorating and crafting potential. So be afraid, smooth flat surfaces, we may just have another Mod Podge situation on our hands!

Me-likey: The Immortal House Plant

As many of you know, I kill plants. Most recently, I killed a cactus. That's right, it can be done. The thing actually started rotting. But there is hope for me and my fellow "gangrene thumbs" (eh? get it?) out there! Behold, a fun alternative to the dusty old fake ficus tree:



Zinc-finished metal plants from Wisteria! Okay, so maybe they're still dusty, but these babies were "used in 19th-century France for winter gardens and conservatories," so they're classy. I know that I am a total sucker for marketing, but I think I am going to get one. Throw in a glade plug-in and I am in fake botanical heaven. Shame is overrated anyway.

Knock, knock. Who's there? Our coffee table.

This is one of the cooler (my opinion) things we have done. It all started on morning when Sar and I were leaving for school/work. It was garbage pickup day, and there was a large pile outside of our building. So Sar and I have this habit, see, of looking at piles of garbage with this I-need-to-furnish-my-apartment sort of intent. And on this morning, while I saw nothing of note, Sar stopped me to look at this old, beaten up discard door. When I saw it I was like, "umm, we have one already, lets go" but Sar was all like "Hark, there within that refuse lies a golden opportunity!" So we stand there looking at a pile of garbage for a few minutes, when one of our building crew guys stops and asks us whether we want something (from the pile of trash.) Sar replies by saying something like "Behold, good Sir! Treasures abound! My Gentlemen caller and I desire that jettisoned domestic barricade." So after this guy is finished laughing at us, he agrees to take the door away from the pile and kept it on the side of the building for us.

"Elbow Grease!"

So Sar's idea was to take this beaten up door, and turn it into our new coffee table. The first thing we did with the door was to clean it, which we did in the alley next to our apartment building. After that, we brought it back up to our apartment (looking totally awesome as we did so,) and I began to put on a couple of coats of polyurethane. Meanwhile, Sar was busy online looking for something to use as legs. She ended up finding these awesome looking (and reasonably priced) hand-carved claw feet on ebay. I attached the claw feet using a combination of brackets and large screws. As a finishing touch, we added the door knocker from our Binghamton apartment (I wasn't the one who took it,) and viola our new coffee table was complete!

Neat Old Stuff: Gnomes!

Today's Neat Old Stuff comes from ebay - a score for about $25 total. Vintage gnomes!

These little guys have the "Heissner" stamp on the back, the mark of the Heissner Gnome Company out of (West) Germany. My best estimate is they are from the 1960's, when gnomes were revived in plastic form. Prior to that they were made out of terracotta, but production of those fell off during WWII (turns out Germany was distracted back then). A little more about the history of gnomes here.

Someday, Matt and I will have a garden, and maybe these can hang out there. For now, though, they are harder to kill than houseplants.

Neat Old Stuff: Creepy Portrait

This gem came from the Salvation Army in Binghamton Ny. I've forgotten what it cost me, but being that I was a sophomore in college, and had no job, I doubt if it was more than $8.99. Many cool things were purchased at the Bingo Salvo, and this was likely one of the first.

This portrait, nicknamed Jacobin Joe, has hung in my Sophomore year dorm room (above the door,) in my Junior year apartment (somewheres?), in the bathroom of our Senior year apartment (directly across from the crapper!), and now in the shadows of our mini hallway.

Sarah has long complained that Jacobin Joe is too creepy, too ugly, or something else that results in my complete zoning out. I say it could be worse.

OR MORE AWESOME!

Bits and Pieces

So I had this epiphany one day concerning old books - they are an awesome craft medium. I was so convinced that they were this undiscovered and cheap resource that I started blindly collecting and saving them. This process quickly escalated. For storage reasons, I ended up only saving the covers. With quite a stockpile of these book covers, I still hadn't come up with a function for them. I toyed with the idea of mosaic-ing them into a tabletop of sorts, but that project never became a reality. Then, with a little help from this book, it hit me ... I should turn to my first and strongest love for inspiration - Video Games!
8-bit art from salvaged book covers was born!

Obviously, as much as I love some of the current or recently current games out there (video game obsessed posts to come!), I knew that capturing next-gen graphics with cut up book covers wasn't going to happen. So I turned to the NES classics - Mario, Mega Man, Link. But first I had to transform the book covers of varying sizes into almost uniform and manageable bits. Now I know that I am a librarian, and maybe it seems wrong that I cut up books, but let me tell you ... it is so therapeutic. That probably means it is wrong, but eh. So I began cutting up the covers into half inch squares. The thing is, once I started cutting, I found it somewhat hard to stop. Before I knew it, I had a bit of a surplus. Sarah, on the other hand, has referred to it as a "poop-load of crap." Now I think that calling something a "poop-load of crap" is a bit redundant, but I am told that in this instance "poop" is being used to describe a quantity, while "crap" is referring to the item in question, so really she isn't even talking about feces. Yea right. All I know is that when we move out, and we have to have a couple of boxes dedicated to my cut up book covers, she is going to be angry. That'll teach her to throw poop around. Once I had the bits, I had to come up with the image. I started to look at old Nintendo characters, and began dividing the image up into a grid.

With the covers cut up into bits, and the image chosen and gridded, I was ready for the fun part. The plan was to paint a canvas, and then to glue the different book bits on in the shape of a NES character. Not hard at all. Here is one coming together:

I was really happy with this first one, and I ended up making a bunch more for close friends and family. (Below are some others that I have made.) Eventually I decided that it would be cool if I cut the half inch pieces into quarter inch pieces, thereby allowing me to use smaller canvases. You cannot really tell from these pics, but Duck Hunt and the one of Mega Man shooting are actually composed of quarter inch pieces. I found that cutting the half inch pieces into quarter inch pieces further appease my dominant anal-retentive side.

I have also decided to start trying to sell these things on etsy.com, which is a very cool site that only sells objects which are either vintage or handmade. These are the two that I'll be putting up for sale on that site.

So, when I am not giving books to children to read, I am destroying books to honor a childhood passion. Or playing Halo.