Idea of the month: September: A sunny net curtain for your kitchen

Our kitchen is grey and orange. We did not choose the colours ourselves, it was like that when we moved in and we decided not to do anything about it. We liked the orange and it’s also a nice colour for a kitchen, it has and gives energy! But we wanted to have a special curtain, not just a blind or a Louvre, so… I still had, from previous houses, some old curtains, in white, orange and yellow. I thought it would make a nice combination. So I drew and cut the shape of a star (a bit Moroccan style), and cut a few pieces out of the yellow and orange curtains. I also bought a yellow ribbon to sew around the stars. I also made 2 long pieces to use on the sides of the curtains. I sewed the stars and the ribbon on the white curtain, doing “appliqué” again, en the long pieces on the side. Ready!

Here’s the result. What do you think?

The idea of the month August : eggshell mosaic

Article written by Agnes Waltzer, Exclusif Deco supplier

Delicately clean the eggshells to remove the thin layer which is inside, without breaking the shell itself. You will not be able to glue a shell if it has not been cleaned.

Choose the appropriate glue for the support you will use: wood, plastic etc.

Spread some glue on your support on a surface of approximately 2 by 3 cm, then lay a piece of shell that you will on the glue, leave some space between the pieces (if needed, with your fingers or a small sharp object).

The mosaic will then take shape, cm by cm (you need to be patient…).

Once the object is entirely covered with shells, put in between the pieces some joint (like you would do if you used tiles for the mosaic), white or colored as you wish, and let it dry. The time it takes to dry depends on the size of the object you covered with mosaic.

When it’s dry, sand very delicately its surface with a very fine sandpaper, to let the shell reappear.  The more you sand, the lighter the shell becomes.Once you get the aspect you like, varnish it to protect it.

Up to you now, and enjoy the omelette!

Idea of the month: July: where do we put the bed?

Aka: why didn’t I listen to my husband?

We have been busy at home to play musical chairs with our bedrooms. But prior to moving to another one, we changed the wallpaper and selected one off white and one colorful but the same off white background. Our plan was to use the colorful one on the wall that would receive the bed head. My husband suggested that we placed the bed on the left side of the room. I am busy experimenting with Feng-Shui, so I thought: when we lie in our bed we need to be able to see who is entering the room. As the door opens to the left, we will therefore put the bed on the right side. Doesn’t that seem logical? So we did that (a woman often gets what she wants…). And when everything was ready, we moved in and I could not sleep anymore! My head was then too close to the entrance door and it just did not feel safe. We then tried to move the bed around, and we finally ended up with the bed on the left side, as my husband first suggested. So instead of having the printed wallpaper on our back, we are looking at it!

But I was not so happy with that, I needed to do something about it. I still had a bit of the printed wallpaper, so I cut big letters  (LOVE) to glue them on the wall above our bed head, it makes it then still a bit colorful!

And to come back to Feng-Shui, I then looked at the compass to check which directions we should use to sleep, and the one that works with both of us is the one we have now ;-)

Here’s the end result.

The idea of the month June : a cheap closet for your home office

Ok, let’s face it, I live about 1km from the IKEA shop… So I admit it is very easy for me to get something there when I need it.I know have a room at home that I may use as my office, and my idea was to get myself a closet where I could put all my papers and stationery, without spending too much money on it. I wanted it to look neat as well. Here’s the result:

I bought there a very simple one (not the Billy one, but another one that fitted better the place available I had in this small room), and a very simple blind. The only problem is that it was not long enough, so I also bought 50cm of another fabric I also found there, to make it longer. While I was busy with that, I thought, why don’t I do an appliqué on it with the fabric? And so I cut out some flowers from the fabric and sewed them to the blind with a zigzag stitch. Nice isn’t it?