Introducing Henry and Hazel!

Meet Henry (Kasey's son from the Montana Wilderness post below)!  His room is almost (but not quite) as cute as he is!  I love the bedding, pillows and, of course, the water world  wall sticker.  Such fun color, shapes and textures are sure to inspire!

Henry's ADORABLE little sister, Hazel, also has some inspiring wall stickers in her room.  I love how Kasey arranged the butterflies for her near her crib.  Soon (if not already... genius genes run in her family) she'll be able to start counting butterflies!

Montana Wilderness

Kasey just sent us these pictures of her gorgeous wallpapered dining room in ferm LIVING's wilderness pattern. We LOVE it - so bright and fresh! Living in Montana, Kasey and her family are surely used to beautiful wilderness outside there home. But now it is on the inside too!

Here's the before. Apparently, close up, this wallpaper was thumbs way down. Kasey ended up stripping this pattern off before applying the new wallpaper. (This confirms my understanding that one should always remove old wallpaper layers before applying a new design.)

And, here's the lovely after. I'm dying to see the rest of her home. It seems so cheerful and welcoming. Thank you so much Kasey for sharing your dining room (and genius wallpapering skills :) with us!

Show Me How

Derek and Lauren, owners of the Curiosity Shoppe in San Francisco and guest DIY bloggers on design*sponge, just came up with a fun and easy project involving reusing glass bottles to create lovely candlesticks. We love the project, the concept, wine consumption in general, and the family tree wallpaper background, of course...

They also just published a new book, Show Me How. I'm purchasing my copy momentarily. I'm mostly intrigued by what exotic things I should know. Just want to make sure I'm in the know, you know? They are also coming out with a crafty wallpaper book next year, which we can't wait to read. I'm pretty much all out of ideas about what to wallpaper, so am looking forward to seeing what these crafty geniuses come up with!

Losing My Oranges

I had a few scraps of the red fairy flower left over from the accent wall I did in my living room. I thought they'd be a perfect way to "upgrade" the orange lamp shades on a pair of lamps I had in the living room. The orange and red were not really working together... And, I needed some lamps in my bedroom. So...

I just cut two rectangles of wallpaper, sprayed adhesive on to the shades, smoothed the paper down, and then used an exacto knife to cut out the shape. I'm didn't actually follow the directions on the adhesive spray bottle exactly, but they look great and seem to be working well. The best part? No more clashing orange for no money!

Above was the before version...

I've been trying to figure out how else to spruce up my bedroom. I'm pretty pleased with these jewelry knobs from Casalinga that I just put up today. I think they are a great way to display jewelry as art. The only issue is that I really actually want to do an accent wallpapered wall. Is there such a thing as too much wallpaper? :)

A Berry Black Tabletop

Grace, at design*sponge, just posted about this fun before and after - Barb at Knack Studios refurbished an old side table using an antique gray paint finish.  But, the true finishing touch? A strip of ferm LIVING's berry black wallpaper. So pretty!!!

DIY Clipboard

When Christiana was last visiting, the current issue of Martha Stewart Living had a great project - using wallpaper to spruce up simple masonite clipboards. The desk in our kitchen was in need of something to hold important notes, tickets and coupons, so I thought I'd give it a try. As usual, Martha was right - it's adorable!

First, trace the outline of the clipboard on the back of the wallpaper. I'm using Bindweed, but a pattern with a smaller repeat such as Fir Tree might be even better.

Now the tricky part - cut a space in the top of the paper to accommodate the clip. I'm not going to lie - this was not easy and I wish I had a tip on how to do it well, but I don't. Martha might have had one, but I haven't been able to find the magazine as of press time. I ended up taking a rectangle the size of the clip out and then custom cutting the curved pieces to match the top. Another solution - painting the clipboard and using a smaller piece of wallpaper with a border around the outside so you skip having to work around the clip altogether. Or, I think that the masonite has a cool look to it, so you could leave a masonite border as well.

I used Paper Source's bookbinding paste to adhere the paper to the clipboard.

Apply a thin coat and smooth the paper on from the middle of the board out to avoid bubbles and ensure that the paper is attached well.

And voila! All in all, it was a 15 minute project and a great way to use up left over bits of wallpaper. I'm planning to do several for my home office next - I think that I will print labels (Bills, Shopping List, School) and put them on the clip to help organize myself even more. Of course, cleaning my house would probably also held with the whole organization thing, but making wallpaper clipboards is so much more fun!

Falling Back an Hour

Having forgotten about daylight savings, I was happily surprised to find myself with a spare hour today. What better way to spend it than wallpapering something, yes?

I used the fir tree design in black and white to add an unexpected pop of nature to a drum lampshade. I just brushed on a very thin layer of wallpaper paste to the inside using a sponge brush and then flattened the wallpaper onto it with my hands. Super easy!


Lit in Seattle made the shade above from the feather design which was the inspiration for my project. I really love how you can only really see the pattern when the light it on. It is a very subtle way to add more pattern into any room.


I also had a little time to leaf through my November Elle Decoration UK this afternoon and got a big kick out of seeing ferm LIVING's branch design in a Le Klint advertisement.

Also, in this month's Elle Decor, I bumped into two more of my favorite things -- Kahler's striped vase (which we'll be featuring in our new shop, Hygge & West, launching next week!!!) and Rob Ryan's adorable tile.

Luckily, I'm already the very happy owner of a Rob Ryan tile which Aimee gave me for my birthday. It's very fitting for this blog entry, as is says "You bring light to the world." While that certainly isn't always true, I appreciated the thought tremendously! Thank you, Aimee!