Chez Larsson

Reader Project ~ Isabel's Cabinet

 

Here's another reader project for you. This one's from Isabel in Portugal. Look what she found hidden under some junk in a local second hand store!

  
Before

Isabel wrote: With so much inspiration that I found online, I ventured to recycle a piece of furniture.

I went to second-hand furniture stores and flea markets to find our cabinet, one that I looked at and felt he had everything to have a bright future. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for ... I wanted a cabinet for the dining room area and where I could put dishes and glasses.

In an antique store, deep down, in a tricky and narrow place, there it was, pilled up with dish and irons all around it, and with a lot other things on top of it. We bought it almost right away.

I decided to get down to work: cleaning, disinfecting, isolating the glass, unscrewing and replacing screws, painting it ... sanding it ... It was not easy and it took some muscle!

But after so much work we loved the final result and now we can enjoy it!

 
After

Thanks so much Isabel! Isabel writes a blog in Portugese, but regardless if you know the language there's some real DIY eye candy there so pop on over and check it out!
 
 

Reader Project ~ Marianne's Footrest

 
Before

I'm off to the States today (King of Prussia, Philadelphia to be exact). So today and tomorrow I'm posting a couple of reader projects that were sent to me. Enjoy!

First off is Marianne's revamped foot rest. Check it out!

 

Marianne wrote: I just wanted to share one of my project with you. It’s a footrest that I’ve found in a thrift shop a few weeks ago, for like 15€. I’ve given it a new look with a fresh white paint and a modern yet quite classic fabric. I hope you enjoy it !

 

 

Big difference, huh? Find the full instructions and see the armchair that it goes with on Marianne's blog.

 

Love the storage inside!

Merci, Marianne!

Merry Xmas Pillow

 

Told you yesterday how I love that font. It made it's way to a pillow too.

I sewed the linen pillow case but if you have a semi see-through one you can pimp that. Also needed is a print out with your holiday message and a fabric marker.

 

Simply place the print out inside the pillowcase and hold it down so it doesn't shift. I used my lead weights from the pre-computer days.

How easy is this? A little dot with the fabric marker along the print out.

Finished! Took just a few minutes!

  

Merry Xmas in advance!

Ps. The other pillow is in an Anna Maria Horner fabric.

Pps. Check out Café Mom where I participated in choosing a hoilday gift for under $10. So funny that Emma and I chose the exact same thing. Swedish minds think alike :)

The Advent Calendar

 

I know Wille is fifteen and is probably considered past the age of needing an advent calendar. But I want to give him one so I am.

Couldn't just go and get a store bought one though, could I?

Check out my hack. From generic (sample at work) to bespoke in a few (well actually this took waaaay longer than I had meant for it to) steps.

I'm not going to post a full tutorial because I'm afraid there's no way you'll make one in a day (and today's the day) so here' just the before, a few in betweens and afters.

I started out by just covering the large box bottom in white adhesive plastic. I then laid out all the little boxes and used glue stick to adhere a printed out photo of Mini and Bonus as kittens to one side if the laid out boxes.

Once that was dry I used a craft knife and cut along all four sides and in between the boxes so each little box came loose again. This was then repeated on all four sides creating a puzzle with four Mini and Bonus shots. The last step was to glue on the numbers on the tops of the little boxes which I had also printed out. I pasted those on indivudually though because it was tricky to get each number centered otherwise.

Here's one side fully assembled with three other motifs hidded and to be puzzled.

I kept the inside boxes red as they were  and I love the font I used. It's called superpoint and can be downloaded for free from dafont.com. It's sort become my holiday font as I've used it in other places around the house too. Show you later!

 

And whats inside? Mmmmm. Schhhhhhh! Wille has yet to open the first box, so don't spill the beans on what's to come. 
 

Outdoor Decorations

Day

Yesterday was Advent 1st and my decorations are up outside.

Dusk

This year I went all faux except for the real junipers in the zink pots on either side of the front door and in the window box outside the kitchen.

 

 
 
 And now I want snow! 
 

Holiday Bunting

  

While you guys are still digesting your turkeys (Happy belated Turkey Day!) or are making mad dashes scoring Black Friday deals or are simply still at work (it's a regular ol' Friday over her in Sweden) I'll just quickly share this simple holiday craft project with you. For those of you in Aby's workshop here's the how-to in pictures.

Remember the Easter bunting I made in March? This is the Christmas version of it.

So easy to make. This time I recycled used holiday cards and some craft paper...

  ... and simply snipped them into triangles and stitched them together on the sewing machine.

On Sunday we have Advent 1st over here. I'm heading out now to hang my exterior decorations. Have a good weekend and see you again on Monday!

Favorite Shirt Pillow

Check out our new pillow. Recognize the material? (Oh and yes, that's Bonus making his loaf of bread impression in front of it.)

 

Yup, it's Martins favorite old shirt...

 

Martin actually wore this shirt the day Wille was born 15 years ago and it's been in his closet ever since. The fabric is soooo increadibly soft. The cut of the shirt was very 80's so Martin didn't wear it any longer and agreed I could turn it into a pillow case. Here's the how-to.

 

Cut two squares in your pillow size plus seam allowance on all four sides. No need to worry about closure because it's already built in.

Pin the two pieces together with buttons towards inside.

Sew along all four edges and zig zag to prevent fraying.

Turn right side out and there's the pillow case. Probably one of the easiest I've ever made.

If you don't have a shirt but have a favorite T-shirt you want to turn into a pillow I have a tutorial for you too. Check it out here.
 

Help me Out Here Please

Can I ask your honest opinion on something?

I get approached by companies all the time who want to send me stuff to review or to give away. I usually turn them down for one or several reasons like a) They won't do international shipping of give-aways b) The product's not something I'm interested in c) It's a lot of work on my part to be honest.

So far I've turned down lamps, home office accessories, sunbeds (would have loved to give those away but they couldn't ship them outside of Sweden), paint ( would have loved to do that give away too but paint doesn't travel well overseas...) etc etc.

I'm aware that hosting give-aways can get you more readers but I'm fine with the one's I have (that's you :). Hosting give-aways can also provide you with blog content but I have plenty of that, not stumped for ideas yet.

It has gotten to the point where I'm thinking "What's in it for me? When I get these e-mails where Company X want to send me say a paintbrush, write x amount on the benefits of said brush AND administer a give away of three of the presumably Super brushes and I'm like "you want me to do all that and I get a by then used brush in return"?!

To the point finally. Lately I've been getting some pretty nice offers of give-ways by companies who WILL ship prizes abroad (to the moon, if necessary as one said) and there's a little freebie in there for me too. 

I'm on one side thinking "Now we're talking!" and at the same time don't want to labeled as "bought". How do you guys feel about this? Would you mind if I occassionaly accepted free stuff and if I like it blog about it or host occasional give-aways? I have to say I'm not someone who get showered with free stuff all the time and I have to admit I like the idea of the occasional goodie being dropped of in my mail box...

Be honest, I can take it! I'll obviously still make up my own mind about it in the end but I do value your view on this and you can decide whether you still like me after.

~B.

Our Thing for Tartan

As I told you last week we've had this thing for tartan.

When Martin and I met on New Years Even in 1986 his then anglophile style and my love for anything checked merged and we had quite a few years of tartan mania.

Martin's tartan thing acually even partly stems from his great great great grandmother who met and had a fling with a Lord of the Isles who was salmon fishing in Norway. Hot stuff, huh?

Here's (part of) our tartan run down in pictures.

 

Dishes and pillows.

 

Throw.

Shirt.

More pillows and photo album.

Another shirt. More on this one in a later post.

Baby Björn carrier.

Matching bouncer.

Another pillow.

 

With tartan being one of those things that comes around at regular intervals I'm always happy when it does but Martin loves it always.

How about you? Any pattern that you love and that you keep reaching for when shopping?
 

Brainstorm #9

Brainstorm number 9 is coming to you live from the Sockholm suburbia.

A Swedish reader Anna sent them over. She works in a shop and these are actually supports on which lampshades get delivered on. As she can't bare putting then in the trash she's brought a whole bunch of them in all three sizes home ( so would I have!).

As soon as I saw these my brain started to itch to get to work but I did ask Martin and our loyal friends Sanna and Sebastian for their opinions too and here are our suggestions.

How about using the biggest one as a cake stand?

After the holidays Anna can use a few for storing her string lights.

By covering them in plastic they could be made into a kid's drum set.

 

A bit of cling film with a few holes poked for air circulation and Anna has herself some instant garden cloches. 

Also in the garden they could be used as trellises.

Imagine serving sea food platters on them. What a feast!

Since Anna has quite a few she can connect them with metal wire and cover the structure in rice  paper and make a Noguchi inspired lamp.

We're past Halloween but next year Anna can scare her neighborhood at a new level. 

 

By sewing a bag with drawstring for the largest frame it could be used for storage. Imagine a whole row of these on a shelf. Cute. if you ask me.

Speaking of cute, how about turning some into a set of play furniture by attaching little wooden tops?

Those are our ideas. Like I said, Anna has quite a few of these so more suggestions are welcome. Bring 'em on!