whatever floats your boat

Today’s post brought to you by Kelly

The glass floats that I mentioned in this post have arrived, and they’re sooooo beautiful! Robi from lightinawormhole threw in a little surprise, so I ended up with six floats :-) Here they all are…

*Sigh* I just love these little treasures of the sea. These are all Japanese floats that were handblown at least 40 years ago and were used to hold fishing nets. Over time, they got detached from the nets and made their way across the ocean to various beaches on the Pacific. When you think about how fragile glass is, it’s amazing that these little guys survived the waves and storms and all of nature’s elements to arrive safely on a sandy shore somewhere.

Beautiful blue…

The bubbles in the glass add so much character.

Besides being beautiful, glass floats are wonderfully tactile. They’re heavier than you might think. Holding one in your hand, you can’t help but wonder about the journey that it took, from the factory where it was made to its days out on the ocean to being discovered on a beach.

Do you collect something rare or unusual?

gracias, cпасибо, danke

Just a quick post today to say a couple of thank yous...

Shelley over at 2jacs recently had a giveaway for Sapadilla cleaning products, and I was one of the two lucky winners. Yay! It's not weird to be excited about cleaning products, is it? Well, OK, maybe it's just a little bit weird :-) But totally deserving of the weirdness. Here's why:

Not testing on animals is really important to me, and they're not kidding about the some kind of wonderful scent. The giveaway was for products in either the grapefruit & bergamot or rosemary & peppermint scents. I mentioned in my entry that one of the things I like best about Sapadilla is the lavender & lime scent. Shelley not only decided to send me products in my favourite scent, she also made me some cleaning cloths in matching purple :-) Take my word for it, the lavender & lime scent smells amazing!

I could have used the all-purpose cleaner yesterday, but I thought my first cleaning experience using Sapadilla & Shelley's cloths should be a little more elegant than cleaning up dog barf ;-)

Sapadilla is located in BC and their products are sold in selected stores in Canada and the US. Click here to see if there's a store near you. You can also purchase their products online from these stores. And if you're looking for colourful handmade cloths, Shelley sells them in her Etsy shop, J&J.

THANK YOU, SHELLEY!

And also thank you to Mary at Very Merry Vintage Style for including my faux zinc bird in her list of favourite projects from last week's Share The Love Wednesday blog party.

Mary, I hope my project inspired you and your blog readers to take a shot at creating your own faux zinc - it's really easy and fun :-)

After my flurry of DIY projects a few weeks ago, I'm kind of DIY'd out. But you might remember I mentioned a Restoration Hardware-inspired table project that I wanted to tackle. Well, it's half done {thank you, hubby!}, and will hopefully be ready for its reveal in a week or two. Stay tuned!

{ let's imagine } just a touch of colour

Today's post brought to you by Kelly
Have you been thinking about adding some colour to your house, but you're not sure you're ready to make an all-out colour commitment? Well, here's an easy way to add just a hint of colour in an unexpected place... on the edge of a door!

Image via Martha Stewart Living

Image via indulgy

How's that for a totally easy, and non-committal way to bring a touch of colour into a room?! Of course, you can always go all-out and paint the whole door a fun colour with a contrasting colour on the edge...

Image via indulgy

Or how about a chevron door?

Image via Camille Styles

What do you think of painting a door edge a bright & fun colour?

in honour of derby day – equestrian chic

Today’s post brought to you by Kelly

In honour of today’s Kentucky Derby, here’s a replay of the equestrian-inspired blog post I wrote at JAX does design last February…

Inspired by Big Red: A twist on equestrian chic

Last night, hubby and I watched Secretariat. OMG, what a great movie! Diane Lane is wonderful as Penny Chenery, and all the beautiful horses… *SIGH* But you don’t have to be a horse-lover to enjoy the movie – it’s as much about the strength and drive of a woman succeeding in a man’s world as it is about horses.

In case you aren’t familiar with Secretariat's story, Penny Chenery (on behalf of her dad, Christopher) won him before he was actually born in a coin flip in 1969 – although she actually lost the flip to Ogden Phipps, who at the time was the richest man in America. Too bad for Mr. Phipps, he selected the wrong foal! Ms. Chenery traveled back and forth from her home in Colorado to her family’s Meadow Stable in Virginia, living a double-life (in a good way!) as a wife & mom to four kids and the owner of a race horse.

Penny Chenery & Secretariat {image via Comfrey Cottages}

The rest, as they say, is history. Secretariat went on to be what many consider to be the greatest racehorse of all time. He won the 1973 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, and then absolutely demolished the field in the Belmont, leading the race almost entirely from start to finish and winning by 31 lengths. He’s one of only 11 horses to win the Triple Crown – a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since Affirmed won it in 1978. And his winning times in the Derby and Belmont still stand as the fastest to this day, almost 40 years later.

Secretariat & Canadian jockey Ron Turcotte in the 1973 Preakness Stakes {image via Lost Past Remembered}

Sadly, Secretariat had to be put down in 1989 after a battle with a hoof disease called laminitis. Doctors performed a necropsy, and discovered that Secretariat's heart was literally twice the weight of an average horse’s heart. But then, Secretariat wasn’t an average horse :-)

Secretariat, aka Big Red, 1970 – 1989 {Image via TBO.com}

In honour of the beautiful chestnut horse they called Big Red, I’ve put together some equestrian-related interior design pictures, but with a bit of a twist. Instead of rooms that include horse art, sculptures, or memorabilia, these are rooms with design elements that to me that have the essence of the whole equestrian feel.

Sliding wood barn doors…

Image via DigsDigs

Wood-paneled rooms…

Image vie Velvet & Linen

Well-worn leather chairs…

Image via Practical Enrichment

Polished brass…

Image via The Simply Luxurious Life

Trunks…

Image via Auction Decorating

Cast iron… 

Image via House & Home

Benches…

Image via Sense of Style Interiors

Navajo-style blankets…

Image via Kris Abshire

And a few literal takes on equestrian chic that caught my eye…

Images via Interior Design Daily, Dankton, Apartment Therapy, and Best Luxury Interior Design

What says equestrian chic to you?

{ let’s create } faux zinc

Today’s post brought to you by Kelly

Zinc is hot. I did a search for “zinc” on the Restoration Hardware website, and 232 matches popped up. With crazy-high prices. But never fear – you can create your very own faux zinc for a fraction of the cost of the real thing. And it’s really easy.

After reading a bunch of tutorials for varying methods, I decided to go with the easiest one, mainly because I already had the supplies I needed. {Check out my Crafty Stuff pinboard for lots of examples of faux zinc.}

Are you ready for one of the easiest faux techniques ever? OK, here we go…

You’ll need:

• Black acrylic paint {I used FolkArt in Licorice}
• Metallic paint in silver {I used DecorArt Elegant Finish Metallic Paint in Shimmering Silver}
• Paint brush & pouncing brush
• Clear paste wax & a rag
• Something to paint :-)

This white ceramic jar was in one of the swag bags I picked up at IDS12 in January. The finish is rough & unfinished, which made it the perfect candidate to zinc-ify.

I totally forgot to take an in-progress shot, but it’s really simple – I just painted the jar black with my acrylic paint. When the paint was dry, I lightly rubbed on the silver paint with a pouncing brush.

After the silver coat dried, I rubbed on some clear paste wax, buffed it, and voila… faux zinc! It’s kind of hard to see the sheen in the picture, but it’s soft & subtle.

I used the same technique on this plastic bird that I picked up at the Dollar Store.

I did the exact same thing, painting it black…

…and then rubbing on the silver metallic paint, followed by some wax and buffing.

I didn’t apply wax to the base – can you see that the finish on the jar and the bird is a bit softer than on the base of the bird?

I used the same technique on a white frame from HomeSense {the other frames are getting the chalk paint treatment}.

Here’s the completed faux zinc frame with paint chip art that I whipped up in a few minutes so I wouldn’t be showing you a naked frame ;-)

Rubbing the paste wax onto the frame wiped off some of the finish, so the frame is waxless. I just gently buffed it with the same rag I used to apply the wax to the other pieces to up the sheen factor just a bit.

The great thing about creating faux zinc is that you really can’t screw it up. If you put on too much silver paint, just go over it with more black paint and do it again. If rubbing on the wax rubs off the paint, add more paint {speaking from experience!}. Seeing as you want an imperfect/uneven finish, you don’t have to be precise – more black here and more silver there gives the effect that you want, so don’t worry about spreading the silver paint evenly. See the colour variations in this close-up?

And that’s really all there is to it! I’m going to try out a couple of other faux zinc techniques – I have a plan in mind to make over an oak coffee table that we have with old wood boards and the faux zinc technique.  The Brickmaker’s Table from Restoration Hardware is the inspiration:

For a detailed video tutorial of a different faux zinc technique, check out Jami’s night stand project over at Freckled Laundry. She did an amazing job!

Are you inspired to zinc-ify something in your house?

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