It's hard to believe it's 2012 already - where has the year gone?

I hope your New Year is filled with health and happiness, and it doesn't take you too long to remember to write 2012 instead of 2011 ;)

With the end of the year fast approaching, I thought I'd reminisce about a few of my favorite projects from this year (in no particular order).

My bathroom mini makeover took me a while to get finished, but I'm rather pleased with the end result.

The dining chair project was one that seemed to take FOREVER, but I'm happy with the end result. Next time I paint furniture though - I'll think twice before using a paintbrush. 

Rewiring my bedside lamps is a favorite project because I was incredibly intimidated to try it, and in the end it was very simple to do.

My dollar store bookend project is a favorite because it was the first time I'd really made something new instead of just modifying it.

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?  It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes and bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What is Christmas, perhaps means a little bit more. ~ Dr.Seuss

~Michelle

I have a bit of a problem. I currently get two magazines delivered to my home every month - Style at Home, and Canadian House & Home. I like to flip through them to see what wonderful (and sometimes odd) things people are doing inside their homes. Now, some of you may have many more subscriptions than I, but my problem isn't the number of magazines I get, it's the number I keep. That's right, I keep them all.

Behold my bookcase - that bottom shelf is pretty much all magazines that I've kept on the off-chance that someday I may feel the need to flip though one that's two years old (or more) for decor inspiration.

As I've recently been plotting a project that will require my bookcase to be emptied, I decided to start shifting through the 3 years of decor magazines collecting dust on the bottom shelf. But, what was I going to do with them? I couldn't just recycle them - what about all the great stuff contained within their glossy pages? I could tear out the pages that I liked, but then I'd have to figure out where to store the random pages.

For the past few months I've been silently stalking Pinterest. I'd login occasionally, take a look at some things people had 'pinned', maybe save a few, and then log out. I didn't do much with it, until I decided to sort through my stack of magazines.

For those of you who aren't aware of Pinterest it's described as 'a virtual pinboard' - a way to store and save all those things you find on the web, that you might need one day. I prefer to think of it as a more visual way to store all those bookmarks you have in your internet browser, but instead of folders you have boards.

Here is what Pinterest looks like:

Pinterest starts you with a few default boards, but you can rename them, and add more depending on the items you're going to be saving.

You can also search Pinterest for images that appeal to you, and if you find something you can re-pin it to your board. I don't particularly like this function - If I find an image I like, I'd rather go to the originating website and pin-it directly, but that's simply a personal preference.

Pinterest also allows you to follow people, or you can follow individual boards, so if there's someone who's taste is similar to yours you can see what they've pinned. Here's my profile if you'd like to see what I'm pinning.

If you have a blog or website you can also see what images people have pinned from your site -  type this into your browser with your site's full url (without the www.): http://pinterest.com/source/insertyourwebsite'surlhere/

Anyways, after several hours of magazine flipping I now have a Pinterest page with 14 boards and 149 pins. I also have a bookcase that is slightly less crammed with magazines. Hopefully I'll be good and periodically purge my magazine collection. Next up is sorting all my books, and deciding which I really want to keep, and which can go to a new home.

Way back in another lifetime I built my headboard out of MDF and 2"x2" pieces of wood and then covered it with a couple of layers of cotton batting, and a piece of inexpensive white fabric. Fast forward quite a few years, and I was no longer thrilled with my headboard. The fabric had gotten rather dull looking, and I wished every time I saw it that I had something just a little more sophisticated.

You may recall that I have a serious love for the Collete Bed at Crate&Barrel. A while ago when I was at King Textiles looking for some velvet for my mirror framing project, I spotted some fabric in their clearance section that sparked an idea. After quickly Googling on my phone the dimensions of a double bed I purchased several yards.

I put off this project for a couple of weeks as I was a little worried about pulling out all the staples that attached the original fabric to the headboard. Even though it was years ago, I still remember how cramped my hand got from using the staple gun, and I had visions of pulling staples for days. I needn't have worried - the staples came out quite easily with a pair of needle-nosed pliers.

As I wasn't going to replace the batting, my next step was to lay out the new fabric, and make the necessary cuts to remove the extra. Next I started stapling.  My method was simple - a couple of staples in the top in the middle, and then pulled the fabric tight and stapled at the bottom in the middle. I then did the middle on each side. This ensured that fabric was tight in both directions before I stapled the rest of the top, bottom and sides. The top corners gave me a little trouble as I wanted to make them as smooth as possible. After some trial and error I ended up cutting out a triangle of fabric at each corner before folding it over and stapling. This would probably have been easier if my fabric wasn't so thick, but as it's a woven wool it got quite bulky in the corners.

Once the stapling was complete I flipped the headboard over, and started on the next phase of the project.

I had seen individual nail head tacks at Home Depot on several occasions, but the thought of having to nail in several hundred tacks kept me from recovering my headboard a long time ago. While perusing the Lee Valley Tools website one day I saw these nail head strips, and they were what I used. The beauty of this product is you only have to nail in every 5th nail - the rest are fake.

Here's the finished product:

Mine doesn't have the fancy curved detail that the one at Crate&Barrel does, but given how much it cost to make I can overlook that little detail. What do you think? Is it almost as nice as the original?

If you'd like to inject some of that vivaciousness into your world right away, here are a few items you might consider: 

I heard about Art Interiors years ago, and have always wanted to visit, but for whatever reason never managed to despite it not being too far from my house.

Art Interiors was started in 1993 by two women in Toronto as a place where people could buy original pieces of art at affordable prices (starting from about $35). A lot of the art they carry is that of young up-and-coming artists, but they carry the work of more established artists as well.

Their website has a quite extensive selection of available art, and you can purchase online, but there is more available at the bricks-and-mortar location. If there is an artist whose work they carry and you admire, they can also email you as new pieces arrive.

Art Interiors is located at 446 Spadina Rd, Suite 206 in Toronto, ON. The Festival of Smalls is running until December 24th, 2011. Shipping can also be arranged for those who can't visit their Toronto location.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret - I'm having a little trouble getting into the holiday spirit this year. I'm not sure what it is, but I just can't seem to get really excited about the holiday that is fast approaching. I own a little fake Christmas tree and a selection of ornaments and I fully intended to leave them in my storage locker for the holiday season until last week.

I was flipping through the November issue of Style At Home Magazine when I spotted this:

Once I spotted it, I knew I could make something similar, and all thoughts of being a complete Scrooge this Christmas went out the window. While they were a little time-consuming, they are very easy to make.

Here's what I used:

My first step was to find a pattern for a dove. that was easy enough using Google, and with it on my screen I free-handed the shape I wanted. There are three parts to the dove - the body, the wings, and the bottom.

Once the pieces were cut out I sewed the body together using a blanket stitch and then I stuffed the dove a little with some off cuts from the felt I was using to make my dove more three-dimensional.

Once the bodies were put together I added the wings. I decided to add the piece of tulle over my felt wing to dress it up a little, but you could do it without. The wings are attached to the body with a couple of stitches at the top - this allows them to stand out from the body which I think looks more natural.

I sewed on two pearl beads to make eyes, but I'm sure you could just use a little dab of glue.

Next, I took the craft feathers and decided on what length I wanted the tail to be. Once that was done I cut them, and then removed a little of the down from the quill to allow me to insert it easily into the dove. I used a little dab of glue to hold the feather in place.

My last step was to add the silver string. It turned out my string was too fat for my regular needle, but luckily I happened to have an upholstery needle with a big enough eye. All I did was use the needle to pull the string thought the top of the dove's body, and then tie a knot in the sting.

Here is the finished product:

Here is what this project cost (everything came from dollar stores):

I was going to just hang the doves, but I thought there should be something else on my tree, so I came up with what was the easiest project ever - it took about 5 minutes to make 15 ornaments.

What you'll need:

Cost:

I was going to put all my new ornaments on my regular tree, but on the way home from work today I found a tree branch, so decided to try to replicate my inspiration image a little more.

It's taken me a while, but I've finally managed to finish stripping my Craigslist dresser. It's funny, when you watch those decorating shows on TV, they always make this type of thing look so easy. Let me tell you, it's not. And the smell - Wowzers - it's a good thing I invested in a respirator. On a positive note, I emerged from this experience relatively unscathed - I only suffered one chemical burn, and it was a small one ;)

Anyways, I thought I've give you a quick peek at where I am on this project.

(You can take a peek at what I started with here). Next up will be sanding, and at some point I have to figure out how to fix the missing veneer.

Anyways, while working on the dresser, I spotted something that indicated where it came from originally. This mark is a little hard to read, but it says Simpson's which was a department store here in Canada that is no longer in business.

Simpson's was started in Newmarket, ON by Robert Simpson in 1858. It thrived until 1870 when a fire completely destroyed the building.  Robert Simpson restarted his store in Toronto in 1872 as the city was rapidly increasing in size. The original Toronto store was on Yonge street, just north of Queen.

By the 1890's, Simpson's had over 200 employees and in late 1894 they moved to a new store on the south-west corned of Yonge and Queen Streets. Three months later the Simpson's store was again destroyed by fire. Undeterred, Robert Simpson reopened his store 6 days later in a rented building. He proceeded to rebuild on the same corner, and the bigger and better building was completed just 10 months later. It's still standing today.

On a side note - does anyone remember a 80's children's TV show called 'Today's Special'? Well, it was partially filmed inside the Simpson's building.

That caught your attention didn't it?

No, I haven't decided that the only way to fund my home decor habit is by removing my clothing - I've started work on my Craigslist dresser.

I have to say, I think the outfit required for the type of stripping I'm doing is unbelievably attractive!

What do you think? ;)

Whenever I visit a thrift store I head first to the furniture section in the faint hope of finding something fabulous that needs a little TLC. I don't seem to have the best of luck thrifting for furniture, but every so often I spot something small that I know could be really pretty with a little elbow grease. A few weeks ago I spotted such an item.Behold my $5 thrift store vase - it's nothing much to look at is it?

I used some Silvo silver cleaner (purchased a while back when I had some crazy plan to actually clean my jewelry) to tidy it up, but I ran into a little problem. The directions on the can say to apply the cleaner, let it dry, and then rub it off with a soft cloth. This method worked a little (just enough to give me hope that my $5 was well spent), but it was quite frustrating as I had to use quite a bit of pressure to get any of the tarnish off, and then there was still plenty left on the vase after all the effort. Out of frustration I dabbed a little cleaner on the soft cloth and just started rubbing the vase - hallelujah! the tarnish came off easily. I'm going to have to remember not to follow directions more often.