Pepper Design Blog

A Merry Little Craft Project

I’m working on adding a few homemade Christmas touches each year to our collection and this year I decided to DIY a new pillow cover for our couch. The sectional is an ever-changing pillow hodge podge (I tend to just cover up a current pillow with a new cover, so sometimes you can find two or three previous designs underneath ) and I scooped up this particular basic tan throw pillow cover from Ikea for $6.

I thought about felting an ornament or Christmas tree design onto the front (maybe a future project?) but then recalled seeing pillows of seasons past with a simple, scripted message and decided to give it a go.

The toughest part was deciding on what word! I love the pretty flow of ‘Merry’ and the joyful message – or state of Christmas being – that it conveys. It’s a good word to see day in and day out during this special time of gratefulness. Plus ‘M’s are just too fun to write out in cursive! (yeah for an ‘M’ first name)

Supplies for this project included two bright red embroidery thread bunches, an embroidery needle and my blank pillow cover.

An embroidery stitch is quite simple, it involves a basic back stitch technique so that while you’re stitching forward in your design, each stitch will head backwards as you go. Forgive the left hand awkwardness of this shot while I balance my camera in the other:

So my forward progress is on the reverse side of the pillow (though make sure you’re not stitching the two pillow sides together) and my needle pops up and out of the fabric about 1/4 of an inch out from the previous stitch. Then I head back towards that previous stitch to cover up my 1/4 fabric gap. The back stitch allows me to overlap my stitches just a hair so that the embroidery might appear to be close to one continuous line.

Writing out the entire word ‘Merry’ took a couple of hours one late evening while we had some friends over. I like projects that occupy the hands but don’t require too much thinking .

I first attempted to draw a light pencil line on the actual fabric to give myself a template to follow with the needle, but quickly found that it disappeard into the color of the tan fabric too quickly. Anything darker and it would have been harder to erase off of this heavily weaved fabric. Update: Sheila just shared with me that you can purchase a vanishing fabric marker that will write purple and disappear by the next day! Perfect!

In the end I wrote out ‘Merry’ on a card and free handed the pillow. The imperfections are part of what makes it special, though I see areas where I would have dipped my cursive down further, should have slanted my ‘y’ more, or might have added more flourish for interest. Ah well.

I’m really excited with how this project turned out given the time I worked on it and the easy update it makes to the living room! When Christmas is over I can pull off the cover of one of my favorite pillows (those ikat tan ones left over from the nursery glider fabric) that’s hiding below and pack up the ‘Merry’ cheer into my Christmas boxes for next year.

Christmas is just around the corner! So exciting!

Living Room Refresh: A New Antler Accessory + the Rose Bowl Flea Market

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! A while back I had the chance to visit the Pasadena Rose Bowl flea market, something that I absolutely love to do, but a visit I rarely get the opportunity to make because Los Angeles a bit of a trek (a couple of hours from San Diego) and the flea market is only held on the 2nd Sunday of each month.

The best of both worlds collided when friends decided that a trip was in order, and I was able to convince Kev to accompany me to Tinseltown for the weekend!

Photo from here.

Kevin did boy things with a few of the other husbands and kids during the morning while a group of us headed out to peruse the many, many aisles.

Photo from here.

The problem with this whole flea market thing is that once you’re there (with list in hand and measurements of near every wall in your house), it can become incredibly overwhelming. I go in with the idea that I’ll find this cool vintage chair or that neat side table, but I find so much goodness that I end up buying very little. It’s hard to commit under pressure.

A collection of images from various blogs.

BUT I picked up some cool antlers (among a couple of other accessories), and they’ve found a place on my living room mantel to be on display for all. (Don’t worry, I spoke with the owner of this little stand and he confirmed that most of the antlers found out there for sale today are from natural seasonal moltings of deer. Yep, that happens annually so there are enough antlers for all! And thankfully Bambi was not harmed in the making of this post).

Here’s a bit of antler inspiration from Pinterest. Yes it might be a bit trendy… but if you truly love the look that you’ve created, then sometimes a little trend is a-ok by me.

Beautiful.

And here’s my new mantel vignette, with its own version:

PS those great billy ball-ish branches can be found here. A side angle view:

Peeking through the dining room! Flea market finds have turned into a great way to tie together the rustic-meets-modern spaces. I like to think of that blend as comfy, casual chic. Is that a style yet?

I also picked up a wooden golf club for Kevin – which was his one request. Here are a few of us post-Rose Bowl grabbing a snack before driving back down to San Diego. Kevin is holding his prize.

Photo by the Rose Bowl companion, Jen. The lovely Jill is missing from this pic!

Later on, that golf club was cut down and turned into this for Liv. Watch out, Tiger.

We’re still working on which way is up, but that’s to be expected when you begin training at this age.

I can’t wait to visit my favorite flea market again! It’s such a wonderful treasure hunt and it might be in the top ten of my ideal ways to spend a Sunday morning. If that comfy, casual chic style resonates with you, you might check out the portfolio of this blogger who visits this particular flea market every month! and is my idol when it comes to spotting and styling such fantastic finds.

Still on my must-find list in the used-furniture department (actually, that might apply to all of the furniture in our home): dining room chairs, a nightstand for our bedroom, a neat chair for the living room, fabric (always!), an over-sized mirror, an industrial floor lamp, a pair of swing arm wall lights, storage for Liv’s toys… but sometimes it’s the little accessories and details like this single antler (for a great deal) that are the happiest finds!

More mantel transformation and living room posts can be found right here.

Living Room Refresh: Semi-DIY Colorful Canvas Art

Happy start to the week! Getting those cake posts together last week wore me out… but I have several new home projects to share with you this week and I’m really excited about this first one.

I have been looking for a large piece of art for the living room for some time, but everything I come across is either out of my price range or the wrong size/look. But I’ve found a solution. Using a one yard piece of fabric from Spoonflower + a couple of tubes of oil paint/acrylics, I channeled my inner artist and created a piece of art for the living room.

The fabric did 90% of the work, but maybe that’s why I’m so thrilled with how it came out .

Here’s a reminder of how the space looks when coming in through that above door:

The color palette in this room includes plenty of neutrals plus the occasional bright pop of green and raspberry red.

And this new painting ties in perfectly with the scheme.

The inspiration behind this piece of art came from when my family traveled to Australia two years back to visit my younger brother who was studying abroad in Perth. The aboriginal art was absolutely stunning, full of brilliant colors and beautiful abstract patterns and I badly wanted to bring a giant canvas home. That wasn’t quite possible, mostly due to luggage and price reasons, but it did cause me to begin a search for a potential DIY solution.

What’s kept me from trying this out? The thought of hanging art in the house where I am the artist. I know that sounds crazy, but I’m very critical of my own work and art is very much ‘on display’ – as opposed to maybe a repainted chair or even a room that we’ve completed. Fast forward to this spring, and my finding Ish & Chi’s and MadeByGirl’s absolutely stunning aboriginal pieces of art by artist Jeannie Mills. What a fantastic pop of color for the space! How beautiful!

I know, I know, mine does nothing to contend with the originals. But if your’e not familiar with where my inspiration came from, it’s a fun, extra large piece to have in the house and to bring in that bright coral color.

Original oil paintings (unless awesome thrift store finds – I’ve picked up a few small ones) can be pretty expensive, but when I came across thisfabric on Spoonflower while searching for other random project fabric, a semi-DIY art idea was born. Here’s that exact fabric, plus a few other designs that I loved by the same artist. (Maybe I’ll move the painting to Liv’s future big girl room and use these as the accent fabrics… that watercolor version is amazing.)

That fabric sparked the idea of creating my own canvas art to hang, and the best news yet? Spoonflower gives you the option of ordering on a canvas cloth! It’s not really as thick and sturdy as a gallery canvas, but it is hardier than your average cotton and gives a similar look to the pattern printed on it.

I really love art that is edged out in a simple wooden molding. It’s usually attached to the canvas post-production and sits maybe 1/8″ from the edge of the art (Ish & Chi actually had hers framed just like this but in white). I have a friend who’s aunt makes her own and I was inspired by her birch versions to use this Ikea frame, which worked just perfectly! and for a great price.

The third component to this project was a set of oil paints or acrylics. I have been collecting these little tubes for years and years and was so excited to finally pull my ‘painting’ box off of the bookshelf.

This box holds all kinds of trinkets that I’ve been saving for my future art days. {sigh}

But back to getting that frame all ready to go. First up was ironing out my fabric (Spoonflower ships with fabric folded rather than rolled so there are always a few decent creases) and then flipping it over and cutting to size.

I pulled the fabric nice and tight and added to the frame (with glass and mat removed).

A little super glue along the inside helped to reinforce the position of the fabric. (Photo below shows clamps which were helpful in lining up the fabric on the front side of the frame before securing in place.)

Now we’re ready to paint! Though this particular fabric would have looked great just framed and on its own. (No, I have not kid-proofed my bench seat in seran wrap , that’s just the plastic from the Ikea frame above that I eventually used to protect my table from paint smudges).

See what I mean about little creases? I used the steam option on my iron to get out the last of em before applying paint.

I chose a selection of reds, corals, crimsons, yellows and whites from my paints and began mixing up various shades that could be found in the fabric.

Then I tested my paints out an an extra piece of fabric and gingerly began applying small accent pieces of color throughout the canvas.

But soon enough I realized that the texture of paint brush strokes is really the look I was going for, and before long I had huge globs of paint on my square brush!

(My paint tray has plenty of dried paint in greens and blues and what not, but I used just reds and oranges and yellows for this project).

I slowly began to fill the canvas until nearly all of the squares in the pattern had an accent of real brush strokes (I like the look of highlighting or shadowing one corner).

The project took me an hour, maybe two. Which, in the art world, is like running a marathon at a sprinter’s time (you just can’t beat that!).

I really really love to paint. I don’t have the time (or maybe I should admit that I have had the same half finished canvases in my garage for years – one that’s maybe 15 years old?) but I do have the passion. Maybe a hobby for when I retire .

Liv helped me hang the piece. If you look closely you can see a tiny little hammer in her hand.

In case you’re curious about the door, here’s a shot that shows that the stopper halts the swinging front door just in time. The door couldn’t physically swing that far but it does make me a little less nervous knowing that there’s no glass involved with this art, either.

You can also see here how the weight of the paint on the fabric has caused it to sag a bit. I should probably go back and restretch it – or should have made that a final step before hanging. And to those of you familiar with Spanish-style homes, that’s the original solid door and hardware! It was produced in the 1930′s and while I don’t necessarily love it, it’s probably a crime here in San Diego to replace it.

Total cost for semi-handmade art? (Sandra Lee, anyone?) $25 for that great birch Ikea poster frame and $18 for a yard of canvas fabric from Spoonflower. I already owned the various paints and brushes (yard sales are a great place to pick up extras) so my grand total came to $43, which for such a huge piece is an awesome steal.

More living room posts can be found right here.