reupholstering 101

i have been away for too long!  I guess life happened and I got caught up with all the hullabaloo. Well, now I'm back and I will try my very best to post something more regularly.  I have plenty of stuff to post since then.

well, the other month I happen to stare at our dining chairs long enough to realize that it was the odd one out in the room.

this was how our little dining corner looked with the dated emerald green velvet covering the chairs

up close, the chip board underneath was almost falling apart

so, I decided to upgrade it and without any experience at all in chairs or reupholstering, I dove right in and was very, very pleased with the results!

the painting of the Rock under Van Gogh's starry night is made by hubby; the African mask is a souvenir when we met for the first time in Morocco; i sewed the yellow curtains myself; I DIY'ed the white tissue paper pom-poms/hanging decor and of course, the black dining room table and chairs we inherited from the former owners of the house.

if you want to do some reupholstering of your own, there are plenty of tutorials online and even if you don't have any experience at all, never fret!  All you need is some elbow grease, a staple gun, your fabric of choice and you are good to go!

tickity-tock-tock

moving house has been so stressful but the thought of decorating and adding all the good things i've always wanted in our very own house made me get up every morning with the hugest smile on my face.

one of the very first things i made was a sunburst clock (i noticed that when we initially moved into the new house we habitually looked towards the empty walls whenever somebody asked what time it is!).  so i bought a cheap second hand clock in a local buy-and-sell Facebook page here in Gib, glue-gunned a few skewer sticks, spray-painted it in bronze (i wanted copper but couldn't find any in the stores here) aaaaaaaand voila!

my new DIY bronz-y sunburst clock

prepping my clock by glue-gunning barbecue skewers at the back of the clock and covering the hands with painter's tape

the cheap second-hand clock I bought from a Facebook page 

i enjoyed doing this project because the mister and i had to find an open space to spray paint.  he said he knew of a place. and then he took me up the Rock!  and while waiting for the paint to dry (fairly quickly!) we had fun counting our blessings and enjoying the glorious view :)

soufflè hurray

i've never had a souffle ever.  they look so airy and delicious that, on a whim, i decided to make some.

those cooking madmen and mavens on tv are right!  they are soft and melts in your mouth and tasty and savory.  they are also fairly easy to make provided that you don't get disappointed a few milliseconds after you take them out of the oven (because they deflate so easily).

i followed the recipe from Dulce Delight :)  trust me you won't be disappointed with her decadent creations :)

right after i took them out of the oven

exactly 4 seconds after i took the first picture... i literally saw them go down, down, down

que hora es?

what time is it?  

bought this Timex kid's watch for a song at the carboot sale last saturday too.  problem was, it wasn't working.  the lady selling it said it prolly just needed a battery.

so off i went to the indian shop and bought a teeny-tiny battery that cost more than the price of the watch!  good news was, it is now tick-tocking happily :)  


but how can i update the look?  i love the fun purple elastic band but i wanted to make it look more current and also appropriate for me (without losing the fun factor, of course)

 the solution? RIBBONS!

and the best part is: i can change the ribbons anyday, anytime, anywhere to any color and design i want!

please excuse the upside-down-ness of my watch in the last pic.  i didnt notice it till i was reviewing this post :)

time to pay more attention to details!

from homely to comely: a tale of a serving tray make-over

come christmas i can't help but miss friends and family back home. its just different when you are spending it with people who you are familiar with and feel free to be yourself with.

the other day, after spending a nostalgic afternoon laughing and joking and exchanging messages in Facebook with good friends, i was inspired by one fabulous friend of mine after i saw her christmas dinner pictures. she cleverly repurposed her decor from last christmas and it came out so elegant and classy, just like her. what caught my eye was her 3-tier serving tray from Ikea full of fruits and yumminess :) i immediately wanted one. but in tiny Gib and the nearest Ikea being a 2-hour drive away in Malaga, Spain, i have to think out of the box and into the drawing board :)

after combing every nook and cranny in Gib looking for the perfect serving tray, i came out exhausted and empty-handed. the closest was a small-ish 3-tier tray with an awful rose design costing £22.50! highway robbbery indeed! so i went home dragging my feet and went to the grocery to pick up a big bundle of pears to gorge in when i saw this:

as you can see, its plain and i do rather like it that way :) but since its christmas, i thought i'd jazz it up a bit :)

thanks to my japanese washi tapes, i came up with a simple but classy design on my new 2-tier serving tray :) i was also inspired by ideas from
Elizabeth Goodman of To Be Charmed.

aahh, i love days like this. when inspiration hits and creativity kicks in and i am just powerless and must, must, must give in :)

good things come to those who wait

it wasn't so long ago that i started our little garden in our little verandah. on top of Alejandro (our bonsai plant) and a lovely young lavender, i planted tomatoes, peppers, spring onions, parsley, dill and some chives. i browsed through a lot of gardening sites to make sure i am doing the right thing. (thank God for the internet!)

as you can see, they are all crowded into our verandah where they get some precious sun every morning. of about 50 pots, i only bought 5 and the rest were either found in the dumpster in our building or were given by our friend, Victor, who is our buildings' gardener. he also checks in on us sometimes and gives us valuable advice on how to care for our organic babies. the sticks that serve as support for the tomatoes i also found in our building's dumpster. someone threw away a bunch of them and i regretted not getting the whole lot. we ended up going up the Rock to get some more sturdy sticks.

this is one of the very first tomatoes that grew out of the wilted flowers as if by magic. any day now, we are going to be harvesting the fruits of my labors :) we've already snipped some spring onions and parsley leaves :)

loot's a hoot

remember my distressed owl that i bought at a recent carboot sale?
well, a little TLC and here he is now :) good as gold! am so proud of him :)