PicturesqueBrooklyn

Bedroom Updates

2011-11-04T11:58:00.000-04:00

Living Room Re-Do!

2010-11-30T06:47:00.002-05:00

Recently, my design a.d.d. has been flaring up again and causing me to think of more ways I change up the apartment. I rearranged my bedroom a couple times last month and now I have decided to move onto the living room. For the last year or so I have been in love with the look of my living room, but its missing the comfort that one would expect from a living space. I feel like my living room is more of a show room at times. We rarely sit on my beautiful mid-century modern Danish daybed/couch, actually, I can count on one hand the amount of times I've sat on the couch and watched a movie. Occasionally, my roommate and I will sit out there and catch up, but its always very brief. I definitely feel like we are neglecting this large living space and I would really love to utilize it more. So the plan is to make the room more inviting, by adding a large rug and getting a new comfortable couch.

Two things that were very important during my couch search: One, I did not want to get a used couch, and two, I wanted to spend less than $700. I knew this would be a task and started searching online for inexpensive but stylish modern couches. It was hard because of course most of the couches I really liked were over $1000 and that just wasn't in the budget. Of course, like always I reverted back to good 'ole IKEA. Luckily for me, they just came out with a new line of couches called KIVIK, that met my couch criteria. I took a trip to the store and found my wonderful couch. It is a beautiful light gray brown corduroy couch with big comfy cushions. As soon as I sat in it, I knew it was the one! The couch alone was $549 and ran me just $651 with tax and shipping.

After picking out the couch, I moved on through the showroom and found GISLEV, a beautiful gray 6.5" x 4.4" area rug with a very subtle white flower design. I thought that bringing in a large area rug would really warm up the space. Best of all, it only cost me $20!! What a steal!

So for now I have my rug at home and I am just waiting for the couch to be delivered. I'm super excited to see how it all comes together. I will definitely be sad to see my beautiful modern daybed go, but I know I will be happy when I have a very comfortable living room space to come home to. I will be posting pics as soon as I get the couch all set up!

Crazy For These Critters!

2010-09-07T23:38:00.001-04:00

Last Saturday while on an impromptu walk through Union Square Park, I stumbled upon a lot of really talented artists with their work on display around the park. One artist who really stood out was Kenneth Kudulis an amazing artists here in NYC who creates little monster-like creatures that are inspired by people and animals. The kudu-lah critters are absolutely adorable and affordable, I cant wait to start collecting some of these cute critters!

You can check out all of his pieces and get more information about his story on his website http://www.kudu-lah.com/ and in his Etsy store http://www.etsy.com/shop/kudulah.

Etsy
Kudulah

Just Posted on Etsy! 4 Piece Retro Wooden Bowl Set

2010-06-03T09:47:00.005-04:00

This is a beautiful 4 piece square retro wooden bowl set that I found yesterday while treasure hunting in Brooklyn. They are absolutely gorgeous and I am happy to have these little guys in my store!

Going Green...Finished Cart Project!

2010-06-01T05:09:00.009-04:00

Back in February I was inspired by a saucy lime green buffet table that I found on Design*Sponge. I immediately ran out to Home Depot and bought a very similar paint color for my wooden service cart that I purchased from the Salvation Army a few months ago.

I primed and painted the cart, then went back with an Ed Roth Stencil and painted a small gorilla head in the bottom right corner of the tray. I originally wanted to replace my microwave stand in the kitchen and make a cute bar area, but I didn't think it would be smart for me to cut out valuable storage space. So I decided that I would move my TV armoire (that is rarely ever used) into the dining area and use my service cart as a buffet table in front of my couch. Once I had the cart in place, I realized I needed some wall art pronto! I grabbed an old wooden frame and wrapped a piece of Ikea fabric (leaving the sides exposed) and behind it I placed a piece of an old paper window panel to create a frame around the canvas. This made a really nice rectangular wall hanging and was super easy to create! So far I have really enjoyed the new furniture arrangement and am just loving my "new" lime green cart!

Design*Sponge inspiration

Thrift store service cart $9.99

Behr Semi-Gloss Paint

One coat of 1-2-3 Bulls Eye Primer

Two to three coats of the Behr Semi-Gloss paint

Tealish blue gorilla head made with a stencil from the Ed Roth - Stencil 101 book.

Easy Silver Frame and Wall Art Project

2010-04-22T02:09:00.003-04:00

About a month ago, I was given a very pitiful and broken large gold picture frame that was about to get thrown away. This came in great timing since I was on the lookout for larger picture frames, but wasn't having very much luck, because either I couldn't find them or they were too expensive.

I could see this sad frame had a lot of potential, so I took it home, nailed it back together, and slapped on a few coats of my favorite metallic silver paint. I had several ideas about what should go in this frame, I thought about doing a mirror to hang over my dresser, but never got around to purchasing a mirror that fit, and even thought about hanging my flat screen inside the frame, which is still an option for later on down the road. I eventually got antsy and painted a very small canvas with flowers and it floated inside the frame for a while. But today I got a little tired of the tiny canvas and the large frame idea, so I decided to take an old piece of junk art that I purchased from the Salvation Army and wrap it with the paintable wallpaper that I used on my dresser project. After I wrapped the wallpaper, I painted some of the small raised design accents with the metallic silver paint. Since I already had all of my materials, it only took me about one and a half hours to complete.

I'm still not sure if this is the final product as far as the frame goes, but I definitely like the results for now and will probably keep this one around for a while. Enjoy!

Sad gold frame $0.oo

Shiny silver frame!

Junk art $3.oo

Leftover paintable wallpaper

DecoArt Dazzling Metallics silver paint

Finished product!

Just Posted on Etsy: Bernadotte China Cups and Saucers

2010-04-13T03:14:00.004-04:00

Today I posted two beautiful and very rare Bernadotte china teacups and saucers on Etsy! They are both hand painted and in excellent condition.

Floral Pattern on Etsy

Rose Pattern on Etsy

Fantastic Find of the Week!

2010-04-07T15:23:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I took a trip into Williamsburg, Brooklyn to the Meeker Flea Market for a little treasure hunting. The space was great, it was a huge 2 story warehouse filled with tons of antiques. I saw a lot of really awesome furniture and odd nick nacks, some things I thought were priced a little high for a flea, but I still had a great time looking around.

Ever since I started my bedroom make-over at the beginning of the year, I've wanted to do a DIY chandelier for my room. I've looked everywhere for the perfect base but just haven't had any luck. So yesterday my main mission was to find a base for a chandelier. I was in the flea for not even 20 minutes when I saw the little beauty. The old rusted five arm candelabra was sitting all by its lonesome on a table near the back of the room and just screamed potential! With tax I only paid $15.24, what a steal!

So now that the hard part of finding the perfect base is over, now I'm onto other important questions like what color to paint it? Silver or white? What shape crystals do I want to use? Where do I hang it? Decisions...decisions...

Etsy Labs: Hand-Painted Teacups With LoucheLab

2010-03-19T23:37:00.003-04:00

I have been a naughty blogger and Etsy seller these past few weeks. I've been super busy with random home projects, work, and keeping up with my social life. Luckily I have managed to fit in a couple Etsy Labs here and there, so all is not lost!

The girls and I went a few weeks back for the hat lab, which didn't have a great outcome since most of us didn't know how to use a sewing machine. We mostly sat there and cut out a bunch of patterns for an hour or so. Im sure from the pictures you can see the excitement in our faces.

Then two weeks ago we attended the hand-painted teacup lab with Aya Rosen. We absolutely loved this lab, I'm going to have to say it was the best lab yet! Also, I think this was our most social lab as we even made some new friends at our table. They had a cute little table set up with several types of teas, desserts, and small take home books about tea history and provided us with really awesome tea and espresso cups to decorate. Hooray Etsy labs!

So we basically took a normal ceramic tea cup and drew our designs on with Pebeo Porcelaine 150 markers and paint. The markers were great as you could wipe off mistakes easily and start over. They provided us with several books on birds to help give us design ideas. I had my new Moo.com business cards with me, so we spread them out on the table and used them as inspiration. When we were done with our designs we let the ink dry a little bit. The ink set in a pretty short amount of time so they were easy to travel home with. Once the piece was how you wanted it, you would bake it in the oven at 300°F to set the paint. I still haven't decided if I am finished with mine, so it has yet to be baked.

Click here for step by step instructions on how to make your own hand-painted teacups.

Etsy Labs: Open Craft Night!

2010-02-23T05:39:00.001-05:00

This week Etsy Labs hosted open craft night, where you can go in and work on any project that your little heart desires. I really didn't come in with much of a game plan, so I just threw some fabric projects that I have been working on and headed over. I met my two girlfriends, Lindsay and Colleen, and we all worked on stencil projects. It was a great time as usual and was so nice to be surrounded by such creative minds! Looking forward to next week!

Going Green!

2010-02-17T14:04:00.007-05:00

Found this beautiful green buffet table on Design*Sponge today and I am loving it! I think this might be the perfect color to paint my new service cart/soon to be bar! Updates to come soon!

Design*Sponge

Pretty in Pink Chair Makeover

2010-02-17T13:15:00.005-05:00

My goal for yesterday was to makeover my sad little chair that I bought last Saturday and turn it into a beautiful accent chair for my bedroom. I already had the paint, primer, and fabric, I just needed the motivation to get going.

This was a fairly easy project. I just had to rip off one layer of old fabric, which I did with a flat head and a hammer. At first, I tried with only the flat head and ended up stabbing the inside of my hand, fun stuff. But once I got going with the hammer, it was easy peasy!

After that I wrapped an extra layer of fluff to give it a little more cushion and then stapled my beautiful pink damask fabric in place.

I then painted one coat of 1-2-3 Bulls Eye Primer and one coat of white semi-gloss paint. I wiped the edges slightly to create a sort of antique look.

The project was a lot of fun and I just love how my chair turned out!!

Fantastic Finds of the Week!

2010-02-14T00:58:00.005-05:00

Well technically this covers the last two weeks, but who's counting! I recently found ANOTHER awesome wood service cart, very similar to the one I found last month. I paid just slightly more for this one, a whopping $9.99! I found it at a Salvation Army in the Upper West Side and together we made the long hall back to Brooklyn via train. I plan to turn the cart into a bar and replace my microwave stand in the kitchen.

This week I found an awesome chair for $10.oo at Junk in Williamsburg. Luckily this one was much closer to home, so travel time was minimal. I plan to repaint and recover the chair and use it as a decoration piece in my bedroom. Ive already found a beautiful pink damask fabric for $8.oo at Belraf Fabric, to use for the cushion re-cover, so I will be working on that this week.

Updates to come soon!

Office Chair Makeover by Jenny

2010-02-10T04:52:00.026-05:00

Recently, my friend Jenny from my hometown Jacksonville, FL, turned me onto DIY blogger Kate's Centsational Girl weblog. Kate takes pieces of furniture that seem absolutely hopeless and turns them into something fabulous! We haven't been able to get enough of her blog and she has been a huge inspiration for many of mine and Jenny's latest home projects.

This past week Jenny and her mother Jeanne created an amazing office chair transformation out of an old Mid-Century Modern dining room chair. I thought it turned out so beautifully, that I had to share the before and after!

Jenny was inspired by Kate's One Fair Chair post, where Kate took a French Style chair, repainted and reupholstered it and made it into a beautiful office chair. Jenny did some thrift and antique store hunting in Jacksonville and found the set of four dining chairs for the amazing price $60.

Jenny's price list breakdown:

$15- chair

$7- paint (Rustoleum's 2x gloss black)

$3.50- piece of fabric
$5- chair foam (that stuff is ridiculously expensive!)

all the fun of doing this- priceless ;)

$30 for a new office chair, not to shabby!!

A big thanks to Jenny for sharing her beautiful transformation with us!

Just Posted on Etsy! Milk Glass Casserole Dish

2010-02-08T18:32:00.000-05:00

Today I posted this great Fire King Milk Glass Casserole Dish on Etsy!

Milk Glass Casserole Dish on Etsy

Thrift Finds!

2010-02-08T18:23:00.001-05:00

Found these great items at the thrift today for a shockingly low price! Looks like this week is off to a great start!

Just Posted! Vintage Hobnail Milk Glass Vase

2010-02-08T05:46:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I posted this beautiful Anchor Hocking Hobnail pedestal milk glass vase on Etsy. Its a really nice sized vase, measuring about 9.5" tall. This vase filled with flowers would make a lovely center piece for your dining room table!

Hobnail Milk Glass Vase on Etsy

Etsy Labs: Swap-bot Valentines Matchbox Edition

2010-02-01T21:42:00.004-05:00

Tonight I went to my second ever craft night at the Etsy Labs. Rachel Johnson of Swap-Bot was there and showed us all how to make the cutest matchbox Valentines. Swap-Bot is a online service that organizes group swaps for people who enjoy sending and receiving fun crafty items via snail mail.

Rachel was so sweet to craft with, she even brought us tasty little snacks to munch on while we crafted. We all had a really fun time socializing and thinking up cute little ideas for our matchboxes. I made two little matchboxes to send to my mom and sister in Florida, hope they like them!

You can go to www.swap-bot.com to find out more about swapping and to download both of Swap-Bot's matchbox templates and make some of your own! Also check out Rachel's post about last nights event!

How to make a Valentines day/Love Matchbox from thepixelprince.etsy.com on Vimeo.

Colleen and I

Rachel

Just Posted on Etsy! Custard Cups

2010-01-27T23:53:00.004-05:00

A lovely set of 8 Fortecrisa Mexico custard cups in amber yellow depression glass. These custard cups are perfect for baking and serving, so check check check 'em out!

Fortecrisa Custard Cups on Etsy

Wallpaper Wannabe 101

2010-01-26T03:22:00.001-05:00

This is a really great video that Ed Roth made, demonstrating how to create a wallpaper look with one repeat pattern wall stencil. The results look so awesome, I may try to do this in my bedroom!

Stencil101 Decor: How to stencil a wall pattern with Ed Roth of Stencil1 from Ed Roth on Vimeo.

My Very First Craft Night at Etsy Labs!

2010-01-25T23:45:00.003-05:00

I mentioned in an earlier posting this week, that I would be attending Etsy Labs first craft night of 2010 today. Well, I am no longer a craft night virgin! I went a little after 6pm and had a blast! The space was super cute, they had just about anything and everything you need for an evening of crafting.

Ed Roth, the guest craft master of the evening, was really nice and instructed everyone on how to create the perfect stencil project. He came equiped with all of the stencils and fabric paint from his store collection. The stencils were great and everyone created such beautiful and unique projects. I wish I had more time to try them all. I am definitely looking forward to getting some fabric paint, so I can start some stenciling projects soon!

Treasure Hunt in Brooklyn

2010-01-25T05:02:00.005-05:00

Last Friday after work, I went to a Salvation Army in Brooklyn to search for some inexpensive decorations for my bedroom make-over. I found a couple of old wood picture frames for about $2.oo each, that I thought would look really nice painted and hung over the bed. I also found an adorable wood service cart that I could either use as a T.V. stand for my bedroom or as a cart for my kitchen. The cart was marked down to $7.50 and I was immidiatly sold, I was then told that it would be $4.50 since it had been there for a while, which I thought was a steal and THEN before I could check out, the store clerk told me it would be marked down to $2.50!! I couldn't believe he marked it down that low! I paid $10 for a cab to take my sweet deals and I home. I ended up paying $16.50 for everything, Im still in shock a little bit.

I am really looking forward to painting all of my stuff this week, updates to come soon!

Etsy Labs, Be There or Be Square!

2010-01-23T13:08:00.003-05:00

This Monday, January 25, Etsy Labs is having their first Craft Night of 2010. It is a stenciling session with Ed Roth of Stencil1. Luckley the lab is in Brooklyn, so I will get to go! The lab is anytime between 4-8 p.m. If you cant make the lab in person, then you can visit the Virtual Labs, for a live online demo at 5 p.m. ET.

I am already getting some cute ideas for what I will do for my stencil project, Im very excited!

Rare Pyrex Cinderella Mixing Bowl Posted!

2010-01-17T14:09:00.003-05:00

Yesterday after work I ventured out to hunt for new pieces for the shop. I found a really nice clear glass planter and a rare vintage Pyrex Cinderella mixing bowl in the orange and red birdie Friendship pattern. I was so excited when I saw the Pyrex bowl, I snatched it up with a quickness! I almost don't want to part with the little guy, I may decide to keep him for myself.

I went ahead and posted the bowl this afternoon, so check it out!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=38709397

My First Etsy Treasury Feature - Life's a Rodeo

2010-01-15T19:44:00.003-05:00

This week my "Gitty Up Pin-up Cowgirl" switchplate cover was featured in TheHouseofHearts Etsy Treasury, Life's a Rodeo. Its a Rodeo themed treasury, that has gorgeous boots, hats, dresses, art work, ect. Such a great theme idea!

Ikea Dresser Hack

2010-01-11T05:17:00.006-05:00

Recently, I decided to change up my bedroom and go for a Hollywood glam look. To start out I wanted to re-paint the walls and most all of my furniture. I had the idea to paint my birch color Ikea Aneboda dresser white, but I wasn't sure if this was possible since it is made of non-wood material. I started searching the web for Ikea hacks and came across one I really liked on Design*Sponge . They painted the birch dresser a dark color and in place of the clear panels, they installed fabric panels, which was a really nice touch. The finished product came out beautifully!

I primed and painted the dresser and found a really nice faux ceiling tile paintable wallpaper at Lowes, that I was able to spray paint metallic silver for the panel inserts. Lastly, I changed out the old wooden drawer pulls, with inexpensive brushed silver hardware.

I could not have asked for better end results, I absolutely love my "new" dresser!

Sneak Preview of Whats to Come!

2010-01-09T20:27:00.002-05:00

Here are a few sneak preview photos of some beautiful vintage glass pieces I that will be posted on Etsy in the next week!

Anchor Hocking milk glass dishes, Royal M teacups, amber depression glass custard cups, carnival glass saucers, and depression glass ashtray.

Feel free to email me with any questions you may have regarding the pieces!

Welcome to Picturesque Brooklyn!

2010-01-08T09:56:00.005-05:00

I am a Florida native, now living in beautiful Brooklyn, NY. I work as a concierge for a boutique hotel in Manhattan. When I am not catering to the needs of NYC tourists, I spend a lot of my free time thinking up new ideas for my apartment and searching for the perfect home decorations. I was recently turned on to Etsy by my sister and immediately fell in love. I decided I would take those ideas and some of the fabulous finds I discover while out and create my Etsy store, http://www.etsy.com/shop/picturesquebrooklyn.

This blog will be a place for me to share PicturesqueBrooklyn's shop updates, as well as my DIY projects, home decor and fashion ideas. Enjoy!

Follow me on Twitter for store updates!
http://twitter.com/PicturesqueBK