Sunburst Mirror with an Edge

For the longest time I wanted to have a sunburst mirror as part of my home decor. I went through hours and hours of online and in-store browsing, but could not find the right  mix of color, size and price. I had a couple of potential spots for such an art piece in the house, but was in no rush to 'just buy something' and get it done with.

However, when one of my wall art pieces fell and cracked (mentioned as #14 in my first post) I found a good enough reason to amp up my search. Since the cost ended up being the most important driving factor (some of these can go up to $200-$300), I just knew that I had to DIY it and make something in a fraction of the cost, then those available in designer stores. I looked up DIY blogs and pinterest for ideas and headed to my second home (Michaels) in search of the raw materials.

My recipe for awesomeness:

• Even though sunburst mirrors have a round mirror at the center, I decided to break the rules and bought a square mirror
• A couple of packets of craft sticks to make the rays
• Black acrylic paint (already had that from a previous project)
• Left over jewels from the vinyl/decal project
• A glue-gun with dual-settings (I used the high setting for this one)

The most fun part about this project was having my mom to assist me. Putting this whole thing together took me back to my childhood, and made me realize that I get my creative gene from her. In the house that I grew up in, every nook and corner was covered with DIY projects by my mom. She jumped right into the groove and with her help, we were able to wrap this up in an hour!?

Since this piece was going up against a light gray wall, we painted the sticks black to add contrast.

To give the sticks some dimension, we decided to alternate the longer sticks with shorter ones. Starting with the corners, I glued the sticks on the back of the mirror, trying to get the right angles and filling up the empty spots.

Once the sticks were glued on, we flipped the piece, with the mirror facing up and added the jewels. We stuck with the square theme and used square jewels. We played around a bit with the placement, till we both felt it was 'full enough'.

It was ready to go up on the wall. This photo shows the scale of this piece with the rest of the wall. There is a big window on the wall across from this piece, so there is a lot of light bouncing back and forth. I really liked the way this one turned out and mom's approval was the cherry on the cake!

A couple of my neighbors saw this and have asked me to make one for them too. I might experiment with different colors and width of the sticks. With the total cost coming in under $25, I feel like this project can take endless shapes and forms :)

Vinyl Decals to the rescue!

For awhile now I wanted to bring in a black-n-white piece of wall art in the master bedroom. It had to be something other than a canvas painting, mirror or photo frames, since we already had those. I started looking for different materials for wall art- metal, wood, ceramic...and finally settled for a vinyl decal.

Vinyl decals come in SO many varieties, there are websites full of options and I kept browsing and browsing. Finally I realized that we need to bring in the 'glamour' factor in our room and decided on a chandelier decal.

At one of my Michaels haul's, I picked up the decal, a big piece of canvas and some jewels (I needed jewels for another project too, you will hear about that soon ;) ). As part of my long-term plan, I did not want to apply the decal directly on the wall because I wanted to keep the option of moving it in the future. This is one of the rules that I have been applying to all my decor pieces - nothing should be permanent, I want to always have the option of moving pieces around.

Honestly, this was a 20 minute project. I started by sticking the decal on the canvas. This one came in 4 pieces and I just had to put it together one by one.

Once I got the decal in place, I played around with the jewels. I positioned/re-positioned them to get 'the look', before glueing them down. I used a heavy-duty glue to make sure that they never fall off!

Once the glue was dry, it was ready to go on the wall. It was super light-weight and all I needed was a couple of push-pins.

Below are a couple of angles to see how it fits in with the rest of the room.

I have to say that I have a new found love for vinyl decals..they are so much fun and add a lot of personality to your space. If you ever rocked the decal look in your house, do share!

Den what happened?

The listing called it a 'bedroom', we placed furniture that consisted of a desk, chair, bookshelves and a futon, hence extending the functionality of this room, depending on the need...

• It houses our desktop computer, printer, books and documents, so that officially makes it a den/home-office
• I move the chair away and lay my yoga mat to practice my sun-salutations, so it is a lil exercise studio
• The futon cover hides 2 full-sized mattresses, making this room a 'crash pad' for our single friends
• The closet stores all my indian/ethnic clothes, which get accessed not more than 4 times a year, making it a storage room

We had moved with all the furniture and did not really need to invest in the big pieces, we just had to indulge in some cosmetic changes. Since one wall has the closet, with the opposite wall containing a large window, I only had to plan for 2 empty sides of the room, making this job very easy...

Wall #1:

To allow our humble, white Ikea bookshelves to stand-out, we painted the wall a dark gray. I added the cherry red accents via boxes and photo frames. The clear containers (2nd cube on the left bookshelf) keep all my crafting tools intact and easily accessible. Magazines, scrapbooks, scrapbooking material, photo albums and books are all contained within the open shelving.

Wall #2:

The futon sticks to the wall and our diplomas and graduation pictures are part of the collage. I found a massive clip at Michaels and a poster with some very wise words. I glued the poster on a piece of cardboard and used the clip to hold it. The clip and the photo frames contribute to the cherry red accents.

Last but not the least, I added one final playful element to this room. I took a roll of cherry red masking tape and stuck it to the side of the door. You can only see this detail when the door is open, but it carries the color across the room. This was such a quick update and needed no commitment :)

This is all I got for this post....if you did anything fun with your home office, do leave a comment, or even better, share a picture!

Recycle - Shred - File - Store

My sincere apologies for the disappearing act! The last few weeks were busy with work, family and enjoying the few bouts of sunshine, and I hardly had any time for house-projects. But I am back...this time with ideas on managing and organizing paper...
As the world continues to get digitized and all our important stuff is accessible online, our house continues to be overwhelmed by paper...think statements, notices, coupons, invitations, 'for your record' items etc.
While living the single life, I had all my paperwork organized in dedicated folders, that was tucked away in the back of a closet. But with being married and then moving 3 times, our piles of important documents have doubled! We both have our sets of bills, pay-stubs, college documents, tax returns, employment histories, car records, medical records..and to top it off...house papers! Even though a lot of stuff went through e-sign, we have binders full of documents that we have to save 'just in case you need them' to prove that we REALLY do own this house!?

Pre-requisite: Before we embarked upon this journey of paper management, we went ' green' on all our monthly statements. Our cell phone, utilities, HOA, mortgage, TV/internet bills are all online-only. We even opted for paper-free versions (read: PDFs) for credit card and bank statements. That was half the battle won.

To tackle the remaining chaos, I broke it down in 2 steps:
1. A single station to manage intake
2. Sort, File and Store

Step 1: Intake Process: We have a dedicated spot in the kitchen where all the mail comes in.

• The promotional stuff, along with any other junk goes straight to the recycle bin (the black bin on the left). Anything that has our personal information (address, account info, etc.) is taken to the shredder. I get such a high when I hear those promotional credit cards dying an early death...sorry for making paperwork gory :P
• The stuff that needs further attention (bills, invitations, etc.) is stored in the back slot. 
• Address labels, stamps and empty envelopes are stored together in the middle slot.
• Coupons go in the left-most slot and pens and markers in the right-most.
• For a higher success rate on this process, ensure that the husband follows this process and call him out if he doesn't :)

Step 2: All the paper that needs to be stored for future reference goes through its own sorting and filing process.

In the new house, as I was trying to make sense of the fastest and cleanest way for filing and storing paper, I decided to hit Staples in search of inspiration. I came back equipped with things that were easy to put together as well as sustainable for storing more documents in the future. This was my ammo:

3 inch filing folder

Assorted colored filing folders in bulk

a plastic filing tote where I could tuck all the paper away

• When we moved, we had a massive cardboard box, full of documents. First I laid it all out...then made 'recycle' and 'shred' piles and got rid of a bunch of unwanted paper.

• I used the wide, 3 inch folders, one for each of us, to store personal documents - transcripts, certificates, education histories, etc. 
• I used the assorted colored folders and gave each one of them a dedicated tab. This was used to store more of the common paperwork - car records, tax returns, health and medical documents, new house paperwork, bills, etc.
• I brought out the 2 plastic totes; the wide folders went in one and the assorted folders went in the other.

These totes have a lot of space, the box on the left is still half empty, allowing for 'future expansion'

• I shut the lid and neatly stowed them away in the office closet. As a result of this, I was able to get rid of all the disparate and random collection of folders and binders that I once used to store paper. 

  

  This hardly takes up any room in the closet

  

  random folders that can now we used for something else

So far we have been able to keep up with this process and our counter-tops and shelves are free of lose sheets of paper. If there is a technique that you have adopted to manage your paper-chaos, do share!