Archive for the ‘DIY’ Category

I went to a preview event last night at the H&M on 5th ave with my friend Leandra aka The Man Repeller, and of course, I was expecting to have a gorgeous Marni for H&M shopping experience… hobnobbing with elite fashion people and having my pick of the goodies. Um, no.

Marni for H&M belt, my favorite score, complete with a Texas Tuxedo, and a peak of my Haring Cuff DIY. And yes, it occurred to me that I post a lot of crotch shots.

Not even a little bit. Everything was gone by the time we got there. GONE baby GONE. So we waited by the registers for people to have last minute buyers remorse, or even for credit cards to bounce! I was able to score a few of the accessories I wanted that other people had cast off (including earrings and sandals, not pictured)… but people were STEALING things out of our hands and bags. MARNI for H&M was pick pocketed off my person. Yes, you heard that right. Theft.

Marni for H&M Cuff, H&M Bangles

So after pulling together a few things and throwing back a few drinks, we bounced and got some food.

Ultimately, Marni made a good collection of accessories, an OK collection of clothing and its still just not worth it. Case in point: stacked with the Marni goods are some plain old H&M plastic bangles, and let me tell you, they are pretty Marni looking and pretty damn fab. I’m excited about my few good scores, but not as excited as I thought I would be…It’s just……..stuff.

That said, if these collections just happened and were available without risk of incurring bodily harm, I’m all for it!

So how about you guys? How did you do in your various cities across the country? Anyone get any of the clothes? I didn’t get to buy any of it because the white patent leather shirt I want was stolen from me!

Sorry for the late posting everyone, I did this last night and had to wait until morning to take the photos!

Remember last year, I made a neon orange collar with nail polish? I wore it at least 3 times a week and it was and still is one of my favorite accessories. Well, the now I decided to do one in mint, the color de jour of the moment. This concept of painting things with nail polish is just the gift that keeps on giving!

I started with a silver collar from Zara and some nail polish from Walgreens, Revlon and Sally Hanson brands. I made two collars, one for me and one for a friend. For the first one, I brushed on the polish. It took 3 coats and got a little clumpy in spots. For the second collar, I POURED on the polish and then just guided it with my brush into the right spaces… EUREKA! Smooth enamel. Do this, but I warn you, you will get high off the fumes.

Don’t mind my hair, or what my mother just recently called “Ombre Frizz”! I nearly peed myself laughing, because for my mother to use the word Ombre in regards to hair is just pretty damn hilarious.

The entire rest of the outfit is from Zara. Is it wrong to wear head to toe Zara? YES. Not because it won’t look good, but just because its too easy! Is there anything nerdier than taking pictures of yourslef in the mirror? No, there is not.

And just for kicks a room to outfit… I know my outfit is a bit more minty and this is more blue… but still, I love this room in a Viceroy somewhere by Kelly Wearstler. I just love it.

Have a great day everyone! And go paint some jewelry!

I’m pretty sure that if your child goes to preschool, he or she is learning about art right now. In between the holiday and winter/spring lull, the preschools do an art segment where they teach the kids about various artists and their methods. Of course, I absolutely loved it when Cookie came home last year (at age 2) talking about Rothko, but I love it even more now that she is old enough to fully process what she is learning and internalize it enough to tell me at a restaurant where a sunflower stood as the centerpiece- Mom, look a sunflower, like Van Gogh paints!

A few weeks ago Cookie’s school asked me to come in and do an art project with the kids. Obviously I thought that would be a lot of fun… except for one thing: I was NERVOUS! What was I going to do with them? What was I going to say? Despite being a mother of 2 kids, I’m really NOT a kid person and I’m not an art teacher, and I definitely didn’t have a lesson plan. Would it be chaos? 12 kids running around with PAINT!?! Yikes.

But, how hard could it be? Really.

I decided the kids would have fun doing anything with paint especially something large scale, and I brought in a huge canvas that we laid flat on the floor, like Jackson Pollock, who the kids were learning about as well. And then I showed them all my tricks. Splashing the paint on the canvas, using different brushes and strokes to weave the colors into each other and layer them… I brought in paints of different viscosities, and we spread them around the canvas with our hands, feet, palette knives, thin brushes, house paint brushes, and roller brushes… all things I use to make my own paintings…

Et voila!

Pretty good Sketch42′s huh?

I’ve always felt that children make the most organically beautiful art. Really. I frame lots of Cookie’s work and I hang it, too. And not just on the fridge. (Think about what that does to a kid’s confidence, to see something they made, framed beautifully and hanging in a main room in the house!)

But there are tricks to painting with kids…

The painting we made  is HUGE, and when you look at it hanging in the class, it doesn’t look as good as these two photos here.Why is that? Well…

A. The key with painting and especially painting with kids, is KNOWING WHEN TO STOP. And the project at Cookie’s school was less about making a beautiful painting and more about having a fun hands on experience with the kids, so I wasn’t about to say WAIT! STOP, the painting is DONE NOW. NO. But you should if you do that with your kids. Really. Stop them and give them a new piece of paper or canvas fast enough and you will get amazing pieces of art out of them.

And  B. Sometimes the whole painting is not as good as the sum of its parts… and so, if I were to frame this, or stretch this, I would totally cut it up into its most successful portions the way I did with my camera. Don’t be afraid to crop.

Anyway, thank you to Cookie’s class  for inviting me!

And also- I just have to add, kids are way more well behaved in school than they are at home. Its insane. If I spread something flat on the floor in my apartment, I would bet a million dollars that Cookie and her play date would walk right over it. But in the classroom, they somehow magically tip toed around the canvas, sat around waiting for permission, etc… I was floored!

Have a good day everyone!

Remember last week when I posted that Cavern Arrow wallpaper? Well, a blog reader and blogger in her own right Ombre Ombre  emailed me and told me about these badass stencils she found on etsy called Olive Leaf Stencils. OH HOLY AWESOME.

(I literally wore the outfit translation of this room today. Im going to show you later!) 

I obviously picked all the ones I liked the best, but they had a much larger variety with a bunch of styles… not just these bold geometrics.

So all of you people that claim you rent and can’t wallpaper, DO THIS! Its so cheap($35 per stencil)  and cool, and if you screw it up, you can just paint over it.

I really would love to do this somewhere, but WHERE? I may have a tiny little wall that I could do it on in my kitchen. OR, I could scrap the hummingbird paper in the kids room and do this in a white/aqua combo.

Another idea, is to take the stencil and do something more intricate, like this:

This is wallpaper by the Paris based  company called Minakani Walls.  It’s obviously much MORE intense than the stenciled walls, but you could take the stencil and fill in each triangle in its own color. You could also do it on a background of something other than white.

These are just ideas… now lets see what we all do with them. Someone do this and report back to me please!

In the meantime, I’ll think of a project I can do. Even using these for Ikea Hacking would be amazing!

I’ll keep you posted- have a great day!

Aight, so this is one of my best creations ever. As you know, I got a new Fuji x100 for Chanukah. Amazing little vintage looking babe of a camera. I also bought the brown leather case it came with… which is also gorgeous, but I was eh on the strap. My husband actually gave me the idea to make one. Obviously, I hit M&J, and the strap was as good as done. Once you have all the supplies, this couldn’t be easier to make! When I saw the green and red stripe, I obviously thought: VINTAGE GUCCI! Yum, yum, yum…

You need:

1.5 yards of striped webbing… thats what the thick canvas strap part is called.

2 swivel closures -if the bottom of the clasps aren’t wide enough for your webbing, you also need

2 D-rings, I found amazing leather covered ones

2 buckles

Glue, sewing machine, or iron on hem.

(A lot of these items are available in store only or by emailing info@mjtrim.com)

Instructions:

First you thread the buckle onto the webbing, then you thread that through the D-Ring to which you have attached the clasp. After that you thread the webbing back through the buckle, underneath the first piece. Sounds complicated, but I promise when you are in the moment its obvious. Then you glue/sew or use iron on stitches to secure the end piece of the webbing back over the edge of the buckle onto itself. NOT onto the long part that goes around your neck because then you won’t be able to adjust it. And thats it. The whole thing takes 5 minutes.

The reason why you can use glue here, is because the webbing and buckle are so secure that even if the glue did open, the camera wouldn’t fall. We are just using the glue to hold the end down… You could also take it to the shoemaker and have them sew it for you.

(Thanks to Courtney of Breaking Down the Big Beige Box, for modeling for me! PS, she is so beautiful, look for more photos of her showing off my shit in the future. And guess how we took these photos? The Brown leather camera case is empty cause I needed it for the photos! )

I also made one with a raffia band, for summer, or you know, when you are on safari and stuff.

Even if you are a novice DIYer, this one is easy, manageable and professional looking when finished! ENJOY!