Home Decor

Vintage Spool Peg Rack

Little makes me happier than looking at a jar of vintage goodness. From bottle caps to bits of ribbon to an enormous jar of doll parts I have quite a collection. This year I am pushing myself to move beyond the happy collections in the jars to actually doing something with them. What good are they really if they just sit there collecting dust? So, now and then, when I put together a gift or trinket for someone, the lids come off the jars and I rifle through them searching for the perfect encore. I may still add to the jars, but more often than not, I am using them and that is just dandy. As a crafter and maker of homemade goodness, I strive to use as much of my stash as possible. Here is an easy project for you to use up and display some of your prettiest vintage wooden spools. You can of course use any spools you have but the vintage ones will need no treatment as their happily old fashioned tops are magical to begin with. When you are finished, you will have a vintage-pretty peg shelf to hang even more of your vintage lovelies.

How-To: Sew a Table Runner

It’s a great time to think forward to the season ahead and to make your home feel welcoming. This is an easy way to make a table runner that reflects your style and protects your table top. The patchwork center panel allows you to use up scraps or put together a combination of your favorite prints. I used 4 prints from my organic canvas collection, “Family Cottage” combined with an organic cotton canvas in brown for a nice autumnal feeling.

How-To: Corrugated Glow Tea Light Lantern

A friend of mine recently finished a deck remodel, whose highlight (literally) is a transparent corrugated roof that diffuses sunlight in a delightful way. This inspired me to find some way to continue that glow after sunset, in the form of a lantern illuminated by tea light candles.
There are many colors and styles of corrugated roofing available, and whole 8-foot sheets (Sequentia brand) are $23 at my local lumberyard — that’s enough material for up to 10 lanterns. The kind my friend used for the deck is fiberglass-reinforced plastic (FRP), which diffracts light with a sparkly halo. After some feverish experimenting with cut-off scraps, I eventually came up with the graceful lantern design shown here.

Revamped Bistro Set

Monica of CraftyNest revamped a worn-out bistro set for her backyard. She has a clever technique for creating the dot pattern on the table, and a good tip for making sure the paint doesn’t bleed under the masked dots. Read how she did it over on her blog.