tipsy on twinkly wine bottles

 

i'm back into the whole decorating kick again. (i think my whale coffee table gave me the push i needed to feel creative and inspired)

my next project: wine bottle christmas lights. i thought it'd be really cute to hang them on my railing along the stairs that lead down to my door. something like this:

materials:

• empty wine bottles (with the labels peeled off)
• strings of christmas lights (i'm planning on using the tiny white ones)
• something to secure the bottles to the railing (copper wire wrapped around the neck?)

here's a tutorial i found from eHow: how to make night lights using wine bottles
and another from Wit & Wistle: http://witandwhistle.com/?p=1041

i know it's not as discreet to bring empty wine bottles over, but if anyone happens to have some laying around, i would be glad to take them off your hands :)

the tale of the fail whale

it all started last summer when i bought a cheap $7.99 coffee table from savers and made a plea to anyone who drinks bottled beverages to save their caps. for months i would randomly received a zip lock baggy from a weekend party one day, or two forgotten caps from someone's jeans pocket another.

then one thunderstormy night i sat down in front of all my stacks of organized bottle caps and decided to go at it. i was going to first sketch it out and then lay out rough borders with the caps, but instead i just did it. and here's the final product.

note: i still need to replace some of the bottle caps around the whale so they are all darker colors since those seem to look the best.

PS: i have to give a shout out to jennifer of new home economics for suggesting the twitter fail whale idea!

salsa on a ledge

my little herb garden has been through a lot in its day. if you remember back to the beginning of this year, i planted the tiny seeds in the windowsill of my dining room. weeks went by, and even though a few didn't make it, the surviving plants gave me the confidence to plant a few more varieties. right now my jalapenos, parsley, and oregano are growing strong!

now i just need my tomatoes to ripen and homemade salsa here i come!

a breath of fresh air

it's been pretty miserable trying to get a good night's sleep in such a hot muggy bedroom, so i finally gave in and decided an air conditioner had turned from luxury to necessity. we picked up a soleus air 12,000 btu unit, complete with a remote so I can control it from my bed. how lazy am i?

anyways, turns out my window doesn't open...so dad had to go at it from the exterior of the building. he took the window off completely, cut a board to fit the empty space, cut out a square from that board to fit the air conditioner through, put it all back together, bolted it in place, plugged it in, and that was that. easier said than done of course (thanks for all your work on such an incredibly hot humid day dad! i know it was a lot more work than that).

 it's been a week now and i can honestly say i am loving the latest addition to my condo. not only can i sleep straight through the night, but i have a new-found appreciation for hearing little birdies chirping in the morning (there's still a sliver of open air around the unit that dad has to caulk up) and rain drops pitter-pattering on the air conditioner. it's oddly comforting.

i spy a bottlecap

first of all i'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who drinks bottled  beverages and is nice enough to pocket the caps and donate them to me, you guys rock! (and now you have proof your donations have not been in vein)

alright, so if you remember back to last summer, i bought a cheap $7.99 coffee table from savers with the intention of collecting enough caps of various colors to create a cool design for the tabletop. and this past weekend i decided i finally had enough to get started on my diy table. an hour or so later, i finished stacking all the caps by brand...there were roughly 1,029 bottle caps.

any ideas for a design? i've been kickin around the thought of making a design of the twitter fail whale. for now im going to use my blue wicker table with the glass top so i can change the design whenever my mood changes. kind of like an etch-a-sketch for furniture...

a hanging garden

i've had a topsy turvy sitting quietly in it's box since winter, and six months later i finally got around to purchasing the remaining ingredients: a few small tomato plants, a giant bag of soil, a few hours of my mom's time, and a cleverly chosen rainy afternoon.

word to the wise: don't try to plant anything that you have to awkwardly hold multiple feet above the floor while simultaneously pouring in soil while carefully keeping the tomato plants unharmed and above the floor so they don't get crushed, all while in your bedroom.

but no matter how my hanging garden began, one month later it's alive and kickin. tiny yellow blossoms are flowering (which i hope is a good sign...?) and i've been watering it religiously, praying for the day that i wake up to a baby tomato...that will one day make delicious salsa.

speaking of, does anyone know any good homemade salsa recipes?

the secret of happiness

turns out certain people are worried that naming my dining room the opium den might hurt my reputation. well how about the poppyseed lounge? hmm, this might take some time, so as i ponder more socially acceptable titles to help you understand my vision, here are some photos from last weekend's project. what do you think?

here's a little background on my inspiration for this room: those who know me can understand why i ended up choosing a different (but equally vibrant) color for each of my four walls. as seen in my daily wardrobe, i am intrigued by mixing together as many patterns and colors as i possibly can. and now that i have my own place, it's starting to show through in my home decor as well.

the circular wall hangings shown above were a diy birthday gift from my lovely baby sis and i am so happy i finally got them up on the walls. i decided to have them hanging down from the ceiling, so i secured a string of hemp across the entire middle wall, and then hung each fabric circle down from there at different heights. i didn't plan it out in advance, and should have probably thought about their placements, measured, and used a transparent thread, but i was impatient and just wanted to get them up.

PS: for those of you still worried about the negative connotations of the term opium den, here's what a little google searching uncovered to prove that the word can be used to describe a design style:

• a peek into the home of olga naiman via design*sponge
• a post from the BBC's design inspiration section
• an LA spot, the figueroa hotel
• and of course, the one and only kitty cat klub in dinkytonwn

and i leave you with a quote (also found on my google search), which inspired the title of this post.

"i took it, and in an hour...an abyss of divine enjoyment suddenly revealed...here was the secret of happiness...at once discovered." -- thomas de quincey.