PARA Paints Blog Crew project: Craft room reveal

First there were the Kelly Wearstler-inspired walls:

Then there was the Tiny Fey Sexy Librarian Desk:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then the purple door with turquoise edges:

And now my craft room is ready for its final reveal! Come on in and let’s take a look around…

As scary as it was, this is how the room looked before I got up the mojo to clean it up.

Hubby built a bulkhead to hide that silver duct pipe…

Which now doubles as a magnet board! The three magnets on the left are glass pieces from RAVEK architectural glass art – I just hot glued small magnets to the backs of the pieces of glass.

I hung some colourful jewelry from these dog butt magnets :-)

As you can see in the before pics. there was no ceiling and just one bare light bulb in the middle of the room. Hubby installed a ceiling and pot lights…

And then I convinced him that the room really needed a chandelier – especially because I found the perfect sparkly purple chandelier at HomeSense :-)

I also picked up a couple of orange ceramic boxes and a bright pink clock at HomeSense.

I saw these pink pencil holders at Ikea – perfect to add another touch of bright pink to the room.

As I walked towards the cash with the pink pencil holders, I though to myself it was too bad Ikea doesn’t sell pink trash cans and OH MY GOD, THEY DO SELL PINK TRASH CANS! I snapped one up, and now it’s holding foil for more foil art.

I originally planning to paint my old Ikea Billy bookcase and use it for display and storage, but by this point I was tired of painting and just wanted something done and ready to go. The Expedit shelving unit from Ikea was perfect…

But the unit sits flat on the floor, so it would have to stand away from the wall in order to clear the baseboard. Unless we added legs to it – and it just so happens the Stuva Grundlig legs come with green feet in just the right shade to go with the desk :-)

The back legs are positioned far enough in on the base so that the unit clears the baseboard.

This baby is solid and definitely won’t be tipping over! Even filled with my craft stuff and projects and a few knicknacks, like buttons and pieces of costume jewelry and beads….

These white boxes from Ikea hold all my bottles of paint. The labels are paint chips in the colours of the paints that are in each box. Now when I need green paint, I know where to find green paint :-)

One of the end walls in the room has a big opening. I assume it’s there to let in some light from the patio doors, seeing as there aren’t any windows in the room. It really didn’t serve any useful purpose before…

…and then I had an AH-HA moment – why not create  a little something like this:

Image via Houzz | Design by Martha O’Hara Interiors

Hubby added strips to each side of the opening with holes that metal rods from Home Depot sit in.

 

And voila, a gift wrapping holder that doubles as a privacy screen from the rest of the basement :-)

I want to be able to use the desk from any side, so rather than pushing it up against a wall, it’s in the middle of the room. I like to paint and work on crafts standing up, so hubby modified it to be counter height. But for the sitting down kind of projects, there’s a purple counter height stool from Wicker Emporium.

I picked up some colourful plastic baskets at the Dollar Store to corral my stuff in the desk drawers.

The ledges are the perfect place to put my finished artwork and some more knicknacks….

A huge thank you to PARA Paints and Bonds Decor for providing all the paint for my craft room. Here are the colours that I used.

	P5216-14D	Climb the Mast	Desk legs, ceiling, trim, stripes on walls
	P5021-41D	Shopping Spree	Desk body & legs above brass bands
	P5021-34	Splurged Again	Door edges
	P5021-24	It’s A Steal	Walls
	P5072-65	Sunkist	Inside of drawers
	P5044-62	Leek	Top of desk
	P5196-51	Platform Sandals	Door

I’m so happy with how my craft room turned out. It’s bright and colourful and functional, and all my craft supplies are now in one place and within easy reach. Well, for now, anyway – knowing me, it won’t be neat & organized for long!

Do you have a craft room or a designated spot in your house where you work on your projects?

Linking up here…

 

Festive Friday: Colourful Christmas

Bing Crosby may have been dreaming of a White Christmas, but this year I’m dreaming about a Colourful Christmas! Bright green, purple, turquoise, pink, and orange look fabulous together, and they add some fun & funky to your Christmas decor. Check out these bright & bold Christmas ideas, and I bet they’ll kick your festive mojo up a notch or two or ten :-)

Who wouldn’t have a big smile after seeing these colourful packages under the tree on Christmas morning…

1. All the colours of the rainbow (well, except yellow!) Pinterest
2. Polka dots in turquoise & pink. Pinterest
3. Pretty in pink & green. The Enchanted Home
4. Purple & orange & green, oh my. Pinterest
5. Who says blue & green must never be seen – they look fab together! Pinterest

Of course, colourful packages go great with a colourful tree :-)

6. Tobi Fairley designed this wonderfully colourful tree. remodelaholic
7. Pink and green is so fresh and pretty. The French Tangerine
8. Kelly Porter’s pretty pink & orange tree was inspired by the funky cushion on the chair. Color Sizzle
9. This super-sweet colourful tree is topped with a sock monkey – too cute! Rate My Space
10. Not your average tree! You could create something similar with a small wire tree and colourful ribbons. Absolutely Beautiful Things

Brighten up your home with holiday colour…

11. Bright holiday decorations stand out so nicely against the white walls. Trafford Centre
12. Another mainly white room decorating in cheery pink & red. BHG
13. This room’s traditional red & green decor is fresh and fun & festive. House to Home

Wreaths can he hung on your front door and interior doors using metal hooks that latch over the top of the door. Wreaths also great hung from a beautiful ribbon in front of a mirror.

14. Pretty peacock-inspired wreath. Etsy (PatalyaFloralDesign)
15. Bryn Alexander created her pretty mantel entirely with decorations from Home Depot. Bryn Alexandra
16. Ornament wreaths are fun and it’s easy to make your own (here’s a tutorial from Love Live DIY) Etsy (dottiegray)
17. A pretty wreath made from ribbons and ornaments. Etsy (ADoorableCreations05)

Love the intense colours in this home…

18. A lovely bright Scandinavian home all dressed up for a colourful Christmas. Love the pompom mat under the tree. Hidden in France

Have fun with your decorations, and take a shot at making your own. Topiaries are easy!

19. Green, blue, and silver ornaments glued to a styrofoam ball and voila, festive topiaries. BHG
20. Instead of filling stockings, use some colourful pails to hold candy canes and little gifts. HGTV

If you’re a traditionalist, here are some stockings in non-traditional colours…

21. Colourful felt stocking. Etsy (Naturali4color)
22. Stocking made from colourful festive fabrics. Etsy (Twopinkhearts)

Top of your colourful Christmas celebrations with a colourful tablescape.

23. My favourite combo – blue, green, and purple. Facebook
24. A cute little green box ans white tree top off this pretty pink & red table setting. BHG
25. More pink & red. HGTV
26. More proof that blue & green MUST be seen! Live the Home Life

I’m changing things up this Christmas and going with bright & bold colours. Here are a few things I picked up to decorate my home…

Now is a great time to pick up decorations and ornaments – they’re half-price just about everywhere!

Have you done your Christmas decorating yet? What’s your colour scheme?

I’ve got some bold colours to share with you on Monday – here’s a little peek…

Happy weekend!

RAST inspiration

A few weeks ago, Ozana from House@heart left a comment on my blog telling me that she was inspired by my Greek Key with a zinc twist RAST  hack to try her own Rast hack. Last week, she sent me a message to let me know that her project was done – and I have to say, I’m impressed!

Here’s my RAST hack:…

And here’s Ozana’s Greek Key Romanian RAST…

I had actually contemplated using the same pulls that Ozana used on her RAST, but decided to go with a different pull from the same collection, the Lattice and Bead suite from Lee Valley here in Ottawa. Ozana ordered her pulls from a shop in Romania.

Didn’t Ozana do a great job? :-) This a perfect example of what I talked about a while back in my Whose design is it anyway? post – how we find inspiration and then put our own twist on it. Inspiring and being inspired by others is what it’s all about, and even cooler when inspiration crosses oceans and continents!

Paintings & craft room progress & puppies

Last week I gave you a sneak peek at the foil paintings that I created with Susan Bailie from Art Walls. And now here are the final pieces in all their shiny glory :-) The camera doesn’t really capture all the glitter & shine, but trust me, these babies sparkle! Here’s my fireworks painting…

And my peacock feather painting…

The sparkle of the foil comes through better in this close-up.

And the craft room project has been truckin’ along. Here’s a little peek at what I got done this weekend…

I saw this idea on Facebook last week and tried it – just cover a switch plate cover with tape (I happened to have purple striped tuck tape handy), and voila, no more boring white switch plate cover! I stuck the tape on both horizontally and vertically to create a plaid look.

I picked up this counter-height stool from Wicker Emporium. It was normally $260, but all the stools are on sale for $130. Except for the purple – it’s discontinued, so it was marked down to $75 :-) And they had one left in stock – perfect!

And of course, in the midst of all these projects are the puppies :-) It’s a good thing they’re so stinkin’ cute, because all their peeing & pooping is NOT fun! I don’t know why it’s taking them so long to learn not to pee in the house – I mean, it’s been a whole week! ;-) But it’s hard to hold it against them when they look like this:

And here they are visiting Santa. Poor John & Joey got kinda squeezed out by their bigger brothers, but getting them all looking at the camera at the same time was pretty impressive! Thank you to Serge Rivard for snapping this awesome picture :-)