All Things Lovely

Chevron Bedroom Wall

I seem to be having quite a love affair with chevron, and it's near relative herringbone. I pulled out the herringbone pattern for the Ikea rug I recently painted for my kitchen.

I wanted to do something for one of the walls in my bedroom and after seeing a myriad of options on Pinterest of different feature walls such as patterns and stencils I settled on a simple chevron pattern, inspired by this amazing room.

So, just to give you an idea here's what I started back way back in the beginning. First step was to paint the entire room a lovely soft grey.

Now to the details. The pattern may look simple but my goodness, the work involved in prepping the wall took ages! I estimate it took about 8 hours over a couple of nights to measure out the walls and get it all taped up. I didn't want a dramatic V shape, so my vertical lines were further apart than some might like. From memory I think they were about 43cm (17") apart (apologies for the disgraceful iPhone photos!)

I started in the very middle of the wall and, using my level drew vertical lines up the wall and then measured down. Again, from memory it was about 23cm (9") down. Getting a perfect V with the tape was fiddly, but it's worth the work in the end.

This project is such a cheap one, for a sample pot of paint and some painters tape, it makes such a difference. The wall was already grey so I just had to do two coats of white, which is Dulux Antique White USA. The grey colour is Dulux Tranquil Retreat if you like it...such a beautiful grey.

I'm madly in love with the finished result. It was totally worth all the hard work!

Like the beautiful candle beside my bed? It's from Made It store Take Me 2 The Queen.

What are your thoughts on chevron? Hopefully it's a style that stays around for at least a little while longer.

Design Genius

Happy Monday lovelies! How was your weekend?

Over the last few weeks, I've set myself up a little board over on Pinterest, called Design Genius. I kept finding the most amazing and lovely graphic design and had to keep them all in one place.

No mistakes by Stephanie Corfee

Heart Monogram by from  Loft Life Press via The Wedding Chicks. And, it's a free download!

Fortune Favors The Brave by Small Talk Studio

Letterpress and Gold Foil Invitations by Ruby and Willow via Magnolia Rouge

You can follow all my boards on Pinterest right here!

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday! I'm glad to see the beginning of the weekend coming, this week has been a long and hard one.

I thought I'd share a beautiful verse that the Pastor of my church is speaking over us for this year. I think it's beautiful and I love the truth in it.

Beautiful Little Owl painting by the very talented Chrissy Baker

Snuggly MacBook Case

I finally got myself a Mac! A pretty computer however needs a pretty little home to stay in when it's out and about. Enter; some pretty fabric, felt and a spare few hours.

I made this cutie with a layer of thick felt, some beautiful quilting fabric and a layer of quilting wadding popped in the middle, just for a little bit of extra padding. The three layers were just blanket stitched together.

On the back I wanted to add a little bit of personality so I appliqued a cute little bird and love, life, laugh. 

And some pretty quilting fabric inside.

Now just to get myself an iPad, so I can make a cute little cover for that too.

DIY Herringbone Rug

Like everyone on Pinterest it seems, I decided to also paint my own IKEA Egeby rug. It amazes me that for a $40 rug and a bit of time you can have something that is totally custom.

I did a lot of serching on blogs to work out what kind of paint to use. Everyone seemed to suggest latex paint, but it's not really known by that name here in Australia. I ended up settling on plain old interior low sheen wall paint and just used sample pots I had at home. Bargain! This rug is for my kitchen, so I decided on a colour scheme of grey, white and a pop of mustard yellow.

First step was to tape up the edge of my rug and paint it yellow. I just used a cheap paintbrush, and absolutely massacred it. Rather than paint straight over the rug, I kind of dabbed the paint on so it really got into the little holes. It takes a while!

Woah, that's a lot of yellow going on! Never fear. Next comes The.Slowest.Job.In.The.World. Taping out the pattern, I'm sure I could have used a vinyl template, but I find this works well, and I can just paint over the tape and not have to be exceptionally careful.

I love the herringbone pattern. I didn't want a very deep 'V' so after dividng the rug into 4 accross ways, I used 2cm wide painters tape, and measured up 8cm then taped. Each gap was then 8cm high.

Then comes the fun part. More paint! I used grey and white paint, and obviously just painted every second gap.

And voila! After the grey goes on and the tape comes off. I love it!

I was going to leave the border au natural, but a) I got a few paint marks on it (oops) and b) I don't think it looks as good with this colour scheme. So, unfortunately there was more taping as I taped the inside of the rug, and just used the same paint to cover the edge. Much better, yes?

Here it is in it's new home. I love it!

Have you guys painted a rug yourselves? I can't get over how easy it is, for so much impact.