Turn your garden into an oasis of calm and enjoy the summer
A sprinkling of Latte Creations makes an everyday coffee break extra special
Pimp your pad
Why spend a fortune in furniture stores when all you really need to give old furniture a stylish revamp is a glue gun and a bit of imagination?
There's something very satisfying about rescuing flea market furniture, or giving your own furniture a facelift. For starters, you're rejecting chain store conformity in favour of creating unique pieces that express your personality.
And when you're done, you can sit back and bask in the good karma that comes from helping to make the world a slightly less wasteful, profligate place. Here are a few simple tips and ideas to get you started.
Gilt-y pleasures
Auction houses are full of expensive antique mirrors and pictures with distressed, flaky gilt frames. This aged effect is easy to achieve at home with gilding liquid or wax, available at most art and craft shops.
Paint your existing mirror or picture frame (it works best on carved or ornamental frames) with the liquid and wait for it to dry. Then use a shoe polish brush to tone down the finish and sandpaper to create that worn, antique look.
Let there be light
Plain lampshades can be blank canvasses for creative expression. Measure and cut out a translucent coloured fabric covering and attach it with a glue gun, or stick on strips of wood grain paper. For a finishing touch, choose a ribbon of a matching colour and glue around the top and bottom rim of the lampshade.
Sticky business
Découpage is a craft technique that produces professional-looking results from very little effort on your part. If you know how to cut out pieces of paper and glue them onto surfaces you're half-way there already. All that's left is to choose what paper and what surfaces you're going to use.
Wrapping paper, magazine cuttings or pages from old comics make great decorative patterns. You can use the technique on coffee table-tops, glass bowls, boxes and vases. As long as the surfaces are smooth and regular, the possibilities are endless. I covered a side table with pages from a phone directory. See the step-by-step process.
1 | 2 | next
printer friendly
send to a friend
Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Horoscopes| Message Boards | Quizzes | Newsletters | Join
iVillage Ltd is a UK company registered in England & Wales (3837269) at 80-110 New Oxford Street, London WC1 1HB