Category Archives: Apartment

Special Feature: What Loren Found in the Trash

I don’t know that I’ve exclusively said it here, but I am a ‘dumpster diver’. I’ve never climbed into an real dumpster but I have pulled LOADS of things out of other people’s trash, cleaned them up, and brought them into my home. Today I’m going to tell you about one of those things.

This painting was lying on my neighbor’s front lawn with some other obvious ‘art rejects’. I grabbed it quickly on a whim, because I think canvas art is almost always cool. And I didn’t want my neighbors to notice me going through my neighbors trash, because apparently I live in constant fear of what casual acquaintances  think, but will tell the entire internet about my ‘gross’ habits.

I know that it is a painting of someone else’s children but I think it’s pretty firmly in the class of ‘cool portrait art’, curly-haired-boy says that it is CREEPY.And now every time he passes by it he makes an over the top ‘surprised’ noise and yells about how weird they are.

So I threatened to paint over it so that only their eyes & smiles were left…

Or tell everyone that it was a portrait of us when we were kids. And when they asked why Kent is so much smaller than me I’ll say that I’m the blonde ones and he is the brunette.

So naturally to settle this argument I turned to the internet. Portrait of strangers’ children. Creepy? Awesome? Awesomely creepy? Creepily Awesome?

YOU TELL US!

Vintage Suitcase Storage

Before my parents knew each other they each had a set of Forecast luggage, same make just different colors.

Back in my teen years my mom said she was going to go ahead and throw the musty old things out.

“NOOOOO” I whined, “They are COOOOL.”

So I took them, cleaned them up and did absolutely nothing with them for several years. Then I got my own apartment. I rented a place with uneven floors, a sometimes leaky ceiling, an uninsulated bedroom. But the land lady is totally OK with me painting, and I was told I could hang whatever I wanted. You other apartment dwellers know that storage, and floor space… is a luxury in a small living area. So the vintage suit cases quickly had to become useful. The bigger one is for fabric & crafting supplies, the littler one is for off season clothing.  Since floor space is so valuable. I hung them on the wall with some ridiculously large bike hooks that I spray painted to blend into the wall better.

Since I was pulling out my summer dresses and putting away my cozy sweaters this weekend I thought I’d share the c0nvinient storage location I’ve been using for years. They are decorative but unobtrusive, and clear up some floor space. And even as vintage suitcases become more popular, my favorite part is the background story from my parents.

An Almost No-Sew Teepee for the Dog

I have been pinning lots of teepees because of this website. Our little Ian-dog has a very similar story to the one linked, he hates to be crated. He’s fine in the crate as long as everyone is visible, but the minute we leave his sight he becomes agitated, destroys things, starts bending the wires of the crate, and can escape. We still aren’t entirely sure how. You’ve seen photos Ian not a big dog, but he is not skinny either. He is just dense & determined. If he doesn’t want to be somewhere he will get out. We think this comes from spending most of the first year of his life fenced in the backyard at his original owner’s.

Are you ready for the cutest thing ever?

We still wanted Ian to have his own place, somewhere he can hang out, to ‘get away from it all’, to relax & ignore us. So I decided to build him a teepee. Sure you can buy one. But that one is HUGE for a 40lb dog, our apartment is super tiny, it’s kind of not very cute, and is A HUNDRED DOLLARS.

So I headed over to Home Depot, picked up five 1-1/8″ wide 48″ long dowel rods for about $3.50 a piece (I should have gotten 6, and I should have gone down a size). We already had a painters tarp, but you can pick them up for about $10.

I followed a lot of the steps here. I drilled holes about 4″ from the top of the dowel rods, strung them together with some ribbon, glued little pieces of a non-slip mat I had to the bottom of each pole because our floors are hardwood and I didn’t want the dog to be able to knock it over with his tail wagging. I folded the painters tarp along the awkward not-quite-in-the-middle-seam which made it almost exactly 4′ long, and trimmed the bottom into a circle much like this tutorial says.

I hammered some 7/8″ grommets into the tarp so we could tie it closed with some ribbon.

Don’t do this on your balcony at 11pm it will be very, very loud. The neighbors won’t like it.

Why This is Almost No-sew

Here is the step that makes it almost no-sew, I sewed a little ‘button holes’ (there’s no button I just made the hole) on each side so we could pull back the front ‘doors’ secure them to the front legs (with some fabric scraps from this skirt). They aren’t really button holes I just did a very close zig-zag stitch in a square and then cut a little hole in the middle, to keep the edges from unraveling to much. We didn’t secure the fabric to any of the other teepee legs, mostly because the tarp is heavy that it’s not going to move far. And also that seemed like to much work for a glorified doggy bed. You can probably avoid this step if you really hate sewing/do not have a machine. The other tutorials I linked have some other suggestions.

It is barely big enough for me to fit into, but perfectly fits Ian and one of his dog beds (ie an old folded up comforter that fit my old Twin bed before Kent moved in). Ian-dog is still a little bit wary of the new space, but will easily be lured in to munch on some snacks. He loved napping on the bed before it had a roof, so we’re pretty sure he’ll be napping in there again in no time.

Break-Down:

  • 5 1-1/8″ wide 48″ long dowel rods – $3.50 a piece = $14. (I already owned one because of a Halloween costume)
  • Red ribbon – $1.99
  • Grommets & Stud Setter – $8
  • 1 Painter’s Tarp (Owned)
  • Doggy bed (Owned)
  • Fabric Scraps (Owned)
  • Non-slip mat (Owned)

Total: $23.99

Not bad for an adorable doggy teepee. Except now I need to make a big one for myself as well!

I’m linking up to the Pinterest Challenge over here. Check it out to see a bunch of other people complete cool tutorials.

 

Living Room Art – Time Lapse

I have been obsessed with this wall paper basically ever since I got an apartment. Last weekend I finally worked up the courage to try & paint something similar on my walls. I just grabbed some black paint I had in the cabinet, a paint brush & started going. I knew I wanted at least three 8.5×11 spaces. Then I traced out a couple 5.5×8.5 spaces and then filled in the rest of the holes with a few 4×6 spots.

Living Room Art Time Lapse from Lima Bean on Vimeo. This song is is ‘Love’ from Disney’s Robin Hood, it is the song that my 10-year-old brain picked out for me to walk down the aisle too. At 25 I stand by this decision even with no wedding in sight.

Some close ups with the homemade & purchased art works. The pug-dog, orangutan, and otter prints are from the Nearsighted Owl. The other prints I made myself, recreated some art from this guy & this lady. I printed them out on card-stock and just taped them to the wall with a couple pieces of double stick tape.

I’m really pleased with the way it turned out. I think I’ll be painting a few more frames a little later, to fill up the whole little half wall.

Two Holiday Star Garlands

An Origami Lucky Star Garland

I found the tutorial for these stars here. They are very simple to make, you’ll be cranking them out in no time. I think this garland would look better on a ‘real tree’ or at least against a darker background. The instructions I found online for folding a star are better than mine but here are some basics.

  1. Cut a strip of paper about 11x.5″. I just cut each sheet of paper into 16 strips.
  2. Fold the end into a knot.
  3. Flatten as neatly as possible so that the shape has five sides.
  4. Flip and fold the long strip around the pentagon you’ve made.
  5. Tuck in the final end under another fold.
  6. Press along the five sides of the pentagon to ‘inflat’ the star.
  7. Pinch the tips a bit if you need, to create a more star-like shape.

Tip: Do not grab card stock like I did. Regular printer paper will be fine. ‘Inflating’ the card stock killed my fingers. Use a needle & thread to string together. Tie a little knot to keep them in place.

Second Tip: Use dental floss instead of thread, the wax helps keep the garland from getting super tangled.

 

 

 

 

A Sticker Star Garland

Remember those gold stars you got on your papers in elementary school? Pick a pack of those up in the grocery store for a couple bucks. Grab some dental floss (unused). Put two stickers back to back around the floss. I spaced them out a couple inches apart. I like to use a different color on the front & back for a lot of them.

Quick tip: We used ‘Mint’ dental floss for this one, adds to the number of senses that can enjoy our ladder tree.