My cat fridge

When I see a plain surface, I always have an unexplained urge to change it to something more complicated, to spice it up. This was what happened to my fridge. One day I was staring at it, and realized that I have some huge space to work on, and go crazy if I want too.

I wanted to create something quite big, kind of sophisticated but not too colorful. So I thought it would be cool to make some big cat silhouette (I'm a cat person). For that purpose I bought 2 meters of black plain sticky wallpaper (the one with the glue on the other side). Drew the cat on it (on the glue paper side), and cut it gently. By the way, this is another reason for my romance with wallpapers. You can draw on it whatever shape you want, easily cut it, and apply anywhere.

So, here is my new fridge:

To make it a bit more interesting, I decided to add the little pink bow (it has a magnet behind, so it is removable):

Olga.

Fabric canvas

Putting fabric on top of plain canvas is a quite common decoration trick, and there's a good reason for that - easier than actually painting, and can make a big difference to the room.

I made one with two layers: the smaller canvas with the floral pattern fabric, and behind, there is a bigger one with plain gray fabric.

Usually I'm quite ok with estimating how much time and effort it will take to complete a project, but with this one, I have to say I really missed it. I'm sorry for not having the 'in process' images, I made it long before the decision to open a blog, but here are the detailed steps:

1.  Buy two canvases which are different sizes but same ratio dimensions (width and height).
2.  Choose fabrics for the two layers (buy it in a size that will allow fixing mistakes later)
3.  Iron the fabric if needed (This one took me a while :( )
4.  Wrapping the canvases with the fabric: I used a staple gun to stabilize the fabric (on the hidden canvas side). The canvases I used are quite big, so it wasn't that easy to make sure the fabric is stretched evenly.
5. The hardest part: as there are two layers, I had to attach them, and make sure the small one sits exactly in the middle of the bigger one.

Enjoy making yours!

Olga.

Wallpapering

About two years ago I rented a small apartment in Tel Aviv - the cool city that never sleeps, has no parking space, and is full of tiny tiny apartments.

I really wanted my place to feel warm cozy and well designed. The problem of course is that you can't really follow your heart and design it as you wish. So I was looking for some intermediate solution - not too expensive, friendly to the angry apartment owner, and at the same time stylish.
It was then when I discovered the sticky wallpaper - the one that has one side with glue on it.

The reason I fell in love with it is that it is perfectly removable without damaging the surface, really easy to apply, and magically upgrades you space (oh... and cheap!).

So, the first wallpaper work I would like to share is my closet makeover. I don't have the "before" picture, but trust me it was one ugly old formica closet. I wanted to cover it all, so I bought 3 meters of blue wallpaper with gold print on it, and some black and white wallpaper for decoration.

Here is the final result:

The making process was quite easy as you don't have to glue it by yourself - you only remove the paper layer and remain with the sticky side ready to be applied. In addition I painted the old knobs
with black acrylic paint (can't live without my acrylic paints, but that's for another post).

Olga.

Start!

I've been waiting for this 'first post' time for quite long (yep, turns out, designing a blog is a tough cookie..), and here we are, the blog design is ready, and now there's this 'exiting' moment of staring at the screen not really knowing what to write. Well...I guess I'm lucky to have some images to post - they speak better :).

A bit more seriously, I really love designing, working with different materials and creating new things (and of course the fun part - showing off!). I do it ever since I remember myself, only now I decided to put it in some kind of 'notebook'. Hopefully this notebook will become an inspiring collection of design ideas, tips and tricks. As usually I design and create from scratch, the materials I use are simple and not expensive. In my posts I'll try to tell about the making process, and also how I got the design idea.

So let's get started! I hope you'll enjoy.