28Mar08
Shabby chic less the shabby. This weekend project works great on cast-off dressers, sideboards, desks, and tabletops. If you don’t already have a piece in your own pad to experiment with, try hunting down a gem on Craigslist, a local flea market, Goodwill or garage sale.
A Green Twist
Finish it off with a hip, healthier paint option like Yolo’s Sprout Collection (for modern, spring-inspired colors), Benjamin Moore’s Aura, or Fine Paints of Europe (for rich, historically-derived colors). Other companies like Pantone have started offering non-VOC or low-VOC paints and primers as well so it’s much easier to go high style and fume free. The few extra dollars per gallon is worth it for the health and environmental benefits.
Video Podcast Instructions
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIJ-DDOtH6k&hl=en]
Prefer written instructions? Check out the complete post by Chris Gardner on Curbly.
Check out our full list of DIY Design ideas here.
Filed under Budget Decor, Furniture, Materials+Finishes, Paints+Techniques, Refashion+Refurb, Videos|
Tagged DIY furniture, eco friendly paint, Eco-friendly, how to refurbish furniture, modern DIY, Non-toxic, podcast |
23Mar07
Some kids collected baseball cards or stamps. I collected paint chips. Really. The aspiring little designer in me fell in love with these bands of gorgeous color and their delicious names (though I always wondered who gets the honor of naming all 500+ colors of yellow? Anyone of you know?). I hoarded them for crafts, bookmarks, and handmade greeting cards. Apparently, so do many other creative people.
Designer Lisa Solomon transforms behr paint chips into diminutive works of art. Each card is embellished with an embroidered illustration from nature. So delicate! They are sold as framed pieces for $400 each at The Beholder. A rather steep price tag even for these pretty pieces. If you are handy with a Singer, you could always design-your-own.
These machine-sewn note cards by P1 Design resemble the bold, beautiful cards sewn by Unique Artistry. Geometric, and minimalist in style, these cards are sewn onto eco-friendly, recyclable Kraft paper.
A fabulous DIY idea: designverb shares a step-by-step way to turn your stack of chips into chic cases for your business cards.
If you’re more inventive you can reinterpret the idea. This tweaked design by craftlog resulted from the fact that her paint chips were a different size. Call it serendipity.
28Jun06
I’m a big advocate for chemical-free environments, and have been searching for paints that offer eco-friendly benefit and a beautiful color palette. Enter Yolo Colorhouse, an Oregon-based company whose concern for their own health inspired them to experiment with eco-friendly recipes (read their story). Their efforts resulted in the launch of a premium, zero-voc paint with a palette of 40 designer-friendly colors.
Designers and homeowners alike will appreciate the gorgeous colors without the VOCs (volatile organic compounds) inherent in standard paints that contribute to poor indoor air quality. Yolo paints are Green Seal Certified which automatically qualifies them for LEED points on commercial or residential projects. Which means for all of us, we can have our paint and breathe it too.
