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We're excited for our friend Irene Hoofs of Bloesem and the debut issue of her latest project we wrote about earlier this year, KOEL Magazine. It's been fun to watch the launch from kickstarter to actual magazine; and now it's fun to know it's available worldwide from New York to Melbourne!

Kristi Murphy

Today is officially fall and the perfect time to change things around with your decor, or start a new project while it's raining outside, or just make things cozier. Here's a few rad projects we found this week to bookmark! Happy Fall!

(Above)

1. DIY Light Using an Ikea Bowl
by Kristi Murphy
An Ikea hack at it's best using a bowl and a serving bowl.

Our friend Meg Allen Cole has a fun DIY project we had to share this week! A faux living succulent wall! Such a clever idea using one of those compartment-style crates. And the fun thing is there is no maintenance, since the succulents are faux! A great idea for a rental or take it with you to the dorm! Check out her video for HGTV Handmade below on how to make!

Making gifts for Mother's Day is not only a tradition for most kids, it's the most cherished gift to receive as a Mom. When we were thinking of crafts to do this year for this special day, decoupage came to the top of the list. We also wanted to do something with flowers, because nothing says Mother's Day more than a bouquet of flowers. Decoupage has to be one of our favourite crafts. It's an easy, and usually quick project with rather satisfying results. Other than the tricky part to make sure to get all the bubbles out, it's the perfect gift idea to make for Mom!

For this project we found a really fun apple juice jug in our cupboards that we had saved, and we also bought some tall clear decanter bottles (below) from the dollar store (all under $3 each). Along with our free printable decoupage prints, this is a really budget-friendly gift idea.

Visit Martha Stewart's site to get instructions on how to make this craft along with the free downloadable flower printables to use for decoupage. Click here to visit!

Our next project e-lesson that we filmed last fall for Be Makeful is this DIY Lightbox Headboard. A spin off the regular lightbox, and which makes for a fun weekend project! Earl did a really nice job translating the traditional lightbox into a headboard and it's super-easy to make! We picked up most of the supplies at our local hardware store and even made our own letters! You can learn how to make one yourself at our new e-lessons at Be Makeful. Check it out below or click HERE for a link to the e-lesson preview!

Earlier last fall you may have heard a few ramblings on our social channels about us filming in our home with the Be Makeful team out of Toronto creating some fun DIY projects on video as e-lessons. Today, we're excited to share with you their site (bemakeful.com) and three of our e-lessons that we filmed then.

We'd like to introduce you to our three e-lessons, a tote bag and bandana (seen here), a lightbox headboard, and 3 small projects to make for the bedroom (a floor cushion made out of a couple of throw rugs, a faux sheepskin rug and a lino-block duvet cover).

Just in time for Mother's Day, we are also excited to offer a free promo code to access our e-lesson on making this "RAD" tote bag, as well as your very own personalized bandana. (Get the promo code at the bottom of this post).

So these are fun to make. In fact I've made three batches since the first batch. And so easy. Can you tell we're into easy around here? Taking cue from our gingerbread house last December, we just melted crushed hard candies in some silicone gem molds over and over again. These are fun to make wrapped up as a gift, or do like we did and decorate a cake! A little how-to below.

We're getting ready for some house guests this Easter and have been having a hard time finding some nice guest soaps. So I thought it would be fun to make a set with some spring colours. These little gem guest soaps are so easy to make, I don't know why we don't always make our own soap. Under an hour you'll have a nice set of soaps for your guests or give away as gifts. Check out the how-to below.

You Will Need:
3 squares opaque glycerin soap base
Various sparkles
Soap Colouring
Essential Oil Fragrance
toothpicks

Always game for a way to improve on the plastic pots that come with plants (remember our copper spray painted ones)? This go, it's some pebble and glue gun action and a small half hour and you have yourself a pretty nice planter! Check out the how-to below:

You Will Need:

Plant Pebbles (ours are from IKEA - KULORT)
Glue gun
plastic planter with plant

Carin Smith | Photos by Ed O'Riley

We're loving all these old tin makeovers we found in the March issue of IDEAS magazine from South Africa. Make calendar lids made from the lid of a paint can painted with chalkboard paint and hung using a chain. Decoupage fine art prints onto pop cans or source out old fashioned labels off the internet and apply to small paint cans.

After all the cakes we've been making around here lately, we realized we were in need of a few more cake stands. Ends up, they're super expensive, so we headed out to our local craft store to find something cheap, cheerful and hopefully a project we could make really really fast. The result, two candlestick stands, two wooden plaques, a glue gun and a little paint later, we have ourselves a couple of cake stands! And pink too!

I guess it would be nice to always have a clear counter top, but because of our small space living, busy life, a clear counter top is not always possible nor practical. We've been tucking our paper towels into drawers, or on a shelf, in the pantry, and it's always so inconvenient when you really need one. Where are those paper towels? So we caved and created this little project. So simple to make too!

What you'll need:
1" diameter wooden dowel (13 " long)
4" diameter wooden round plaque
1" copper end cap
glue gun
saw (to cut dowel) or get pre cut at hardware store
miter
brass coloured spray paint (optional)

Oh spring! Seems it can't come soon enough. To survive till it does arrive, flowers are my jam. It's always a happy day when the tulips and bulbs like hyacinths and daffodils show up at our local grocer. Taking cue from the Scandinavians, I repotted some in jars this year which makes for a nice little pick-me-up five minute project! A sweet little DIY to make for yourself or to give as a spring gift!

When we visited Vancouver Island this past summer, we were gifted by the hotel we stayed at with a cute dog bone shaped cookie cutter and so this Christmas, treats will be given! We wanted to find a simple recipe with supplies we already have on hand normally (none of this brewers yeast and wheat germ stuff). Since our dog loves peanut butter we found a really simple recipe using only 4 ingredients; flour, peanut butter, eggs and a little bit of water (recipe below)!

It's been a little paper flower happy around here these days and it was inevitable a wreath was just around the corner. The flowers are a smaller version of the big paper flower faux holiday tree we made last week and I added a new cabbage-style rose too. These flowers are actually a lot easier than you would think - once you get the hang of it. The roses are the most complicated, but even those, once you do one or two you should be well on your way. Here's how we made it:

Materials Needed

For the Flowers:
Crepe paper and tissue paper
Pipe cleaners or a thinner floral wire
Glue Stick
Glue Gun
Scissors

For the Wreath:
Floral wire (19" long) or wire wreath (12" diameter) already made (if opting for the wire and making your own, just make sure it's a thicker wire so that it's strong)
Paper Flowers (once made)
Gold Eucalyptus branches or something similar (we picked ours up at Michael's)
Glue Gun

This project is inspired by a styled shot we saw at UO this past week for a fun new lens filter set for the Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 Camera. Loved how they put together the different coloured images merging them together to create a cool piece of wall art.

Since we don't have the camera and wanted to do something similar for the studio (like now), we thought it would make for a fun project using our instagrams photos with Illustrator and share here on the blog too! So if you don't have an Instax camera, here's some free printables that'll work!

With all the copper spray painting happening this week, you know we just had to go there. Inspired by those copper clothes hangers at Lagerhaus on my recent trip to Sweden in May, I decided to make some myself! Turning plastic ones into copper! Another simple project using copper spray paint in just a few minutes. Magic! (Note these are more for display purposes than to be used everyday).

For this project we're freshening up a guest room (two different ways) and have always wanted to try creating a photo-style headboard, inspired by the ones at the Anemi Hotel in Greece (which we wrote about a few years back). For the first one, we dug into our archives and chose a favorite blue-green photo of the ocean we took recently on our spring break trip to Vancouver Island. And for the second option, we downloaded a copyright-free image off of Flickr's Creative Common's Image Library from the series: Ansel Adams Photographs of National Parks and Monuments, compiled 1941 - 1942, documenting the period ca. 1933 – 1942.

Contributor post by Emily and Erick of Heidi's Bridge

Lately, we've been exploring ways to make our workspace feel more relaxing. Like many small business owners, we clock a lot of hours in our office so it's important that we like hanging out here. In addition to small touches like burning candles, playing music, and adding throw blankets around the room, we've found that adding plants makes the space feel more inviting. Inspired by the simple beauty of outdoor water gardens, we wanted to translate the concept into a smaller version for the office. Read below for the tutorial!

You Will Need:
-Large bowl container (we found our ceramic bowl at thrift store and painted it black)
-Aquatic Plants -- Mixture of anchored plants (we bought "purple golden lantern" and "variegated golden candles" but grasses, canna lilies are other great options) and ones that will float on the surface (lotus, water lilies, water lettuce etc). You can always add floating flowers like we did with these purple hellebore.
-Small rocks

Contributor post by Erick and Emily of Heidi's Bridge

Lately, we've been really inspired by stoneware, especially speckled pieces with playful texture. While taking a pottery class has been on our to-do list for awhile, in the meantime, it's fun to replicate the look at home with our faux stoneware tutorial. While we wouldn't suggest using technique for pieces that hold food, small accessories like this necklace are the perfect application.

You Will Need:
-Suede or leather cord
-Polymer Clay
-Acrylic Paint
-Paintbrush
-Old Toothbrush
-Skewer (we used the metal skewer of a plant marker)

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