I’ve had this beloved Marc Jacobs bag (originally purchased at Neiman Marcus Last Call about 12 years ago) and used it as my main bag for many years. It is still in decent shape (a testament to how very well made it is) though the beautiful magenta color had rubbed off the high traffic areas such as the handle and corners. Because it was looking so worn I’ve had it in storage for a few years, thinking about what to do with it. I knew matching the exact color of leather dye was going to be near impossible, so the idea hit me to just have fun and paint it. Over the holidays I gave myself a gift and did just that. I love how it turned out, as not only have I given my beloved bag new life but it is now an original piece of art as well.
I free-handed the image with a sharpie pen and painted it in acrylic paint. (You could certainly use a stencil or transfer to start your image if you are uncomfortable with that). I also painted ombre’ pinks on the lower part of the worn handles (echoing the peony shades) and matched up the bag’s original color as best I could and rubbed that paint on the other worn areas of the bag that the design did not cover, which turned out quite well. Acrylic paint does great on leather, though if it’s very stiff leather you may need to go over the area with a very fine grit sandpaper first. Darker color leather requires a few layers of paint, and even then the leather color may bleed through light color paint (a bit of pink bled through on some of the white areas on the tiger but I don’t mind it). I really enjoyed this project, it was a nice departure from my very time-consuming oil paintings. I am already planning another project with one of my old leather jackets. Recycling at it’s best! I love the idea of giving new life to well-loved designer bags, and am on the lookout for good candidates for more fun painted bags that I may sell in the future (but this one is just for me :-).
BEFORE (You can see the worn corners)
IN PROGRESS (at the Sharpie drawing stage)
Thanks for looking, I hope you’ve enjoyed this project. FOLLOW this blog and see what’s coming next.
A healthy pumpkin or gourd can last MONTHS! I love decorating with pumpkins every Fall. They look great from October 1st through November 26th. I just rearrange them after packing up the Halloween decorations. After Thanksgiving what doesn’t get turned into pies and breads can be composted or fed to goats and piggys. Biodegradable eco-friendly decor!
This year I’m being really lazy (well lazy for me, the unapologetic maximalist). I rearranged the pumpkins and added my old artificial magnolia leaf garlands and wreath as well as pheasant feathers, which I’ve been reusing for about a decade. On the table I added a few of the feathers and my fall ceramics. The only cost was the fresh flowers.
I had fun with the front door. The Fall mums in my pots were looking pretty sad (see below) so instead of tossing them out I used them as a base for cut amaranth, Mohave pyrocanthis, olive branches, and a few other things growing in my yard. I grew lots of amaranth this year as it is easy to grow here in the desert and I love the way it looks, especially when planted with sunflowers (and the birds love it!). It also dries very well, as do the other things I put in the pots. When “shopping” your yard for greenery, WEAR GLOVES and long sleeves! The Mohave pyrocanthis has sharp thorns, and something I cut (not sure what) gave me a thankfully short-lived rash. Next time, long sleeves! I’m pleased with the way the pots turned out, and it cost nothing!
Hope you all have a delightful Fall Season! Thanks for looking 🙂
The new house is coming along nicely. While I think it will always be a work in progress, spaces are starting to come together enough to start showing full before and after tasty goodness 😄. Today it’s the Catwalk! Yes this crazy house has a freaking catwalk, yet another one of the strange delights this house has to offer. The catwalk was a fun space to design. I wanted to make it as functional as possible for our needs (as cheaply as possible) and think I succeeded. I wanted to have lots of seating, extra sleeping spaces for overnight guests, and a reading/meditation area. We are eventually hoping to have art and music events at the house and this will be a prime spot to watch performances in the great room below.
As you can see on the Before pics, the catwalk was largely unusable, full of nasty old carpet with no structure.
The first thing we did was rip out the nasty old carpet. The wood was in good shape so we did a simple whitewash on it to blend it into the whitewash wood on the walls. I had our awesome handyman build platforms for the black French mattresses (Pottery Barn Teen), build shelves against the east wall and paint the old bookshelves and all the new build outs Sherwin Williams Tricorn black. The desk was moved to my art studio and painted white. I saved a ton sewing all my own pillows. I’m not much of a seamstress but they are certainly good enough. I scored the beautiful designer tiger fabric as a remnant on fabricguru.com, the velvet pink on fabric.com. Most of the art and chotchkies we had, a couple pieces (including the tribal black pieces behind the seating area) we found at the local swap meet.
The area is much more useable now, and I love the way it came out. We go up there to just hang out and watch the sunset out the west windows. We had a couple guests sleep up there recently and got a big thumbs up :-).
Much more to come! Follow this blog and don’t miss a thing.
Step by step things are progressing at our new Yucca Valley home. While no one room is completely finished, I’d say we are 83% of the way there indoors, 40% outdoors. Below is a little Before & After Sneak Peak of 4 of the rooms In Progress…(see the first 3 Sneak Peaks HERE) Full room reveals coming soon! SUBSCRIBE to see it all.
LIVING ROOM BEFORE…The vaulted ceilings in this room are about 24′ tall at the apex, with 20′ walls on the low sides, which were visually cut in half by the old red paint and (hello 1980’s!) wallpaper border. The borders were removed and the space was painted in Sherwin William’s Ultra White. It instantly opened the space up and now shows off all the beautiful wood beams (which you’ll see in a future post) and makes the ceilings soar high just as they should.
LIVING ROOM AFTER (IN PROGRESS)
I’m going for an artsy rock n’ roll sort of vibe in here with a Timothy Oulton influence. Eventually the art on the gallery wall will reach all the way to the ceiling. The sofa is new (thanks to a Wayfair “open box” deal) as is the magenta chair (also Wayfair). Everything else we brought with us from the old house. Except Gozer the Gozarian, whom we adopted about 3 months ago. This sweet little frug (part Frenchie, part pug) has claimed the chair for his throne, and we don’t blame him one bit. (Art: The “Black Heart” painting and the little drawing in the red frame are by Sandi Calistro, the Lucian Freud study painting I did in college, the “Satire Lounge” piece is by Kym Bloom, the red Yumiko Kayukowa print came out of a book, and the rest of the art are thrift store finds.
I know it’s hard to see it in the before pic, as there was a huge stair unit there that we had removed and replaced it with a simple loft ladder (there is a sleeping loft over the entry which you’ll see on a future post). The only real changes here was the removal of the odd stair unit and painting the main wall white.
ENTRY AFTER
The red acrylic box was an alley find we brought with us, and the beautiful raku pot I found at Collector’s Corner in Palm Desert for $20. The jack rabbit coat hooks are from Etsy. (And Jiva’s ratty old hat adds the perfect desert touch 🙂
This crazy house is made for entertaining (which we hope to be doing a lot of post-covid) and has a very large great room in addition to the living room. We hope to host art events and small concerts in here eventually. Before, the green color was well, rather awful, and like in the living room cut the tall walls visually in half. We had the green painted over in the white, all the doors and windows black (Sherwin Williams Tricorn Black), and ripped out and replaced the ratty old carpet (Home Depot). (I apologize for the crappy before image, it’s all I have).
THE GREAT ROOM AFTER (IN PROGRESS)
Being that we want to host events in this room, I wanted a lot of open, low seating. I opted for sectional seating so it can be moved around easily. I looked for months for good-looking sectional seating and finally settled on Pottery Barn Teen Cushy Lounge Sectional Set as an affordable option. In a perfect world I’d have the Roche Bobois Mah Jong sectionals, but until someone hands me an extra $30,000 this is a great option at a tenth the price. The vase pair was a local thrift store score ($10 for the pair), all the leopard print pillows are from Etsy. Art: The “Space Whale” photo print I had printed on metal by Costco (it came out great!) with permission from the photographer. (We were married in front of the Space Whale at Burning Man in 2016 so it is a very special piece to us). Everything else we brought with us from the old house. Carousel painting is by Lonnie Hanzon, cat paintings are by me, crow and skull piece by MadTatters.com, and the resin pieces installation by Lauri Lynnxe Murphy. The other piece is a Goodwill find (I do not know the artist’s name).
All we did in here was paint out the dark oppressive walls and ceiling white, which opened up the space beautifully, and replace the faucets on the sink and tub (which needed to be replaced due to leaking) and added new cabinet knobs. We left the beautiful old vertical wood posts untouched. It has a wonderful spa-like feel now. The light coming through the glass block during the day is marvelous. I did add lots of plants, some brought with us, some new.
The MASTER BATH AFTER (IN PROGRESS)
There is so much more to come! Please subscribe to see it all.
Things are really moving along at the new house! With all the Covid down-time we’re getting a ton done. While no one room is completely finished, I’d say we are 80% of the way there indoors, 25% outdoors. Below is a little Before & After Sneak Peak of 3 of the rooms In Progress…
DINING ROOM BEFORE…this is how it looked when we bought the place. We had the carpet removed, old wallpaper border removed, and the room painted a rich deep Navy Blue. (We splurged on having the full interior painted (all Sherwin Williams, I’m very happy with the outcome) before we moved in and it was worth every penny. I did it all myself in the old house and it was too hard on my body :-). This house is much larger and has very high ceilings, no way I could have done it all myself). I took down the old broken ceiling fan and put up a lovely large green glass chandelier ($235 on Amazon) and added spring green curtains around the entire room (also from Amazon. It was about the same price as buying the fabric myself so a total no-brainer). I’m going for an over-the-top Tony Duquette Maximalism look in here. It still has a ways to go (we need to refinish the wood floor, add a console table on the west wall and do something fun where the sticks are in the ceiling panels and add more art.) The rug, table, chairs and art were all brought with us from the old house.
AFTER (In Progress) Just a sneak peak, much more to come…
MUSIC ROOM BEFORE…this room was a plain white box, originally a garage bay converted into a bedroom with a terrible 3/4 bathroom that we did’nt need. We had the shower stall and toilet removed (leaving the plumbing hook ups (all capped) for future possibilities), had the opening enlarged (you’ll see this on a future post) to let in more light from the only window in the room and provide more storage for music gear and clothes (the room also functions as my husband’s closet, he has more clothes than I do!). Since it’s a music room it has to be at least partially sound-proofed/deadened so we are adding acoustic panels and fabric to most of the walls. My man is nuts for India so I’m going for a sort of Modern Rajasthan Musician vibe in here. There are 32 yards of black velvet and 12 full saris. So glad I invested in a sewing machine! It took me 2 days to get all the curtains sewn. I bought the velvet in bulk from Fabric.com and the sari’s in bulk on Etsy. The teal chair was a thrift store find (Collector’s Corner in Palm Desert, a MUST for great home finds!), the blue stools from Wayfair.com (on sale! Just $45 each), and the vintage wood stool from a local Yucca Valley thrift store for just $12! The rugs were all brought over from the old house. This room is about 70% finished, much more to come!
BEFORE…This room was originally a patio that was enclosed. We had the nasty old carpet removed and the room totally painted out in Ultra White, except the 3 beams which were painted black. We also had new carpeting installed (Home Depot). I wanted things to be very serene in this room with a Leanne Ford vibe so am sticking with a simple color palette, black and white with a touch of color, in this case our trusty old magenta dresser (an alley find I painted years ago) and some fun pink/lavender pillows. The sheepskin rug is from Costco, a GREAT source for sheepskin! This quad rug was just $135 (and the dogs LOVE it :-). The 1″ black cotton robe (meant to emulate a canopy) is from Ravenox. It’s beautiful robe, I highly recommend the company. The vintage hanging lamps on either side of the bed were an Ebay find, $105 for the pair, which I rewired myself. The Roman shades had to be custom ordered because of the odd window size, I found a company through Amazon that did the pair in white linen (to match the curtains I already owned) for $220 shipped. I’m leaving the old fan in place for now, but will likely replace it with a new black one in the future. We did splurge on a new king-size bed but kept our old nightstands which work well in the room. All the pots, pillows and accessories were brought with us from the old house. We did have to install a modular closet unit which you will see on a future post. This room is about 85% finished. More to come!
AFTER (In Progress)…
So much more to come soon! There are 8 more spaces I haven’t shown at all yet, as well as the courtyard front entry and the yard…I’ll post full room reveals as each space is finished, as well as more sneak peaks of the other rooms and DIYs. Please Follow this blog so you don’t miss a thing!
The front porch has been bugging me for awhile now, so I got off my lazy duff and did something about it this weekend. I’d been meaning to paint the tables on the porch white since finding them (yes, they are both Freebee Alley Finds!) to blend them in with the other porch furniture and trim. TIP: How do you make a bunch of stuff that really doesn’t go together work? Paint them all the same color!
I’m such a sucker for black and white. I knew that’s exactly what I was going to do to these the minute I saw them hanging out next to a dumpster in the alley. They were solid and in decent shape, good enough for a quick make-over to grace my dining room table. I’ll admit, they are not my dream dining room chairs (those would be the fabulous Louis & Victoria Ghost chairs by Philip Starke & Kartell), but until the beautiful day when I own those ghostly wonders, these will do just fine, thank you very much.
What sets a well-decorated home apart from the rest? You know it when you see a well-done house, it just looks good. But what is it that sets it apart? There are a few things that tie together a good Halloween house, but the Biggest Mistake is…
Mistake #1:Throwing up the Halloween decorations on top of the everyday decor. (This goes for every holiday, not just Halloween!)
Did I happen to mention I LOVE HALLOWEEN! I live in an old “Denver Square” Victorian home, so our decorating tends to be a sort of “Victorian Goth” style. Today we’ll tour the Front Room, where most of the Halloween Magic happens. Everything you see is either DIY, found, reused, or picked up cheap at the thrift store. This year the only things I spent actual cash money on are a couple of pumpkins, the little gourds, and of course the candy. The biggest splurge was a giant 20 pound white heirloom gourd. It was just too cool to pass up, and I’ll use it for Thanksgiving too. TIP!The trick to keeping your Halloween decor fresh is to use your old stuff in new ways. Move it to another room, create new combinations, or paint it.
the Year of Living Fabulously 