Fluffing my nest — A Cultivated Nest

How To Make A Indoor Succulent Dish Garden

March 4, 2013 By Manuela

If you think that you don’t have a green thumb, then this project might just be for you! I made an indoor succulent dish garden over the weekend and so can you. It’s such an easy, quick project and succulents require very little maintenance (they are nearly indestructible and don’t require frequent watering like most indoor house plants ).

Materials Needed For A Succulent Dish Garden

* a variety of succulents in different shapes and colors

*a container that’s at least 3 inches deep. I thought I’d use a red transferware soup tureen that I got a long time ago from Goodwill

* cactus soil – they need a fast draining soil as they don’t like their roots sitting in water

*pea gravel/river rock for drainage

Steps To Make a Succulent Dish Garden

1. cover the bottom of your container with the pea gravel

2. add the cactus soil and moisten – don’t drench the soil just moisten

3. arrange your succulents in your container. I put the taller ones in the back and the shorter ones in the front. I separated a container of taller ones and had one lone succulent left that I planted in this milkglass container.

4. pat the soil around your succulents. You can cover the soil surface with a layer of the pea gravel or decorative marbles if you like for a finished look.

5. I’ve found that if you allow the soil to go dry in between watering you will have longer lasting plants. I had a few die on me last year because I over watered.

I had one big succulent leftover and thought I’d try it in a teacup. Isn’t it cute! I’ll transplant it into a larger container and put it in my screened porch this summer.

Once you find out for yourself how simple it is to make a indoor container garden using succulents, you’ll be hooked!

Filed Under: DIY Projects, Fluffing my nest Tagged With: DIY projects, indoor succulent dish garden

A Corner of My Living Room-Some Spring Decorating

February 27, 2013 By Manuela

I took down my Valentine’s Day decorations the other day and started a little bit of spring decorating (I’m so ready aren’t you). I thought I’d share a few photos of one corner of my living room with you today.

I love this white pitcher and use it all the time! I put a mix of yellow and green faux flowers in it for some spring time color.

I’m very happy with my Ikea bookcases! I love having a whole wall of bookcases and since some of the cases have doors, I’ve got more than enough storage now.

This is the chair that I slipcovered back in 2011 (you can read all about it here if you missed it). It’s my one and only, never to be repeated (I think) slipcover. I.am.not.a.smeamstress! But I do think that I did a pretty decent job for someone that doesn’t sew beyond straight line stitching and I would encourage you to give it a try. I’ve come to look at the slipcovering process like painting my kitchen cabinets or child birth. Painful while you’re doing it but you’re so happy with the outcome!

I had some brown transferware pieces on this shelf during the holidays and changed them out for these cottagey Thomas Kinkade plates.

A new bird & nest pillow from TJMaxx for spring. I love changing out my pillows! Sometimes I make my pillows, some I’ve found at the thrift store, some I buy. It’s really one of the easiest and most affordable ways to update your decor. Instant makeover!

The start of spring decorating!! Yay!

Filed Under: Budget Decorating, Fluffing my nest Tagged With: Ikea, living room, slipcovers, spring decorating

Easy DIY Felt & Yarn Spring Wreath

February 25, 2013 By Manuela

I enjoy making my own wreaths and the other day I was feeling crafty so I made a really easy, budget friendly, felt flower and yarn spring wreath for my foyer.

I had all the supplies I needed on hand so this cost me zero dollars. You need a wreath form, felt (I think you can get it 4/$1), yarn ( have tons from trying to learn to knit and crochet), ribbon to hang your wreath and a glue gun. Optional: decorative trim, small branch of some kind of spring flowering tree or shrub (fake)

A word about wreath forms – I’ve never made a wreath that I loved so much that I wasn’t willing to take it apart and re-use it or re-fashion it over and over again. I have a few different types of forms and different sizes that I got from various places. The thrift store (just pull everything off it), clearance, purchased with a coupon, the dollar store, the dollar area at Target etc. I rarely go out and buy a new wreath form for a project. Lots of times you don’t even need a “wreath form” you can just cut yourself a circle or square from cardboard, a cereal box, or poster board/foam core.

Easy DIY Felt Flower & Yarn Wreath

1. wrap your yarn around your wreath form…yawn…watch a movie while wrapping yarn around your wreath form

2. make various felt flowers & a few leaves. You can make your flowers all one kind. I chose to make a few different kinds. If you don’t know how to make a felt flower, I show how to make felt rosettes in this post Christmas Felt Rosette Tree or you can of course just google “how to make a a felt flower”. It’s SO easy!

3. glue felt flowers onto your wreath in a manner that pleases you

4. Optional: glue your pieces of trim onto your wreath and a branch of a spring flowering tree or shrub and then hang your wreath with a ribbon.

This was a really inexpensive and easy spring wreath to make!

I like making my own wreaths since it’s usually very hard to find ones in the colors that I like.

Last year I used a green fluffy feather boa for the base of my spring wreath. You can see it here Easy DIY Spring Wreath.

Spring will be here before we know it (I hope) !

Filed Under: Budget Decorating, DIY Projects, DIY Projects, Fluffing my nest, Seasonal Decorating, Tutorials Tagged With: Budget Decorating, Crafts, DIY projects, Wreaths

Adding Farmhouse Style To My Kitchen

February 15, 2013 By Manuela

Now that the little makeover I was doing on my kitchen is done I’m concentrating on adding some farmhouse style to my kitchen by using accessories. I started by adding a cute rooster clock to one wall and now I’ve added this amazing hand-painted ” Farmstead” sign.

Isn’t great! I love it! I got it from Etsy Seller Castle and Cottage Hand Painted Vintage Designs. The “1988″ date is the year we got married and this was a anniversary present from my husband (our anniversary was last month) that I picked out (sometimes the best kind of present )! Anyway, she did a marvelous job on the sign – it’s nicely distressed to look old which I just love.

I also did a little re-styling of the shelf that’s over my doorway that leads from the kitchen into the dining room. I added the rustic farmhouse coffee sign which I made. Maybe I’ll make another one that says “Fresh Eggs” or “Farm Fresh” just to be able to change it out now and then.

I decided to keep my yellow gingham curtains for the time being instead of making the red buffalo check ones that I talked about last time. I really do love them – they are so me! I showed you the Fresh Milk sign when I showed you that new kitchen storage piece from Ikea.

I think the faux ceiling tin backsplash that I already had, the lithographed chicken tray and the ball jar turned soap dispenser give my sink area a farmhouse feel even though I don’t have one of those fabulous old apron sinks! I wish!

I also added a little vintage pastoral scene on the beadboard backsplash that’s on the other side of the kitchen.

This all started back in November with this post about what was bothering me about my kitchen and what I planned to do about. I did everything except 2 things:

1. I didn’t get the schoolhouse ceiling fan because I put a different type of light bulb in the ceiling fan we already have and I’m happy with it now!! We had been using ” soft” lightbulbs (I think that’s what they were called) and changed to “daylight”. What a difference!

2. I was going to paint the Ikea Besta unit red like in my inspiration photo but so far I like it white but I may paint it red IF I decide to re-paint my kitchen cabinets white this summer (yes, I’m crazeee like that).

So that’s it – new paint, one new storage piece, some new lighting and few new farmhouse style accessories and my kitchen has a whole new fresh farmhouse feel without doing a total remodel OR spending a fortune!

Now I just need to organize it better! I did reorganized my spice cabinet which I’ll show you next week!

Have a great weekend!

Filed Under: Budget Decorating, Fluffing my nest Tagged With: Budget Decorating, farmhouse style, Kitchen makeover

Tabletop Spring Garden

February 4, 2013 By Manuela

It’s still a bit too chilly to do more than dream about my spring garden plans. So I created a little spring tabletop garden.

Just a few colorful primroses, some daffodils I’m forcing and a pot of already bloomed daffodils.

I do a little spring tabletop gardening every year. Last year I did a larger table with some indoor plants mixed with spring blooming bulbs.

For now this is my indoor spring garden until I can go outside and get some dirt under my nails!

Just a bright little corner to chase away the winter blues!

Get a jump on spring by creating your own tabletop garden. It’s as easy as buying some spring blooms from your garden center or grocery store!

Filed Under: Budget Decorating, Fluffing my nest Tagged With: Budget Decorating, spring blooms, tabletop gardens

My Plans For My Budget Kitchen Makeover

November 18, 2012 By Manuela

I’ve finally figured out what is bothering me about my kitchen and I have plans of how I think I’m going to fix it without a total overhaul {which I couldn’t afford anyway}.

But first let me preface sharing those plans with you by saying that the last time I updated my kitchen was 2006. That was the last time I painted my cabinets and I think it was 2007 when I painted my kitchen walls (Vee ). My blog was on Typepad at the time so I lost that year when I moved to Blogger so I don’t have any before and after photos.

The 4 things that bug me most about my kitchen are:

1. It’s looking way too cluttery for me. That’s easy to fix. I’m going to take some stuff off of both these wall,

and here too. I think I dust those plates maybe once a year (if that)! They are going (OK maybe two plates will really go ) Ugh…it’s really horrible to have a plate addiction! I can get rid of plates, I can, I can, I can……….!

2. Lack of light – it’s dark in this room. It used to get really nice afternoon light. But the screen porch we built has blocked some of the light from the back of the house. I used to get some lovely sunshine through my dining room into the kitchen. Not any more!

I think the pear green color on the walls is too dark now that I don’t get as much natural light in the kitchen. So I’m going to paint the walls…..wait for it……………………

WHITE!!!!

I haven’t painted a wall white in over 20 years! Here are 4 Benjamin Moore samples I painted on the walls in different places. Which is really the best thing to do when choosing paint. Because paint looks different on a little piece of paper under the store lights.

On my walls China White and Decorator’s white had too much blue/ gray. We all liked Cloud White and Simply White. I decided on Simply White. I am painting my walls white BUT if I don’t like it – I reserve the right to paint my walls again – maybe a lemon yellow Hopefully I’ll love the white!

3. The lighting. I need more and different lighting. I have a few ideas of what I want to do. One thing I’m going to do is to change my ceiling fan to this Schoolhouse style.

All you ceiling fan haters, we need ceiling fans in the South! Especially in the kitchen! So it is staying (although I’d rather have a lovely vintage chandelier instead but it’s not practical). Home Depot has the light kit so I’m hoping that’s all I need to buy to change my existing ceiling fan.

Then I have a few other inexpensive ideas for adding lighting.

4. Storage. I need more storage and I need to utilize the storage that I have in a better way.

source: Kitchen Design Ideas

We have a teeny bit of space where I can replace a small bookcase with something taller. I’m thinking something like this one above that I showed you before and in red, so I can get my red into the kitchen. I have no place for my breadmaker which we use all the time, or my Vitamix which we use every day and lots of other kitchen appliances and gadgets. We saw something at Ikea that we think will work (that I’ll have to paint red).

I think I can address those four areas without spending a lot of money (well I have no choice really because I don’t have a lot to spend).

Anyone have any experience getting BM paint color matched by Sherwin Williams? BM has gotten crazy expensive and I have a 30% off coupon for Sherwin Williams.

Filed Under: Fluffing my nest Tagged With: before & after, Budget Decorating, Kitchen makeover

$2.30 of Prettiness!

November 5, 2012 By Manuela

I bet you didn’t know that I have the largest Kroger Supermarket (Fred Meyer, Ralphs) in the US in my town! Well I do. They tore down the old one over a year ago and built a HUGE one. So huge that it takes me an average of 2 hours to go grocery shopping! I’m not a fan of the new size – it has a horrible layout!

At the old Kroger I used to know the flower lady and would buy some marked down flowers every other week. But when they built the new Kroger, there were suddenly new people and no marked down flowers! Which made me sad because nothing brightens a room like fresh flowers.

Until last Friday! I happened to be walking past and spied an assortment of flowers in a corner, went to have a look and low and behold they were marked down!

I got two bunches of sunflowers for $1.15 each (and they aren’t even old)!

The new flower lady tells me that she will be marking down flowers Thursday evening into Friday morning from now on. Yay!

It gives me so much enjoyment to be able to have some lovely fresh flowers on my dining room table. And what great timing! Clearance flowers available just when there’s not too much for me to pick in my yard.

Having fresh flowers in winter is definitely something I’d call a “simple pleasure”. Just a little something that makes every day life a little sweeter!

What are some simple pleasures you enjoy?

Filed Under: Fluffing my nest, Simple pleasures Tagged With: Budget Decorating, simple pleasures

Red Wicker

November 2, 2012 By Manuela

One of my favorite inexpensive ways to get a new look besides re-purposing, is just to move my smaller furniture pieces or accessories from one room to another.

Sometimes you get tired of the way a room looks or you get bored with a piece and think about getting rid of it. What once worked no longer works for you for many different reasons. Try moving the “whatever” into another room. You’d be amazed at how moving things around brings new life to them and to the room.

Which brings me to this red wicker chair. It just wasn’t working in my daughter’s downstairs space anymore.

She has a dog crate down there now and bin for Corey’s food/leash/treats/toys and I’m sure she’ll be adding clothes for him soon!

She just didn’t have the room for that particular chair but she still needed some sort of extra seating.

So I gave her a smaller, more open chair from my office and took this one for the living room. I needed the extra seating anyway since we hadn’t replaced my husband’s big leather chair that we got rid of when we moved all the living room furniture around.

I didn’t take a before picture but it’s this $79 ikea chair and it was a washed gray color. Which was very nice neutral color.

One can of red spray paint and it’s more me.

I don’t usually decorate this early for Christmas.

But I was in Target last week and picked up this cute Christmas pillow and didn’t want to have to store it to only bring it back out in a few weeks.

So actually I did do my two favorite things to get a new look (I painted the chair) AND I moved it to a new place. Now I need to find a little side table for it!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Linking to:

Brenda’s Tweak It Tuesday

Claudia’s A Favorite Thing

Filed Under: Fluffing my nest, Theme Parties Tagged With: before & after, DIY projects, Ikea, living room, spray paint

A Closer Look At My Ikea Bookcases

October 30, 2012 By Manuela

I’m getting there! I almost have all my books back on my Ikea Billy bookcases. I thought I’d give you a closer look at the shelves that hold my vintage/old/favorite books.

This is the left side – I have the same set up on the right side but I’m not done putting my books back there.

I really love the way my older books look behind the glass doors.

My beloved Little House Books that I re-read every winter!

Some favorite children’s books!

This is my book end!

I’m thinking of doing a shelf of Austen books. I have so many Austen knockoff sequel type books that I think one shelf devoted to her would be fun. Or maybe a shelf of Austen, Gaskell and other Austenish authors?

I like to display my pretty bookmarks (I actually never use them – I just think they look pretty). I made a few of them you can go here for the tutorial on how to make jewelry bookmarks.

My favorite shelf so far!

***Thanks for all the input about my kitchen. Aren’t all those kitchens I showed just too cute! Most people said go for it if we’re not going to sell anytime soon. Well we may sell as early as next summer. The real estate market in my area has really picked up so we’re waiting to see if that upward trend continues. Or we could be here another two years – our daughter will be out of college then and we may all move to California together. So I decided to start with painting my walls (Vee’s suggestion) and see how it goes.

Filed Under: Budget Decorating, Fluffing my nest Tagged With: bookcases, Ikea, living room

Faux Ceiling Tin Fireplace Firebox

October 23, 2012 By Manuela

Sometimes things just happen and a project comes together! That’s the case with my faux fireplace’s faux ceiling tin firebox (that’s a lot of faux!).

So what happened is this mirror that I had hanging on my fence started to fall apart. They will do that if you live in a climate with rain. The frames start to detach from the mirror.

So it was sitting in the garden propped up against the fence for a few months. I would see it every day and say to myself that I needed to move it. Then we were cleaning out the garage recently (trying once again to get it organized) and I came across pieces of faux celing tin that I had used in my kitchen backsplash. See my kitchen here.

And suddenly a moment of inspiration struck! (Well not really suddenly but it sounds more exciting) I had the idea to combine the mirror with the ceiling tin and put the two on my fireplace!

Here’s my post on how we made this fake fireplace.

The ceiling tin can be cut with scissors and I attached it with hot glue. Both Home Depot and Lowe’s carry it (in the kitchen department). There’s no tin behind the mirror and what you can’t see unless you stick your nose up against it is where I had to piece it together. I only had one full tin and bits of partial tin. So it was hard making it line up!

I need a mirror that’s just a teeny bit taller and wider to make it more proportional, but I love it as it is. The morning sun reflects so beautifully off the tin and mirror!

The best part is that it didn’t cost me a dime!! I think this is really one of my better re-use projects and I love the way it turned out!

Filed Under: Budget Decorating, DIY Projects, Fluffing my nest Tagged With: before & after, DIY projects, fireplace mantle/mantel

Home Is Where Your Heart Is

October 19, 2012 By Manuela

I finally started tackling my bookcases yesterday. I’ve given up on trying to find some wallpaper/wrapping paper to use behind the shelves. When I find it I’ll know it (I have tried several). In the meantime I couldn’t take the mess anymore.

Basically I organize my bookcases by subject matter. I insert a few decorative shelves here and there (everybody needs a shelf or two that they can fluff when the mood strikes).

This is a sign I had in my entry way (switched it for something else). The frame came from a 99 cent thrift store picture I was using in my guest bedroom (I spray painted it).

I have a couple of shelves done, but lots more to do!

Blogger News You Might Want To Know

My friend Brenda of Cozy Little House has started another blog dedicated to helping other bloggers called Cozy Inspiration. It’s a place where you can go to get your blogging questions answered whether it’s about growing your blog, photography or just tips on how to do something. She’ll continue to have her Blogger Spotlight Home Tours on this blog (yesterday it was me). Today she has KariAnne from Thistlewood Farm discussing Growing Your Blog.

I’ve known Jennifer Rizzo since I started blogging! She’s one of several well-known, creative women involved in a new e-course called Creatively Made Home.

Creating a Home that Reflects Your Heart in Everyday Living. It’s a 5 week online course.

They have a lot planned! One of the best things is that in addition to 50+ project videos and all the other things they have planned, each week they’ll take a room from one of the participants and all five women will give their suggestions telling you how they would transform the room with their style. Doesn’t that sound like fun! Go here to a post on Jennifer’s blog where she gives you more info and where you can sign up. It starts October 22nd!

I’m thrilled that these two women that I’ve known a long time are branching out and starting new ventures!