I'm a sucker for free stuff

I was driving to class when I happened to glance over at the trash pad area of our apartment complex and saw these two gorgeous barstools just sitting there. I'm pretty sure they were crying out, "Saaaaaave meeeee!" I slammed on my brakes, threw my car in park and ran out to inspect them. I couldn't believe how nice they were, and even though I was completely embarassed to be taking things that were sitting next to the dumpster, I had to have them (hey, at least they weren't IN the dumpster!).

Once I got them inside I realized that they were missing three stretcher bars and were a bit wobbly, but a quick trip to the Home Depot for some dowel rods and paint and they should be good as new.

Now I have a question for all of you. I like the black that's on these chairs and they match our dining chairs pretty well (in color and style) but I'm wondering if I should branch out. What color would you paint them or would you just leave them as is?

Something is a wee bit different around here

I'm happy to announce that Hirondellerustique.blogspot.com has now become Hirondellerustique.com! Woohoo! I feel so.... official? Anyways, I did a little happy dance when I typed it in for the first time.

And for a bit more news, I was given another award by pk over at the fabulous blog Room Remix! *squee!* Thank you! I'm still blushing over this, especially since I've been a bad blogger lately due to being crazy busy with school.


For this award, I am to nominate 5 lovely blogs. I chose:

1. Its the little things that make a house a home
2. Paris Hotel Boutique Journal
3. High Heeled Foot in the Door
4. Funky Junk Interiors
5. Thrifty Decor Chick

Hopefully I can squeeze in some time this week to hang around here a bit more, I miss all of you and I've been dying to post about some new projects and decor ideas. Hope everyone had a great weekend and here's to an even better week!

Award!

I've only been in the blog world for a little over a year but I'm amazed at how many wonderful people and friends I've met thus far. I hit a new milestone of 100+ followers and I'm so thankful for all of you! You're all the reason I post and I love waking up in the mornings to read your comments and head over to your blogs to find out a little bit about the awesome people behind them. One such person I've befriended this year is Roeshel from The DIY Showoff and Evangelin's Vine. She's kindly tagged me with the Fabulous Blog Award, and I couldn't be more flattered!
As recipient of this award, I'm to name 5 obsessions and tag 5 fabulous blogs. Here goes:

1. Decorating - I'm obsessed with decorating because I love coming home to a space I feel comfortable in (and thankfully my husband and I are on the same page as far as style goes)! I always love being in a space that inspires me. We've filled our little apartment with the things that mean the most to us and have slowly been purging the clutter, which makes for a room that has a LOT of meaning. I always find it fun to see how other people have decorated their homes. It gives me a little window into what their lives might be like and finding interesting decorations in one's home can reveal a lot about a person's quirky personality or a memory worth sharing.

2. DIY projects - I find that restrictions are often the source of creativity. The more restrictions and fewer options a person has, the more they are likely to be creative. We've been sticking to a pretty tight budget since starting college and it seems like these have been the most creative years of my life. I love pursuing do-it-yourself projects because the rewards are so much higher when you create or re-purpose something yourself and each project has its own uniqueness and personality.

3. Art - I'm a self-taught artist (although going to college has greatly increased my ability to draw/paint). I drew a lot of animals when I was a child, as well as a lot of houses (hmmm foreshadowing perhaps?) I always put a sun up in one of the corners of my paper and it always had a smiley face. I'm glad I still have the same sunny outlook on life, and that drawing still makes me happy.

4. 3D Modeling - This is still a fairly new chapter in my life but I uncover more that I love about it every day. It's fascinating to me to be able to create an entire world for someone's eyes to delve into. I'm a huge nerd and I lovelovelove video games. For me though, I'm not really "playing" the game so much as looking at the environments/buildings within the game and allowing them to hypnotize me. As a side project to my schoolwork this year, I'm going to be looking into more of the interior design aspects of 3D modeling.

5. Fairy Tales - I've started a collection and can't get enough of these beautiful books filled with enchanting stories. My parents used to read them to me as a kid for bedtime stories and I suppose I could credit that for my huge imagination (I am definitely a daydreamer). I also love the illustrations, fonts, and motifs in many of the old books and often look at them for inspiration.

And now onto 5 of the blogs I think are fabulous (it was really hard to pick just 5!)

1. Francine Gardner - Art de Vivre - Her work (and her showroom) is completely amazing. I love her eye for design!
2. Treasures From the Heart - Barbara has an adorable gift shop and a keen eye for creating the treasures within it. She's always a great person to "run into" in the blogging world. I love her writing style as well!
3. Peanut Petunia - I love her decorating style and she's always coming up with amazing projects I wish I could try out too! Her house is more charming by the day!
4. Willow Decor - I find so much inspiration from her blog. I could spend hours there! She's also one of the friendliest people I've ever "met"!
5. Beneath My Heart - Traci's home and DIY projects are stunning and her talent really shines through with each project she posts. She also has a wonderful way with words and I always look forward to reading her posts.

Fabulous Blog and Website Alert!

One of my new favorite blogs is Marley&Lockyer. I stumbled upon it while google searching for rooms with a rustic appeal and wow was I floored! Ness, the author, has such excellent taste! Her blog is filled with inspirational pictures reminiscent of European Design and Rustic Revival (think cottage/farmhouse style). I started to save some of the pictures she's posted for my own inspiration file, but stopped after I noticed I was saving every single one. When I'm in need of inspiration I guess I'll know where I'll be headed!

I know it's early to be talking about the holidays but her Christmas posts are some of my favorites. Somehow the images she's collected sum up entirely what I love about Christmas: the coziness, the cheerful colors, the spirit of giving, and the magic of it all.
Ness is also an amazing designer/artist and even has her own Etsy shop filled with fabulous decor items. I'm in love with these little clay tags, aren't they neat?


And thanks to Marley&Lockyer and Willow Decor I've become a new fan of a Norwegian store by the name of Slettvoll. Why didn't I see this earlier?

I love the neutral color palette for their rooms as well as the richness of textures.

I'm dying to make some cable knit pillows for winter.


Our own office is a work in progress, but I'm making mental notes of how this space offers organization, room to spread out, light pouring in and of course, style.
Those chairs look like an incredibly comfy place to curl up with a book. I love the grain sack style pillows, the oversize lanterns and the cable knit throw. I like how the light gray shutters add just a touch of contrast to the french doors and wainscoting on the walls.


I love the idea of having real (or real looking) trees indoors.
This dining room makes my heart go pitter-patter. It's very classy with its crisp white drapes, wing back chairs and contemporary lamps, yet laid-back with its cozy sofa full of pillows, natural fiber rug and slip covered chairs. The votive candles and flowers add just a touch of glam as well. It looks so inviting!
I'm really looking forward to future inspirations from these sites!

Giveaway winner!

Thank you to all of you for entering my giveaway! I got to meet many interesting and friendly people and I enjoyed reading all of your comments.

And without further ado, the winner of the Contemporary Birds print is....


Helena Marette!

Congratulations and I hope to get in touch with you soon so I can mail off your print (I'm so excited!). Thanks again everyone!

Giveaway Ends Tonight!

Just wanted to give everyone the heads up that my giveaway for the Contemporary Birds Print ends at 11:59pm tonight so be sure to enter! I'll be choosing a winner tomorrow via random.org. Good luck!

Join the parties!

Hope everyone is having a great Labor Day! We're going to be spending it with some friends later on tonight and tomorrow we start our first day of school (eek!). But for today I wanted to share a couple of great parties you're invited to!

First up is the Fall Festival from The DIY Showoff, featuring your very own fall/autumn DIY projects!

This party is being hosted on Mondays in September, October and November. While I don't have anything for this week, I'll be prepping some projects for the upcoming parties. I'd love to see what you submit, so head on over join the party!

Next up is a Before and After Party from Thrifty Decor Chic! If you have any before and after projects you'd like to share, be sure to submit them there! I've been spending the better half of my morning looking through many of the submissions, and wow they are great! I've fallen in love with several of the projects, including this gorgeous and rustic front entry makeover from Our Extreme Home Makeover Experience, an awesome DIY chalkboard shelf from Rocky Bella, a beautiful chandelier makeover from Ashley's Thrifty Living, and a gorgeous living room makeover from Eat, Drink, and Decorate. Of course, there are many other fabulous before and afters so be sure to have a look for yourself!

Thrifty Decor

A few days ago I started working on a project for our bedroom (ooo it's a secret!), but I ran out of supplies halfway through. Since I was visiting at my parent's house, mom and I drove into town to get more things and happened to stop in at a few nearby thrift stores afterwords. Thus began our 4+ hour shopping trip. We didn't end up getting home until after dark and since my project needed to be worked on outside, I couldn't finish it (oops!). But I did score some great little do-dads I'm so excited to decorate with. Plus they were easy on the wallet! Here are my finds for the day:

A scalloped milk glass teardrop compote. I think this would be lovely as a serving piece for fruit salad, or even filled with ornaments for a Chirstmas tabletop decoration.

A Vintage FTD (Fostoria) Oak Leaf Milk Glass Compote. I saw several of these while shopping around and may end up going back for more. I was going to use this one in a Christmas tablescape but perhaps it would be nice to have a set for serving hot soups one could drink right out of the cup!

A pair of ceramic quails/partiridges. I'm considering painting them white but their gold tones look so nice mixed with the white compotes for the holidays. Perhaps once Christmas has passed...

A ceramic pear.


A small cakestand. I love its smokey color and endless possibilities. I can see a pile of fluffy white peonies resting on top, or perhaps used as a serving piece with an added glass cloche and some fine cheeses.

Or it could be used to display fruit!
Little did I know thrift stores would be a great place to find ribbon. I'm always in need of ribbon and when a bag full of different kinds and colors popped out at me for only $4, I nabbed it. Later on I added up the cost if I were to buy each spool of ribbon new (the price per yard stickers were still on the spools and I tallied up how many yards each had left) and the total came out to $82.21. What a huge savings!

A metal bowl. I love how it is reminiscent of vintage trophies with its elegant handles.
I painted it a flat black and plan to distress it to bring out the rich browns underneath.
A striking piece of coral.
It now rests on top of a pile of my favorite books on our glass coffee table (the table was a craigslist find for $19), along with the numbered linen coasters I made.

Some glass jars with corks. I already had one similar to the larger one in this picture. You might remember seeing it from my DIY Bulletin Board project.
I'm now using them as a chic way to store office supplies!A candle holder. The black scraggly tree with orange beads reminded me of Halloween and I thought it would make a great decoration.
A pair of brass deer. Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year and I'm always on the lookout for new decorations. These stags had seen better days, but I couldn't resist getting them.
I would have loved to keep them gold but a fresh coat of white paint hid their chips and blemishes and gave them a more modern look. I can't wait to use them on my fireplace mantel this winter!
Can you guess how much I spent on all of these thrifty finds? A total of $52.26 after tax. Not bad for several decorations I'll be sure to use for years to come!

I love sewing!

Well so far my $25 sewing machine has been a complete success, I am just thrilled to pieces with it! Remember the teaser picture of the fabric from a few weeks ago? I made some coasters for our glass coffee table (yay no more water rings!). I was so happy with how they turned out I decided to make some for my Etsy shop. I love typography and these were a subtle way to bring it into our living room, and they added some nice texture to our otherwise plain coffee table.



It's been really hard not to buy every kind of fabric I see at Joann's and Calico Corners though, I feel like a whole new avenue has been opened up and my fingers are itching to create! The next project for me is some new pillows!

What a week!

School is starting next week and because of that I've been scrambling to finish up some DIY projects before my time is snatched away. It's been a whirlwind of a week, let me tell you! It seems strange to me that this will be my last summer vacation ever (unless I go for my Master's that is!). Speaking of school, I realized that I never shared what became of Winston, a character from my animated short. I posted about him almost a year ago now, so to do a quick recap: As juniors, our major project was to create a 30 second animated short by ourselves. We had 8 months to complete our projects, including working out a good story idea, visual development, modeling our characters, environments, and props in 3D, rigging, skinning, animating and texturing everything. My story was based on a nerdy guy, Winston, who notices he has a dead pixel on his computer screen. Here's how it came to be:

Quick character sketch and color comps

Since the overall feel of my short was comical, I chose to use light and airy colors throughout to keep it happy and upbeat. I saw this room and couldn't help but pull colors from it. How could anyone be sad in a room like that?
Model Sheet Turnarounds


The first step for 3D was to design the environment (or in other words, the scene). This is just a rough design, but I've come to realize how much I enjoy working as an environment artist (it shouldn't have come as a surprise for me, considering I'm head over heels in love with home decor/design, but up until this class I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do once I graduated.)


The room changed a bit once I hit the final stages and I still feel like it isn't perfect, but then again this was the first environment I'd ever designed in 3D, as well as the first human character. I'd show you the whole 30 second video but quite honestly I am terrible at animating (something I realized during class) so woohoo for screenshots! And without further ado, here's the story:

Winston is working away in his office when he happens to notice a dead pixel on his monitor screen.



Confused, he begins to poke the dead pixel.
We zoom in to see his finger poking the screen in slow motion. The camera pans to the inside of the monitor...
... which reveals the dead pixel surrounded by thousands of tiny pixels screaming for their lives as the giant finger pokes the screen. The stress is too much for them. With each wave of shock a handful of pixels turn black and die until...
The entire screen goes black, leaving Winston very confused indeed.
So there you have it! Someday (when I'm actually decent at 3D) I'd love to re-do this short and make it worth writing home about, but I'm glad for the experience (and for finally figuring out what I'd love to do for a career!).