DIY Vintage Book Page Table Runner

For Amy’s bridal shower, I created a table runner from old romance novels. Below, i’ll walk you through the steps to create your own for any event.

Roll out your ikea paper to the length you want your table runner to be. This will be the base of your project. I found it easier to have something to glue the pages to instead of trying to glue the pages to themselves. You’re then going to carefully remove the pages from your books and lay them onto the paper glueing as you go. They don’t need much glue, you can go back after and glue down the areas that stick out. It’s pretty straight forward. It really looks best if you find a book that has pages that are more of an older yellow tone, it gives more of a vintage vibe.

Front Door Makeover

In my building everyone has different door designs, colours, numbers, knobs etc. Our door was in bad shape and in need of some serious TLC. It was painted with a nasty silver acrylic, it had a brushy texture and it was very chipped and scuffed up. To top it off the previous owners were very obsessed with security. They had several locks and barriers around the door. While I do like security, I don’t like how ugly it can be. Unfortunately we couldn’t replace the door, because in an ideal world we’d just have one nice looking knob and lock. But it wasn’t in the budget to replace several knobs and locks, those things are expensive!

So we just decided to update the superficial parts of the door, using paint we already had sitting around from our interior. We spent all the money on the numbers, splurging on a custom modern style, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to buy generic ones from the big box store.

As you can see I was a bit too excited to start on the project, so I don’t have many before photos. We ripped off the old numbers as soon as the new ones arrived and then realized we should have snapped a photo. We washed the door and scraped off any loose paint. The new numbers came with a grid to align them just right, so all we had to do was drill holes where it was marked.

We purchased our modern numbers from Bradford Hardware in Vancouver. Although they were fairly expensive, we think it really adds style to the door. Personally I think the cost of the numbers should be based on weight, because I certainly don’t think the 1 should be the same cost as the 4. Anyway, i’ll stop my rant before it gets out of control.

My “after” photos really don’t do the door justice, the lighting in the hallway is very dark and it was taken with my cell phone, but you get the idea. I just really wanted to blog about it while I got the chance.

The paint colour is Benjamin Moore Night Horizon in a matte finish. If we had extra budget, we would have bought a semi-gloss paint for the door, just because we’ve noticed it gets very dirty very quick when you rub up against it.

Here’s the 2 places i’d recommend buying numbers from if you feel like doing a mini makeover on your apartment door or house numbers.

Recipe Adventure: Meyer Lemon Sorbet

By Nicole & Andrew

We spotted Meyer Lemons on sale at the produce store and this never happens, so naturally we thought “let’s make sorbet!” And I may have also had lemons on the brain from hearing all about It’s To Die For Lemon Loaf by Erin Ireland.

Ingredients:
8-10 Meyer Lemons (approx. 2 cups juice)
3/4 cups water
1/2 cup sugar
Zest of 2 Meyer Lemons (less if you don’t like it tart)

Method:
Squeeze the lemons. You can strain the juice to remove pulp, but we like the texture, but don’t forget to remove the seeds.

In a sauce pan combine water and sugar and heat until all the sugar is dissolved. Add in zest and lemon juice, stir for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Let cool, then place in refrigerator until completely cold.

Pour mixture into your ice cream maker and mix for 20-25 minutes until the sorbet comes together. It should look like a slushy. Transfer to a container and freeze for at least 5 hours (if you can resist to wait that long).

Party Favours

For my friends bridal shower, I wanted to create a simple and useable party favour. I purchased some tiny glass bottles from Michaels and filled them with Japanese Roasted Rice Tea. Then I designed and printed small labels to hang on the bottles with string from the dollar store. The photos explain it further.

Earl Grey Cake – Bridal Shower Edition

This weekend I hosted a bridal shower at our apartment. I went all out and made my first 4 layer cake, Vanilla and Chocolate Earl Grey with Earl Grey butter cream icing. I had previously blogged about this cake, but decided to experiment and do a chocolate version, the contrast when you cut it open, looks so fun!

In the next few weeks i’ll be blogging about a few of the decorations I created for the shower, but I felt the need to share the cake photos now.

Ceiling Fan

We’ve been living in our loft for about 7 months now, I can’t believe how time flies! We only have a few things left on our list for renovation/fixing up:

Replace ceiling fan
Install a pendant light fixture in the entrance
Replace all switches and plugs
Refinish the upstairs railings
Storage for the bedroom
Storage for the living room
Make a bathtub bench/tray

This past weekend we got our hands on a very tall ladder and Andrew climbed up 18ft in the air to replace the nasty 80s ceiling fan that was half falling down and very noisy. This fan may look half decent in the photos, but what I didn’t photograph was the nasty gold trim, dirt, dents and overall sketchiness.

We’ve discovered that it’s very necessary to have a fan in a loft space. We have a gas fire place and the heat from it rises straight up making the bedroom area really warm, we need the fan to push the warm air back down.

DIY Scrabble Coasters

This past Christmas I made a gift for a friend, knowing that she liked to play Scrabble. I couldn’t afford to buy fancy presents this year, so a craft project was a fun solution.

Unfortunately I don’t have step by step photos for this project, so hopefully my instructions are good enough. It’s really more about the idea, you could use just about any materials as a backing and use wood glue to set the tiles in place.

Here’s what the final product look like, 4 in total, each one has a hidden word. I used words that relate to drinking, “stir, pint, wine, brew.” I wanted to have 4 words in each coaster, but unfortunately it was tough finding enough letters to make lots of words.

The Scrabble tiles can be purchased online, but I found mine at a local craft store.

Items you’ll need:

Scrabble tiles (16 per coaster)
Thick felt with built in adhesive backing
Utility knife

First layout the letters how you’d like them for the coaster. Then, peel off the adhesive backing and lay your tiles as tight together as you can onto the sticky side of your felt. Use your utility knife to trim off extra felt around the edges. They can be done at this step, but I decided to trim my edges with thin pieces of felt. Adhesive felt is very forgiving, just make sure you buy the super thick type so your coasters won’t be floppy.