DIY Inspiration: Amy & Chad's Kitchen Redeaux

It's a new year, and I'm feeling extra motivated to get moving on home improvement projects that I  

started last year (and years prior) and never quite completed. To me, there is nothing more satisfying

than seeing the fruition of things that were at one time only an idea.

Several months ago, I stumbled across Amy and Chad's DIY kitchen remodel on Apartment Therapy

and was completely enamored with their newly redesigned kitchen. It quickly became the inspiration for

my own kitchen remodel.

I love all of the red accent pieces, adding bright pops of color in their kitchen. The mint green walls are a nice contrast against the red. The bamboo roman shades and butcher block counter tops were also a great choice to add a natural element to their kitchen.

A cozy work space near the kitchen, which also carries over the mint and red theme.

{Credit: All photos are courtesy of Amy and Chad @ Triangle Honeymoon}

They made such subtle changes that really spruced up their already decent looking kitchen and better yet, without spending a ton of money. See links above for more before and after pictures of their remodel. Pictures from my own DIY kitchen makeover will be featured in an upcoming post. Stay tuned....

DIY Stamp Picture Collage

Ever since I was a little girl, my mother started collecting stamps for me. As I got older, I continued to save them myself  and before I knew it, I had a pretty extensive collection. When I saw this stamp picture in the West Elm catalog, it gave me the idea to do something similar to display some of my favorite stamps.

 (Credit: West Elm spring 2011 catalog)

A few months ago, I found this really inexpensive picture frame at Wal-Mart that cost me no more than $9 at the time. I knew this frame would be perfect for my stamp picture collage.

                                                 

First, I took all of the glass pieces out of the frame and traced around them on some sketch paper that I already had at home.

I then arranged all of the stamps I wanted to display in my collage on two of the pieces of cut sketch paper before using a clear glue stick to paste them.  For the center piece of my frame, I decided to display a collection of buttons, which I also accumulated over the years. Once they were arranged, I used a glue gun to glue them to the paper. For the other two frames, I used a picture which was given to me as a gift long ago (luckily,it fit like a glove) and an old post card I received, which I could not bring myself to part with since I am a lover of art.

and voilà... here is my version of the stamp picture