Away

We are here. Will return in a week. Will have flown nearly 30,000 miles. You will never ever guess where.

Image: Olivier Cirendini, Lonely Planet

Another lighting dealio

Bought this for $50 and free shipping at the Crate and Barrel kiddie store Land of Nod, bringing to an end my year-long task lamp saga. (For evidence of my insanity, click here or here or here.)

You too can get free shipping until January 24 by entering the code YIPPEE on checkout. This chrome lamp lowballs the thrifty $79 West Elm Industrial Task Lamp and is neck and neck with IKEA. And it totally beats out these lovelies below at $580 a piece. On price at least.

Speaking of Moroccan pendants

From JCPenney. It was $99 and has recently popped up to $115. But still a deal, I'd say. Go JCP.

DIY art with kids' drawings

Items needed:

• multiple white frames from Pottery Barn, IKEA or similar
  
• plain paper
  
• box of crayons or markers
  
• one or more small children

From Velvet & Linen.

My DIY: No sew faux fur pillow

While other people were building entire beds, I hide some stuff in the name of decorating.

This faux fur bolster is a cape I thrifted. I loved the silver-grey color of the fur, but unfortunately the cape was sized for a linebacker, and I never got around to altering it. It took up too much space in the closet, so I folded in the collar, rolled it up and pinned it. You could do this with that fur fabric you've never done anything with.

Voila. Free fur pillow. For more faux fur projects for people who actually sew, check out Burda's roundup.

In other news, we completely rearranged the living room, which is a big exciting deal when it's practically your only room. (And, due to the wonders of blogging, I know it was almost exactly two years ago this month since we last moved our furniture around and then did it again a week later.)

It also allows me to highlight my beloved media cabinet, which Mr. Bromeliad made a couple of years ago, just so you know we do serious DIYs also. Sometimes. At least every few years. Or at least he does.

I puffed up our sagging sofa pillows without buying any pillow fill. I have a vast collection of unused but somehow valuable throw pillows. I stuffed one throw pillow inside of each sofa pillow and rearranged the loose fill around it. Now all four sofa pillows are fluffed like new, and I gained about two square feet of storage space where the throw pillows used to be.

I love the new room arrangement. The room feels bigger even though there is more in it. Now it just needs something rustic on top the armoire and some more lighting and some art on the wall and, oh, some throw pillows. Maybe a little one on that chair made with this fabric.

DIY bed and wall stencil

My bloggie friend Caroline at The Feminist Housewife MADE this bed and stenciled the wall.

Get the bed how-to here and the stencil info here. (The stencil itself came from Sunny's Paints.)

I'm now too ashamed to post what I made this weekend.

DIY Moroccan pendant

I think I need to try this one, or a version of it.

From Instructables with a pdf pattern and everything.

DIY rosette quilt

If you get snowed in and the power goes out, you may want to consider making your own Anthropologie Rosette Quilt like the ladies at Kojo Designs.

It only takes 56 knotted squares to make a king-sized quilt, a project that should last you the entire winter. Or more.