How to make modern tree branch silhouette art

Here's a great little DIY project for anyone who is:
1. Embarrassingly cheap and
2. Can't draw

I have long admired the modern triptychs by Inhabit at Velocity Art and Design but at $116, they were out of my reach.

I already had four IKEA Ribba frames with photos I needed elsewhere. I kept searching the Internet for high-resolution images of tree branches but couldn't find anything I liked. Tom said why not use real tree branches. Duh.

To create a similar set of art panels, you will need:

a set of picture frames (for an inexpensive option, try cb2.com's record album frame for $15.)
posterboard cut to fit
tree branches
flashlight

Lay the posterboard on the floor and suspend a flashlight above the tree branches so that a shadow is cast on the posterboard and trace the shadow's outline.



Go over the pencil lines with a magic marker.


And hang.

Feels good to freecycle

We received free. We gave free.

Last year we trash picked this wood lounge chair on Willow Street. This year our balcony is too crowded with this chair, two other chairs, a table, planters and a fountain. So we let it go.

That's Bromeliad Living - being blessed by the beneficence of our well-heeled neighborhood but also enjoying watching its squeeky wheels roll away.

First peony of the spring

At least the first one I've seen.

At least I think it's a peony.

Spring Cure - the last of it

It's the last week of Apartment Therapy's Spring Cure, and we are supposed to be having dinner parties and celebrating our newfound tidiness. Instead, Tom and I did pretty much everything we were supposed to do over the eight weeks and packed it into a day. Tom's closet now looks like a display at a men's store.

I got completely obsessed and actually "styled" the pantry.

Saturday we had a breakfast party with friends in our building. We made our fancy coffee maker portable and rolled it into our friends' apartment.

They made bacon-wrapped eggs with polenta. (Recipe here.)

Office makeover before and after

Part of Apartment Therapy's Spring Cure involves cleaning up your home office. I don't have one, but I did clean up my office office. My work cube often ends up being a dumping ground for found items, unfinished DIY projects and computer hardware. It was starting to make me crazy. Here's the before.

Here's the after. Still plenty of bizarre stuff (all of it free from one source or another.)

I made the memo board. The cards are from friends or from art galleries in DUMBO.

Finally found a restrained use of shoe decorating. (Some of you may remember my unfortunate first attempt at this.)

Squirrely

It's finally gotten warm enough in New York to open the door and venture out onto our balcony. We were immediately greeted by the neighborhood squirrel. Tom has been feeding him/her/it honey roasted peanuts and sunflower seeds.

As midwesterners transplanted to NYC, we are obviously starved for encounters with nature, but this squirrel is scary tame. Assertive city squirrels are known to march into apartments and open the cupboards. I'm just waiting for him to whip out a little knife and demand my nuts.

Before and After: Plant stand to modern side table

It was finally warm enough for me to finish sanding this rusty painted plant stand I rescued from the trash about a year ago. I had been using it as a stand for our mini electric grill. But I was inspired by the Platner side table to upcycle it into a modern side table.

Design Within Reach

Sanding in an apartment is an ordeal. I took the project out on our little balcony whenever it got above freezing. A friend cut a circle of Plexiglass for me. Here's the after: