Yay! DIY

Buy a Comforter, Give One to Someone in Need

by Erin

By day Lia and I work in PR, so we’re constantly thinking about things like CSR programs. Some companies come up with ones that I think are really, really cool. One came across our email from The Company Store the other day, and I thought this particular program was pretty neat, so I thought I would share it with all of you, in case you were in the market for a new blanket or comforter.

In the beginning of January, The Company Store launched a Buy One, Give One Comforter program, which will run until the beginning of March. For every comforter purchased from their website or catalog, The Company Store will donate a comforter to a child in need.

That’s pretty neat, huh? And, if you’re already going to buy a down comforter, why not buy one where you can also help someone else out?

I know that everyone who reads this blog is aware that homelessness is a problem. But it’ll make my liberal bones happy if I’m preachy about it for a few seconds by sharing some facts on homelessness:

Families comprise nearly 40% of the homeless population and are its fastest growing segment.
This year 3.5 million people will experience homelessness in the United States.
One out of every 50 children will experience homelessness before the age of 18.
More than 200,000 children are homeless in America tonight.
More than 1.3 million children will experience homelessness this year.
15% of Americans live in poverty, including 1 in 5 children.
Every 29 seconds a child is born into poverty in the United States

**The company store is sending us a blanket for helping them spread the word about the campaign. I’ll give the blanket to my sweet co-blogger, Lia. But no matter what they offered us, I only wrote about it because I think its a really neat program and I truly believe homelessness is a problem we all need to work together to fix!

Jan 26

How to Crochet Videos

by Lia

In talking with some friends recently, we learned that quite a few of us learned to crochet, knit and do other crafts solely through video. I thought that was kind of interesting since these are typically forms of art that are passed down or taught.

So I thought some of you out there might like to see the video I’ve been using to teach myself to crochet (as I mentioned briefly in the living room redo post.) You can find the link here. I like this one because the quality is really high and the woman goes nice and slow so you can really see what she is doing. Plus, this looks like the type of lady who crochets, and I just liked that.

Posted in Crafting | Tagged how to crochet, how to crochet videos | Leave a comment

Jan 24

Living Room Redo

by Lia

For someone who loves perusing interior decor sites, reading magazines about architecture and decorating, and just generally loves pretty things, I am spectacularly lazy when it comes to actually bringing these elements of style into my own home. In fact, two years after moving into my current apartment, I think most people would guess that we just moved in, which, let’s be honest, is shameful.

So when we recently resigned our lease for two more years, I was really inspired to take the bull by the horns and actually make our house look like a home. The only problem is, as mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’m on a very tight budget in 2012. But where there is a will, there is a way.

I have three main areas of focus: the living room, the master bedroom and the kitchen, as these are the areas where we spend the most time. I showed a brief preview of the bedroom last week, but the living room came together a little faster thanks to some super-helpful tips from a truly wonderful book: SouthernLiving Style. Not only is the book absolutely gorgeous, but it offers really easy tips to update any room in your home.

I’m a big fan of cozy rooms, with mixed-yet-matching patterns that don’t shy away from color but aren’t super bright. For the living room, I wanted to create something calming, that takes advantage of the great natural light we get in the room. The only problem? Without much money, you have to be clever. How clever? Well, the couches I’m working with look like this:

What you see here is a hand-me-down couch that despite being clean and extremely comfortable, looks anything but -covered in make up stains, food spills and other accidents from over the years. The pillows were a little something I picked up in a bad attempt to make it better.

But with new couches out of the question, I was a bit stuck until I picked up SouthernLiving Style. Imagine my delight when right there in the front of the book, they give a whole lesson on slip covers as an easy way to transform couches. Say what?!

So, I searched high and low for months to find two slip covers – one for the sofa, one for the equally disgusting love seat – that could bring these babies back to life. Since I loved my new pillows, I used their palette to guide me during my search – looking for anything in dark green or brown. Finally, I found them at a great home store in my Queens neighborhood – two, dark green, corduroy slip covers from SureFit. The total cost for two? About $130 – just a fraction of what a new couch would cost. Here is the transformation!

Please excuse that I did a less-than-stellar job at tucking everything in nice and tight before taking this shot and they are a little wrinkly on the bottom. But not bad right?

And that’s not all. To help finish the room, I:

Painted the walls a nice tan color (Behr’s “Plateau”) to create a nice, neutral wall color
Decided to use the end table I repainted last week in this room versus the bedroom.

For more funkiness, I had salvaged these lamps from my apartment’s giveaway pile as their greens, blues and browns matched the pillows. I put one on the end table, and one on the bookshelf to provide some symmetry.

Put a comfy throw blanket a few shades lighter than the paint across the loveseat. What you see there yarn-wise is me teaching myself to crochet so I can crochet some cozy afghans to continue this trend!