Awesome free PSD mockups and backgrounds

Designers, have you visited Graphic Burger yet? It's a site full of terrific free Photoshop mockups you can insert your own designs into— great for helping clients visualize a final product. Also download free background images, PSD text effects, icons, and more. All art is fair game for both personal and commercial work.

I played with the faux letterpress effect, above.

Our new skill: putting up wallpaper

I heard through the grapevine that the previous owners of our 1899 house spent ages removing wallpaper (though they didn't get as far as this bathroom, it looks like). So what do I go and do? Put up more wallpaper. I can't help it. The house wants what it wants.

When Wallpaper Direct offered to send a few complimentary rolls of the design of my choice, I jumped at the chance. They have tons of beautiful options, so choosing was painful. Finally I picked Sophie Conran's Balustrade Claret. You guys know I love orange, but I can't put much of it with the dark woodwork or it looks like a 70s Halloween party. Yet I need bright colors in here to make me happy on gloomy days when the house is dark. So. Fuschia it is.


We've never put up wallpaper before, but we learned how by watching this terrific video by Chris Boylan. He makes it look so easy, doesn't he? Our paper is the modern "paste the wall" type, which means, you guessed it, you roll the paste onto the wall like you would paint, instead of applying the paste to the paper (or wetting the paper, like some pre-pasted types require.)

Now, I'm pretty sure that whoever lives here after us is not going to want fuschia wallpaper in their dining room unless they are crazy like we are. So to be helpful and kind to the future people, we primed the wall first with Shieldz Universal Wallcovering Primer. The can says it "assures easy removal," so we figured it couldn't hurt. The primer requires at least two hours of drying time before pasting paper on top, so we did this Friday night.


Saturday morning we cut the wallpaper into pieces for the wall (see the video for the how-to), and I mixed up a batch of Zinsser SureGrip All Purpose Adhesive. It's powder you add to water and stir to make glue. But somehow I overlooked the word "slowly" in the instructions, and in my great enthusiasm, I dumped the whole container of powder into my pail of water all at once. Instantly two huge SureGrip dumplings formed. Despite whisking and mashing until our arms almost fell off, the starchy blobs refused to dissolve. It seemed easier just to start over, so we bought another carton at Ace Hardware. Since I can't be trusted to add powder correctly, Alex mixed it up while I made lunch.

Then with full bellies and a lump-free pan of glue, we started on the wall. The beautiful thing we discovered is that the paste is quite forgiving. You can slide the paper around a little bit or peel it off and reposition it, so we ended up enormously pleased with how the seams matched up. Our wall is bowed and has some unevenness, but that didn't seem to make matching the seams any harder. Though it did take a few hours longer than we'd guessed. Friends told us that wallpapering would test our marriage, but we managed to finish up still liking each other. I would absolutely do it again.


I'm not good at indoor photography in dim rooms, but here it is! Ignore the $4 Goodwill lamp and the brassy chandelier we dislike and our IKEA furniture that we dream of replacing, and then mentally add some simple art in white frames to that wall, okay?


The sand-textured swirlies are outlined in metallic silver, so the sheen is really pretty. The color looks richer and less neon in person than in these photos, which don't do it justice, but you can kind of get the idea. A huge thank you to Wallpaper Direct! Next project for the room: curtains.

A book of paper snowflake and star instructions

Recently a review copy of Snowflakes, Sunbursts, and Stars: 75 Exquisite Paper Designs to Fold, Cut, and Curl showed up at my door. I love paper folding and cutting, and any medallion-type design with radiating modules, so this is right up my alley.

Christmas is coming so it's the perfect time to start folding paper decorations. Hang them on your tree, string them as garlands, or decorate packages with pretty paper toppers. Your friends and family will either be incredibly impressed or conclude you have way too much time on your hands.


The paper models are all origami, kirigami, and quilling projects with step-by-step directions and templates. A sampling of what you can make:








I tried out a star. Fun! You can get Snowflakes, Sunbursts, and Stars right here at Amazon.

Experiment: mayonnaise to treat water stains

I bought a solid wood table with a little drawer at a flea market for $30. It does a fine job of holding up a lamp in the parlor, but it needs some work. The top has water stains and dried-out wood with fine cracks, and the sides have some sort of peeling varnish. But the size is perfect and it's very sturdy.

I'd heard that mayonnaise can remove water stains. Since this table was not a big investment and couldn't really look much worse, I had nothing to lose. Plus I was making coleslaw yesterday so the mayo was already out. Some for the cabbage, some for the table.

I smeared mayonnaise on the worst of the stained areas. Then I figured what the heck, and spread it all over the table stop.


I wiped it all off after 1 1/2 hours and the difference was pretty amazing. The table had turned a deep, rich red-brown, the cracks were less noticeable, and most of the shallow water spots were gone. A few of the deeper marks were left, so I applied more mayo to those and covered them with paper towels to keep the mayo from drying out, then let it sit overnight.


This morning I wiped it all off with paper towels. The table felt very slightly oily, like after you first put on hand lotion, so I wiped it with a water and vinegar mixture which removed the oily feel. Check out the pre-mayo and post-mayo pictures.


Pretty impressive. The deepest water marks still show a little, but it's a vast improvement!

A gift from C. Wonder

As a kid I always hoped the mailman would bring what we referred to as a Wonderful Surprise: something unexpected and delightful that comes out of nowhere. Our mailbox on the farm was at the end of a long driveway, and Mum or I would trek down and open the box. Of course it usually contained junk mail; Wonderful Surprises are rare and elusive, as everyone knows. But the other day I got one!

Now if you want to get technical, it wasn't 100% a surprise. I was aware that some unknown thing was coming, but then I forgot about it. C. Wonder, a retailer I remembered seeing on an episode of The Pitch, had emailed days before and offered to send a gift. Very mysterious. I love mysteries, and if their name is C. Wonder, it could possibly be a Wonderful Surprise.

Yes. It was a box inside a box containing a handmade paper ornament containing... cashmere penguin gloves. Hee, so cute! (Update: the colored fingertips work on touch screens; nifty!)

I looked up C. Wonder's website to find out what else they offer. Apparently they sell happy things.


A selection: Fox sweater, zebra plates, gold ikat plates, zigzag mug, dotted bowl, chevron gloves, bow buckle belt, and orange throw (didn't see that one on my quest for orange blankies). They do lots of monogramming for personalized gifts, too. Browse here!

How to cover lampshades with fabric

One of the things I did this weekend was dress up these lamps I got at an antique store. Check out their new outfits!

The lamps didn't come with shades, so I don't know what the original shape would have been. I searched high and low at Target, HomeGoods, and any stores I could think of that sell new shades, but couldn't find a size that wouldn't look silly on these slender bases.

So I Googled online places that will make custom-sized shades, and finally selected Fenchel Shades. You can choose the shape and exact dimensions of your new shades and they'll make them for you. Since I was kind of paranoid about getting it wrong, I had Alex hold a cylindrical wastebasket upside down over one of the lamps for reference while I walked across the room and eyed it from afar. I measured the trash can and then determined how much narrower and taller I would like the shade to be. Then I made a hasty paper replica with taped-together pieces of printer paper and Alex held it up for size. (Measure 68 times, cut once, as the saying goes.) The template was approved!

I ordered simple cylindrical shades with plain white linen since I loved the pretty pottery bases so much, I wasn't sure I wanted to overpower them with a crazy patterned shade. I figured as long as I had the shade itself, I could monkey with it later if I changed my mind.

Each new shade cost $29, but shipping and handling was a little steep, so the total for each custom shade ended up $38. It was worth it to me.


And then of course I decided the white was too boring against pale walls and wanted to crazy it up. I ordered a yard of this African diamond fabric from Etsy. The pink will go with the parlor chairs, and I can't resist a geometric print.


I've read tutorials where you sew a sleeve and slip it over your shade. Or sew bias tape to the top and bottom of the shade before you adhere the fabric. Unfortunately sewing usually makes me want to throw my machine through a window, so I went the no-sew route and used Krylon Easy Tack repositionable adhesive (purchased at Michaels) and Aleene's Tacky Glue (purchased I forget where, but it's easy to find).


First I pulled off the trim from the top and bottom of the shade so the new fabric would lie flat.


Then I cut a piece of fabric to fit the shade, with about 3/4" extra at the top and bottom and roughly 3" extra width, which I planned to trim later. My shades are perfect cylinders so I cut a rectangle, but if you're working with a cone-shaped lamp, you'll need to cut an arc shape. Make a pattern by rolling your lamp across a large piece of paper (the back side of wrapping paper works), tracing the top and bottom edges with a pencil. Then add the extra for overlap and cut your fabric using the paper pattern as a guide.

I folded over 1/4" of fabric and pressed it along one of the short edges of my rectangle. This hides the raw edge where the fabric ends meet on the shade.


I sprayed the back side of the fabric lightly with the repositionable spray adhesive and rolled the lamp shade on it, making sure to keep the fabric's print lined up straight. If it started to go crooked, I peeled the fabric off and tried again. (This adhesive is wonderfully forgiving— you can do this over and over until it's perfect.) I cut off some of the excess overlapping fabric and smoothed down the seam.


I figured out how much fabric I wanted to wrap over the frame at the top and bottom of the shade, then trimmed off the excess there, too.


This shade has a spider fitting with spokes that intersect the shade, so I cut a slit to help the fabric fit over it.


I applied Aleene's Tacky Glue along the exposed fabric edge and wrapped it over the shade's rim.


This particular fabric doesn't ravel easily, so I left the edge raw, secured by glue. A lot of folks cover the edges with bias tape, or cut the fabric even with the rim of the shade and hot glue decorative trim along the edge, but I liked the simple, clean look with no trim. I'm super happy with how these turned out!


If you're not into fabric, here's another idea. Cut silhouettes, lettering, or a pattern out of vinyl contact paper and stick it inside the lampshade. It will magically appear when you turn the lamp on. You could change the shapes for holidays, amuse your kids with different silhouettes, or cut beautiful lacy patterns. (How removable the shapes are depends on the surface of your lamp and how you adhere them, obviously. Flammability also will vary!)

Printable 2014 owl calendar freebie

My Owl Barn's annual printable calendar is back! The 2014 version features owl artwork from 50 artists. Choose your favorite 12 illustrations, assign each to a month, and download your customized high-resolution PDF calendar, free. Make yours here.

The unfinished dining room

This weekend we painted the dining room white. It was yellow, which you can see on the one wall we left unpainted. We're waiting for wallpaper to arrive, and then that wall is going to be more exciting. And by exciting, I mean fuschia.


Drapes are in the works, too. Then this room will finally look like it has some clothes on.


There are two windows and five doorways (four with doors). Where they take you: the kitchen, the back stairway, a closet, the hallway to the living room, and outside. I keep picturing the genie from Aladdin saying "In case of emergency, the exits are here, here, here, here, here and here."

Check out that fireplace. It's a bad photo because a UFO was just landing outside, but hopefully you can make out the mottled green tile, which is original Rookwood. I hated it at first, but it's got a weird sort of antique charm and I'm trying to like it. Our IKEA table looks so wrong in this room. Or I should say, the table shape is okay but the finish is not good. It's in fine condition, but the matching sideboard is starting to sag in the middle. I have dreams (and of course, Photoshop mockups) of new light fixtures and pretty furniture... maybe someday.