It's Friday!

Happy weekend, everybody. I'm hoping to plant some stuff in the dirt patch by our curb. And paint a dresser. And some art for our walls. Also clean and do laundry and read books and go to church and see friends and try a new restaurant and go for walks. I can do all those things, right? Wishing you a weekend impossibly full of good things, too.

(Awesome typographic desk calendar by Simone Massoni.)

How to make an industrial pipe floor lamp

I really have a thing for lamps. I roam thrift stores admiring them— the weirder, the better — and pause on catalog pages with cool fixtures. Today I'm happy to share a guest tutorial on how to make your own industrial-style floor lamp out of pipes. Set this baby in front of your exposed brick wall and sip a craft cocktail while you admire your handiwork. You built a lamp!



The how-to is by Matthew Lyons, self-proclaimed handyman and blogger for HomeDaddys.com. Here's what Matthew has to say:

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Like most red-blooded Americans, I love industrial pipe lighting. There’s a certain derelict nostalgia about lamps and chandeliers made from old metal plumbing that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and manly inside. Unfortunately, that feeling isn’t shared by my wallet.

I’ve been lusting after an industrial pipe floor lamp for years now but the price tags people attach to these things are utterly ridiculous. The majority of multi-bulb floor-length pipe lamps available online or in stores sell for $400 - $1,000. As a guy on a lower middle-class income with a wife and a kid to support, I just can’t justify spending that kind of money on what amounts to a few lengths of pipe, some wire and a couple vintage light bulbs.

So, considering how simple these things are, I figured I could just build my own pipe lamp for half the cost of buying one. Having never wired anything before in my life, I was a little worried how this project would turn out. Surprisingly, though, it was super-easy to make. The entire lamp can be assembled by hand like some sort of awesome adult Erector Set. As I predicted, the wiring was by far the hardest part of the entire build – but even that took less than two hours and I didn’t even set the house on fire when I plugged it in. This made my wife very happy.

Here’s how you can build one of these awesome industrial pipe lamps for your own house or apartment or office or whatever dark corner of your life begs illumination.

Continue reading »

How to fix for backlit photos

A tip for Photoshop users: here's a nice action for brightening bad pictures, especially backlit photos with a blue or gray tint. It's the Sunshine Photoshop Actions set from Charmbox Studios. It contains six different actions for a variety of lighting effects. I bought it for $4.50 and it's been worth the money in time saved.

Kissed by the Sun is the most useful of this set, I think. Above is my fixed up photo.

Here's what it looked like before I ran the action:


Today I edited a few snapshots for a client. Here's the original image:


And here it is, sunnier:


I made a few minor tweaks after running the action to brighten the floor in the foreground, but the action got me pretty far.

If you're not familiar with an "action" in Photoshop, it's a series of pre-recorded steps. Instead of applying each step manually yourself (brighten, adjust levels, increase saturation, etc.), you simply click the "play" button in the Actions palette and they all happen in order instantly. A huge time-saver, and if the action is designed correctly, each adjustment layer is still editable so you can tweak effects as needed. For how to install a new action, see here. There are lots of freebies floating around the web, too. Anybody have some they swear by?

4/14/14 Update: You guys must have purchased a bunch of products, because I just got a note from Charm Box Studios. They'd like to offer a thank you! To get 30% off anything in the Charm Box Studios store, enter the code: CBS-loves-orange now through 4/30/14. One use per customer, no minimum purchase. Sweet.

How to make a decorative picture mat

I'm getting a huge kick out of this funny linocut of Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes. The portrait is an original print by Nick Morley; read more about Nick's work here.

If you've seen the TV show, you know Sherlock is right at home amongst wallpaper, so I decided his picture mat ought to be patterned. I used a sheet of Rifle Paper gift wrap I got at Poeme, a charming little stationery shop in Cincinnati.

Covering a mat with paper is simple. You can cut a piece of chipboard to size and cover it, or cover an existing mat— one that came with your picture frame or a plain one purchased separately.


You'll need fancy paper cut roughly 1/2" larger than the mat, spray adhesive, and a scissors or craft knife.


Spray the back of the paper with adhesive and center the mat on it. Cut out the excess paper in the center of the mat, leaving around 1/2" to wrap around the edges.


Make diagonal slits to the inside corners and trim the outer corners at a 45 degree angle. Don't trim right up to the edge of the mat; leave enough extra paper to equal the thickness of the mat board so no board is exposed when you wrap the corners.


Bend the tabs around the board, sticking them down.


Put the print, mat, and frame back together and hang.


Sherlock must reside in the parlor, of course, where he'll scowl at me every day and make me happy.

Pretty tech wallpapers for spring

Have you been to Design Love Fest lately? The collection of phone and desktop wallpapers keeps expanding. Grab something pretty and spring-like right here!

Quiz: Which celebrity designer gets you?

I've posted a million design-related quizzes over the years. Here's a new one: Which celebrity designer gets you? Take the quiz at PopSugar to determine who's the best match for your preferences based on pictures you choose. The best part is, Emily Henderson— one of the possible answers— wrote a blog post about how she took the quiz herself wondering if she'd end up with Emily Henderson as the answer, and how it would affect her mental health if she didn't. Hilarious. See her thought process here.

I got Jonathan Adler, which didn't surprise me in the least.

Use a magnifier as a tiny photo frame

We spotted this gizmo in a curiosities shop last weekend. It's a magnifying glass on a stand with two adjustable arms with clips. It's for repairing watches, jewelry, and electronics, but it's even cuter as a tiny picture frame for photo booth shots or old yearbook photos. It magnifies about 4X.


This doodad would make a cool gift for somebody who's into industrial decor, or who just likes weird things. Here's one like ours on Amazon: Helping Hands Soldering Hobby Station, $7.

New Jessica Jones fabric: say hello to Arrow!

Today The Needle Shop has released a new print I designed for them: Arrow, available in three colorways. It's simple and graphic and geometric and cool. Let's make it the new chevron, y'all! Shop for it here.

This fabric is 7 oz. cotton home decor canvas, good for accessories and furnishings. Or you can get crazy like Rachel of The Needle Shop did and whip up a blazer. It would make a smashing shift dress, too. And that suitcase is killing me. I've begged Rachel for a tutorial, so stay tuned.

These prints will also be available in laminated canvas in two weeks. Think makeup bags, placemats, beach totes, wipeable chair seats and all sorts of goodies.






Mum made a quick reversible tote. Love it! It's Tanya Whelan's Flea Market Bag pattern, but with the strap lengthened and the body size adjusted a bit. A great bag for beginners if you want to give it a whirl.



Buy Arrow right here by the yard, or get it wholesale here if you're a fabric shop or manufacturer.

We're dreaming of printing other colorways, too. What combos would you like to see?