K Sarah Designs

DIY // Brass Tubing Geometric Lamp

Guess what? I made a light out of brass tubes!

But let's back up a bit :)

I know I've mentioned before how much I love incorporating geometric shapes and forms into spaces (see my easy triangle paper art tutorial here). I like that they seem to add an unexpected and interesting layer to a room, and lately I've been particularly drawn to geometric light fixtures.

The Spica lights from Iacoli & McAllister are insanely cool:

And the Edmond and Tenley pendants from Arteriors are also pretty awesome (let's be honest, what isn't awesome from Arteriors?!):

I also really liked this light fixture in more of a brass finish.

So when I saw this DIY version floating around on pinterest, I decided to try making one, too! Even though it wasn't all that similar to the above fixtures, it still had that interesting graphic shape thing going on, and even better, it was cheap to make (no where near the $600-$1000+ those pendants above cost!)

So, after picking up a few materials, and a couple hours of time, this is what I ended up with:

I like it! To be honest, it turned out completely different than how I thought it would, but that's totally okay.

I'd originally tried to mimic the shape of the Spica lights above, but after working & tinkering with the brass tubing for a bit, I realized that it would be impossible (or really really hard) to replicate those shapes without welding or soldering the metal tubes. Since that was out, I stuck with just bending the tubes into a crazy shape that I liked :)

Here's how I did it:

 

Materials:

- pendant light set (I used a vintage brass option like this one from this shop)
- light bulb, preferably an Edison-style bulb like this or this
- brass tubing (I used eight 36" long tubes that were 7/32" thick - I got mine from a hobby store)
- wood dowels that will fit snugly inside the tubes, cut to 2" long each
- fishing line (to hang)
- hook that can be screwed into ceiling (to hang pendant)

 

Process:

1) Attach brass tubes together with the wooden dowels. You'll want wood dowels that will just barely fit inside the tubes (I even had to sand the edges of mine down for them to fit). Anyway, stick one end of the dowel about 1 inch into each tube, and attach another brass tube to the other end of the dowel.

*Note: You want the dowels to be snug, but also make sure you don't force them, or put too much tension on the wooden connection point. Otherwise, the wood dowels can snap inside the tubes, and you're kind of SOL if they're wedged in there. This happened with one of my tubes, and I couldn't use it... although, now that I'm thinking about it, you could probably drill the dowel out of the tube if you needed to.

2) Bend the tubes into a shape that you like. This is where the "tinkering" comes in :) I can't really describe this process, because honestly I just folded and bent the tubes where it looked best in my eyes. You have to sort of visualize how you want yours to look (sketching it out might help!) and bend the tubes accordingly.

Attach the remaining tubes one at a time with additional dowels. Attaching the tubes individually helped me see where the next bends should be (if there was sort of a bare area, I'd make sure I bent the next tube into that direction. Make sure you're lamp has volume in all directions - you want it to be spatially interesting when viewed from any angle.

Also, keep in mind that the tubes have a bit of weight to them, so you may have to bend them in places that will help support other areas, if that makes sense.

3) Hang up your light. Once you've attached all of your tubes and bent them into a shape that you like, you're ready to hang it up! Screw the hook into the ceiling where you want yours to hang, and hang your light set from the hook. Next, tie a knot with fishing line around the point on your brass light that you want it to hang from, and tie the other end of the fishing line in a knotted hoop. Hang the hoop on the ceiling hook, and you're done!

I love the shadows it casts on the walls when the light's on. And, while I know this light probably isn't for everyone, I really like the graphic element it adds.

So there you have it! A light fixture made with brass tubes!

Happy Happy Friday!!

DIY // Large & Inexpensive Botanical Art

I've mentioned before how much I love botanical charts + prints as artwork. And in particular, how much I love botanical prints with black backgrounds.

Well a few weeks back, I was searching through the vintage printables site, and came across some of the black-background botanical prints that I love so much. I immediately knew that I wanted to make some art with them!

And in case you're unfamiliar with vintage printables, it's a site that curates old and out-of-copyright images, most of which are scientific and botanical illustrations from vintage textbooks. And since they aren't copyrighted, you can print them or use them in graphics to your heart's content. It's a great source if you want to print your own botanicals and frame them as a series for wall art, similar to this.

Please forgive the less than stellar photos, by the way. My photo-taking skills are decidedly lacking, and no matter what I tried, I couldn't get rid of the reflections on the glass. These were the clearest ones, I promise :)

So, for a few of the details. Here's what I did: 

I picked the 3 prints on the site that I liked the most (I found them on this page specifically), cropped off the uneven borders, enlarged them in photoshop to a 16x20 size, and had them printed at Costco for $6 each.

You could also print them one size larger, attach wooden dowels at the top + bottom, and hang with string, so that they look more like the real botanical charts, seen here. It still would only cost $9 to print a 20x30 size at Costco, rather than the $100-$200 for the real botanical charts.

So there you have it. Cheap + pretty wall art - my favorite!

DIY // Triangle Paper Art

I've been completely loving geometric-inspired artwork lately (see also here and here)- it always seems to add an interesting graphic + eye-catching element to gallery walls and displays. I think what I like most about geometric art is that it's often a mix of simple + complex. While the overall appearance can be a complicated & ornate, it's usually composed of very simple, repeating lines & shapes.

Anyway, I've been meaning to make some of my own for a while now, and was happy to finally get around to it this week! This project ended up being super quick & simple - In Illustrator, I just "sketched out" the shape and triangle pattern that I wanted, printed it out on thick cardstock, and cut out the triangles with an X-acto blade. The whole thing probably took less than half an hour - my favorite kind of project!

I'm happy with how it turned out - it sort of reminds me of a gemstone with lots of facets! Plus, I like the simplicity of the brown cardstock contrasting with the white paper behind it.

To make your own, you'll need:

- thick cardstock, in your desired color
- a pencil, pen, or a graphic computer program you can sketch your design on
- X-acto blade
- cutting mat
- white cardstock to mount it on
- 8x10 picture frame

1) Sketch out your design on the computer or by hand - if using your computer, print the design on the cardstock. Originally I had wanted to use chip board because it's thicker & would show more dimension against the white background. Unfortunately, my printer doesn't like the thickness of chip board very much (yay paper jams!), but if you're drawing yours by hand, feel free to use chip board.

2) Cut out your design with your X-acto blade. I just freehanded mine, but if cutting straight isn't your strongpoint, feel free to use a metal ruler :)

3) When you finish cutting out the design, cut your cardstock down to 8x10 so that it fits in a frame. Mount it to white paper or cardstock, stick it in a frame, and your done!

Happy Happy Friday, and three cheers for the weekend, friends! I hope you have a good one :)

DIY // Striped Painted Table Runner From a Drop Cloth

That title pretty much sums it up, so why don't we get right down to it?

Remember the bridal shower I threw a couple weekends ago with the striped table runner?

Well, I made that out of a drop cloth, and now I'm going to show you how to do that, too!

First, materials. You will need the following:

Material List:

- a metal ruler
- a rotary cutter (or good scissors & the ability to cut straight!)
- a drop cloth in your desired size (I used a 6 ft x 9 ft. cloth)
- painters tape (I swear by Frog Tape)
- a paint roller or brush
- fabric paint (I used Tulip soft matte fabric paint in dark blue)
- a sewing machine

Step 1:

After obtaining your drop cloth in your desired size, you'll want to wash & dry it to get some of the stiffness and weird smell out of it. Be sure NOT to use fabric softener (fabric paint doesn't stick well to cloth that has softener).

Once the drop cloth is washed and dried, lay it out and iron the portion you'll be using for the runner. Next, measure & mark your desired width along the whole length of the drop cloth. For example, I wanted my runner to be 9 feet by 20 inches, so I measured & marked off 21 inches along the whole 9 foot length of cloth (I allowed a 1 inch allowance for the hem). With the metal ruler and rotary cutter, cut along the marked guides you just made on a cutting mat or other cut-safe surface. 

Step 2:

Once you've cut along the whole length of the drop cloth, you're ready to sew the hem! On the side you just cut, fold the hem over 1 inch and iron along the edge. Then, fold the hem in half, tucking it underneath itself so that you can't see the unfinished edge, and iron the edge again. You should have a crisp, even edge, with none of the stringy, unfinished edge showing. Next, just sew along the fold, making sure to back stitch at the corners. You should end up with a nice, straight hem.

Step 3:

Now you're ready to paint! If you do stripes like me, just figure out how wide you want yours. I wanted 4 inch wide stripes, so I taped off where they should go. Tip: the cutting mat actually came in very useful for this - I was able to use the guides on the mat to measure out & ensure straight strips of tape. Just make sure your runner is perpendicular to the mat, and use the measurements on the mat to place the tape. Also, make sure you take into account the inside vs. outside edges of the tape - for example, each stripe I painted had 4 inches between tape edges, but the stripes I left blank only had 2 inches between edges, since you have to take the tape thickness into account... Or if you're feeling brave/impatient, you can really just freehand here and eyeball the width of the stripes :)

Once you've taped all of your stripes, start filling in the stripes with paint. You might have to go over certain areas a few times for good coverage, but this part is pretty quick. I purposefully left some areas with lighter paint coverage so that you could tell it was painted on - I wanted it to look a little imperfect. Once you finish the stripes, you're done! It just needs to dry for a few hours, and then you're good to go. You've made a painted, striped table runner out of a drop cloth! So simple, right?

I love that the paint is a little imperfect, which I think adds some nice texture to the table. And the simple stripes add a fun pattern as well.

The best part though? The dropcloth was $12, so using less than 1/3 of it translated to about $4 of fabric. I think the fabric paint was $3, and I had everything else on hand, so the total cost was $7! And I still have a bunch of drop cloth fabric that I can use for other projects now, pillows, napkins, or more runners!) I'm excited to experiment with some different patterns, or possibly try out some stamp & block prints!

DIY // Faux Capiz Shell Chandelier

I've always liked the beachy, airy quality of capiz shell chandeliers, but they're usually pretty expensive (at least all the one I like are - see exhibit A for $355 & exhibit B for $495... and more "designer" versions can be anywhere from $1000-$4000!)

Anyway, a few months ago I was admiring my friend Hillary's capiz chandelier, and was excited to find out that she had actually made it herself. Even more impressive was finding out that it wasn't even made of real capiz shells, but rather... wait for it... wax paper!! It seriously looked like the real deal but at a fraction of the cost. I decided then and there that I wanted to make one too - thanks again for the awesome idea, Hill!

Fortunately, this was an easy project, if a little time intensive. I'm not sure if I would have had the patience to sit down and finish it in one sitting, so I spread it out over several days, which made it more manageable. 

Here's what you need to make your own:

Faux Capiz Shell Chandelier

Materials: 
- a lamp form (this can be anything from an old lamp shade frame (with fabric removed), a metal wire bowl (with graduated levels similar to this), a hanging flower basket, a wreath form (separated into layers with wire), etc.
- parchment paper
- wax paper (1-2 rolls depending on how big your lamp form is)
- circle cutter (I used this one)
- iron & ironing board
- sewing machine

Steps:

1) Tear your paper into sheets. Tear 2 large sheets of parchment paper (2.5-3 ft. each). Then tear the entire roll of wax paper into equal 2-2.5 ft. sheets (just eyeball it).

2) Iron your sheets together. Once all of the wax paper is torn into sheets, layer a piece of the parchment paper onto an ironing board (or other flat ironing surface), then layer 3 sheets of wax paper onto one another, making sure to line up the edges, and lay the other piece of parchment paper on top.

On a med-low setting, evenly iron all 5 layers of paper. Once you've ironed the entire surface, the 3 layers of wax paper will be stuck together, but the parchment paper will not be. Repeat this with all remaining sheets of wax paper, making sure to iron 3 sheets at a time.

3) Cut your circles. Use your circle cutter to punch circles out of the wax paper. I found it worked best to cut 3 ironed wax sheets at a time (either by layering them on top of each other or folding them 3-4 times before cutting. Make sure to fit as many circles as you can per sheet. Repeat until you've cut circles out of all of the wax paper... It will feel like your cutting out a million circles :)

Stack your circles into even stacks (I stacked them into groups of 20, because I wanted each of my strings to be 20 circles long - this number will depend on how big your lamp form is and how long you want your chandelier to be.

4) Start sewing! Sew your circles together into long chains, using this method. Basically just feed your circles one after another... This is surprisingly easy to do - I'm a total newbie at sewing, and it was super simple!

Once all of the chains are sewed, trim off any excess thread on each chain.

5) Make your chandelier! Start layering your circle chains onto the chandelier by hanging them over the wire supports of your lamp form. I found that laying them over the wire was easier than figuring out a way to tie or glue them to the frame, but you can do it that way as well.

This is where you can get creative! Figure out how long you want your pieces to hang, how full you want yours to look (and therefore how much you want your chains to overlap each other), how many tiers you want, etc.

*Note: If you started with a pretty large lamp form, you may need more circle chains, in which case you'll need more than one box of wax paper.

6) Hang up your Chandelier!

Lights on:

Lights off:

I swear, it looks like the real deal in person. The little imperfections in the layers of wax paper make them look like real capiz shells.

And the best part? The total cost of this project was less than $5 - can't beat that!

DIY // Sunburst Mirror, Take 2

So, apparently I liked making the shim sunburst mirror so much the first time, I decided to make a second one!... Okay, that's sort of a lie. I mostly made this one out of necessity, but I'm super happy with the results yet again!

The original sunburst mirror was actually a gift to my parents, and was hanging in their living room... And, while it looked good in there, it didn't really go with all of the darker wood furniture in their space. Conveniently, I was looking for a bright gold sunburst mirror for my bedroom re-do (pictures coming soon!), and figured aha! I'll put the original one in my room, and make a new, darker one for my parents. Done and done!

The new mirror complements the darker wood tones of their living room, and has a slightly more traditional look to it. I chose Rust-Oleum Metallic Vintage Copper for the spray paint - it was darker in tone, but still had some metallic shimmer to it. I also made thicker, more symmetrical rays this time, giving it a more traditional sunburst shape.

I love how it turned out, and it really just shows how much flexibility you have with this project - by changing the sun ray design and the color of the spray paint, you can create a mirror with a totally different look. Here's a close-up of the rays & paint color:

Other than the slight differences mentioned above, I used the same steps as my original tutorial, found here.

Happy Monday!

DIY // Succulent Terrarium

I've mentioned my love of succulents before, and it's still going strong! I adore the variety of colors, textures, and shapes they come in, and I especially love that they're so low maintenance.

After seeing a bunch of terrariums on pinterest, I decided to make a couple of my own, featuring these awesome little plants. I picked up the glass containers at Target and Home Goods (both were around $8.00), and purchased the small rocks & succulents at Lowe's. I already had the potting soil, and used some scraps of thin batting to separate the rock layer from the soil layer... I'd imagine any thin, porous fabric would work though.

Here's what you need to make your own terrarium:

Materials:
- Glass containers or vases
- rocks (a variety of sizes would work)
- soil (preferably a cactus-specific variety)
- fabric to separate rock & soil layers
- succulents

Directions: 

- layer rocks into the bottom of a clean glass vase at least 2 inches (this will help with water drainage - plus the layers look pretty!)
- cut batting or fabric into the shape of the vase, and lay it over the rocks so that it just reaches the edge
- layer about 2 inches of slightly damp soil into the container
- arrange your succulents in the container & fill in the gaps with more soil
- lightly water the finished arrangement, and wipe along the inside of the glass to remove any excess water or soil smudges
- enjoy your knew succulent terrarium!

DIY // Glitter Ornaments

Coincidentally, the title of this post could also be "Easiest Ornaments Ever". Seriously, it doesn't get more simple than pouring a bunch of sequins into a glass ornament, but I'm happy to report that these are as cute & sparkly as they are easy & inexpensive to make.

All you need is:

1) Clear glass ornaments - I bought mine on sale at Michael's for around $2.50 for a pack of 6

2) Sequins! Any colors will be pretty, but I chose silver & gold, as most of my decorations are sticking with this color combo

3) a funnel - this isn't necessary, but it does make pouring the sequins into the ornaments much easier

First, take off the ornament topper. Then, put the funnel at the top of the ornament, and pour in your sequins... I probably used 1-2 Tablespoons of sequins in each ornament. Then, just put the ornament topper back on, and voila! You have a quick, easy, and (most importantly) sparkly ornament!

Hang them up on the tree, pile them into a vase, or include them in a table arrangement like zees:

Another Christmas decoration checked off the list... next up, a tassel garland!

DIY // Homemade Wreath

It was another busy weekend, but I was happy to tackle a few Christmas decorations, including this homemade wreath. I wanted to make a wreath with lots of fresh greens in varying shades & textures, and that's exactly what this is. I loosely followed this tutorial, except I used different plants to make a more varied, rustic-looking wreath.

To make this wreath (or one like it) you need the following:

Materials:

- a wreath form (I bought mine at Michael's)

- floral wire (I used the cloth covered wire from Michael's)

- groupings of plant clippings/leaves (I used about 20 bunches)

- accessories (mini pine cones, ornaments, ribbon, whatever you like!)

Steps:

First, gather a variety of plant clippings or leaf branches that you want to use. For mine, I just raided the backyard and chose whatever I thought would look best.

Next, gather a few of the clippings or small branches together into groupings, and wrap the bases of them with floral wire. Once all of your clippings are grouped into bunches, arrange them around the wreath in your desired pattern, making sure to overlap the ends of the bunches so that they're not showing. Once you have an arrangement you like, secure them to the wreath form with floral wire.

When you've finished attaching all of the plant bunches, it's time to add the accessories! Secure the mini pine cones, ornaments, ribbon, or whatever floats your boat to the wreath with additional wire, and your done!

I specifically made this wreath for a table arrangement (not as a traditional hanging wreath) so this is the finished result:

Fingers crossed it stays green until Christmas!

DIY // Fun & Easy Christmas Decoration ideas

I'm more than a little blown away that it's already December. How did that even happen?! Not that I'm complaining or anything - this really is the most wonderful my favorite time of year :) ... Apparently I love this season so much I randomly broke out in song while writing this post.

Anyway, this weekend I plan on getting myself in gear and finishing up all of my Christmas shopping, and (my favorite part!) decorate for Christmas! This means making some decorations, which I'm sure I will be sharing on here.

I put together a little collection of some of my favorite DIY Christmas decoration ideas this year. I'll for sure be making a few of these! Note how most of them involve glitter and sparkly things - I just can't help myself:

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

I can't wait to make a few of these! What are your favorite handmade decoration ideas?