Well hung

Two weeks ago I wrote about spotting this beaut one day during lunch. The Little Green is a cafe/bar which hosts artists’ work on a weekly basis, which is where I happened upon this piece by Bon. I needed it in my life. With a little sign that stated ‘pay what you want for artwork‘, I contacted Bon immediately. No, really. I e-mailed him before my lunch got to the table. A couple of days and a few awkward bus journeys later, this baby is home and hung. 
Who better to describe the piece better than the man himself; I was fortunate enough to get a quote from Bon about this particular piece – 

“I found the piece of board behind my house. It wasn’t an ordinary board; there was a company logo/stencil printed in the corner. The idea of this work just came up to me. The board looks like it came from a factory, and that’s why there are fishes stenciled on it in black because it’s like a symbol of toxic product. 

I think paining on boards such as this one is more satisfactory because I change items that somebody has thrown away and I have a chance to give them a second absolutely different life.”  

Talk about an awesome quote, and is exactly what drew me to the piece in the first place. It’s the first thing you see when you walk into our living room. This space worked out perfectly as this narrow wall is an exterior stone wall, and since this puppy is fierce heavy, I don’t think a plasterboard wall would have fared well.

And below, to give you an idea of exactly where it is in our home. Sorry for the grainy/wish-washy picture – me, camera and the cave-like lighting in our apartment were not getting along yesterday, but you get the idea. 

Boy, am I glad we walked into The Little Green that day. Check more of Bon’s awesome work here. xx A

Wishing you a …

It’s been cray around here lately, hence my MIA on the blog this week. But I’m adjusting, and I should be back to my usual blogging next week.

Some good news – I’ll be rolling out my new rug much sooner than I had expected – no complaining there! I also got my new graffiti/artwork home and hung. And FINGERS CROSSED our recent burst of cracking weather here in Dublin is due to hang around for our long weekend ahead. I foresee lots of long walks and chillaxing in parks. xx A

p.s. I’m a fraud. I don’t even drink tea. That’s chocolate milk. But damn, I’mma drink it fancy. 

DIY Friday – seam wars

Friday you sexy beast, we meet again. And it couldn’t have come sooner as it means I can finally show you what I’ve been up to this week! 
But before I jump into today’s DIY, I will first say sewing is not my forte. My most sincere apologies in advance as I did not include progress pictures for today’s tutorial. I normally don’t sew beyond the basics of repairing clothes, but I managed to successfully sew up this little number for today’s DIY Friday, and it ended up being a fairly straight forward job. Which literally translates to – if I can do it, anyone can. 

It all started with a Star Wars t-shirt I saw it in H&M and had to have. More so for husband’s benefit than my own since he is the fan, and my eyes start to glaze over if someone talks about Star Wars for more than 4 minutes. Unfortunately, after one wash said t-shirt warped and is now too short in the torso for my liking {do not want muffin tops hanging out}. I didn’t have the heart to give it away, so I immediately thought of transforming it into a pillow {I’ve done something similar before with a skirt}. 

Luckily, I had a pillow insert that was the perfect size. Keeping the image centred, I drew the dimensions of the pillow. I cut it out including an additional inch border along all four sides. Since the t-shirt fabric was thin and a bit too stretchy, I used some fun, flowery fabric of my own as the pillow backing to give a bit of structure. I sewed the two pieces together and voilà! 

It was a pretty straight forward and I channelled my elementary school quilting techniques {drawing a line with a ruler, sew along said line}. And to further trick people into thinking it’s a real pillow, the t-shirt had its own little authenticated Star Wars label sewn in so I seam-ripped that baby out and incorporated it into the finishing pillow seam. Legit. 
Happy Friday, friends! I hope this week treated you well, and you have a totes awesome weekend lined up. xx A