decorating with signs

While I've been too timid to try anything like this in my own home, I am very into the idea of using old signs from businesses to decorate a large wall. Here are some that I've seen recently that I'd love to use in my own home. What do you think? Do they take away too much attention from the rest of the room?

vintage seamstress shop signs from willow tree antiques

the pines sign from lost & found

vintage industrial offence sign from epoch co.

vintage industrial electric fence sign from aurora mills

featured: jenny åkerlund

When I first saw the work of Jenny Åkerlund at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago about a year ago, I was intrigued by the idea of how a copy of a copy further distorts and changes an image, and ultimately the original item itself. That is, until I realized that these pieces were actually drawn reproductions of photocopies, and therefore a copy of a copy of a copy. It would be obvious to discuss how technically beautiful these are, or how the composition of each one is stunning and unique, but I feel the need to do just that. A photocopy tends to be extremely cold and sterile, but the hand-drawn aspect of this brings it back to life, creating depth in an otherwise flat medium.

little black flats

1. kingdom by steve madden 2. abby by diane von furstenberg 3. the polka-dot sidewalk skimmer by madewell 4. emilia by calvin klein 5. belt ballet flat by attilio giusti leombruni

matte nails

Beauty products are not something that I usually spend very much money on, but let me tell you, this nail polish was worth every penny. I like shiny things just as much as anybody else, but there is just something sleek and modern about a matte finish. And so, let me introduce you to Mat Top Coat by Chanel. Paint a coat of it over any other color of nail polish and you get a stunning matte finish almost instantly.
























Inspired by the bottle itself, I decided to try it out with black nail polish. You can really see the difference in the before and after photos below. In the future I think it would look extra fancy if I only painted the top coat over half of the nail, really showing off the difference in texture. Or maybe it would look interesting over a glittery nail polish. Oh how the possibilities are endless.

how to: cooling rack memo board

In an effort to appear more grown-up, I decided a while back that I wanted to take everything off of my fridge and have it be totally clutter free. However, I still needed a place to put important reminders and other randoms that had no other home.

So I created this little memo board out of two cooling racks and a cork board. There are probably many more attractive ways to hang them, but I just pounded two nails into the wall at a downward angle and used the little feet of the cooling racks to hang them. Since the nails are the same color as the racks, I think it looks fine.

Originally I was just going to do three cooling racks, vertically stacked on top of each other, but I found this cork board while I was grocery shopping one day and thought that it was pretty much the perfect size for this project. All together, the project cost about 5 dollars, 99 cents for each of the cooling racks from the Salvation Army, and 3 dollars for the cork board.

I do not actually think that this makes me look any more grown-up (note the Paul Frank mood chart), but I do enjoy how the fridge looks now.