Thrifty finds

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Matt

I had a burst of creativity over the festive period and felt an insatiable urge to drill holes in our wall and to finally mount these butterfly mounts I’ve been collecting.

Kathy isn’t the biggest fan of the scorpion and vetoed the tarantulas but overall she’s warmed to the whole natural science vignette.

I’ve been longing for a pair of deer antlers. Kathy isn’t crazy on hanging animals in the house but she let this one slide. In a way I’m thankful because if she wasn’t I’d probably have filled our home with taxidermed birds by now.

I got my geek on and bought an old 70’s Sansui tuner amp and a pair of B&O Beosound 1200 speakers off of Gumtree for a song. The amp’s lights had blown out over the years and the tape switch was faulty causing the amp to cut in and out. I took it all apart, cleaned it and replaced the old festoon lamps with LED’s, all very McGuyver of me.

It’s great to be able to play music again, particularly LP’s. We’ve been without a radio for close on 2yrs as we decided to wait till Nathan was old enough to understand it wasn’t for destroying.

I’m still teaching him not to fiddle with it, but it’s worth the effort.


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String gardens

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Matt

So as you know I have a penchant for plants, I’m a little on the crazy side, like the old lady with one too many cats. Yes, THAT crazy.

For a while now I’ve been deliberating what to do in our bathroom.

I love the bohemian feel of using vintage styled mirrors and have been collecting a few, waiting on the last one to arrive from Vamp before I can assemble the collection (though you can see one of the mirror ‘templates’ in the first photo).

I wanted to bring in a botanical element (remember, crazy plant person), but having a 21 mnth old makes placing plants on the window or table a risky business, why not go up? Or rather down?

Months ago I sumbled across this tutorial on Design Sponge on making Kokedama, Japanese moss balls and thought they looked amazing and have been hankering to try it out.

Seeing the amazing work of Opus Studios in the new Vamp Collaboration room rekindled my willingness to try.

I settled on these two Orchids, a common Phalaenopsis or ‘Moth Orchid’ (the smaller yellow one) and a larger Cymbidium as my ‘test subjects’.

Being epiphytes (plants that grow on other plants) they don’t need soil, so I wrapped the roots in Sphagnum moss and then added decorative green moss on the outside as I wound the twine around them.

Stealing the idea from Paula at Vamp I decided to hang them from the roof with chains, mine are galvanized steel to match the silver of the mirrors.

Another little crafty project out of the way, hundreds more to tackle, but it feels good to be a little creative again amidst all this work.


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