Ever since I spotted Swedish designer Jonas Bohlin’s tulle lamp in Gudrun Sjödén’s catalog last year, I’ve been dying to make my own. I finally did it! I started with Ikea’s Melodi pendant lamp, then added tulle. Never having attempted anything like this before, I guessed four yards of tulle would be plenty. Boy, was [...]

Hi everyone! Bet you thought I fell into a hole somewhere. Nah, just job hunting now that I’m done with school. Anyone want to hire me? :) Anyway, I attended the San Francisco International Gift Fair last Saturday, and I ran across these flower-covered paper lanterns at the zappobz booth. I begged to take a [...]

I planned to make a flower-covered paper lantern for months. Not until I found a white poinsettia garland at a Michael’s after-Christmas clearance did it become a reality. Normally, I’m not a fan of fake flowers, but I think this is a great way to use them. I had some leftover pom-pom fringe, so I [...]

I just wanted to thank SunRun for the opportunity to be a judge this year’s Customer Holiday Lights Contest. Congratulations to the winners! Judging the contest was fun, and I’m happy to promote the use of solar energy anytime.

Don’t you just love Christmas lights? As an apartment dweller, decking the yard with lights isn’t an option, so instead my living room is almost as bright as day in the evening with all the strings of lights. They’re the next best thing to sitting beside a flickering fireplace. Check out all the new growth [...]

My friend Julie Chai (watch her videos here) at Sunset magazine gave me this lamp base as a project. Southwest isn’t my style, plus it had rusty hardware and a tattered, taped cord. I adore Jill Rosenwald’s lamps from Maine Cottage, but they’re out of my price range. So I decided to rewire and paint [...]

In lieu of a project this week, I’m posting some photos I took during one of my walks around the neighborhood. It was an idea inspired by sfgirlbybay. Instead of beautiful, transporting images (I’m not the photographer Victoria is), I shot items that I like. And I found sources to buy a couple of them! [...]

Super talented Heika DeHart strikes again. These pendant lamps she made of hemp string are genius. Plus, don’t you love how they look with her wallpaper? Heika writes: “I fell in love with West Elm’s Abaca pendent lamp a few years ago but, as usual, my taste was more expensive than my wallet could support. [...]

Some of you may remember my first faux capiz shell lampshade that I made for Sunset magazine. It was originally inspired by West Elm’s popular capiz shell table lamp. I was going for the mod look, but I didn’t quite pull it off. Plus I discovered, after two years of use, that the colored rice [...]

I admit these thrift-store plastic sconces look pretty good in the before photo. But trust me, they looked dated and icky on the wall. Plus they’re broken. Luckily the pieces were broken off symmetrically, so you can’t tell after a fresh coat of paint is applied. I’m tickled that the mirror and sconces look like [...]