Simple Christmas Decorations for a Dining Room

Dear Chicago House,

What with my hectic trip to England last week, Christmas is really creeping up on me this year. Fortunately Miss Chicago took it upon herself that the Christmas decorations should go up extra early so at least our house is looking festive.

One of my favorite things she did was create these beautifully simple decorations for our dining room chairs.

They are super easy to make.
What you need

• Wide ribbon
• Holiday sprigs - we used pre-made bundles but you could easily use some festive greenery.
• scissors

Cut a piece of ribbon that will go twice around your chair. Tie and knot then create your bow. Snip the ends of the ribbon to create an inverted V. Thread your festive sprigs into the bow and you are done!

This dining room has come a long way from the sorry state it was when we first moved in. You can see it HERE. The most recent update we have made, was to change out the horribly traditional chandelier with some more in keeping with our modern dining table.

Now I need to get going with some festive food to serve up in this room!

Love from

Creative in Chicago

XX

Categories: Christmas, Craft Projects, Crafts Project, Decor, decorating, decorative accents, Holiday Projects, teenager, Tutorials

What to do with your Sea Glass Collection

Dear Chicago House,

No trip to the beach is complete unless I come home with something in my pocket, it maybe a shell a beautiful pebble or if I am really lucky a stash of sea glass.
I am betting quite a few of you have a box of sea glass treasure like this from your summer vacation.

It seems a shame to just leave such coveted gems locked away forgotten so here are some crafty ideas of what you can do with your collection.

Frame It

Buy a couple of shadow frames, stick your glass down on some heavy duty card and voila! I created two pictures with different colored tones of glass.

Display It

Fill little glass jars and display on a window ledge where the glass a catch the light.

Get Creative

Use your glass to design a creative mosaic. 

Enjoy!

Love from
Creative in Chicago
XX

Categories: Art, Beachy, Craft Projects, Crafts Project, Decor, decorative accents, Pretty

How to Make an Elegant Centerpiece

Dear Chicago House,

Every party table needs an elegant centerpiece...correct?

Miss Chicago teen selected a color palette of black gold and white for her Sweet Sixteen bash and made these pretty centerpieces for the table

They took all of five minutes to put together and can be made to complement any color scheme.

How to Make an Elegant Centerpiece

 You will need

• A glass vase
• Vase fillers - marbles
• Silk flowers - we used white roses
• Water
• Floating candles

Start by putting a handful of marbles in the bottom of your vase. Snip down your silk flowers so a few leaves and the blooms remain. Bed them down in the marbles. Fill the vase with water and top off with a floating candle.

 

Love from

Creative in Chicago

XX

Categories: Crafts Project, Decor, decorative accents, Pretty

Decor for a Casino Party

Dear Chicago House,

This past weekend we celebrated Miss Chicago teen's Sweet Sixteen with a Casino Party. It was a theme of her choosing and inspired by watching rather a lot of James Bond movies.

She wanted elegant canapes for food (more posts on those to follow) and we decked out the basement as a casino. Now our basement is not a pristine beautiful space (it is a lot better than when we first moved in...see before and after photographs) so anything goes on the temporary decorating front.

We started off by building a huge balloon wall to hide a load of basement junk. It took a bit of time but was simple to make.

How to make a Balloon Wall

1. Blow up lots and lots of balloons. Our wall used about 90 balloons. Invest in a balloon pump!
2. Using a thumb tack pin a length of thick cotton thread to the ceiling. I used crochet thread. The thread should puddle on the floor.
3. Making simple loop knots in the thread attach, the balloons. Our wall had 7 balloons on each thread.

We pinned lots more balloons on the ceiling and also hung up some casino themed decorations I got from Party City

They played Texas Hold-em poker, which was a huge hit and gambled for prizes of sweets, nail polish and itune gift cards.

Love from

Creative in Chicago

XX

Categories: Craft Projects, Crafts Project, Decor, teenager

Coastal Themed Vignette

Dear Chicago House,

Faced with another icy, snowy morning today I am dreaming of warm, balmy days and breathing in the salty air of the ocean instead of subjecting my lungs to arctic blasts. And to help transport me to how about this coastal themed vignette I recently put together in Mr Chicago's home office.

I painted the abstract ocean watercolor quite a while back

and decided to cut it in half and frame each piece.

The fabulous fish was created my Miss Chicago teen ...more about how she did that here

The shadow boxes are filled with shells ...simple and elegant.

Let the dreaming commence

Love from

Creative in Chicago

XX

Categories: Art, Beachy, Craft Projects, Decor, decorative accents, Pretty, teenager, wall art, Wood

Tutorial: Shelll Napkin Rings

Dear Chicago House,

Here is another easy project to glam up a coastal table setting - DIY Shell Napkin Rings

You will need

• Small shells
• Drill (optional depending on your shells)
• polyurethane spray
• very thin elastic

To make this project super easy try to collect shells that already have holes in them. Once you start looking it is surprising how many shells nature has already prepared ! If you can't find any "nature drilled" shells you will have to drill them yourself.

This is a good video which shows you how.

Before constructing your napkin rings lay all of your shells on a piece of cardboard in a well ventilated area and give them a spray with polyurethane, This seals the shells and makes the colors more vibrant.

Once dry you can start threading your shells onto lengths of thin elastic. Knot ends of elastic together when you have reached the desired length.

Love from

Creative in Chicago

XX

Categories: Beachy, beads, Decor, decorative accents, DIY, Pretty, Sewing, Tutorials

Bringing Nature Indoors and The Dump Gift Card Winner

Dear Chicago House,

I planted 185 bulbs this past weekend and I am a little sore today I have to say...but sore in a good way!

I was so thrilled with the display of allium and tulips I had in the spring I thought I'd add to the show and plant some more in a different area of the garden. So hopefully come April I see some more of these.

I left the alium in place for ages as I loved the texture of the seed head. In fact I loved them so much when I cut them down I saved some of the best ones , spary painted them white and brought them inside.

Now I can enjoy them year long.


But lets turn our attention to more pressing matters that seed head. Who is the winner of my second "The Dump" $134 gift card?

I plugged all the comments I got through Facebook and on the blog post into an online Random Generator and out popped a name.

Congratulations Mary Rios you are the winner! I will be contacting you shortly to get your address.

Love from

Creative in Chicago

XX

Categories: Decor, decorative accents, Paint it baby, Pretty

Fabric Covered Magazine Files: Tutorial

Dear Chicago House,

One of my favorite things about living in Chicago is that I can nip to an Ikea in 25 minutes.

On my last visit, I picked up a couple of packets of FLYT magazine files with the objective of injecting a bit of organization into corners of home chaos. They were cheap, functional but a little bit boring... so I transformed them into these!

 Gorgeous fabric covered boxes

Now I know you are just dying to rush out and make you own, so to make it easier here is is a step by step photo tutorial:

How to cover IKEA FLYT magazine files with fabric

What you need

• Fabric of your choice. I used two patterns 
• Glue- Tacky Glue works really well
• Parchment paper for template

 

Love from Creative in Chicago XX

Categories: Craft Projects, Decor, DIY, Holiday Projects, How to, How to's, Sewing

Giftcard Giveaway to new Chicago Furniture store: The Dump

Dear Chicago House,

Who doesn't love a bargain...better still who doesn't love something for FREE!

Let's combine the two with a free $134 gift card to a discount furniture store, "The Dump", who on August 30, are celebrating the opening of a new 134,000sqft store in Lombard IL.

I had a little poke around their website to see what they offer and they really do have pretty nice stuff at very attractive prices.

To enter do one or both of the following 

1. Follow me on Facebook
2. Subscribe to my blog feed

then leave a comment letting me know each thing you have done. If you are already a subscriber or Facebook fan just leave a comment.

Good luck, I will draw a winner on August 28th... Due to a slight technical hitch the drawing will not take place until the 30th

Love from

Creative in Chicago

XX

Categories: Decor, decorative accents, FREE

A New House and Behr Aqua Breeze

Dear Chicago House,

So lets just say I have been a bit busy. The St Louis "sibling" town house was sold in May and we bought another townhouse in Pennsylvania soon after that (long story why...too boring to share).

I spent a lot of time house hunting online and Mr Chicago house did all of the viewings. We bought this house without me ever visiting it and what with a crazy summer schedule I had to wait until last week to set foot over the threshold. Had Mr Chicago made a good choice or was it a complete balls up?!

I loved it from the moment I walked in, bright, sunny and airy, 10/10 Mr Chicago house!

It is a brand new house which is a first for us and of course I had to get rid of some of the builder beige. Within 24hrs of my visit I had cracked open my first tin of paint and tackled the living room.

I am so in love with Behr Aqua Breeze the color choice was a no brainer

It is such a relaxing color ...I need to do a post one of these days with all the rooms I have painted in this color!

Anyone moving house will know the challenge of "making your furniture fit" but we have done pretty well. The dining room table started life in our first house in the UK, moved to Belgium and is now on it's 4th house in the US.

These stools however, are a new addition and give a great pop of color to the kitchen

What do you think?

Love from

Creative in Chicago

XX

Categories: Decor, decorating, Paint it baby

A stencil some fabric scraps = A magic pillow

Dear Chicago House,

Remember that stencil I won and used to create a piece of art work for my office,

well I have been itching to have a go at stenciling some fabric ever since.

When I tore the disgusting drapes down from your windows when we first moved in, I had plans for selling them. But there were no takers ( surprise surprise!) so I salvaged all the lining and tossed the 1980's curtains.
Now this stash of white fabric has been quite useful. I have already used it to make some Word Art pillows and it was the perfect fabric to have a play around with my stencil.

I gave the fabric a good iron and taped in onto a large wooden board ( a piece of crappy old basement paneling) Stenciling onto fabric was a lot easier that working on paper as I suffered no edge bleed.

I worked with just a single color - just a regular acrylic craft paint. Once the paint was dry I gave the fabric another good iron to fix the paint. To be honest I don't know for certain how well this will stand the test of time but what I do know is if I ever get any acrylic art paint on my clothes it NEVER washes out.

I cut out two 19" squares and quickly ran up a pillow cover on my sewing machine.

Pillow magic and as Mr Chicago House said, diamonds are forever, I think he liked it!

Love from

Creative in Chicago

XX

Categories: Craft Projects, Decor, decorating, pillows, Sewing, Tutorials

Use a stencil to create wall art

Dear Chicago House,

I am a little behind at sharing a new piece of art that is gracing your office walls, but better late than never.

A few weeks ago I won a shopping spree at Cutting Edge Stencils and this is what I got.

I know the trend is to stencil an entire wall but I thought I'd try something a little different and make a simple piece of wall art. I started by having a a bit of a play around as I decided I wanted a multi colored effect but didn't quite know what direction I wanted to take.

I selected four craft acrylic paints and got to work.

It took me a while to establish the type of design and to optimize the load of paint on my stencil brush so I did not get an edge bleed.

But I got there in the end and went for a color gradient effect going from turquoise blue to a grass green.

And here it is on the wall ...impossible to photograph without a reflection on the glass but that's what you get if your office has a load of windows. I am not complaining! I really like the way it compliments the other art I have on the wall. This office really has come a long way from it's brown days,

I'd like to try creating a fabric with the stencil yet, what do you think?

Love from

Creative in Chicago

XX

Categories: Art, Craft Projects, Decor, decorating, On the Wall, Tutorials, wall art