DIY Leather-Wrapped Vase

Working creatively with your own two hands is so therapeutic, isn't it? My favorite supplies for my DIY projects are ones that look and feel natural and earthy--copper, marble, leather, milk paint, rope, paper.  So I was thrilled to get this lovely leather cord in the mail last week from a German company called Endless Leather (they were kind enough to send me this pretty sampling of their wares for free). This Regaliz leather cord is serious--I haven't seen anything like it in the craft stores I normally go to for materials. It's thick and sturdy and as soon as I saw it I had this vision of a slender leather-wrapped glass vase, sort of a modern, masculine piece.

So I hopped on Amazon and bought a glue gun. I can't believe I didn't already have one! I typically use some sort of super glue for projects but I knew this leather cord would need something stronger to hold it in place.

I already had this glass vase which ended up being the ideal size and shape. It was tricky going at first but once I got the hang of the gluing and wrapping, gluing and wrapping, I sort of zoned out and let my mind wander. The best sort of relaxation.

I decided that some muted green eucalyptus stems would be the perfect contrast to the rich, cognac leather, and I am loving the whole effect. It's rustic yet elegant and those two words together in the same sentence never get old for me.

Happy weekend, friends! Make it a creative one.

Natural Breath Mints

This is a recent discovery of mine that I've been loving--whole cloves as all natural breath mints! Apparently, the oil in cloves kills bad bacteria in your mouth and actually freshens your breath whereas standard sugar-free mints do no more than mask odor. You wouldn't want to actually eat the clove, just pop it in your mouth for a few minutes and maybe nibble it a bit to release the clove oil. The taste is strong but warm and earthy and nice, and there's a bit of a menthol-like kick too. It's noticeably refreshing.

Would you try it? (I filled an empty mint container with cloves to put in my purse so I'll always have some when I'm out and about!)

Eucalyptus-Scented Shower

A few years ago I discovered lavender essential oil, and since then I've become obsessed with all-natural ways of making my home/clothes/towels/pillowcases/you-name-it smell divine.

I mix up my own lavender linen spray for our sheets and pillowcases. I make lemon-scented room spray and keep it in our living room for last-minute air freshening when we have guests. I'm addicted to the Trader Joe's lavender dryer bags (and not just for the dryer--you'll find them tucked in just about every sock, underwear, linen, and towel drawer in our house). 

But my latest aromatherapy experiment is possibly my favorite yet--I tied some eucalyptus branches to our shower curtain rod! I got the idea from this post and while it sounds a little strange, it's actually amazing. The steam from the shower causes the earthy, fresh eucalyptus aroma to surround you and it's so refreshing and awakening first thing in the morning. 

An added bonus is that eucalyptus is pretty beautiful. I arranged the stems in a bouquet and hung it upside down with a little bit of kitchen twine and I'm loving the way it looks.

What do you think? Will you try it? (FYI, for all of you who have a Trader Joe's near you, a bundle of fresh eucalyptus is only $2.99!)

Homemade Christmas

Unsurprisingly, I like to decorate for Christmas the same way I like to decorate the rest of the time--simply, putting hand-me-downs to good use, re-purposing in creative ways, making instead of buying when I can.

For me, this is the most wholesome and refreshing and in-the-spirit way to approach Christmas. I've been very conscious this year, perhaps more so than in other years, of keeping my focus on Jesus, of nurturing peace in my heart and in my home, and making this most special holiday simple, lovely, and joyful.

As I look around our home the words "Homemade Christmas" jump into my mind. My brothers and I were raised on gluing together our own ornaments, baking and frosting warm sugar cookies, stockings that were sewn by Grandma. And I suppose I've now adapted that homemade spirit for adulthood.

Instead of purchasing an expensive garland for our mantel, we asked for the discarded evergreen trimmings we saw in a pile at a local Christmas tree farm. From those I had more than enough to fill our mantel and transform my fall wreath into a wintery one. I found some holly (holly look-alike maybe?) in our yard and stuck a few sprigs on the wreath, and I dotted the mantel greenery with some of the leftovers from this unexpected fall bouquet. I foraged for the red berries during a walk to the park.







Our advent wreath is a little on the makeshift side but I love its simplicity. These greens also came from this bouquet. We arranged them in a rustic circle and set out four white votives and a larger Christ candle in the middle.

Everything is so simple and wintery and the only thing we've purchased (other than gifts) is our mini live tree. I felt so content and peaceful as I unwrapped things we already had and found a place for them in our new home, as I snipped berries from the tree outside our window, as I positioned baby Jesus and Mary in the place of honor on the mantel.

So while it's certainly nice to have the traditional pink or purple Advent candles, I don't think Jesus minds that we've chosen to honor him with plain white votives instead. After all, Christmas isn't about acquiring things and it isn't about perfection. It's about love and joy and celebration and family and it's about a heart-bursting kind of hope.

In that spirit, a Homemade Christmas sounds just right to me.

DIY Repurposed Candles

I love it when I have a spur-of-the-moment inspiration and I'm able to scrounge up all the right supplies to indulge my creativity without leaving the house. That's what happened last week when I decided to "make my own candles" by repurposing some candles I already had and adding a few special touches.

Here's what I did. I have a huge box of inexpensive unscented votives in my china cabinet. I first stripped them of their tin shells and wicks and began chopping up the wax to re-melt. It's best to do this by heating the wax in a jar surrounded by boiling water. (I tried the microwave first and it wasn't effective.) I used a pyrex measuring cup and set it in a tiny pan of simmering water and stirred until the wax was melted. Any kind of glass container would work well, but the measuring cup's spout was helpful when it came time to pour the liquid wax.

I thought it might be nice to add some scent to the melted wax and since I find most scented candles cloying and too sweet, I kept it simple with my favorite essential oils (lavender and lemon). I also made a few jasmine-scented candles using this bottle of roll-on perfume oil.

I hunted around my kitchen for some pretty molds and decided on these teeny tiny china dishes. They're very shallow which ended up being perfect--I was able to use the old wicks from the votives and they were plenty tall enough for these small little vessels.

They were so beautiful as they morphed from liquid into solid. One thing I noticed was that the wax quality seemed better after I melted it and let it harden again. My husband thought that maybe the votives are made with an aerated wax so that less wax is needed per candle, and it results in sort of a crumbly, fast-burning candle. But once melted the wax becomes smooth again and burns beautifully.

This might be a fun pre-Thanksgiving project to try to brighten up your family's feast. I used very little scent so while I usually stick to unscented candles at the dinner table, I think I might sneak these into the mix.

Happy Friday, friends!

DIY Hanging Rope Planter

I've been slowly relocating the plants we had on our screened porch to different spots inside our home. They were actually doing fine outside but I'm clueless about plants and assumed that early morning frost is probably uncomfortable, right? It just felt cruel to leave them out on the porch.

This hanging plant has been thriving ever since we got it back in June and I love its drippy green and white leaves. It's such a well-behaved plant. Giving it a new home in this corner of the bathroom might seem like a strange choice but I'm really loving the greenery-in-the-bathroom look these days. It sort of completes the earthy, calm, spa-like atmosphere I think every bathroom should aspire to. 

(Just don't get carried away.)

When it was on the porch we'd kept the plant in the plastic hanging planter it had come in but once I brought it inside I wanted it to look a little nicer. I had just enough leftover rope from this project so I made another hanging rope planter like the one in my kitchen and kept the plant in its plastic pot ( you can't even tell!). 

It's exactly what this corner needed. I'm not sure this plant will ever make its way out to the porch again. Doesn't it look happy here?

DIY Fall Wreath

We sometimes call our home our Little Cottage In The Woods. There's a slightly overgrown stone pathway in the yard, plenty of creeping, elegant ivy, a built-in bench on the front porch, painted shutters, green foliage on all sides, a tree with red berries that we can see from the bedroom window. And it just keeps getting sweeter and sweeter the colder it gets and the more we need her four walls to keep us warm and dry. 

It is my belief that come October, every Little Cottage needs something charming for the front door. 

At my husband's suggestion I first tried gathering things around the yard that I could fashion into a homemade fall wreath. What I ended up with was crooked and not at all sturdy, but I loved how simple and earthy it looked when I was done "weaving" (more like willing things to stay in place). It was quite pretty but by morning--no surprise--it looked wilted and sad. Ah well. It was mostly just a fun challenge anyway.

The next day I went to Michaels and bought some supplies that would stand up to the weather--a grapevine wreath and an assortment of faux flowers. Not as authentic as the last wreath but the grapevine at least is the real thing. It's super sturdy and it was easy to wedge the stems of the flowers in between the dried vines. 

This DIY is as simple as it gets but it's cozy and cottage-y and it makes me happy! Maybe it will inspire you to make something charming for your front door, too.

Happy Friday, friends.

DIY Leather And Beads Necklace

Meet my newest necklace! I can hardly even call this a DIY because it was so very simple, but it was a fun project nevertheless and I like its quirky, handmade feel.

I had some leather cord from this project left over and I was surprised by how lovely the material is. It's nothing fancy (I got it at Michael's) but it's real deer skin leather, super soft and surprisingly supple. After my dresser redo I used a length of it to tie up a fall wedding gift and I thought that the rest would make a cool necklace. The beads are also from Michael's (on sale!) and just for fun, I spray-painted one of them ivory. It's a bit unexpected and funky and to me, way more interesting than five matching beads. (I was inspired a little bit by the necklace in these photos--scroll down to the last photo in the post and you'll see it.) My husband kept saying, Oh I get it, you're going to just take that extra bead on the right and move it to the other side so the ivory one is in the middle, right? I just smiled and said I intended it to be asymmetrical. We agreed to disagree on this one. :)

Anyway, I think it'll pair nicely with boots and sweaters and I plan to wear it a lot this fall. What do you think?

p.s. I'm wearing this tee.

DIY Dresser Redo

We've got a funky attic space in this new house and I'm so very thankful for every odd inch of it.

Most people put guests in their guest room. (Our guest room has been taken over by pianos.) And have closets in their bedrooms for nice dresses and suits. (Our closet is teeny and fits only seasonal essentials.) And have an extra shelf in a bathroom or maybe a hall closet for linens. (We don't.) But our attic has come to our rescue and taken on these challenges and more and it does a beautiful job with all of it. It's part guest getaway, part storage area, part linen closet. The layout is sort of odd and the blue carpeting isn't my favorite but it's as cozy as can be up there and we (and our guests) love it.

This old dresser at the top of the attic stairs is where we keep our sheets and extra blankets and comforters. It's a really roomy piece of furniture and fits our linens perfectly but the finish and hardware were just the worst. It needed updating in a desperate sort of way.

I decided to paint it white and there was no way I was going to lug this downstairs and outside in order to paint it, so I grabbed some drop cloths and milk paint (which is non-toxic and isn't harmful to breathe in, even when painting indoors) and got to work. I chose a color called Grain Sack, which I know looks uniformly white in these photos but in person the color has amazing dimension and depth. It sometimes looks more grey, other times more beige, occasionally more ivory than white. It's a brilliant color and I really enjoyed working with it.

A Case For Doing It Yourself

I've learned that my penchant for DIYs is not especially common or normal. And I definitely get it--painting furniture, making things from scratch, shopping for supplies at the hardware store, it all takes time and effort and energy. I myself love to DIY because it fuels my creative juices and stimulates my brain and brings me joy but I understand that isn't the case for most people.

Under certain circumstances, though, I do think there's a pretty good case to be made for the DIY route regardless of interest level. Let me use my recent project as an example.

Our bathroom was in desperate need of a place to store shower supplies. I have mentioned before that clawfoot tubs, while charming, do present some technical challenges. I've been mulling over different options for the past few months and finally decided we needed a wall shelf on the curved end of the tub (as opposed to the shower head end).

I looked at a few shelves online and was shocked at how expensive some of them were! First point for DIY--it's almost always easier on your wallet. I also didn't want to settle for a style I didn't love. I had a vision for this shelf (that fit in with the rustic ski town spa style our bathroom reminds me of) and I was finding that what was in my mind didn't exist out in the real world. (Surely this happens to you too, right?) Doing It Yourself is wonderful because you can choose the colors, textures, materials--every inch of the design is purely your call.

And a final reason for why a DIY made sense for this project (even for someone who dislikes DIYs): it was so painless. Certain projects do take a little skill, or special tools, or might be frustrating, but this one truly was as easy as putting up curtains or hanging a piece of art. I did add an extra step by spray painting the aluminum brackets a copper color, but other than that all I did was drill them into the wall and rest this beautiful piece of floor tile on top (similar to my plant stand, where the marble is heavy enough to sit on the pipes without any actual adhesion). The tile also had to be cut to size but my trusty friends at Lowe's did that for me for free.

So that's my case for Doing It Yourself. When a purchase is prohibitively expensive. When what you have your heart set on just isn't out there. When making is as easy (or almost as easy) as buying. And maybe, just maybe, you'll discover you even have a little fun. I can just about guarantee that your pride in the final product will make it all worthwhile.

House Tour: Living Room

Our living room is the beating heart of our petite little home. It's a fairly large room that you walk into as soon as you enter the front door. It's a lounging space, a writing area, an entryway, a waiting room for students and parents, a library, and a hangout/conversation space for guests and visitors. We love this room and its many purposes and the great light it gets (hard to tell from my photos, but it's been an overcast few days) and its overall comfort and coziness.

One thing that I'll mention only because it's something a lot of guests have noticed: there's no TV in this room or anywhere else in the Harvey household! A little known fact about me (on Something Ivory anyway) is that I grew up without a TV. My parents are not extremists and I had a very normal childhood, they just decided that they wanted to raise their kids sans TV and believed strongly that it was a healthier way for us to grow up.

As a result I've never had any interest in having a TV. Interestingly enough, while my husband did grow up with a TV he's never had one of his own in his adult life either, not in college or afterward when living by himself. We use our computers to watch shows and even have an awesome projector screen setup in our basement for movie nights. So while it might seem weird to some, we've both arrived at our TV-less state in a very natural and organic way and we never even needed to have much of a conversation about it (by that I mean that I didn't have to convince him of anything or lead him over to my side of the tracks). We both believe that our home is healthier and more wholesome without a TV, and our computers provide all the digital entertainment we need (thanks, Netflix!).

Because we didn't have to design around a TV we were able to put this room together in a way that really encourages conversation, intimacy, connection. We're lucky enough to have two couches and putting them opposite each other makes for a great chatting setup when friends, family, or potential students of mine come over. I love having our books displayed and within easy reach in the corner, and of course you know how I feel about my writing nook.

There are so many stories to the things in this room, so many personal and familiar elements and it would take far too long to talk about them all. Suffice it to say that everywhere I look in here I'm reminded of a family member, a friend, a memory, a fun project, a specific moment in our lives, a funny story, a loving gesture. This room makes me happy.

  

(As much as I love it I do have two small wishes for our living room: a working fireplace and white walls!)

Thanks for letting me share. What's your favorite element of your main living space?