Vintage Inspiration: HD Buttercup

HD Buttercup is a really lovely furniture store located in SOMA in San Francisco. Aside from being huge and full of the kind of furniture that is pretty enough to make you feel okay about dedicating your next several paychecks to it, they have worked in a lot of really great vintage decorating ideas that could be some DIY inspiration for around the home.

A wall of vintage plates:

Bowler hats turned light covers:

Old shoe stands painted for display:

And lots of vintage pieces around every corner, like this trophy collection:

DIY: Large Vintage Prints

I'm always looking for something new to put on the walls, and large-scale art makes such a statement. Catherine of Design Editor photographed a couple of her vintage cameras, then made 24"x36" engineering prints of them for a whopping $3.29 each. Voila! Interesting DIY wall art!

Want to make your own? You can download her camera images for free right here. Or...see what kind of vintage gems you have around the house that would look good on the wall and try your own.

(Spotted on How About Orange)

Vintage Renewal - Modern Library Storage

The folks at Able + Baker Design had a genius idea - stick the spines of vintage books onto boxes to hide your clutter cleanly on the shelf. Love this idea:

DIY Tutorial - Scalloped Peter Pan Collar

I've posted a little DIY Tutorial on my personal blog on turning a vintage button up shirt into a blouse with a scalloped peter pan collar. Check it out and make your own.

DIY: Succulents in Vintage Egg Cups

I got inspired by this idea over at Roy Joy and decided to put a vintage twist on it using vintage egg cups!

I scoured ebay, etsy, and thrift strores for vintage egg cups, and eventually ended up with a set of vintage hobnail milk glass egg cups and a set of vintage Japanese tea cups.

Next, I collected a variety of small succulents. Finally, I hit the farmer's market for extra pretty eggs and then.... voila! A few succulents for Easter, with an awesome vintage twist.





Get the full DIY instructions on potting succulents inside of egg shells here.
*special thanks to Jenny for being my partner in crime and snapping some of these pix

Vintage Inspired: Girliepains Paper Cameras

I stumbled on the Girliepains paper printables the other day, which have all the cuteness of old vintage cameras with better colors. You can print em, cut em, fold em, and glue em into a whole army of perfect paper pretties:




And wouldn't it be cute to hide a gift inside the toughie design? The lid comes off and makes a perfect little box:



You can buy the PDF from her for a whopping $4.50, and then print and fold as many of these cameras as you can. I may have already ordered them in every color.

DIY Round-up: Detachable Collars

I know, I know. Peter Pan Collars. So hot right now. So hot that you want to wear one WITH EVERYTHING YOU OWN! Right? Luckily, rather than sew one onto all of your blouses, you can rock a detachable one to the same effect.

You can find em for sale all over (both vintage or new)... or you can try your hand at making your own.

Here's a round-up of a few of our favorite DIY collar tutorials from around the web (two of em don't even require a sewing machine).


Basic Detachable Peter Pan Collar by A Common Thread



Angel Collar from Craftzine



No Sew Simple Felt Scalloped Detachable Peter Pan Collar by Honestly WTF


DIY Pearl Collar Necklace by Style Hive


Faux Fur Peter Pan Collar by Collette Patterns

DIY: Repurposed Trophy Cupcake Stands

I spotted this genius tutorial over on Just Something I Made: you'll feel like a winner when you're eating sweets off of these repurposed old trophies turned cupcake stands.




Grab some old bowling trophies, some spray paint, and make your own.

Vintage Renewal - Vintage Camera Nightlight

Scared of the dark? There is a stylish solution. I love these vintage camera nightlights made by Jason Hull here in the Bay Area. He rescues old cameras and turns them into little nightlights. All the prettier to see you with, m'dear:


If you think you're handy enough, he's also posted DIY instructions over on Instructables, and you can try to make your own.

DIY: Vintage Tins as Fridge Magnets

Another cute way to repurpose vintage tins - turn them into magnets and stick them on the fridge to hold pencils or other doodads:


Full tutorial to be found at Creature Comforts.

DIY Tutorials: Vintage Record Bunting and Cake Plates

Maybe you'll remember that we participated in our first ever pop-up shop awhile back!

When selling in person you have to think much more about decor and presentation, so I came up with a few vintage-inspired pieces of decor to liven my space up.

I made some cute bunting out of old Vintage 45 Record Sleeves, and some display plates out of old records:



Here they were in action at the shop:




The decor was perfect for the shop, but I think they would also work if you were throwing a vintage or music themed party as well.

We've posted instructions on how to make your own over on Oh Happy Day:

DIY Record Sleeve Bunting

DIY Vintage Record Cake Plates

**

All Photos by Robyn Kessler of Verité Photography.

DIY - Curiosity Group's 3D Record Player calendar

The Curiosity Group comes out with a free, clever printable 3D calendar each month.

Sadly, April is already half over, which is a shame, since the calendar of the month is an awesome little 3D record player with a cutout in the album to reveal the date.

Download yours here.

DIY: Vintage Tin Candles

I have a huge collection of vintage tins - many from my grandmother, and many that were just too pretty not to buy. I store all sorts of odds and ends inside of them, but loved this easy Design Sponge project on making your own candles out of vintage tins. Can you say my new go-to homemade gift?




You can find lots of lovely old tins on ebay and etsy to make your own.

Vintage Renewal - The BOOMcase

Every generation has worked to make music portable. I am always on the hunt for old record players that run on batteries, perfect for taking to the lake for picnics. And the 80's had the boombox-on-shoulder thing down. So it is only logical that we'd get some portable speakers for our iPod generation as well.

Check out these stylish numbers, or "BoomCases," made by Sacramento-based sound wizard Dominic "Si-Mo." He embeds 30-, 50- and 200-watt speaker systems into awesomely vintage found luggage, and says that the sound from these babies could power an entire houseparty, which means bringing the tunes to your next picnic will be ... a picnic.





If you are someone who is handy with tools and things with wires, you may be able to make your own. Otherwise, prices for the BoomCase start at $250 for a plug-in, or $300 for a battery/plug-in case (though most look to have sold for closer to $400).

(via Thrillist)

Vintage Inspired: USBtypewriters

So, I own many a typewriter and always lament that they don't seem terribly practical for much else than decor on a shelf, or writing the occasional love letter. Enter USBtyewriter. This dude converts vintage typewriters into keyboards for your computer. You can purchase one all ready to go for $500, or buy the kit and do it yourself for around $50. Either way ... holy awesome.

Spotted: AHV on Project Wedding

Our friend Jordan (of Oh Happy Day) borrowed a few white/wedding dresses from us for photoshoots, and we were delighted to see one of them pop up in her latest project for Project Wedding.

The project is as cute as the dress - how to make your own Flag Sculptures.


We'll be posting the dress as soon as it is done living a glamorous life of a photoshoot prop.

DIY: A Fresh Coat of Paint

There are so many inexpensive things to be found at garage sales, thrift stores, flea markets, etc that just need a good eye and a bit of elbow grease to transform! This post is dedicated to some of my favorite home furnishings seen around the blogosphere as of late, giving everyone out there the incentive to see past a used piece of furniture's ugly wood stain or weird handles and giving it a facelift instead of picking up something cheap that everyone else owns from Ikea.

Alyssa's dresser before:


Alyssa's dresser after:


Vixen Vintage Before:


Vixen Vintage After:


Liz's Before:


Liz's After:

DIY: Vintage Lace Jewelry

I made it out to the Vintage Clothing and Textile Show in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, which features a number of sellers vending antique textiles and some lovely vintage clothing.

I love looking at all the dead stock lace and trims that the vendors have managed to find.




Even if you don't sew, I like the idea of turning some of the pretty delicate lace pieces into jewelry, like these necklaces and earrings from White Owl:




Or Ruche: