Newly Listed: Romantic Getaway Weekender

Romantic Getaway Weekender Travel Bag - Leather Caryall, Vintage Embroidery and Linen Floral Striped Traveling Bag by StarBags
Red Fiat 500 photography, Vintage photography, Fine Art photography. Italy,  vintage red car by PotraitOfALand
Red buildings and canal in Venice, photograph Italy, photo wall art home decor by DeepLightPhotography
Ireland Landscape Photography Red Mountains of Ireland Home Decor Picture Print Wicklow by CandyMountainPhotos

Transformation of a Piano Stool

I showed this sad once-upon-a-time was a piano stool piece for my January projects. It took me almost the entire month to finish it, with other things in between of course but still it took much more time than anticipated.

After thoroughly sanding the wood and cleaning the metal from rust, I treated the metal parts with a black anti aging and anti rust metal paint.

The wood was first treated with 3 layers of sanding sealer and then sanded again to give a nice smooth surface. Then I painted 3 sides of each leg black and the top sides white, creating a sharp edge between the black and the white turned out to be a challenge as I could not tape it off due to the shape of the legs but eventually I got it.

To create the black stripes I tried several things, creating a stencil pattern did not work out as the surface is not flat. Also stamps or simply trying to draw straight striped did not work out either. Of course my first thought was tape but the thought of cutting a gazillion thin tapes and then putting them off was scaring me. Mum came with the great idea to stick the wide painters tape to a piece of plastic coated paper and put it through the shredder. In a short time I had enough evenly cut tapes.

Peeling them each off the paper and applying them to the legs took a while.

The scary part was painting over the tapes with black. You might think why I did not paint the legs entirely black and then painted with white. Making the stripes white on a black surface would have need more layers of paint on the tape, and pulling those neatly off would have had a bad outcome as everything would have cracked because of the many layers of white, so this was although not obvious the best way.

Wile holding my breath I started to peel of each tape one by one. I read somewhere that it was best to not let the paint dry entirely or the paint would chip. I read somewhere else that if you applied the tape from left to right you had to remove the tape from right to left (the opposite) for a cleaner removal. Yes I had investigated a lot before starting to get the best result.

After holding my breath for a bit more over an hour (yes I did breath in between the stripes :)), I had lovely black and white stripes.

And loads of little tapes everywhere...
Some stripes needed a little retouching by hand and brush but most turned out great. On top of the paint I applied a mat varnish to seal and protect the paint work.

After cutting the embroidery round, then accordingly a round piece of wood and foam it was time to sew the top. With black and white striped piping to match the pretty legs.

Tadaaaaa! The result! I am very happy how this turned out, it was worth all the effort and its old look is long forgotten.

The embroidery is vintage, a lovely kitsch fluffy embroidery with birds and flowers, very soft to the touch.

The beautiful piano stool / ottoman / pouf is available at StarHomeStudio.

Newly Listed: Minimalist Pink Sea Urchin Ring

Sterling Silver Minimalist Pink Sea Urchin Ring One of a Kind Size 7 by StaroftheEast
Hot Air Balloons Photography Print Fine Art  Balloon Sky Landscape by LullabyWorld
Seashell Art Photo, Nautical Decor, Ocean Still Life, Beach Cottage Decor by MollysMuses
Fine Art Nature Photography, Pastel, Green Pink Floral Wall Art  by BreeMadden

Get The Look

Here are 3 home looks I love and you can recreate with items we offer in our StarHomeStudio shop.
Here above a large vintage map with wooden dowels hanged at the head side of a bed, found on HomeLife.
Below our 1943 Spanish railroad map, especially printed for the Spanish railroads in the WW2 era, with beautiful colors and details, as it is wide it would look great above a bed or anywhere else for that matter.

Turkish kilims seem to be very popular, you can see many on Apartment Therapy.
Here below you see a Turkish kilim from the 1950's available in our shop, we will be listing more soon.

I love the airy white and natural look of this home on cocokelley, the basket pendant lights caught my eye right away but with a price tag of 1,150$ each, they are not for everyone's budget.
Ours below is a fishing basket (it doesn't smell though!) washed ashore and ready to be used in your rustic home. It is not as big, but the price isn't either :)

It is funny how I am starting to get interested again in interior design. For many year I wanted to be an interior designer, and I graduated as one 10 years ago, but while still studying we started StaroftheEast and I never worked in the interior business. Now that we started to make furniture I started to appreciate my first love again :)
If you are following any home related blogs or sites I would love to hear about them!

Rainy Days Projects

It has been storming and raining non stop for 5 days now, great for the mountains and trees who suffer long, dry and hot Summers. Our poor old roof is less happy, but there are no roses without thorns :) So we have been stuck at home, our beach visits also haven't been possible for a while.

While we layer ourselves with jumpers, the doggies find warmth and comfort in each other. Poor Zeyno gets smashed under the weight of Toffee, like every Winter. Beside breathing with a little difficulty she never complains, even though she is not comfortable at all.

Under my desk I found these 3 side by side, the one in the middle is the little one who came a few months ago, as you can see she adapted wonderfully :)

We have been mainly working online, adjusting shipping profiles. This Christmas we had a lot of delays, USPS had a hard time keeping up with all the packages, so we now also offer TNT express shipping, which arrives in 4-7 days instead of the 15-30 days of Registered airmail. All of our listings needed additional information, a super boring job which I managed to let Star-mum do. She had a bad pay back though...

 She is crocheting a new clothing piece for the clothing shop, and her pay back is for me to working away all those threads, arrrrggg, a super boring job, but at least I can watch a movie while doing it :)

And I am working on a new weekender with vintage embroidery. These take a about a week to finish with all the leather details, you can see one here if you wonder how they look like once finished.
I am however failing horribly in accomplishing my January tasks. The piano stool will finish. And we are promised to have some sunny days from tomorrow on so I will also paint the walls, the chair duo however will have to wait till February as I haven't even started yet!

Newly Listed: Sterling Silver Coral Bracelet

Sterling Silver Coral Bracelet Woven Sterling Silver jewelry with Brass by StaroftheEast
Desert Sunset Photography Print Arizona Cactus Mountains Landscape by WildWildernessPhotos
Bagging The Munro, fine art photography, landscape, highland, nature, mountain, cloud by Neukolor
New York Art Print, Large Wall Art, NYC Photography, Photograph by EyePoetryPhotography

Newly Listed: Sterling Silver Sea Urchin Ring

Sterling Silver Flower Ring Pink Sea Urchin Ring One of a Kind Size 6.5 by StaroftheEast
Bird and Flowering Branch - Fine Art Photo - Flowers, Botanical by BrookeRyanPhoto
Lavender Floral Photograph, Ethereal, Romantic, Flower photograph, Wall decor by hellotwiggs
Original Small Abstract Acrylic Painting with Pink, Orange, Blue, Wall Art by Jimarieart

Eco Friendly Wedding; Bouquets and Centerpieces

Weddings are a big deal, although it does not always happen it is planned as a once in a life time thing and often no costs are spared.
Besides the high costs weddings are often also not friendly for our planet, there are a lot of aspects that can make a wedding eco friendlier and even cheaper because of it. I am planning to write a few blogposts about this and am starting today with the flowers.

Flowers are often used as centerpieces on each table, bouquets for the brides, bridesmaids and flower girls, and as decoration.
Unfortunately most flowers available at flower shops have a very big carbon footprint, which is especially sad as all these flowers will be seen for one day and than end up in the trash. I myself have never liked flowers as they die quickly, I much prefer a pot with a nice plant which I can enjoy for many years, this idea can also be kept in thought while planning a wedding.

If you always wanted fresh flowers on your wedding, checkout local and especially seasonal flowers,  they are much friendlier for nature and also cheaper a win-win. Who knows maybe you even have a friendly neighbor with a beautiful flower garden :)

1. Center piece from Projectwedding 2. Succulent bouquet from loverly 3. succulent decor from weddingchicks

But even though seasonal and local flowers are a much better eco option, they still will die, so I love the idea of plants, especially succulent plants. They are beautiful, don't need much water and can handle a day easily as a bouquet. You can also have little pots with succulents as wedding favors and the center pieces will look great in your home and friends homes for many years, even your bouquet could be planted as succulents can propagate with only the leaves.

If you are not convinced yet, check out these 70 succulent plant wedding project at dearpearlflowers!

Paper flowers and decorations are also a great option, recycled paper of course like magazine leaves or newspaper, later they can all go in the recycle bin. Maps could be used for the travelers or music sheets for musicians.

Checkout at idoityourself for how to make such a bouquet yourself.

Center pieces are where most flowers are used for, instead of flowers other objects can be used too, no need to go traditional. Love the idea of this backyard wedding from glamourandgrace where the bride and groom created center pieces with arrangements of beloved personal objects from their own home, their parents, and friends. No waste, no costs!

There are many more alternatives like fabric flowers made of upcycled fabric, pinecones are also great for bouquets and decorations, the amount of flowers can be reduced by using a lot of alternatives for decoration.

And of course we make bouquets too! Ours are made with beach findings like sea urchins and shells, vintage fabrics and brooches and lots of love :) If you are in the middle of planning your wedding I hope you have come up with more eco friendly solutions for the flowers. I will be writing more posts for eco friendly solutions for wedding related things.

How to Keep coming with new Ideas for your Blog

Today I have totally no idea what to blog about, and then I thought that I will share what I do when I have this problem, so the problem of not knowing what to blog about turned in to a blog post about not knowing what to blog about :) After more than 8 years of blogging this is what I do when my mind is on a blank:

- Check your last 10 blogposts, write them down and then come up with new blogposts inspired by those last 10 ones. For example a previous blogpost about our furniture projects could lead to of course the before and after photo's of those furniture pieces but also a tutorial on how to fix a furniture piece or I could share furniture pieces made by others that I love and there you have 3 blogposts that you all of a sudden could write simply by thinking about 1 blogpost, with 10 posts you can easily come up with 20 new blog posts materials. If so write them down and look at them when you have no idea on what to write about :)

- Think about what you have done lately and share those new projects, this can be something that you make (and sell) but also a house make over, a little home decor upgrade etc. Sharing the process of these projects is fun for others to see and encouraging comments can also stimulate and motivate you to continue or do more than you originally planned.

- Share something personal that you have gone through lately. You don't need to share your dirty laundry or deepest secrets, but something might have happened lately that will give a good laugh to others or touch someone as they went through something similar.

-And finally I try to mix it up a little so not too much of the same kind of blogposts in a row but different things for variation and to connect with more people as some of your blogposts will be more liked by some people while other kinds might be liked by a different audience.

Here are my favorite three blogposts of all time, hope you enjoy them too:

~Mum decided to cook... (originally posted in 2008)

~Eco Fur (originally posted in 2009)

~Going back to Fairyland (Originally posted in 2014)

Newly Listed: Beachshells

Beautiful large seashells for nautical coastal decor, seashell planter all available at StarHomeStudio
Landscape Photography, lighthouse decor, beach wall art, wheat, nautical, art print by TraceyCapone
Tropical Decor, Hawaii Art Print, Beach Decor, Palm Trees Photography by EyePoetryPhotography
Beach Decor, Wave Photograph, Ocean Picture, Wall Art, Sea Photography by PureNaturePhotos

Another sad Goodbye

Just when we started to get used to a house without Lucky, our old little Bibi passed away, 1 week after Lucky. Two losses in such a short time is heart breaking and we have a few more old dogs and the thought of loosing them is horrible.

Bibi has been with us since 2002, we do not know her exact age but it must have been around 15/16. We found her on the streets in very bad shape but thanks to a never ending appetite she recouped well and never had any health issues in all these years.  Until we discovered a lump in her breast last year. As you might remember we lost Daisy and Lily from breast cancer, we both had them operated which did not help much and took weeks for them to recover. Because of this we did not have Bibi operated on. She actually lived longer than the two who we had operated, but I think her good appetite helped a lot. When she all of a sudden stopped eating we knew it was her time.
Instead of letting her go on her own, we took her to the vet to have her put to sleep. This decision was because we know that even when they do not eat and drink it takes days for them to pass away, which is painful for them and agony for us to see them suffer. Bibi's tumor was swollen due to an abscess and looked horrible and painful.

This the last picture I took of her, the day she passed away, she now lies in the mountains with her other brothers and sisters.

If you want to avoid your female dogs to get breast cancer, please let them be spayed as soon as possible, best is when they are 5-6 months before they produce hormones. The older they get the more risk, especially when they have had pups spaying doesn't help much anymore.
We learned this the hard way by loosing 3 girls in 1 year, our 3 remaining girls are all spayed and hopefully will stay with us for a long time.

January Projects

Now that the weather is colder and wetter not much planned for the house, but there are two projects waiting for furniture revamps. Last month was a success as all plans got finished.

This set of chairs will need a lot of tender loving care before they can be painted and upholstered, the wood is not in a condition that it can be varnished, but maybe a crazy color will give it a nice modern make over, nothing planned yet.

The second project is a piano seat. It is super heavy with the metal work making the height adjustable and the solid wood legs.

We are thinking some crazy stuff for this one too, lots of colors for sure and of course it will need a seat :) The metal work will need to be cleaned and treated too so although a small piece this one will take some time.

And as soon as weather allows I still have some paint work to do on the house, the place of the new window and some make up on the walls in general, I scratched off peeling paint so the walls look a little sad now, but this will all be fixed soon.

Do you have any plans for the month/ year?