Styling: One Hour to a Curated Collection

Hi Friends! With several design projects wrapping up simultaneously right now, I've got styling on the brain 24/7! It's not uncommon for our design clients to have few to no styling accessories, (with the exception of books), so we're always keeping our eyes peeled for shops that we can head to when we need a lot of goodies!

Now, Cate and I love to find accessories when we're out at thrift stores, barn sales and vintage markets. Little by little, we've curated styling accessories that suit our taste and the spaces we need to fill. This exploratory approach has taken each of us years of digging and picking up and turning over in our hands. So how does one create their own collection in a single afternoon? When it comes to the final touches in our clients spaces, we turn to the great world wide web!

Here are some of our favorite online shops where we can find all the patina or polished, modern or time-worn goodness we need to complete any space.

As seen in a StyleMutt Home project:

As seen in a StyleMutt Home project:

As seen in a StyleMutt Home project:

Example pottery styling in a StyleMutt Home project:

We hope you find these sources as useful and inspiring as we have! Now, I'm off to round up some final touch shopping lists for some very awesome clients! This weekend we are off to shoot a finished project that combines my love for industrial urban spaces and bohemian flair. I CANNOT wait to share it with you, friends! Here's a quick peek of the progress our client sent last month:

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Reader Design: Angie's Cozy, Collected Family Room

Hi All! One of my favorite things about being a DIY / furniture refinishing / home design blogger is the opportunity to get to know wonderfully creative people from all over. Not long after I opened an Instagram account, I found Angie, @angies_deco_abode. Angie has a beautiful eye for design and I've found her home to be so inspiring! She's a thrifting queen - you'd NEVER imagine that her glamorous space is almost completely thrifted or clearance finds. 

Let's take a peek!

Stunning, right?! Here are some notes from Angie:

"This room is the first thing you see when you come in to my home. I wanted it to look nice and inviting. This room is used for everything. From storage for the kids toys to dads nicknacks that need to be out of the way. That hutch keeps things nice and organised. We love using this room on rainy or lazy days.Will lay on that lounger and read a book or just watch the rain out the window. Plus it also gets a lot of light so my plants love it too. All in all its a great room. Most of the things in this room were thrifted. Its nice to find things I love at a good price."

Hutch. $50
sofa/ lounger $90
Blue art frame $15
Gold table $15
White leather chair $12
Little table for planter $3
White rug/ikea $10
small side gold table $12

Thank you so much for inviting us in, Angie! Angie's beautiful room has now been added to our Spaces page. We really love any opportunity to peek inside a home. If you'd like to share any bits of your own home, please either post your pictures right to our Facebook page, or tag #stylemuttspaces on Instagram!

Plain, white pillows ---> Three ideas!

Hey guys! I've got a good three-fer for today - three ideas for one product! Tis' the season for quick and easy design swaps to get your homes ready for the holidays up ahead. I don't know about you, but I've been swooning over the hundreds of decorative pillows overwhelming Pinterest, Etsy, and my inbox of emails from West Elm, Pottery Barn, Anthropoligie Home, and the like. There are so many. So, so many. One could easily drop several hundred dollars on seasonal pillows alone!

A few months ago I swooped into IKEA for a quick stop and grabbed a few plain white GURLI pillows while I was there. I didn't quite know what I was going to do with them, but at $4/pillow, I figured something good would come from them. After an in-n-out trip to JoAnns, I had just what I needed, (for an additional $4 as all items were on sale), to dress up my plain white pillows!

IDEA 1: Block printing

Block printing is one of my favorite techniques. There are so many creative ways to use block printing - curtains, tea towels, (which I gave as Christmas gifts one year), chair cushions, aprons, stationary, napkins, lampshades, (which I did on our old bedside lamps), and as we'll see today, pillows! You can use any number of objects as your shape and then you just need a bottle of fabric paint.

For my first white pillow, I used a green pepper, cut straight across about two inches from the top. Squirt some fabric paint onto your paper plate or paint tray, stick the cut end of the pepper into the paint, and stamp it right onto the fabric! 

When I was finished with the block printed pattern, I felt like my pillow needed a little something more.  I dabbed my finger into some red fabric paint and made a few dots in the center of each stamp. Now it looks like flowers!

IDEA 2: Leather Cord

This next idea was inspired by a pillow I saw at Target by Nate Berkus, (the 'Decorative Braided Pillow', now discontinued). I bought the leather cord from JoAnns, (on sale for around $1), and then measured and cut the pieces I'd need for my design. I layed the two criss-crosses side by side and stitched the ends. That's all!

IDEA 3: Leather fringe

This last idea almost went in a different direction using chunky pom-pom trim instead. But, when I saw this camel leather fringe on sale at JoAnns, I couldn't resist and changed course right away! A simple, trimmed-out pillow is a great anchor to a long couch full of various patterns and textures. I used fabric glue for this idea and it has held up beautifully, but of course if you have a sewing machine that would work as well. I glued along the outer edge of the pillow, carefully lined up the leather fringe, and pressed down. Then I snipped off the end hanging over the edge of the pillow cover and started on the next side. 

Here they are all together - three identical pillows dressed up three different ways! For $4/pillow and $4 total for supplies, I now have three new custom pillows for a total of $16! This was an easy project to tackle in a single afternoon while my little ones napped. Estimated project time: 60 min!

Thank you for stopping by!