Happy National Thrift Shop Day! In honor of this day I'm going to share a special thrift flip that graced my apartment for 
2+ years. 

Thrifting is near and dear to my heart. As soon as I got my first job in high school you could find me thrifting my heart away with my extra cash. Thrifting has been a creative outlet for me and I love the challenge of giving something a new life, while never sacrificing style. 

Fall of 2018 I found these chairs at a local thrift store in Long Beach for less than $20 each. I was drawn to their shape and could tell they had potential, they just needed a little love. 

For their second life, I transformed them with white spray paint and a new seat cushion, pink of course. I ordered the fabric from the showroom my design firm shopped at and had our reupholster make the cushion for me. So technically I just DIY'd the paint and had the cushion professionally made, which I always recommend, unless you can sew. 

I utilized old plastic shopping bags to wrap the chair and save the wicker from getting spray paint on it. This seemed like a cheap and sustainable way to protect the chair, but to be honest it was a huge pain. For the second chair I ended up covering it in a trash bag instead of cutting up and piecing together plastic shopping bags. 

These chairs were just what I needed to complete my living room and they paired so well with my green sofa. If you find yourself thrifting soon, don't pass up the furniture section, you never know what treasures you might find. 

Thanks for stopping by my blog, I hope this inspires you to shop second hand and test your creativity. 

xoxo, 

​Jill 

Last week, my friend Kristen and I found ourselves in a small hole-in-the wall thrift store and ended up departing with some great finds. This woven straw bag was one of them. We found it in perfect condition, ready for a face lift. I've been all about the pom pom embellished bags that are all the trend right now, but I'm sorry, there's no way I'm dropping $80 on a 'trend' that will fade as fast as the seasons come and go. Of course, this has lead us here. Welcome to my latest DIY, where I show you how you can get the look for less. Below are inspiration photos that drove the color palette and design decisions of this DIY. Since the end of summer is fast approaching, I wanted the colors to be neutral and easy to transition into fall and winter. Even though, lets be honest, we don't have any other season than summer here in California. 

After leaving the thrift store, we made a quick run to Michaels to buy the white pom pom trim and I found the black pleather trim at Jo-Anns! The whole process only took about 15 minutes to hot glue the two layers and finish it off with a black bandana.

I hope this post inspires you to recycle something old, give it a fresh look and a brand new identity. Also, give your local thrift store a chance! You never know what you'll find and repurposing items is much more sustainable for our entire planet. I know it's hard for a lot of people to dig through thrift stores and sort through old items, but you never know the treasures you'll find and that's my favorite part about the hunt. 

Just in case you're not the DIY type, I included some stylish woven bags, embellished with pompoms below! Happy shopping!

xoxo,
Jill 

Forever 21 Tote
Sam Edelman Tote
Santana Pompom Straw Tote
Basket Mini Pom Bag







​

The list of to-dos for my apartment is endless. There is always something that I’m wanting to tweak, re-style or add to a wall. The empty space above the sink was seriously screaming at me every time I walked by. It was haunting me in my dreams at night. Okay, it wasn’t that serious but it was getting on my nerves. We needed shelves of some sort. I started stalking my local Home Depot and Lowes in my free time, trying to find the perfect set of shelves to fill the space. There were too many unanswered questions in my head every time I looked. What color? Raw wood or painted? Length? Width? Two or three? How tall above the tile should I hang them? Each question made it harder and harder for me to pull the trigger on the shelves I had been eyeing. Finals were approaching last semester and I desperately needed a new project to momentarily escape from my school design projects. I got off work early one night and went straight to Lowes to look at their selection again and just couldn’t get myself to buy the shelves. And then I remembered Ikea. Wow, I’m not sure why it took me so long to think of Ikea for the perfect shelves to fill that void above our sink. I drove home and started a google search and discovered the most perfect (and affordable) floating shelves. (Here) The length and color was perfect. Done, sold. I rushed there after church the next day to buy and hang them. 

​My roommate wasn’t home and being the annoyingly impatient and stubbornly independent person that I am, I spent two hours trying to hang them myself. I ignored the cute drawn characters on the instructions and turned into the sad man standing next the pile of shelves on the floor (as shown above). I somehow thought I could sit in the sink and hold the level and the shelf at the same time. It was awful. I gave up and left for work. Luckily my roommate, Aremae,  was home when I got back and she was more than happy to help hang them on a Sunday night at midnight. Score. 

The late night installation

(After)

They’re perfect and make our very old kitchen, with the strangest color palette look young again. We live in a quaint Spanish style four-plex apartment building that was built in 1929 and the kitchen looks appropriate to the era. I’ve researched 1930’s kitchen designs and the tile and cabinets look similar to what I’ve found online. The fact that it’s all original makes my heart so happy. I love old buildings, mainly because the older it is, the more character it has. For our old apartment the character is found in the high ceilings, wood floors, plaster walls, unique kitchen tiles and our Spanish style fireplace. 

Styling the shelves was my favorite part. If you’re having any trouble styling shelves, here are some tips.
 

1. Try to keep the overall space full, but not too crowded. You want shelves to look balanced appropriately and not cluttered.
2. Mess around with stacking books horizontally and vertically.
3. Layer items to add interest and depth.
4. Keep vignettes in numbers of threes.
5. Add greenery that hangs.
6. Find jars to fill with items that go with the overall theme. Since these shelves are in the kitchen, I filled a jar with wine corks.

 
Overall, just have fun with it. There really is no right or wrong way to style shelves. It’s all about the edit and finding the right composition. Most of the items I used for our shelves were already found around our apartment and I’m sure you already have the perfect items you need for the shelves you want to style. 

Thanks so much for checking out my blog.  
xoxo 
Jill 

The kitchen in my apartment has been an after thought for as long as I've lived here. I love decorating and rearranging the living room, but I haven't spent much time doing anything to the kitchen. It's quite drab to be honest. Most people would agree that it's nothing special and usually really dark. BUT, I would like to add that it has an awesome brick wall behind our cute retro oven, which has so much character all on its own. I was talking with my roommate about the dilemma and we both agreed that it needs some love. That conversation sparked the idea of using this wonderful newspaper cover as an art piece. Once the idea was formed, I had all the materials in my apartment and it only took about 15 minutes to execute it! I took photos of the steps and of the final product. It's super simple and adds some life to my life-less and dark kitchen! I hope you enjoy this DIY and try your own spin on it. I have more plans for this little kitchen in our apartment so stay tuned to see what's next. 

MATERIALS: 
​​Newspaper cover
Foam core
Ruler
Glue or tape
xacto knife
Hanger

Step 1: The first thing I did was cut the cover of the Newspaper off, making sure to use an xacto knife and a ruler to make the cut straight and clean. 
Step 2: I traced the Newspaper cover onto the foam core to get the correct sizing.
Step 3: I then cut the foam core using my xacto knife and ruler again and decided to use glue to attach the Newspaper cover to the foam core. 
Once those three steps were done, I attached the hanger and drilled a hole in the wall and TA-DA I had a new art piece in my kitchen. So easy and so cute!

I hope you all try this fun and easy DIY! Keep your eye out for rad newspaper covers and make them into your own art pieces. Thanks for reading! 

xoxo,
​Jill 

I'm always on the hunt for new decor for my apartment. So naturally when I came across these wall mount plant holders at Target, I knew that I had to find a spot for them in my apartment. Unfortunately, they didn't carry any pots at Target that would fit these plant holders so I ended up buying my 6" clay pots at Home Depot along with the succulents. Since I knew these were going to be hung on the wall, I bought plants that had height and would grow vertically. I also chose succulents because they're low maintenance and hard to kill (so they say). Side note, I've killed so many succulents it's embarrassing. Am I the only one that does that? I don't understand how that's even possible, but it's the one plant that I usually can't keep alive. 

I wanted to give these my own touch, so I ended up painting each one. It was quite simple and you can paint any design your heart desires. I kept the design simple to go along with the rest of my apartment. I  painted one solid white, one with 1" stripes and one with 1/2" strips. I love how they turned out and I hope you guys decide to buy these and give them your own touch. Bringing plants into any space really gives the room more life. These would be perfect in a kitchen with herbs, especially if you love to cook. Below I included more pictures of the process from start to finish. The process is quite simple and anyone can do it. 

Thanks for reading! Hope you try out this cute DIY.
​xoxo, Jill