Ikea Project: 3 Ways To Spruce Up Your Living Room!

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Most Singaporeans live in a HDB flat and the room that we spend the most time in as a family is usually the living room. It’s the largest space in the whole house and in that space, we hang out, watch TV, play games, do homework, dine and do all sorts of things together. Therefore, it’s really important to have a comfortable, cosy and functional living room. My personal opinion is that everyone must feel at ease and relaxed in that space, and it must also reflect the unique personality of the family. Making little changes and sprucing up the living room every once in a while injects fun and breaks the monotony, so I love to do that. When inspiration hits, I head to my favorite home furnishing store in town. Ikea, of course.

Because I like to make changes to my space often, Ikea is able to meet my needs in terms of pricing and variety. I know there are many people who go for expensive and timeless pieces that can be used for a very long time, but for the very fickle me when it comes to design and furnishing, reasonable pricing is more important. I also need new ideas and design concepts constantly, so the frequent introduction of new product ranges at Ikea works perfectly for me. I recently just did a simple sprucing up of my living room because I got tired of the look and the space had gotten so messy with the kids’ stuffs everywhere! Don’t believe me? Here’s the before and after:

    

It’s not tough to spruce up your living room, really! Today, I share 3 simple tips on how you can do that easily and economically. You can thank me at the end of the post. LOL!

1. Showcase your Family Moments

The best way to personalize a space or to give it a unique personality and flavor is to display photographs of the family in the space, either on the tabletop or on the walls. Not only do the beautiful photos remind us of the happy moments we spent together as a family, they also enhance the space aesthetically. Simple designs can make a big difference!

Selected these favorite photos from my family outings and overseas trips, and framed them up with these basic black frames from Ikea. Frame your family moments in different sizes and form a design on your wall however you like it. The good thing about this is that you can update the photographs to give it a different look every once in a while. I love looking at my wall now – Brings me so much happiness!

2. DIY A Signature Item

I love to DIY my stuffs, because then, they would be unique and cannot be found anywhere else. To spruce up my otherwise dull sofa, I decided to personalize some plain cushions I bought from Ikea with the initials of the husband and my name. Do you like them?

They are very simple to make, really. First, get your cushions and covers from Ikea. I got the black plain ones because they are the easiest to spruce up. Then get some colorful fabric – I found these stripped ones at home.

 

Then draw up your design (in my case, alphabets) on cardboard for easy drawing on the cloth (You can go freehand direct on the cloth if you are confident enough, of course). Cut out the design accordingly.

I used a craft glue to stick the alphabet cloth onto the cushion cover before using the sewing machine to stitch them on.

With thick white thread, I sewed a tracing outline around the alphabets, and also some felt buttons I got from Daiso. Completed!

3. Add A Warm Light Source

Lightings make a big difference to a space. Most of our homes would have white lights in our living room because we need good illumination for most of the activities done in that space. But adding a warm light source can give it a very cosy touch and a different ambience for those quiet moments, especially after the kids have gone to bed and peace returns to the household.

This simple Japanese-style HOLMO  floor lamp from Ikea works perfectly for me. It’s extremely affordable (Less than S$10!) and lights up very well. I love the warm glow that comes out of it.

I like to light some scented candles occasionally and the BORRBY lantern from Ikea works great for me. Makes the whole living room smell so good! Even when not in use, I like it as a décor too.

 

I hope this has inspired you to make some little changes to your living room. Go ahead and do it – You’ll be surprised how much happier that makes you feel.

 

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Ikea Singapore. The J Babies was provided with vouchers to purchase some of the items mentioned in this post, and no other financial compensation was received. The ideas, photographs and text are all solely mine.

Technorati Tags: Ikea,Ikea hacks,Ikea inspirations,living room ideas,ideas for sprucing up your living room,makeover ideas

Ikea Project: Bring The Outdoors In! (DIY Tutorials Included)

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The weather in Singapore lately has been really bad – On some days, it’s crazily hot and humid, and on other days, it pours like nobody’s business. All that meant that we had been forced to stay indoors quite a lot recently and I got a little grumpy that we could not go out and have fun especially during the weekends.

Then one fine day, an ingenious idea came to me – Since we could not go outdoors, why don’t we bring the outdoors in??!

I did just that. I decided on a spur of a moment that we were going to have an indoor tea camping party. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I was trying to make the best out of what we had. Turned out to be pretty fun because I roped in the girls to help and it became a fruitful afternoon of DIY project fun.

Here’s a look at our campsite! We’ve even got a giant leaf as our shelter. =P

We fixed a lamp inside our tent since we don’t have the sun shining directly above our heads. And we had Mr Cloud and Mr Sun with us too. We brought the outdoors into our bedroom!

Now, how can we forget the wild flowers if we are going outdoors? By the way, I made these flower garlands at a workshop recently using plastic flowers from Ikea – More on that later!

We played many rounds of UNO card game, but somehow it was more fun that day because we played them ‘outdoors’. =P I love the new serve wares from Ikea that come in colorful and vibrant prints of birds and fruits. They make the whole setup look so cheery and happy.

Our campsite was a simple setup put together with stuffs from Ikea that I could find in the house, but it brought us many hours of fun and laughter. Look at the girls’ gleeful smiles while we were pretending to have some tea and snacks inside their tent.

All it takes is a little creativity and some help from Ikea to turn an otherwise boring afternoon into a fun one. I give myself a big pat on my back. If you are desperately in need of an indoor activity with your bored kids too, here’s how I put the look together. You are welcome.

THE TENT

I’m not sure if you could tell by now, but the structure of my tent is actually this:

YES!! It’s the MALA Easel from Ikea!

And here’s how I transformed the easel into a tent structure:

1. Get 2 of these screw-in hooks and some sturdy thick strings.

2. Disconnect the horizontal board (the one with the red surface) and let it hang by the side (As can be seen in the right photo below).

3. Screw in the hooks on the two legs of the easel on the same side.

    

4. Tie a string from one hook to the other and open up the easel to your desired height and width. Congratulations, you’ve got a tent structure! (I’m not kidding)

5. Next, find a piece of cloth that’s big enough to drape over the entire structure. The cloth I used was bought from Ikea and it measured approximately 2m by 1m. Secure the top two ends of the cloth with some binder clips to make an entrance of some sort. Slip in some cushions to make sitting inside the tent a comfortable one (since we are sitting on tiles, and not grass!). To complete the look, I hung a lamp from the top of the tent structure by fastening it with a string (The lamp is the SMILA BLOMMA Wall lamp from Ikea) and placed a giant leaf bed canopy over the tent (LOVA Bed canopy from Ikea) to add on to the feel of being outdoors.

Is that simple or is that simple??!

THE WILD FLOWER GARLANDS

As I mentioned at the start of this post, I learnt how to make these pretty flower garlands at a workshop organized by Ikea for a group of bloggers several weeks ago. I love how easy it is to make them, and how lovely the final products are!

Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised when I was told that these artificial flowers were all from Ikea! Maybe it’s just me, but I often speed through the plants and flowers section in the Ikea showroom, so I’ve never really stopped to see what they have to offer. Some of these artificial flowers looked so real, it’s unbelievable!

I chose the flowers I liked and started to make garlands with them. To make the garlands more interesting, we interspersed the artificial flowers with paper cupcake holders found at Ikea (yes, so ingenious right?) and simple yarn pom poms. Fold the cupcake holders three times, flatten them and staple to secure (just like the purple one in the photo above). Pom poms are super easy to make – Just twine the yarn over your three fingers something like 30 rounds, remove and tie it tight in the middle before cutting through both ends and fluff it. To make the garlands, just make a circle with a piece of wire and secure it with washi tape. Then glue the flowers, cupcake holders and pom poms onto the wire closely to each other so that there are no empty holes.

See how lovely my Jayne looks with the garlands I made that day!

Now, these garlands are decorations for our DIY tent in the bedroom. :)

How do you like my Ikea-inspired DIY ideas? Here’s what you need from Ikea to complete the projects:

 

Disclosure: This is Part 1 of a series of posts done in collaboration with Ikea Singapore. The J Babies was provided with a stored value Ikea card to make purchases for purpose of the post, however  some of the Ikea products mentioned in this post were existing items in our household. As usual, all photographs and opinions expressed in the post are solely ours.

Planner 2015

How do you start planning?

I started mine by getting a new planner for 2015. It may sound like the most bimbotic thing to do, but trust me, it absolutely sets you on the right footing for a great year ahead. I’ve always wanted to get a super pretty planner, but every year, I manage to convince myself that it’s a waste of money to spend 30 bucks on a pretty planner when a $6 plain black one will work just as well. This year, I decided against all odds that only a nice and pretty planner will do. Spending 30 bucks for something that would serve me for the next 365 days of my life sounds like a really good deal. And so, I got me a baby pink one from Typo! *do a little happy dance*

It’s got all the elements I love – Quilted jacket, metal plate with engraving, pink and polka dots. =)

I kept some stickers and stick markers in the pockets of the planner, so that I can beautify my days as I put in the events and important dates as I go along.

 

Every planner comes with a matching pen, and mine happens to be a gold pen. So nice!

A new planner is definitely a great excuse to craft and decorate. And so, I spent one afternoon to do up some of the pages to personalize the planner. My printic photos turned out to be very handy! :)

This is just the preliminary – The planner’s gonna get a lot more fun and interesting as I go along, I’m sure! :)

After I finished doing simple touch-ups to some of the pages in my planner, I wrote in the important birthdays, dates to remember and events that have been confirmed for the new year. I feel very organized, and finally can see 2015 in a more structured manner! Loving this feeling. :)

Love this planner because it’s not only got the monthly view, it’s also got daily view for me to pen down thoughts, devotions and ideas that may drop in randomly. Plus, it’s surprisingly light so that it’s not burdensome to bring it with me everywhere I go. Now, I feel motivated to go buy more stickers to beautify the planner. =P

Start planning for 2015, if you have not! =D

 

P/S: Contrary to popular beliefs, this is NOT an advertorial or product review. :)

Technorati Tags: Planner for 2015