budget – Francois et Moi

DIY Window Candelabra from Scrap Wood

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 13:29:36 +0000

Celebrate light amidst Winter’s long nights with a DIY window candelabra inspired by Scandinavian tradition. Make this project affordably using scrap wood! When it comes to holiday decorating, my style usually comes to life in two ways: Bringing the outdoors in. Celebrating my Scandinavian heritage through handmade decor and crafts. I’ve been wanting to light our front window with a candelabra since we bought this old house 6 years ago. Window candelabras or adventsljusstakar in Swedish, are often used for Advent or to bring a welcoming glow during long winter nights and are common across Scandinavia. Window candelabras are an investment cost-wise though. I love this candelabra from Star Trading and a few other online retailers, but with shipping from Sweden, the cost is over $100 smackers, and I’m not sure it would get here in time to enjoy for Winter Solstice. I was pulling into the garage one afternoon and spotted our big stash of scrap wood collected throughout the year. At that moment it dawned on me; I could make a candelabra pretty darn affordably using scrap wood! My candelabra has a few tweaks, it’s smaller in scale to proportionally work in our windows. It has a curved […]

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Bathroom Refresh for Holiday Guests

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 16:23:14 +0000

This post has been sponsored by The Home Depot. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We have one bathroom in our 1930’s Tudor home, thus it more than earns it’s keep around here. Someday we want to renovate, but that definitely isn’t happening this year. Since we haven’t been able to dive into a big renovation, I’ve slowly been making-over different elements around in here. This fall, I’m teaming up with the The Home Depot on a $100 budget refresh to get things ready for when entertaining season hits, a.k.a. the holidays. Easy, inexpensive additions I ordered on HomeDepot.com to help this room put its best foot forward. First and foremost, I’ve focused on upgrading or introducing elements that give a sensory experience: Hand towels are a no-brainer when it comes to creating a luxe tactile experience for guests. Home Decorators Collection has a big selection of styles and colors online, and they’re affordable. Like these Fairhope 1-Piece Turkish Hand Towels. Rug. We’ve never really had a rug in here because I love this floor so much that I don’t like covering it up! But with people coming when it’s freezing, it was high time we get one. I […]

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How to Make Beeswax Taper Candles Without the Mess! (Video)

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 18:30:31 +0000

I feel like beeswax has become somewhat of a buzzword recently because of it’s healing, clean burning, and even air purifying properties. Well I, too, am on the beeswax train, and can vouch for the hype! My father-in-law is a beekeeper and has us suit up to harvest the honey from the hives every year. Watch the honey harvest video HERE. Let’s just say I’ve been up close and personal with my bee friends and somehow they’ve nestled into a soft spot in my little heart over the years. There was a year I took home all the harvest beeswax and made tea light candles in my kitchen the traditonal way. The end result was awesome, but my kitchen was covered in inadvertent melted wax drips, and beeswax is the HARDEST to clean up. I’d find drips of beeswax in the oddest places months later. This year, I decided to make beeswax candles again, but this time it would be the easy way. No melted wax and no scrubbing (and scrubbing and scrubbing) up the mess. These guys take like 2 minutes a piece, and come out to be about $1.65 a piece. Materials: 8″ x 16″ wax sheets and […]

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How Learning to Sew Helped Me Find My Creative Voice

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 20:24:53 +0000

I’ve never been super into sewing. To be honest, I was always a little intimidated by it because my Mom, Sandi of Seams Sew Cool, is a REALLY good sewer (check her out!). She runs a crazy successful sewing school in Duluth, MN teaching kids to sew, and she’s the type of person who can just look at something and know how to sew it. She even made my wedding dress! She was always an encouraging teacher, and though I explored creativity in lots of different ways throughout my childhood, I could never quite catch the sewing bug. Things started to change though when I went off to design school and started living on my own. I was interning at a fabric showroom, and would take home all the discontinued fabrics that they would otherwise throw out. I ended up with stacks and stacks of 28″ x 28″ fabric pieces, and decided to turn them into pillows for my apartment because, well, they were free (which was a big factor back then). Plus I could design them to be the exact color, shape and size I wanted. My mom, excited her daughter was finally taking an interest in sewing, set […]

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Francois Renovates: Kitchen Window Makeover

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 17:41:17 +0000

Happy Hump Day! Today I want to share a little backstory on the window makeover in our kitchen. Since we didn’t have the budget to replace the windows with historic-quality glazing (that the house really should have), we decided to keep the existing ones and give them a facelift. To be honest though, I feel torn about replacing original windows in the first place. In our scenario, the windows are 90 years old, and we’d be lucky to have new windows last half as long. New windows would definitely be more energy efficient, but if their lifespan is shorter, are they really more environmentally friendly? I’d love to hear your thoughts if you have an opinion on the topic because I keep going back and forth! Alright, so here was a before shot of the windows (and kitchen). Caramel goodness galore with aged brass hardware on the windows. One thing that was interesting is the kitchen’s woodwork was completely different than the rest of the home’s dark cocoa wood stain. (Before photo courtesy of Zillow.) The window update consisted of fresh paint, refinishing the original window hardware to match the cabinet hardware, and adding window treatments. With the kitchen’s wood […]

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Francois Renovates: Progress Update

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 00:32:42 +0000

This post is part of a larger series called Francois Renovates. Check out the other posts in the series here and here. To be honest, these past few week I’ve been experiencing a bit of DIY renovation burnout. We officially moved into our home last Monday and have been living amongst the construction debris and unpacked boxes for a few week now. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so many Subway sandwiches in such a short period of time…ever! It’s cheap, relatively healthy?, and no plate or silverware are required. I swear they see me coming and start in on my Veggie Delight on 9 Grain Wheat before I can even mutter the words. In any case, I’ve just kind of put the blinders on to the craziness at our house and have been trying to keep a good attitude about it all, because this chaos is only temporary. It’s a means to an (oh-so-fabulous) end and we really are so fortunate to be able to do this at all! So the cabinets, countertops and some of the appliances have arrived and things are starting to come together! Yahoo. I can see the light. Follow

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DIY Bar Cart Runner

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 00:58:49 +0000

Lately, I’ve had a bit of a crush on a hardware store radiator sheeting. What’s that you ask? Well it’s the perforated metal sheeting typically used for radiator covers so the heat can still escape from the radiator. They come in several designs and there are just so many great uses for them (other than concealing your radiator, of course). Remember these Lattice House Shelves? After giving them a coat of spray paint, I picked one of the shelves up and noticed the cool star pattern that the metal sheeting had stenciled on my dropcloth. I liked it so much I decided to design an actual (intentional) fabric using the perforated sheeting as my stencil. I landed on creating a bar cart runner and instead of creating an all-over pattern I decided to tape off certain perforated cells to achieve a random pixelized pattern. I love the way it turned out and am sharing the tutorial over at Sugar & Cloth today. Pop over to see Ashley and check it out! Happy Humps Day Y’all! Follow

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Lattice House Shelves

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 17:41:30 +0000

Fall is quickly approaching (tear!), so I decided to take a little hiatus from blogging and social media last week to enjoy what’s left of the season–our Minnesota summers are just too short and our winters are too brutally long not to! But I did still work on a few projects, so I guess I didn’t totally shut off. Check out these fun ‘house’ shelves perfect for displaying small plants and curiosities on the wall! Materials: 12″x24″ Sheet of Union Jack radiator cover Scissors Industrial Strength Adhesive Ruler Marker Spray paint Draw a house shape 3 ‘squares’ up from the bottom of the screen, 3 ‘squares’ in from the left and 3 ‘squares’ in from the right. Use a dotted line for the bottom of the edge of the house. Extend the dotted line horizontally to the sides of the screen. Draw a parallel line 1/2 of a square down from the dotted line. Repeat on the other side. Then extend the vertical lines of the house down to the bottom edge of the screen. Draw two notches flanking the apex of the roof. Then extend the vertical sides of the ‘house’ up by 3 squares, and at the top […]

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Jewelry Refresh: Colorblock Painting

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 14:48:09 +0000

Happy Friday! In preparation for our move to the new house, I’ve been attempting to pair down things I no longer use or need. Amidst the donation-fest, I came across an old plain, metal bracelet I hadn’t worn in ages that had been hiding at the back of my vanity. Instead of adding it to the donate pile (like I’d usually do with something I haven’t worn in over a year), I decided to test out a colorblock painting technique to see if I could give it a little facelift. Turns out a little painter’s tape and spray paint worked wonders transforming this lack luster number into a statement bracelet for Fall. I think my favorite part is that this project cost a grand total of $0.00 as I had the paint and tape on hand already. (The perfect project for a broke new homeowner!) Head over to SheKnows for the detailed step-by-step! Follow

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Hexagonal DIY Desktop Organizer

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 18:03:43 +0000

The carefree days of summer are fleeting and for many that means school is quickly approaching. ‘Back to School’ was always a bittersweet time. Was it for anyone else as well? In many ways it meant new beginnings and exciting challenges and experiences, but ‘Back to School’ also meant a structured, busy schedule and the segway into Minnesota’s seven month Winter season (which after a beautiful, carefree summer, is a hard reality to face!) Pretty school supplies, however, seemed to make the transition just a little easier and that heavy course load a bit more manageable. If you too love pretty supplies, why not make yourself a desktop organizer in which to display it all, and bonus! It’ll keep your desk tidy too! Pop over to Sugar & Cloth for the desk organizer’s full tutorial. And happy back-to-schooling to you and yours! Follow

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Easy Breezy Serape Shorts

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 13:41:26 +0000

We’re seeing a resurgence of Mexican serape patterns in interiors and fashion lately, and I’ve got to say I’m into it! I came across this lovely serape printed cotton and impulsively bought a yard, not actually knowing what I was going to do with it. Risky! Considering it ran the potential of ending up untouched in my fabric stash bin, but it’s good to live on the edge once in awhile, right? The fabric arrived and it was everything I hoped it would be: vibrantly colorful and a good print version of the real thing, so until I could figure out exactly what I wanted to do with it, I used the fabric to style various posts and instagrams. One fine day while preparing for our Big Sur trip I came across these serape shorts on Oh Joy’s Blog and #lightbulb! Why not sew up a more casual version for summer lounging? And that’s precisely what I did. Here’s how they came together: Materials: 1 yard of cotton printed serape fabric 1″ Non-roll elastic Your favorite pair lounge shorts that fit you like a dream. (We’ll use this as the pattern.) Sewing machine and iron Basic sewing materials (pins, scissors, coordinating thread) For the Shorts: 1. Fold […]

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Printable Temporary Tattoos

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 12:32:18 +0000

Happy Monday! I hope you had a fantastic weekend. Today I’m talking tattoos here on F&M. I’ve never made the plunge into the world of real ink, because I haven’t been able to find THE tattoo that I know I’ll love for. ev. er. But I’m all about tatting up with temporary tattoos, especially for summer, as they make great accessories to sundresses and sandals, and are a fun, commitment-free way to celebrate summer in style! #nostringsattached These little numbers are as easy as printing on tattoo paper and applying with a damp cloth. Head on over to SheKnows for the printable and all the details. Happy Tatting! Follow

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