Pouf Make-Over

Remember a few weeks ago when my friend Ashleigh and I went to Home Goods and I fulfilled my dreams of that week and bought a pouf? Well, I thought the fabric on it was hideous so I made a hot little slip cover for it! Don't you think it was ick? Finally putting to good use the fabrics that I've been hoarding, I sat down and sewed them together to make it beautiful and viewable by the general public.

Here is the gorgeous linen damask that I chose for the body of the pouf.

I had to measure the circumference first.

Since it's a found object, its not as easy to slip cover as something that is square. I had to create creases at strategic spots. Strategery.

The fun part was the sewing! After I pinned up the two ends, I sewed them together like a sleeping bag for the pouf. Or a straight jacket.

For the top, I chose a Vaughan embroidered linen fabric, Mino. I pinned the top on and tucked under the edges.

Then I patiently sewed on top by hand. And then...

Here is my lovely pouf!

I went with fabric pouf approach and not the somewhat ubiquitous leather pouf look. While I like that look, my precious sewing machine doesn't sew leather.

What do you think? I'm such a fabric lover that if I could, I would recover everything in my apartment. I'm loving the pouf idea too because it doesn't take up as much room as a chair and is light enough to move around the room.


Alicia B.

Shopping at Claremont...but not for myself

One of the best parts of my new job is shopping! I get to pick out beautiful and amazing fabrics and textiles for our clients. Though i am beginning to loathe my old place of employment, the D & D building, I am learning so much. Seriously, the D &D is a huge time and energy sucker, but there is nothing to do about that--its the life of a design assistant. ANYWHAY, the most fabulous place I've been thus far was a showroom called Claremont. It's not in the D & D, but a few blocks north. It has the most beautiful printed fabrics and embroidered silks. It was like the high end version of Pierre Deux in the style sense; French Country but with a little city flavor, if you know what I mean.

The showroom was bright and cheery and I almost blacked out at how beautiful and perfectly organized it was.

All the fabrics were stacked one on top of the other. I hated to mess them up but I needed to dig into the gorgeous textiles. (pic from Brooke Giannetti's blog!)

The showroom (this is the LA one) carries about 7 or 8 lines of fabric. This one is Penny Morrison's welcome to the showroom. From Out to Lunch.

Speaking of awesome designer, Brooke Giannetti, she used this paisley fabric from Claremont to recover a client's chair. I love how the traditional pattern is made more modern with the poppy color.

The showroom, started in London in 1931, started with George Le Manash of Paris. I'm ABSOLUTELY obsessed with his fabrics.

OH MA GAWD I'm obsessed with this room. Le Manache is a fabric design god.

OH, I'm going to black out again (can blacking out be the new "swoon"?). This is another Le Manache fabric room. I love matching fabric to wall covering--but only when it's a good/amazing fabric. Photo from HERE.

I'm recovering this Saturday night from a crazy week at work (in a good way), and Saturday 9AM class. Thankfully I got the new House Beautiful to help me unwind. What are ya'll up to?


Alicia B.

Time to be Thankful!

With Thanksgiving only 3 days away, I'd love to focus on everything that I'm thankful for. Health, family, and my all around awesome well being are the top things I'm happy that I have especially this time of year.
I'm super thankful for my blog. I'm really happy that I brought it back after a 6 month retirement. I've been getting such positive feedback too that it's definitively spurring me on! Also, my every expanding design business--e*design, photography, interior accessories. Thanks everybody.

I am really loving my new job as well. As much as I loved working in the D & D Building, it is thrilling to be working for an architect now! (No, I don't work for Frank Lloyd Wright but I AM making my way up to Oak Park today!!)

Online Design magazines like Rue, Lonny, Nesting Newbies, and High Gloss! I love all the new innovations in magazines and the level of creativity is astounding. High Gloss comes out in January and we are all eagerly anticipating its arrival...!

Glee. Yes, I love Glee. I'm not ashamed and it makes me ecstatic. Gwyneth Paltrow re-earned my respect in the latest episode. Check out whats playing on LOOP on my ipod HERE.

I'm very thankful for my friends--who are SO adorable and innocent and send me email saying "Have you seen this website--The Selby?!" HAHA Why yes, I think I might have heard of it. My friends are super supportive of pretty much everything in my life and I am thankful for that. (Group hug??)

Fabric. I'm working on a few throw pillows and new drapery for some clients and I'm LOST (not unhappy about it though) in a world of fabric swatches. Fabric is so much fun and you can do so much with it.

This is just a small smattering of what I am thankful for....AND...





As a side note (on the blog, not in my life), I'm thankful for my fiance! YES, I'm engaged!! The beau/love of my life proposed last Friday and we are SO so happy. You might see some fun wedding inspired posts as I'm planning it!

What are you thankful for?!!!


Alicia B.

Friday Faves

Enter my awesome give-away to win this adorable beach bag!! ENTER HERE. Now.

This week I went from wearing wool sweaters to flip flops, and now this weekend is going to be Summer weather! If you know me, you know I'd rather be in a sundress and flip flops than anything else so let's just say I'm excited. I've been rather lonely without my sister here (to clutter up my apartment), but I've been super busy anyway. Class, studying for my final next week (HAH), and making pillows!

This warm weather makes me wish I had a beach house or a house out in the country. My parents house in CT is sort of like that, I suppose. I love the wood floors in this country house in upstate New York. Isn't the light that floods into the next room amazing? Gil Schafer.

Here is one of the pillows that I sewed last night. I love the soft green color of t he vines in the fabric. The back of it is a soft natural linen fabric.

Do you like this fabric?

Horses are everywhere lately in design. How cute is this little Jonathan Adler ceramic horse sculpture? I'm so excited to be going to a Derby Party this Saturday. I love the Derby so much and I've only gotten into it in the last 4 years, since I moved to New York. My family and bf all choose a horse solely based on the names. It's tres fun.

Any weekend plans? Which horse do you have your bet on? I'm going for Awesome Act. It's all about the power of positive thinking, right? If you have a positive name like that, he's bound to win!

Alicia B.

Living Room Decluttering Project

As I've mentioned many times before I like to collect stuff: small objects, books, design mags, vases, etc. This is all well and good but I have a minuscule living space so from time to time I have to reassess and make things look a little bit neater. This time, I had to take a look at my open bookshelf that is full of DVDs do something about it. I also have a huge chest full of fabrics in my front hall that is getting quite full so I decided to make a "door" for my open shelf.

I'd been dying to use this gorgeous Matthew Patrick Smyth fabric from Schumacher for something and thought it too neutral for throw pillows but for this purpose, it's perfect because it's subtle. The green is faded enough to coordinate with the green of my bookcase.

I love to iron! I had to iron it, then fold in the edges and make sure they were crisp and perfect before I sewed it into a rectangle to cover the bookcase.

Woo! Late night sewing!

I had to get these little hooks and screw them into the frame of my bookcase in order to hang my fabric panel up.

Next I had to put these little grommets into my fabric. Before you do this on your fabric, take a scrap and practice. You need to make a tiny hole about the size of an eraser tip in the fabric, then put the bottom half of the grommet down, put the fabric hole through it, then put the top of the grommet on that, take a hammer and whale on it. Funny moment: I did all that except I wasn't hitting the hammer hard enough so I had to go back to the hardware store to see what I was doing wrong. I wasn't hitting it hard enough so the burly hardware store guy just told me to "put some muscle into it."

How perfect does that little grommet look? I know. So.......

Here it is! (Don't judge my TV. Clearly I have other priorities.) I may still have stacks of magazines around but at least they're organized (Martha Stewart in one pile, Domino, Blueprint, and House and Garden in another etc). And whats that on the floor?

It's the little Charlie Brown Christmas tree!

I know this doesn't change the fact that I need to edit a wee bit in my living room/my life, but I think it simplifies that area of the room and and pretty fabric so what more do I need right now? Now I'm off to collect glass tiles for my project because I finished the floor plan last night! Modern is still not my preferred style but it sure is fun to see what other materials are out there--I'm learning a lot.


Alicia B.

Swedish Modern Chair Makeover

I'm full of many projects lately and I am really enjoying them. This is a Swedish Modern chair that (below) belonged to my father; he got it back in the 70's which is quite apparent when you look at it. Well, now it's mine and I decided that the yucky tan vinyl had to go. Good choice, yes?

Sad deflated chair.

It really does have a beautiful frame.

Here it is completed! I had it reupholstered in European Cream Linen from Fabric.com. I think it looks clean and comfortable. Last night I sewed a little throw pillow from extra fabric left over from my love seat from Roger Arlington which is unfortunately no longer around. I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty pleased. My apartment is still coming together piece by piece even after a few months but it's still fun!

Alicia B.

DIY Seat Cushion

Now that the semester is over I have TONS (a little) free time to do projects that I've been waiting to do for months. Today the project was to recover a seat cushion. My roommate and I found a pair of chairs at an antique fair--OKAY FINE we found them on the street, and fell in love but the fabric on the seat was horrid. We each found super cute fabric and made them our own. Check it out:

Here is the chair once we removed the screws from underneath and the seat part popped out. See how boring and ugly that fabric was? They def needed a make-over. That blue scrap is fabric that I was playing around with but eventually decided against it.

Here is the frame of the chair. It's in great condition and the caning is PERFECT!

After removing the ugly fabric, we put two layers of batting and then the fabric on top and took a staple gun and secured it on the bottom side all the way around. It's important to pull it very tight. My roommate (above) chose Amy Butler fabric, August Fields Coreopis Fields from Fabric.com.

Then put the seat back on the chair and screw it back into the frame! YAY, now you have a fun fresh new side chair.

This is the fabric I chose. Isn't it fun? It was so fun to choose the fabric and to see what fabric my roommate chose. They're so different!

I'm so pleased with my fun red embroidered linen fabric! I think I might stain the chair a darker mahogany color but that's another project for another day.

Glamour Shot.

Next stop is throw pillows or some other fun sewing project! HERE is a helpful website explaining how to do the above project. It's honestly pretty easy and I didn't need to read up on how to do it. I'm that awesome.

Alicia B.

Roger Arlington Fabic Sale!

You absolutely must go to the Roger Arlington Showroom in the D & D building on the upper east side right now. They are selling fabric for $1/yard! YES, ONE DOLLAR. These are fabrics that are being discontinued so some are adorable, and some are just terrible and there is a reason they are being phased out.

I just bought yardage to reupholster my tiny loveseat in my living room. I couldn't find the exact fabric but it's a cross between a large gingham and a small window pane pattern. Or maybe it's just plaid.

This was the closest one I could find but the white part is wider and the brown is a bit more muted than above. I'd love to make some cute pink pillows to go with it!


Alicia B.

Plaid Love

Isn't this Ralph Lauren tablescape so cozy/beautiful? I don't think I would change one thing about it.

Ever since I took a look at the new Loro Piana interiors collection (yesterday) I've been loving on plaids (more than usual) for interiors. They look so cozy and warm and I definitely need that since, if you are in New York today you might have frostbite (me). Plaids are coming in different forms, window pane, tartan, gingham, etc. Here are some you could...warm up to? Wow.

Nathan Egan loves this wool plaid from Rogers and Goffigon. I do too.

This comfortable and classic looking interior was designed by John Peixinho with a tartan plaid bench in front of the fireplace. In Newport, RI.

Mixing tartans is allowed too! From Domino.

Designed by David Mitchell this mix of different neutrals and beiges is carried by those two chairs in Rogers and Goffigon wide gingham print.

I SUPER love these two chairs. They are covered in Colfax and Fowler Lanark plaid.

Jeffrey Bilhuber covered these two chairs in a soft Bahagalpur plaid by Shyam Ahuja.

Through looking, I think the best places for plaids are Ralph Lauren Home, Colefax and Fowler as they are a British company, Holland and Sherry for plaids, tweeds and herringbones, and of course Loro Piana. Am I a stodgy old British man? Hmm.

Alicia B.