Frames, Frames, frames

So, now with new baby and all there's gotta be tons of BABY Pictures now too- I saw this in the Chiasso catalog for $59.00 I kinda dug it but not so much the color and the photo sizes ( the original frame only held 4x6 prints and comes in black) So what a better way to do it yourself with another Hack from IKEA provided by yours truly? Ok here's what you need :

NYTTJA frames from Ikea they come in a two pack for $3 and in various colors (pink, white, red, yellow, blue, green) I chose to alternate Pink and White
Your pictures
Epoxy glue ( Don't get the instant set. Get the 3-5 minute set or else it will all get hard in the applicator before you're done)
A long piece of wood for support for back of the frames


Here's the deal.. the Ikea frames come in 5X7's so you can't have as many pictures as the original ( unless you want it REALLY BIG) I think the original has something like 14 frames to put your pictures in. My hack has 12 and measures at least 3 feet long. I first made up the pattern and then glued the frames together in stages.
This project cost me about $30 to make.. For my final draft I changed the pattern to fit what I needed-I think it's way better than the original and I got to have it MY way! Make one and ROCK IT OUT!

Mod Baby and Bedding

Lately, for obvious reasons I've had baby on the brain- I can't believe how expensive things are for babies- Most of it NOT MOD at all and it costs you about an arm and a leg- So the last couple of projects I've done have been specifically for my baby. I'm trying to find cheaper and more crafty alternatives to create the perfect room for her . Yesterday I discovered this new bedding at Babies R'Us. I've pretty much given up on that really mod and expensive baby bedding by DWELL. Target came out with the Dwell for Target bedding and it was nice and modern but I wasn't diggin' the colors too much. ( I actually was given some pieces for my baby shower) but it wasn't too funky and bright for me. This new collection by Amy Coe for Babies R' Us is right on the money but I'm not sure I wanna throw out $169.99 for an entire baby set.
And- did you ever notice that if you wanted just a fitted sheet in the cool print or just the crib skirt, it doesn't come a la cart and has to come in a set? I'm not too into the matchy matchy either so after seeing this collection by Amy Coe, I was inspired to do my own!




Here's my latest project-
It's a funky baby bumper. All I bought was
a plain bumper from IKEA ( KOMPISAR) for about $12.00
I had about 3 yards of this funky fabric I already had from when I had my sewing phase in Chicago.
I basically made a sleeve =3 sleeves for the bumper ( so you can remove it and wash it if need be- without having to wash the actual bumper itself and it gives you the option of making other "sleeves" too if you want to change it)
2 of the sleeves needed 3 button holes so that you can slip the ties out and to tie them around the crib
1 sleeve needed only 1 button hole
It took me about 8 hours to finish this project- split up in 2 days ( I would have gotten it done sooner if I didn't have a fussy baby wanting to be held all the time)
I think it turned out pretty cool! Ainslie seems to dig it!


And to my excitement- Amy Coe line carried an orange fitted sheet for the crib for $14.99 and it comes in Brown, and Hot pink as well as other cool Mod patterns! Get it while it's HOT!

Enjoying the simple things

I've been so busy with my new little doll ( My Daughter) I've been neglecting my blogs and been solely focused on her. I am happy to report that she LOVES the mobiles that I made her when I was pregnant. At first she was really into the one with all the balls but now since she's 13 weeks old, she's really into her pug mobile. It makes me so happy to see a big smile come across her face when she sees the mobiles because I know how much love and time I put into those projects especially for her. Anyway, life's been kinda slow, and I haven't been working on much lately but I did have a wonderful surprise the other day when a neighbor had this parked in front of their garage. I loved it so much that I had to go outside and take some pictures of it.I guess since my little one arrived, I take pleasure in the more simple things- I mean, life goes by so fast..what's the point if you can't enjoy something simple?

Sorry I've been M.I.A ( I kinda just had a baby)

Hey Kids-
Sorry I've been M.I.A for the last couple of weeks- I had my baby on June 25th, 2008! (and I kinda have my hands full). Life is great with the newest addition to the family. Ainslie arrived just in time. L. A has been hot and since we live in the valley.. It's even hotter. I thank GOD that I went into labor 10 days earlier than expected because my 42 inch belly couldn't stand this heat!
My baby girl is doing fabulously in her groovy little nursery. I have yet to put up her Powerpuff Girl dolls that I won on E-bay ( I plan to display them on little block shelves sitting on my mini Panton chair collection) and lately since it's been so hot.. I've made her wear a "uniform" of the plain white onezie. Actually, the onezie uniform was getting kinda old so Daddy and Mommy came up with a solution.. Customised Onezies! I love this project so much I made a couple for my girlfriend who is expecting in August. She's got 3 four legged "kids" of her own.

Easy project all you need is the
1.plain onezie,
2.some HP computer decal paper ( this one works the best)
3.an iron and an ironing board..
4.pictures of your four legged "kids"
and oh yeah.. some decent photoshop skills.. Check these out!

The Hubby and I are freaks about our little army of Pugs. If you don't already know.. we have 4 pugs in the house. Diva, Bijoux, Penelope and Skylar- We wanted our little girl to know her "sisters" What's a better way than to wear them on her chest?

Oh. yeah.. Just a simple shout out to my Hubby. Today we celebrate our 6 year wedding anniversary. What a way to celebrate.. this year I got my "present" on June 25th! 11 days before our anniversary. Here's our new little bundle of joy wearing her Mommy and Daddy on her chest to commemorate our 6 years together!

Life is Ah-mazing!

I love L.A.!

The other day I had to go with my husband to a casting. I make it a habit to bring my camera with me in my purse. You never know when inspiration hits you or you see something so utterly cool that you have to capture the moment. This picture was the waiting area outside the casting office. When I was sitting there, it reminded me of being on vacation for some reason. Obviously the the building is MCM and No, I was not on vacation.. since the building was facing Beverly Blvd!


Driving around Burbank, we saw some MCM apartments for rent on Hollywood Way. I think the owner TIKIHULA is a member of Lottaliving ( My nerd board) We had to check it out inside.. what caught our eye was the orange colored door and the unit letters.. Nice details! If you're in the market for a new place.. the rent is $1250.00 for a one bedroom and the best unit is the one in the front because it gets the best light ( all the other ones are kinda dark)

I hope everyone is enjoying the weather.. I certainly am. Our plum tree is now giving us ripe plums and you know what that means?? It's SUMMER TIME! Mod Diva's favorite time of year!

Pasadena Rose bowl.... The treasures.

On Sunday, I again made the pilgrimage to Pasadena for the monthly flea market. Walking around in the hot Pasadena sun 8 months pregnant is not a walk in the park but you know, I love going there so much nothing could have stopped me. I didn't buy much but what I did buy I was very happy with.. Here's my latest treasures.
The first thing that I got for $5.00 is this vintage 60's lipstick holder. I love anything that can hide and contain stuff cleverly and look ultra MOD.

The next were 2 vintage ashtrays. Granted, the Hubby and I don't smoke but they look so good outside on our patio. It was a must as far as accessories!




Here's a pic of the second one-
It's too cute with the pink Ikea Kimee chairs!



When I had my baby shower at my girlfriend's home ( who's style happens to be a Shabby Chic kinda girl) I loved that she entertained with the perfect "shabby chic" style apron. I had to get one too- but a Mod one.. Good thing this month, I finally found the appropriate one for ME and my kitchen!



I also bought a baby sling- the greatest thing is I spent about $75 total the entire day on my treasures, my entrance fee and my $8.00 bratwurst- What an awesome day! Great finds at the Rose bowl- Hummm.. maybe I'll take my baby with me next month!
Here's more Great finds from previous "Junking" adventures

Green Vintage Panasonic ball radio and vintage orange phone both $10.00

Vintage ball calendar ( from Ebay and shipped from Hawaii) $12.00 and vintage jewelry box for $8.00. I loves me some plastics! It's the best when people come over and ask.. "Where'd you get THAT?" and you say.. "It's Vintage and a rare find.. sorry' bout it!"

Ainslie's room.. the nursery

So, the Hubby and I have been diligently working on our daughter's nursery. I've been trying to keep myself busy for the last 8 months by getting pretty much EVERYTHING that I wish I could do when I had the time. And you know what.. I did! I am proud to say, every closet, every drawer, every project from turning CDs and cassettes to MP3 and converting video footage to actual movies has been done. I even put all my photo albums together and even organized old negatives. Yes, I know I'm a bit on the anal retentive side.. but I had the time to get it done- Now that I have a baby coming these are things that I HAD to get done or they would just pile up on me. So here's the latest on the nursery. The chaise came back today. I had a great re upholstery person not only did she do a great job but she finished the chaise in a week! I got the material I wanted from the fabric district in downtown LA.. (something pretty unisex since we plan to have another baby - I didn't want the chaise to be too girly for the next one).I chose an apple green fabric in the softest material. Here's a picture of Diva checking it out

I think Emi did a great job with the re upholstery and she even painted the legs so it basically looks like a brand new rocker. It's so perfect in Ainslie's room!
I'm trying to get the best angles of the nursery but the room is pretty small and it's hard to take great pictures. Here's what the final bubble frame looks like with all her sonograms


Daddy put her Pug mobile up above her crib. I was lucky enough to find some of the ribbon we used for our wedding invitations and I added that to the mobile too!


We didn't really have to buy any new furniture for her nursery. The only thing that is new is the crib. We had the funky rug from our old apartment in Chicago- We bought that at Kmart. I believe it was from the Mary Kate and Ashley line :)


The dresser/changing table Penelope is showing you was from when we lived in our old apartment in Burbank. It's the ROBIN dresser from IKEA with changed hardware. It's perfect because little clothes for baby don't need a huge dresser and it doubles as a changing table.. I'm glad I didn't end up selling that one on Craigslist! Daddy hung the ball mobile I made up above the dresser/changing table so she has something to look at when we change poopy diapers!

After spending most of my morning hanging out in Ainslie's room, I found a long lost project that I never had the chance to hang up. They were IKEA mirrors that I decoupaged about 4 years ago. I remember doing this project with my girls when I was working at Disney. Everyone had a different style to their mirrors- Of course, The Mod Diva had to choose a very POP Art feel to hers. The crazy thing is that I made them into a series of three- The common thing about all 3 mirrors was the magazine artwork I used from a Sketcher's Ad ( I think)The graphics looked very bright and bold.. and it worked out well for what I was doing. I decided to hang these up in the nursery too.. better than leaving them to collect dust in her closet!


We're coming to the last of my projects in her room. I have yet to put up the bubble frames with our pregnancy photo shoot pictures in them. As soon as I'm done I'll post a picture of that too. It was a lot of fun making a room for her. They say the nursery is the most colorful room in the house.. Not in this case- The best thing is that the nursery matches our entire home perfectly.

Preggos Retro Photoshoot.. With Philipside Photography

So here I am in my final weeks of my pregnancy and looking for a way to immortalize this time in my life forever. The Hubby and I wanted to take some pregnancy pictures ( but NOT the "traditional" kind) So just like we did when we announced that we were expecting, we recruited the help of our friend Phillip at Philipside Photography to do a photo shoot for us. This time, we used our house as the backdrop. I love the way the pictures turned out. What a way to remember the time in my life when we were back in our home in LA, barefoot and pregnant! Thanks Phillip, you're a Rockstar!

Ohhhhh, Ahhh.. On a Mondrian kinda roll

So since I blogged a couple of months ago about the Mondrian condos in Westchester, and I made that Mondrian clock... Here's two more Mondrian things that you might enjoy.. First of all I am sad to report that I lost on this E-bay bid ( and that's because I forgot I was watching it:( and I didn't bid last minute- Here's a pic of vintage boots that got away from me

I was so mad that I didn't get to have them - I had to keep a picture of them- I mean, of course a Mod Diva must rock those somewhere- Ah, at least I still have my gold and silver lame gogo boots!

And here's a pic of one of my favorite buildings in Los Angeles.. I'm thinking it's an apartment building. We always see it when we are driving out of Hollywood and on our way to Los Feliz

Here's another pic.. this time without the bus..

Looks like a busy street to live on but I guess when you tell your friends where you live.. they'd never miss that building!

Plastic store project.. Take 2

I love plastic orbs and bubbles. Lately, I've been big fan of plastic orbs in my house. The first was the hanging faux fish bowl I made for the kitchen, the next is another frame project that I'm in the process of working on for my baby's room. Here's the latest in plastic orbs...

1) 2 12X12 pieces of plexi I chose red.. it's my favorite color

2) One piece of plexi needs to have 9 equally distant holes made from each other.. The plastic guy had to do this for me. Maybe it could be done with a doorknob hole maker for the drill?

3) 5 Plastic orbs from the craft store @ $1.50 each. I think they're primarily used as Christmas ornaments that you could put stuff in.

Not a cheap project but I really wanted to have it my way.. I think I'm going to put my baby's different sonogram pictures in it till she arrives..



Make friends with your local plastic store.. there's a world of creativity in there!

Last minute projects from the Plastic store

I saw this clock about 4 years ago on E-bay.It's a Mondrian style Sunbeam vintage clock. I like to call it the "the one that got away" ever since then, I've been wanting to buy one but since it 's a vintage piece, it's very rare that I find it on E-bay and now that MCM has gone main stream.. everyone and their Mama is willing to pay a couple of hundred bucks for something like this.. Not the Mod Diva- Me- well, I like to make my own and save some bucks- Here's what I did.
1) I found a black frame that had a bunch of sections for a picture montage from K-mart. The shape is a tiny bit different from the original but that's what makes it mine. You actually could make your own frame.. Looks pretty simple just section it out the way you want to, cut out some block sections with some Balsa wood and paint it black.. you get the picture-

2) I needed to find the correct colors for the blocks- Here's where the project came to a halt- Ideally, if you live near a plastic place that sells remnants you could get some pretty cheap pieces of plexi- I know you could do that in New York. The Canal Plastic company had a bunch of cheap plexi for like $5 for a 12X12 sheet. Here in LA, there's Gaverelli plastics- they have every color in the world but it comes in HUGE sheets ( even the remnants) so.. I was crap out of luck UNTIL... I went to Ikea and found the perfect color blue and red in a cutting board mat (DRALLA). What????? Yup, it was the perfect shade of blue and I could cut it with scissors. It also was the right thickness so it was'nt too thin that you could see through it. It was perfect. It also came in red and for about $2 each.. I was sold!

3) The white piece in the middle where the clock face is.. that one was just luck. The guy who made my bubble frame for me was lagging on my order.. he had a couple of white plexi remnants at his shop. Since he was late getting my order in, I managed to get the perfect piece of plexi for the clock face for Free99! That's my favorite part!

4) The clock mechanisms came from an old IKEA clock that I hacked into this project.


and there you have the Mod Diva Mondrian clock.. I think the project cost me about $15 and 4 years ( so worth the wait) Woo Hoo!

After I finally hung it up in the living room, I sat back on my couch and admired it. It was the missing piece on that sliver of a wall! Dig it!!

Projects.. DOWN!

Ok.. since I've been doing tons-o- crafts ( mind you it was baby mobiles for the last couple of weeks) Things have slowly but surely taken place in my house.. the rock garden is 95% complete.. all we need now is the plants that go against the back wall.. lucky for us we live right next door to a fabulous nursery. I thought about papyrus but I'm still not convinced I want that plant.. I'm gonna do my cross reference with my " MCM Porn" tonight and see what's a better fit or if it is a good fit after all.

I think the reason why I love this rock garden so much is because it makes everything else look so clean and the colors that we do have going on just make it POP. Besides, it beats spending a couple of hundred bucks every season for perennials and don't even get me started on watering them...

I like how I matched the pavers with the front door.. I was pretty proud of that little project!

Inside the house we've been searching high and low for a good medicine cabinet. We saw the ATRAN wall cabinet many times on our journeys to Ikea and it's a steal at $24.99. Crappy thing is that it needed to hold more for us.. So what did we do? We got 2 of them and it fit the space. I think it looks good and now it's kind of a functional art piece in the master bathroom.

Here's another shot of what it looks like with the frosted door... One day we're gonna change that raggedy old sink and vanity- till then, we're just going to have to do what Tim Gunn says, "Make it work!"

The hubby and I have also been working very hard in putting our baby's room together. We finally got the crib up and it's slowly taking shape.

So far the past couple of days ( including the Memorial Day weekend) have been pretty overcast- The weather finally got better yesterday and since I'm in my final weeks of my pregnancy, lots of things need to get done but my energy level is slowly tapering off. It's a mad rush to get a million and one things done but not enough time. ( isn't that always the case?) I think it's just more amplified since we have this little one on her way- Daddy is going to put her mobiles up right now.. ( If I can get him away from the X-Box 360 for 10 minutes), Sunday the upholstery lady should come and take the chaise rocker away and reupholster it to an approprite color, I'll get some art work up on the walls and then.. I'll do a full tour of Ainslie's new room. Till then, stayed tuned!!