Minted Archives - The Curated House

How To Make Holiday Cards The LEAST Stressful Thing On Your Holiday To-Do List

I love the Christmas Season for all the warmth and cheer and merriment. I love the opportunity to reach out to the people who matter to us with messages of love and gratitude. But I don’t love the rush. The stress. The endless to-do’s. Over the years I’ve found that if I’m not careful, the holidays can pass by in a blur of busyness and I’ve lost the opportunity to savour what matters most.

Christmas cards are one of those items that – if I’m honest – have been a stressful to-do on my list in years gone by. In fact, in the most stressful of holiday seasons, they’ve just fallen off the list altogether in deference to my sanity. But the last couple of years, I’ve been able to send our cards with a light heart and free spirit because they’ve just been so dang easy. The secret to my holiday happy sauce, you ask? Minted.

Not only do they offer fresh and beautiful, fully customizable designs I love, but they allow you to import your address book and they address all your envelopes in advance so that half the work is done for you before the cards ever arrive at your door. This year I got all of our cards prepped and out the door in one evening. Honestly, it took me about an hour. Not the typical scene of Christmases past, let me tell you! But having written a personal message in the customizable cards already {you can read my merry little message below}, we signed them and added additional messages in some in no time flat.

Add to this all the charming design details like custom liners for your envelopes and the ability to truly personalize with your own photos on all sides of the card, and I’m in love. Paper products ARE a love language, after all, right?

As it turns out, gifts are a love language too, and we’ve got a lovely one for one of you, my friends! Not only does Minted produce gorgeous, customizable stationary, they also produce limited edition art, business cards, customizable party decor and now even textiles for the home, all designed by independent designers. With this much awesome to choose from, who wouldn’t want $100 to spend however you choose?

MINTED x THE CURATED HOUSE : THE HOLIDAY GIVEAWAY

Here’s how to enter:

1. Follow me and Minted on Instagram
2. Like my post {I’ll post it tonight} sharing our personalized Christmas cards for this year
3. Tag 3 friends on the post

Easy peasy! I’ll announce the winner on Instagram on the 23rd, so you’ve got a week to get in on the holiday cheer. Scoop up an extra entry by sharing my post on your Instagram feed.

Wishing you all a happy, peaceful, joy-filled holiday. May your to-do lists be short and your laughter-filled evenings be long!

xx
s.

By Sarah Walker The Curated House|December 16th, 2015|0 Comments

ONE ROOM CHALLENGE: FALL 2015 | WEEK FIVE UPDATE

Well friends, things are starting to get real around here. It’s Week Five Update time with the One Room Challenge, and I’m grateful to say we’ve made some progress this week for sure! This week was truly all about the DIY’s for me, and I’m sharing three of them with you today, so fasten your seat belts!

MATTING + FRAMING: HOW TO DO IT YOURSELF

Remember the gorgeous frames from Framed & Matted that I shared in last week’s post? Well, I carved out some toddler-free time to get the gorgeous art safely framed up, and they look beautiful! For anyone who hasn’t mounted artwork before, I thought I’d give a quick tutorial on how to mount your art in a way that preserves the quality for decades to come. Given that I was working with editioned pieces, I wasn’t messing around!

Here’s what you’ll need:

1. Frames and matts from Framed & Matted
2. Lineco archival linen Tape
3. Lineco see-thru archival mounting strips
4. Lineco white gloves for handling the art
5. Needle nosed pliers for tying off the hanging wire
6. A clean sock, filled with rice and tied off with a knot

STEP ONE: Remove the matt and mounting board from the frame.

STEP TWO: Use the linen tape to hinge the matt to the mounting board from the inside.

STEP THREE: Place the artwork and fold the matt overtop, ensuring the art is centred exactly where you want it. Place the sock in the middle of the piece to anchor it so you can lift the matt again and adhere your mounting strips to the mounting board.

STEP FOUR: Hinge the matt back over the artwork and return it to the frame. Close the frame up and install the hanging wire, being careful to follow the instructions provided by Framed & Matted.

STEP FIVE: Install and enjoy your beautifully framed art!

Art from left to right: Men In Red by Kate Baird, Going For A Swim by Whitney Deal, Babushka (Blue) by Amy Friend

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN MODERN PIN BOARD

The photo above leads me to my next DIY from this week: the pin board! I wanted to do something unique with the nailheads – something a little modern edge – and landed on this game plan above. I like that the use of nailheads is unexpected, and the pattern energizes my work space while still leaving me with lots of space to actually hang things on the pin board. Just in case you want to make one for yourself, here’s how I did it:

MATERIALS

1. Enough homasote to cover the area
2. Some gorgeous Kravet fabric
3. A piece of craft paper the same size as your pin board
4. A pencil and large ruler
5. Nailheads and a finishing hammer

STEP ONE: Cut the homasote to size, joining it if necessary using PL construction adhesive and screwing strips of wood across any joints to create a stable finished piece. Next, lay the fabric over the face of the board and trim to leave enough to wrap around the back of the board. Using a staple gun, attach the fabric by stapling in the centre of each side, working on opposite ends each time you staple and pulling the fabric tight to ensure it is smooth. Slowly work your way around, always doing small sections and working on the opposite side next to maintain a balance in the tension on the fabric.

STEP TWO: Lay your craft paper over the face of the board and trim it to size. On a flat surface, use the pencil and ruler to determine your patter. Feel free to play with it a bit and erase the lines that don’t work. This part is not an exacting science so much as an intuitive art! I initially drew twice as many lines on the craft paper as what I ended up using in the end, so give yourself the freedom to try an idea and then step back and edit it.

STEP THREE: Following your guidelines, hammer the nailheads in about halfway. Be sure you determine how much space you want between the nailheads and stay consistent.

STEP FOUR: Remove the paper and hammer the nailheads down completely. You can adjust them as you go by hammering the sides to move them back in line if any of them go off the rails a bit. My mantra as I worked was Progress Over Perfection. This took me a couple of days, but it was well worth the effort in the end!

THE ART IS ALWAYS MY FAVOURITE PART: HOW TO RESIN ART

The last and most exciting DIY of the week was customizing the art for over the fireplace. I worked with my lovely friends at Anewall, who graciously customized one of their murals, turning it into a stretched canvas for me. Wanting to take it a step further, I partnered with the awesome Dave and Rebecca of Art Resin to transform the piece into a gorgeous and unique feature.

If a picture’s worth a thousand words, a video’s worth a thousand more! So rather than me typing out the step-by-step instructions on how to do this yourself, have a gander at this video for all the steps you’ll need to resin your own piece of art for a totally stunning end result!

Do you not love the Art Resin product? VOC-free, non-yellowing, super easy to use, and such a gorgeous finished product! I absolutely loved working with them on this.

HOW TO FINISH FURNITURE WITHOUT VOC’s

Speaking of VOC-free, I haven’t been the only one working away on projects for this space. I’m super excited to say that my awesome furniture maker wins the day again and has finished my custom coffee table using the most incredible finish – Rubio Monocoat from my inspiring friends at Exotic Woods in Burlington.

This oil-baed product is truly phenomenal. The nanotechnology actually bonds molecularly with the wood fibres, ensuring that whatever you finish it with – from furniture to floors – is incredibly durable for years to come. Even better, just like the Art Resin, it is totally VOC free and non-toxic, an absolute MUST in my book both as a designer and as a mom.

I can’t wait to get this gorgeous piece in place, along with everything else that will transform this room from a pretty shell to a warm and inspired context where my family can connect. I plan to refinish our dining table with this product myself, so I’ll be sure to post a step-by-step How To DIY once I get to it!

And THAT, my friends, is what I’ve been up to this week! Maybe that explains the bags under my eyes in that video? Haha! Here’s this week’s to-do list:

1. Pick up and load in all the furniture
2. Paint the bamboo chairs
3. Steam the drapes
4. Hang the last of the art
5. Arrange the flowers
6. Style the space
7. Shoot it
8. Write the reveal post
9. High five all my fellow ORC designers/survivors
{10. Take a giant nap}

I do hope you’ll come back to see the final ta-da! In the meantime, be sure to check out what these lovelies have been getting up to this week:

xx
s.

By Sarah Walker The Curated House|November 5th, 2015|4 Comments

ONE ROOM CHALLENGE: FALL 2015 | WEEK FOUR UPDATE

Oh me, oh my, does the time ever fly! It’s been such a busy, blurry week that I seriously lost track of what day it was and almost forgot to post today! It’s a sign of the times, my friends. Lots on the ol’ plate.

THE UPDATE

All kinds of good things have been happening around here, like our Metrie mouldings being transformed into a gorgeous fireplace surround and mantel. If you follow me on Instagram, you caught a couple of sneak peeks of that in process. My furniture maker is seriously the bomb diggity.

That baby is now installed and simply awaiting the mantel top to be truly complete, and friends, she’s a looker.

The custom herringbone nero marquina mosaic from Creekside Tile is in the process of being installed as we speak and I lerv it. So classy. So timeless.

This week was also kind of like Christmas, as those lovely faux bamboo chairs from 55 Downing St. arrived, and after a little cross border adventure with my friend Rachelle to pick them up, they are now safely at home and awaiting their paint job. Noah made a suggestion for a different direction on the paint colour for them and – sophisticated 12 year old that he is – I agree with him, so you’ll have to wait and see where that is headed.

The rug arrived and to be honest there are some problems with it, so I’m putting on my English heritage “stiff upper lip” and managing that sitch all calm, cool and collected like.

THE FRAMING

In much better news, the gorgy-gorg frames from Framed & Matted arrived and I’m sooooo happy!!

Framing can be such a massive expense for any project, especially if you want great customer service and you want things done right. I’m thrilled that the lovely Chrissy has chosen to partner with me on this project and I have to tell you, her product is as fabulous as her incredible customer service ethic. Framed & Matted is currently only available in the US, so to all of my design friends south of the border, take note! Framed & Matted is truly a top-notch resource to keep in your designer arsenal of awesome.

THE ART IS MY FAVOURITE PART

I cannot WAIT to get all of the art mounted in these gorgeous frames. I’ve given you little sneak peeks at a couple of the pieces on the mood boards, but let me properly introduce you to some of the beauties that will grace this space with their soulful inspiration.

I have had this 12×12 stunner from fine art photographer David Graham White for awhile now and can’t believe it’s taken me this long to frame it up.

David’s process for this series is so inspiring: He photographed topiary gardens in the UK on old polaroid film, and then processed the polaroids using the heat from an old tube television, documenting the BBC channels that were playing as the polaroids processed. The heat flares from the television created the gorgeous and unpredictable saturation of colour that you see in the final works, and they tell the story of extreme control {topiaries} juxtaposed with the uncontrollable medium of television which invades our daily lives. We may attempt to control nature, but does media control us in the end? The intellectual dialogue behind these stunning works only serves to make them more beautiful to me.

Then there is this breathtakingly ethereal wonder from Zena Holloway.

I have truly been coveting this piece since I first laid eyes on it in Alessandra of Citizen Atelier‘s collection, and I’m still pinching myself that she has now come to live with us. I often struggle to feel at home with figurative artwork, but the ethereal sense of reverie and mystery in Zena’s work blurs the line between reality and fantasy in a way that I find utterly mesmerizing, transporting me to a place of imagination and wonder. For me, this piece is an elegant invitation to dream. Invitation accepted, Zena. Invitation accepted.

I really struggled with what to do with the art over the desk. I have a large shelf that used to house all of my product catalogues, but now that everything is available online I don’t need them cluttering up my space. Such a visual relief! In contrast to that utilitarian past, I wanted to make this space now feel airy and open and light, so I ordered three warm white frames from Framed & Matted. They will serve as the new home for a very happy little trio, starting with this incredible piece from Amy Friend.

This series, called Babushka, documents Amy’s deep bond with her grandmother. After her passing, Amy floated her grandmother’s nightgowns and scarves in water and captured their movement and essence in a most hauntingly beautiful, emotional way. I’m so honoured to have this piece in my home.

Complimenting the piece from Amy Friend are these two lovely limited edition prints from Minted.

I love how together they tell a story of wanderlust and adventure, of exploration and wonder. If I can instil those values in my boys I will be a very happy mama. If I can remember to live by them myself, I’ll be all the happier. I have no doubt this art will fuel me in achieving those goals – visual reminders of our core values of beauty, curiosity, gratitude and wonder.

I have one more piece to share with you – the one that will sit over the fireplace – but there’s a special project involved on that front and I can’t share it with you just yet. Stay tuned, as it’s all kinds of lovely.

THE GREAT SIDE TABLE DEBATE

So I picked up our Plan B side tables this week, and once out of the box discovered that they are way too pinky-copper for my liking. This photo belies the actual colour.

I’m all for mixing metals, but I need to actually like the shades of said mixed metals. So, back they go and it’s back to the drawing board for a rather close-for-comfort race to the finish line on this element of the room.

On the flip side, I picked up these beautiful acrylic column table lamps in brass from West Elm and they are perfection.

Classy, modern, timeless and just right for this room. I’m just waiting on the pair of Crane Floor Lamps from CB2 to come in and the lighting for the room will be officially checked off my list.

THE TO-DO LIST

I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to do at least one extra update post as I have a ton to get done this week and I want to make sure you don’t miss out on all the fun. So much of the action takes place right at the end of a project!

Here’s this week’s strike list:

Paint the bamboo chairs
Dive into my biggest DIY for this space: the custom pin board. I’ve got something pretty fabulous planned and am grateful to say I just yesterday found what I need for it, so stay tuned on that front.
Finalize all of the styling, which is probably a 3-full-days kind of job to get it just right.
Oh yes, and move all the old furniture out, move the new pieces in, get the drapery installed, hang the artwork, and somehow manage to continue doing my day job and care for my family in the midst of it all!

If you’re the praying kind, I’ll take it!

In the meantime, check out the progress of this ridiculously talented lot: