Soft But Mighty

Soft But Mighty "Mirrors are a substitute for art, and incorporating the round shape produces a little bit of softness. That is why I believe they're having a second," says Jesse DeSanti, principal designer of Jette Creative. Jesse says the mirror choice for this living area took careful consideration. "We wanted something expansive to grab your attention but not compete with the other pieces within the room. A huge mirror does that since it has a tendency to signify the other bits in the space, particularly mild. It allows you to observe the adjoining elements and windows," she clarifies. "The curved shape was selected because, although the furnishings are soft, they're linear and have clean, straight lines that site. Adding the roundness creates a harder, colder material feel soft"



Paneling's Prettiest Pairing A little, round mirror demonstrates the ideal choice with this farmhouse-style powder area site here. A square or rectangular shape would struggle with the lines of the wide-plank paneling, but the circular selection is totally unobtrusive to the design. The sink mimics the form of the mirror, so including a pleasing dose of symmetry to the distance.



Architecture on Display "Round mirrors act as a focal point within a room and are particularly effective in spaces which don't have square ceilings," says Lauren Geremia, chief designer of Geremia Design . "Positioned strategically, they could highlight unusual angles and draw attention to interesting architectural features," she adds view website find out this here. Take a cue from her stunning bedroom layout, and try a round mirror in a room having an eye-catching ceiling.



Balancing Act Circular mirrors can help attain balance in a space that is mixing numerous shapes and layout styles. The mirror in this living area is contemporary in style but gentle in shape click to read more. This will help to mesh the angular, clean-lined sofa together with the round, hand-carved table.



Anchor of this Entry "During this entryway, the shape of this round mirror serves as an anchor and focal point against the flat tongue-and-groove paneling and linear console desk," says interior designer Regan Baker. Regan strategically uses around mirrors in many of the designs to counter rooms' right angles. "The arrangement of a room is typically composed of straight lines and 90-degree angles, and around mirrors are a terrific way to add contrast and visual interest," she says.



Modest Sidekick Sometimes the round mirror is that the star of the show, and other times the round mirror is pleased to take the backseat. A simple, clean design permits the small mirror in this modern bathroom to shine in the latter website here. The circle fits neatly in the toilet's tight corner and keeps all of the focus about the geometric tile floor.



Master of Versatility One of those round mirror's most striking features is its ability to blend easily with countless design fashions her latest blog. In this case, the mirror matches the area's midcentury aesthetic, but it also works well with contemporary, modern, transitional, Southwestern, farmhouse, Scandinavian and eclectic interiors.



The fantastic Mantel Mate The mantel: typically a clear, sharp line with a glaring, blank wall over it. This is the point where the soft, stylish, round mirror comes in to play, fulfilling everything you wanted in your living room try this website. More light? Check. Illusion of more space? Check. Balance? Check. Continuity? Check Check This Out. Rather than mounting your big, hideous TV over the fireplace? Check. Need I say more?



Nursery Nuance That is right -- round mirrors aren't only for the big kids. In this nursery, the mirror helps balance the whimsical wallpaper with its slick design. It also can help brighten the space by reflecting light throughout the room. Mirrors are a terrific alternative for rooms with active background, where artwork would feel much too overwhelming.



So Brand New So Clean "The round mirror is a great way to escape the standard bathroom rectangle look," says interior designer Shannon McLaren Wilkins of PRAIRIE. "This bath in particular was to get a girl's room, so we wanted it to feel feminine and fresh without going too far." Shannon says a mirror's framework may also affect its effect on a distance official statement. Here, the wood grounds that the space and adds warmth.



Curvy Contrast If you are all about a high-contrast layout a la black-and-white interiors, it's time to embrace contrasting shapes as readily as you have embraced contrasting colours. Case in point? This stunning living room vignette, which juxtaposes inky black with natural timber and unpleasant lines with soft curves. The round beauty delivers, again.



Bye-Bye, Boring However not on board? Interior designer Corine Maggio offers a practical explanation for naysayers. "Our homes are full of right angles, especially on the perpendicular plane go to this website. Walls, doors, windows, pictures frames, etc. all contribute to make our homes quite angular from our view, therefore round mirrors really break up that monotony and add some movement," she states. This bath is a terrific example -- the mirrors radically soften the space's architectural lines that are severe.



A Touch of Luxe An oversize mirror is an instantaneous way to make a toilet feel lavish and spa-like. The round assortment pairs beautifully with slick, floating dressing table to make a modern, minimalist vibe. Faux-fur rugs offer you a dash of warmth and comfort in this toilet.



Dynamic Daring Design an entrance that truly wows guests by daring to be different review. Take a cue from this stunning foyer, and layer a round mirror with many different interesting textures and shapes straight from the source. Get creative when hanging out your round stunner, and experimentation with methods that feel from the ordinary.



Little Space Ace For all you people with teeny-tiny powder rooms, say hello to your new companion. Small, round mirrors are ideal for tight quarters. Pair your mirror with a space-saving lighting fixture to maintain the overall design open and uncluttered.

Garden Cupcakes

Garden Cupcakes Celebrate a special event by crafting a cupcake garden! With a small bit of fondant you can transform an ordinary cupcake into a blooming rose or charming bouquet. Use your imagination and the tips in this gallery to help bring the garden into the dessert table.



Cupcake Base To make your cupcake garden the first thing that you need is cupcakes! Any flavor or kind will work, select your favorite. Whenever your cupcakes are cool you'll need to give them a base coat of green, buttercream icing. We suggest starting with a white or light yellow icing and incorporating a little bit of food coloring to get the perfect shade of green.



Fondant Once your cupcakes are iced you will require some fondant to create the toppings. You can buy ready-made fondant or use your favourite recipe. Start with white fondant and add a few drops of food coloring to receive your preferred color. You can create as many or as few colors as you would like, we used pink, green, white, red, orange, yellow and gray for ours. Knead the fondant before the shade is dispersed throughout. If you realize that the fondant gets too sticky at any given point simply knead in a bit of powdered sugar. If you have to save a little fondant for a day or two, wrap it with plastic wrap and store in the fridge.



Straightforward Petals Produce these easy petal shapes by rolling out a sheet of fondant, about an eighth of an inch thick. Use a cookie cutter or sharp kitchen knife to cut a run of narrow petal shapes investigate this site. The number of petals you will need will depend on the size of your cupcake and how full your want your flower to be.



Laying on Petals We used 10 pale pink petals, 9 dark pink shades and 7 red petals with this flower useful content. Simply lay them down coating, pressing them into the icing at the middle image source. Finish by putting a couple little balls of fondant at the center or use a dollop of icing coated in dragee sprinkles (the large round ones).



Adding a Ladybug You can use the exact same simple petal technique in a whole new manner by turning your petals into leaves and adding a ladybug. To make a lady bug, roll a piece of red fondant into an oval form Find Out More. Produce a smaller gray oval for the mind and small dots of grey for your ladybug's spots.



Ladybug and Leaves Cut your petal shapes out of green fondant instead of pink and layer up the leaves look at these guys. Place all your woman insect pieces together and set the ladybug in the center. If your fondant gets too dry and does not wish to stick, brush a very small bit of water on or use icing to keep the bits together.



Little Flowers Rolling fondant into spirals is another simple way to produce edible blossoms. Roll out a sheet of fondant and cut or split out long strips out of it check this site out visit here. Roll up the strands to make tight spiral roses. You may also try rolling the strips more loosely to make the effect of ruffled petals. Try out marbling two distinct colors together at a strip to make a variegated effect in your blossoms. Simply knead to colours together, quitting before they mix completely.



Arranging Rolled Roses Organize the flowers by placing a ring around the outside border of the cupcake, with the cap of the flower facing outside. Consider mixing different shades and colors together.



Completed Bouquet As soon as you have the base ring, then stack more blossoms on top until you have covered the entire surface of the cupcake. Form little foliage shapes with your fingers and put them in any gaps between the blossoms. Use a tiny bit of water or icing if required to help things stick.



Large Rose Petals You can create a large rose by tearing larger strips out of a sheet of paper and using these to form petals instead of a complete blossom. Don't worry if your strands are irregular, it is going to make the petals appear more natural once you place them together.



Putting the Rose Begin by developing a little wrapped rose for the center great site. Build up the flower by wrapping more strips of fondant around the middle. Allow the fondant fold or tear if it wants to; your flower will seem more natural if it's not entirely perfect.



Finished Rose Continue incorporating petals until the whole top of the cupcake is covered. If it looks too flat, give the petals more body by simply including a fold or ripple as your wrap them around.



Bumble Bee You can even create smaller flowers utilizing the exact same method you use for the big rose, but using little flowers you can leave space for a bee! Begin with the very same contours you'd use for your own ladybug, a yellow oval to your body and smaller grey oval for the head. Cut stripes from a sheet of gray fondant and tiny wings from a sheet of marbleized white and blue.



Bee from the Roses Top a cupcake with a string of smaller roses and set the bee among them . You can mix techniques for roses with multiple petals and cherry roses to create complete buds and flowers. Add a few leaves to fill in the surrounding region.



Folded Petals You may produce lovely and very round blossoms simply by folding a few pieces of fondant. Roll a sheet of paper in your desired color and cut out circles from it. You can use a cookie cutter to get best circles, but we reduce imperfect circles freehand. Cutting circles that are not quite perfect will offer your petals more variety and make the last blossom more organic. Immediately fold your circles into quarters that are loose see here now. If the fondant gets overly dry before folding it's going to crack.



Arranging the Petals Put your loosely folded petals at a ring around your cupcake with the folded corners pointing site web. Add another layer of petals in addition to these, all of the way round see this site. You can now choose if you want to finish out the blossom or add a butterfly.



Finished blossom To finish the blossom simply continue adding layers of petals before the center is full and the cupcake is coated click this over here now visit this site right here. We used a gradation of colours for ours, beginning with peach petals at the bottom and going to light pink in the middle. This is one of the fastest ways to construct fondant flowers.



Butterfly Shapes Instead of finishing the whole blossom with petals, you can best your cupcake with a beautiful butterfly. To make our monarch butterfly we cut wing contours from a sheet of orange fondant. (If you are worried about getting the shape right, consider tracing a photograph.) We also used a fat gray log contour for the body and lots of little ropes. A few white circles are perfect highlights.



Finishing the Butterfly Placing all the butterfly bits together can be tricky, but lots of fun! If you are going for a particular butterfly make certain to check at a photograph for a little advice. Trace the outside of the butterfly's wings in black and also fill the inside by creating loops with the thin gray rope. Add white stains to the ends of their wings and grey stripes to the entire body for a perfect finishing touch! You can make any type of butterfly this way, just change the color and wing shape.



Done! Now you can organize and serve your lovely cupcakes. Although these cupcakes aren't too difficult to create, they do require a good deal of time. If you're going to make a lot make sure to do a couple of tests beforehand so that you may plan accordingly.

Create a Gorgeous Hypertufa Planter

Create a Gorgeous Hypertufa Planter You'll just need a little time, the ideal stuff and a while to make this beautiful hypertufa container. Hypertufa containers are a lighter-weight pot than the concrete container, and are shaped using a mixture of perlite, Portland cement and peat moss.



Perlite, Peat Moss and Portland Cement Hypertufa containers are created with a simple equivalent components combination of perlite, peat moss and Portland cement. For this project, we'll create two hypertufa containers--a large square 12"x12" grass and a little round 8" kettle--using old garden store plastic containers as our molds.   We used 2 gallons each of perlite, peat moss and Portland cement.



Gather Your Tools You will need a large plastic bucket or other container to measure and mix your perlite, peat moss and Portland cement; plastic baskets for your hypertufa molds (we used 12"x12" and 8" plastic containers in the garden shop); a shovel for blending; a dust mask; gloves to protect your hands along with a trowel to press the hypertufa mixture against your hypertufa molds. You will also need a lubricant to permit your completed hypertufa pot to slip out of your plastic molds. Cooking spray, wheat germ or even a spray lubricant will do the task of releasing the hypertufa out of your mould.



Insert Peat Moss Add 1 part peat moss to a large plastic, water tight plastic bin.



Insert Portland Cement Add 1 part Portland cement to the bin. When working with Portland cement, use a dust mask and stay upwind Related Site. Wear gloves when mixing the substances together.



Mix in Portland Cement Add Portland cement into your trough.



Quantify Perlite Add one part perlite to some mixing trough.



Blend Together With a hoe or alternative long tool, combine the perlite, peat moss and Portland cement together.



Use Your Hands! To ensure all three substances are well-incorporated you may want to use your hands to ensure all of the lumps are out of the peat moss.



Almost There You're looking for a consistent gray color to ensure all components are mixed correctly.



Just Add Water Simply take this step quite slowly and add only a little bit of water at one time. If you add too much water, the hypertufa mix will not properly mould. The target is to combine approximately equal parts water into equal portions dry materials, but you might need less or more water. Add just a small bit of water at a time till you reach the desired consistency, which will be the consistency of cottage cheese. When the proper consistency is reached you should have the ability to form the hypertufa blend into a hamburger-like patty and it must hold together.



Incorporate Your Water Use a  shovel or hoe to gradually blend in the water, analyzing the consistency along the way.



Fully Blend You may want to use your hands to make certain the water and sterile materials are thoroughly mixed. Wear gloves to protect your hands out of caustic materials from the mix.



The Appropriate Consistency If the dry and moist elements are correctly incorporated you will have the ability to form the mixture into a hamburger form. It will hang together as it reaches the proper consistency.



Spray Your Container Use your preferred mold launch oil-based spray or cloth (we used cooking spray) to coating the mold you will be producing the hypertufa in more tips here. This will allow the hypertufa to slide out of the mold once it's fully healed.



Press In Starting from the base, press approximately 3/4 to one-inch depth of your hypertufa mix into your preferred hypertufa mold.



Cover the Total Mold Ensure the desired thickness of hypertufa mix covers the mold. Do not worry if there's a roughness: those containers seem great when they're imperfect. But make sure you get all the air bubbles out by pressing the hypertufa mix against the mold form.



Amount Utilize your trowel to level off the top.



Make a Drain Hole Stick your finger all the way towards the base of the mould to present your hypertufa container a drain hole.



Cover Plastic Cover the hypertufa mould entirely at a plastic bag and set in a cool place out of sunlight to heal. After 24-36 hours, take the hypertufa pot from the mould and set it back into the plastic bag. Allow to cure another 2 weeks. Then you are ready to plant!



Duplicate Repeat the entire process with your next pot.



Finished Pot Your hypertufa bud has healed and is currently ready for some crops.



Add Rocks Place at your hypertufa pot's base or stones.



Add Soil Add a mixture of potting soil and compost. Or, if you plan on planting succulents, add a cactus mix.



Add Succulents Dramatically shaped succulents result in a gorgeous contrast to the textured appearance of your hypertufa pot.



Sterile A concrete brush is a nifty tool to clean off any stray potting soil and neaten up your newly potted plants.



All Done! You now have two amazing hypertufa pots. If you would like to add even more style to your container, you are able to grow moss on the container in about eight months by creating a mixture of moss and buttermilk in a blender and then brushing it onto the hypertufa surface and departing the container in a shady place. Find directions for making a spreadable moss mixture here.