Crafty Home Decor

Personal touches are the little things that make a house into a home.  It doesn't have to cost a lot (or anything at all, if you're creative), but I'm a firm believer that the way you decorate your home speaks to your personality and lifestyle.  My little apartment screams personality, from the minute you walk into the turquoise blue hallway.  Since moving in last year, I've been working on all those little touches that just make me smile when my eye lands on them.  It's not quite done yet, I still envision a lot for my apartment (including a full wall of photos, framed and matted in white, behind my couch), but it's definitely getting there.
 Here are two of those little things that I'm going to share with you today:




First up - my Ikea mirrors.  It's a series of three square mirrors, in a natural maple that I actually found at a thrift store, with the hanging hardware installed on the back and everything (saved me some work!) ... I hung them up on my wall as is, and lived with them for a while, but I always knew I wanted to do something with them.  Amy and I had a craft day, and I decided to decoupage my mirror with pages from a French book I had found at a thrift store.  I did two layers and they dried opaque, so the maple cannot be seen at all underneath.
I'm still debating whether or not to add a little velcro circle at the bottom of the mirror so that I can interchange embellishments with each season (IE, maybe some yellow flowers for right now, spring time... some holly at Christmas, etc).  Because the actual mirror is so neutral, it would probably work well.  What do you think? Should I try it?

Then there's my lamp.  This started out as a plain old lamp that I took from my parents place.  It was fine enough, since it wasn't too gaudy or tacky (no offense, mom & dad!), but it was just kind of boring.  So I decided to hand sew some strips of white cotton, and pull out my trusty glue gun, and voila!  A couple of hours later, I have the girliest lamp on the planet.  Seriously, how cute is this?  It kind of gives me the urge to sew ruffles onto everything I own - but then I'll probably get sick of them, so I'll resist for now.

What little touches have you added to your place to make it feel like *your* home, rather than just a house that you live in?

P.S. If you really want to see all the little things in my living room that make me "LOL" - check out the version of the first photo, that I labelled with all the things on my shelves right here.