Precious Sister - simply beautiful things

FUTURE OF PRECIOUS SISTER

precious sister — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 07:26:13 PST

Dear readers. First I wanna say thank you for all your comments and messages. It has been heart warming.

Precious Sister was a project my dear sister and I launched together a couple of years back and due to her not being with us anymore, I have decided not to work on this site any further. I will keep this site open in memory of my precious sister, Sussi. This was a very special project of ours, we had a lot of ideas and visions of what to make of this little beauty.

I have disabled commenting on the site, but feel free to contact me using the contact form if you have any questions regarding our projects or just wanna say hi.

I personally have chosen to focus on my photography. I'm in the process of building my new site www.house3003.com and blog, where I hope to include some smaller graphical project and how to's. You are very welcome to stop by.

Thank you for all your love & support for Precious Sister.

Annika

WHEN LIFE THROWS A CURVEBALL

precious sister — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 13:22:13 PDT

As you might have noticed, it has been very quiet around here for the last month. I would love to say that we have just been on a long needed vacation, but the reality is a bit different. About a month ago my darling sister Sussi was diagnosed with cancer, which threw our worlds upside down in a way we never imagined. Her condition is very severe, since the cancer is a very aggressively growing tumor, more specifically a Ewing's Sarcoma.

We have pretty much been in the hospital since her diagnosis. Sussi went from feeling well to experiencing symptoms in her stomach in under three weeks, to getting this diagnosis. She is in a very critical stage right now, having had her first round of chemo, but reacted very strongly to the chemo.

I wanted to tell you this as I cannot promise what will happen to Precious Sister in the future. I know my sister loves this place and is very sad to just let it go. So for now we will take a break, until we know more. I'm sure you'll understand our situation and that there's pretty much only one thing that matters to us right now; to get my sister onto a path of recovery.

I will try my best to update you again soon.

/Annika

GARDEN TIPS: HERB WAGON

precious sister — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 08:39:47 PDT

Fresh herbs are probably the most delicious ingredient you can add to your food, especially if you can go out and pick them in your garden. As you might have read, I only have a small balcony herb garden, but Sussi has this gorgeous garden and she came up with this awesome idea for a herb garden.

She had this old broken flower wagon, which was just standing there, screaming for a purpose. So she filled it with dirt, planted all kinds of herbs, arranged some broken terracotta pots and a few branches, and made it into a beautiful and functional raised bed garden. It doesn't only look good and decorative, but you can actually wheel it away too.

This is an easy idea to copy; any wagon like thing can be used for this - small or large will do - the fun part is that it doesn't take much time to create something useful that looks great with this idea. And we just love when those two things go hand in hand :)

Happy gardening!

Tags:

Home & Garden

COLOR PALETTE WEEK 27

precious sister — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 13:43:40 PDT

Tags:

Color Palettes

BALCONY VEGETABLE GARDEN PROGRESS

precious sister — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 09:44:36 PDT

Do you remember the cozy vegetable garden my hubby and I built for the balcony? Well, this week I took some pictures to show you how everything is very green and growing. We now have heaps of rocket and spinache for every meal, and they just keep growing and I'm eagerly awaiting all the basil and parsely we'll be having next month.

It is such a joy to go out there and pick greens. The spring onions, though, are a bit slower and I'm not sure they'll make it, but it's fun to try these things out and follow the process. And might I just ad, that it looks so fresh and green on the balcony with this little garden. We just love it.

May you all have a wonderful start to the weekend.

Tags:

Home & Garden

DIY: BIRDIE MOBILE

precious sister — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 22:25:23 PDT

Happy Thursday everyone. I have a gorgeous little project for you today. Remember the beginning of the month, when I told you about those two drift wood branches I was going to use for a project? Well, this is that project :) I used them for a very cute birdie mobile in pastel colors. Not many materials is needed and anyone can make one of these.

You'll need these materials:

2 x branches (the ones I used were about 30-35 cm long)
sewing thread
sewing needle
metal wire
scissor
laminator (or use really sturdy carton, if your printer can handle it)
thick A4 paper
prints A4 (download here)

BIRDIE PRINT HERE

1. Print out the pattern on one side, flip and print the pattern w. birdie tracing on the other side. Make one sheet of each color. Laminate the sheets. This will make your mobile a bit more sturdy and last longer. If you don’t have a laminator, then use thick carton for the prints. Just remember that your printer needs to be able to handle the carton you use.

2. Cut out all the little birdies.

3. Use needle and thread. Create five strings of birdies by attaching the birdies to each other with thread between them. Make the distance about 10-15 cm.

4. Take your branches and place them in a X. Secure them to each by winding wire around the intersection. Make sure the branches are pretty level when you hold them up; otherwise the whole mobile will be crooked. Now make a small loop from a piece of wire and attach it to the intersection.

5. Attach all the strings of birdies to your branches, one on each arm and one in the middle. Hang your mobile and enjoy your finished project.

Happy project! See you tomorrow.

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COLOR PALETTE WEEK 26

precious sister — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 06:47:07 PDT

Have a gorgeous week everyone.

Tags:

Color Palettes

WOOD FLOWER POT

precious sister — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 03:59:25 PDT

Hi guys. I was actually going to post this yesterday, but I was busy doing things and I totally forgot about it. Anyway, so I'll do it today, show you this wooden flower pot that I made for my magnolia tree.

Those of you who follow us on Pinterest might remember these very gorgeous worn looking flowerpots from Pottery Barn. Well, that was the inspiration for this project. I wanted to achieve a similar look to in my flower pot, so without really having a plan to follow, I decided that the wood I had laying around, was going to determine the look and the size of the pot.

*the following description of how I built the pot is not an exact plan, but more an inspiration to how you could make and design your own.

I used scrap pieces of planks from pallets and scrap plywood pieces. I cut 4 identical pieces of plywood for the sides. The planks were cut into thinner pieces to go outside the sides of the pot and their length was adjusted to the length of the plywood sides. I put everything together and added 4 pieces of wood to the inner corners to strengthen the construction. Then I added a bottom and feet and I made a trim to go on the top edge of the pot, but didn't attach it yet.

I stained the wood blue before I painted it white, because I wanted to see if some of that stain would show through when I distressed it later. I only gave it one coat of white to keep as much of the wood structure as possible and when it had dried I sanded it down to give it a worn look. (Remember to paint the trim as well). The stain didn’t shine through as blue, but more a grey color. If you’d like a more intense color to shine through, you should use a colored paint instead of stain.

Before I planted my small magnolia tree, I covered the inside of the pot with plastic. I use the bottom of one of those sturdy see-through garbage bags and secured it to the top edge of the pot. Remember the trim we made, but didn't attach? Nail that to the top edge on top of the plastic. This way you get a nice finish and the plastic edge wont show.

Now plant your tree and enjoy your little project :)

Joining these parties:
The Charm of Home ,

Tags:

Home & Garden

Wood

TYPEWRITER PRINT FREEBIE

precious sister — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 13:23:58 PDT

Today I have a really cool present/download for you. A while ago i bought this gorgeous old 1910 Mercedes typewriter. Those of you who follow us on Instagram (precious_sister) may already have seen this beauty. She a very solid and heavy lady, but she sure is elegant. I love the colors and all the details of this machine. Anything made today with so many details and functions would be all covered up in a sleek and shiny design. I think it sometimes makes us appreciate things less, when we can't really see and understand how they work.

Anyway...back to the download. I snapped some really awesome pictures of this lady and I wanted to share them with you. They fit perfectly together on a wall, yet they are all different. Just right click the images and save. You can then have them printed at your local print shop and framed. I have made the format so they fit standards like Ikeas A4 frames. The resolution allows you to print bigger though.

I hope you like them. If you choose to get these printed, I would love to see a picture of them on your wall. You can just post the link in a comment below.

These prints are for personal use only. Please do not resell.

Tags:

Photography

Downloads

COLOR PALETTE WEEK 25

precious sister — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:16:51 PDT

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Color Palettes