Collaborating with Kollabora

I first discovered Kollabora a year ago at the Altitude Summit blogging conference. They were a budding company with a cool concept - bring together a community of makers to share their DIY projects and techniques and encourage others to start making by providing easy step-by-step instructions and supplies.

It has been fun collaborating with them over the past year - you may remember the DIY Night when we made these awesome painted bangles with supplies and instructions from Kollabora:

Then we held a DIY Night where several of us took a shot at knitting for the first time while watching Kollabora's step-by-step "newbie" videos online:

Randolph Street Market Summer Opener - Ticket Giveaway!

It's hard to believe Memorial Weekend is only a matter of days away. Just like the last few years, you'll find me kicking off the weekend at my favorite Randolph Street Market.

This outdoor vintage flea market in Chicago is held monthly throughout the summer in the West Loop. There are over 200 vendors, good food, and live music. Never been? Well now is your chance! 

Randolph St. Market are providing a pair of tickets to its May 25-26th market for one of Design Improvised's readers! Just leave a comment below to enter.

In the meantime, here are a few snapshots of treasures I've taken home from past markets:

New Home Ideas

I have been ripping ideas from home magazines for as long as I can remember. Having the new home to plan for has been the perfect excuse to sort through my sea of clippings and organize them nicely in an idea book!

My favorite way to organize magazine clippings is with clear sheet protectors in a 3 ring binder. To make my idea book feel a little more special I covered an old binder in pretty paper. I also got some stick-on tabs from Martha Stewart Home Office and a Sharpie for writing notes on the clippings:

We Bought a Home!

As of May 30th, this will be our new home in San Antonio! Things are always bigger in Texas, and this is definitely bigger than our Chicago condo. It should be quite the change as we trade the city life for the suburb life. I'm just looking forward to some new rooms to decorate!

Lots more photos to come down the road - just wanted to give you a sneak peek for now.

Have a great weekend!