I hope you all have been busy searching stores and the interwebs for fun and funky steampunk accents for your home these last two weeks. Time does fly fast!  I had a great time working on this week’s blog, and I hope you all enjoy it too! This week we will go through, step-by-step, how to make your own leather belt floor mat. 1) Gather your supplies: You’ll want to check out a few thrift stores to buy your belts. If you plan your visit right, go when the belts are most discounted, and you can get them for less than $1 each. I recommend buying 15-20 belts, depending on the size you want to make your floor mat. The more interesting the pattern or texture of the belt, the better. But make sure you get a few plain ones too as filler. This will give your mat a more interesting look. Additionally you will need: Sharp Scissors Exacto Knife Shoe Barge (shoe glue: I like to use Barge, or Goop) Ruler Felt (Get a color that will go with the belts-this will be your base to the mat) Chalk or a marker (to mark the felt and leather for cutting) Some heavy books to help flatten the leather Paper towels or wet ones for clean up 2) Sort out your belts: Once you have all of your belts together you might find that one or two just don’t fit in with the rest of them, just set those aside for now,  they might make for good filler. 3) Cut off the buckles: Make sure you get as close to the buckle as you can so you have as much leather to work with as possible. OR, if you’re like me and fell in...

Before I got to Paris, I was never much of a purse person. I liked something with good pockets and a nice shape, and the most I remember spending on a purse was $50 for a marked down Nine West at Macy’s. In Paris, I made a friend who had a beautiful purse collection, and I got bored with the Nine West. Mandarina Duck was the only cool company I knew of, so I bought my first semi expensive (i.e. more than 100 euros) purse from them. It was functional with good pockets and enough leather to look a little bit fancy. It made me feel like a grown up. We were happy together. But then… I don’t know. The little swath of suede became polished and small rips appeared in the fabric. The purse was letting itself go, and my eye started to wander. Gerard Darel, I thought. It’s what all the ‘it’ girls have, and I’m an it girl, right? Well, no, but once I got the Gerard Darel 24 hour bag under my skin, it wouldn’t let go. I could be working through a perfectly normal Tuesday afternoon and then find myself staring at the Gerard Darel website without knowing how I got there. I would spend hours examining the colors and prices, even though they never changed. This went on for months, but the bag cost twice the amount of Mandarina Duck. Not expensive for a designer leather purse, but not cheap either. We finally met and had coffee, me and the Gerard Darel 24 hour bag, but it turned out we didn’t click. The blue looked better online and the bag didn’t close at the top. I would have been settling. To console me, my friend introduced me to...