Not enough in your budget for decorating?

Interior designer Summer Baltzer is not buying that.

"It doesn't have to be about money," says the host of HGTV's series "Design on a Dime." "People aspire to emulate magazines and automatically assume they have to spend a lot of money. It's not about that. It's about designing a space that feels like you."

How does that translate, exactly? On Saturday, Baltzer presents "Design Trends for the New Year on a Budget" at Jerome's Furniture in Corona.

Baltzer will discuss bold colors for 2011. ("I can tell you that purple and a very saturated pink are not going to work for everyone," she says.) She will talk about designing with perhaps a musical genre or nature in mind, not a big budget.

"Add new artwork or inexpensive paint," she says. "Take a piece of clothing and make a pillow. Reconcile yourself to the fact that you're going to get creative, follow your heart and don't worry about it." 

OK.

Baltzer is appearing as part of Jerome's J Club, a free program that brings designer resources to customers via events, e-mailed tips and in-person consultations. Jerome's will give away a $250 gift card and a one-on-one design consultation with Baltzer after her presentation Saturday.

Baltzer encourages customers to bring photos of problem spaces to the event.

"I always invite people to bring pictures in," she says. "I am more than happy to help with any design questions on the spot."

Check-in begins at 12:30 p.m., and Baltzer's presentation is at 1:30 p.m. The store is at 3615 Grand Oaks, Suite C-1, Corona. Customers are asked to reserve a spot online. Questions? Call (866) 633-4094.

To see the kitchen shown above before Baltzer got her hands on it, keep reading ...

I love kid art -- and not just my own kids' paintings and drawings. 

So when I spotted this striking pinboard in designer Erin Ellwood's Ojai home, I had to ask how to make one for myself.

"Who doesn't love kid art? Especially when it's your own kid," said Ellwood, who has an 8-year-old daughter. "But framing is kind of predictable. Here you can create a grouping and make it powerful."

The pinboard is made from half-inch-thick Homasote fiberboard, an eco-friendly product made with recycled paper. It comes in 4-by-8-foot sheets (about $35 each) at hardware stores such as Stock Building Supply, and you can have it cut to your specifications. Ellwood wanted a 9-foot-long board, so she cut two Homasote sheets and put them together. She covered the fiberboard in pea-green fabric, but you can leave it bare as in the pinboard shown at the right.

To cover the board, she first laid out the fabric, put the fiberboard on top, pulled the fabric taut, then staple-gunned it to the back of the board. Dividing her pinboard into two smaller pieces made the process easier to manage, but Ellwood warned that corners can be difficult. "You have to keep cutting the fabric down so you don't get a big, thick corner," she said. When that's done, secure the board to the wall with four long wood screws and wall anchors. This will allow the heavy board to rest flat against the wall. Finishing washers were added in the end to protect the fabric and give it a neat appearance.

Ellwood prefers a clean look when arranging artwork on the finished board. "Just start with one picture and go from there," she said. "Lining them up neatly and offsetting them makes a statement." Put up one piece in the center, then work to the left and then to the right. (I tried this approach on a bare hallway wall using artist tape, and the results look great.)

Ellwood likes Homasote because it contains recycled material, it holds pins well and it can be cut to fit varied spaces. If you get bored with the fabric, simply change it. The best part: The piece will be durable. The pinboard at the top of the page is 10-years-old. 

"We're always wondering what can we do with our kids' artworks," Ellwood said. "Framing is so expensive. This is a good way to get a lot of it up and make it powerful and colorful."

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credits: Erin Ellwood

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While reading the free knitting tutorials on the Norwegian craft blog Pickles, I stumbled upon this gorgeous holiday project from last year.

The savvy crafters used a big straw wreath base like the kind you'd find at Michaels, plus invisible thread and felted balls.

You can read how the Pickles crafters made the wreath. You also can read how to make your own felt balls.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Pickles

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Meet Violaine, dark-hearted heroine and one of 20 misfit characters in Emily Martin's "The Black Apple's Paper Doll Primer," due out Tuesday from Potter Craft books.

Martin's 160-page paper-doll extravaganza is loaded with tongue-in-cheek figures such as the conjoined twins Hazel and Olive and the mysterious Tom, who "might vanish for days at a time and then suddenly appear at the very diner where you just so happen to be having a cup of coffee and a piece of pie."

"All of these characters are facets of my own personality," the illustrator said from her studio in Portland, Ore., this week. "Violaine represents a time in my life when I was holed up in my darkroom, listening to the Cure and crying about no one understanding me."

An obsessive crafter who is a top seller on Etsy, Martin wanted to create a book unlike any other. "The thing that attracted me to making the book was that it was such an excessive idea," she said. "The average picture book is 32 pages long."

Included in the mix: apparel and accessories, beautifully painted scenes to use with the Black Paper Theater, a flip book and stationery.

Obsessive? Perhaps. Fun? Definitely. The book inspired my 12-year-old daughter to invent her own cast of misfits.

"I hope people are drawn in by how different it is," Martin said.

Curious to see what a character like Violaine might wear? Keep reading ...

The end of summer inevitably brings the stories about county fairs and the deep-frying of everything on the planet. (Fried, chocolate-dipped, bacon-wrapped Oreo, anyone?) But this year another story has emerged from the L.A. County Fair: a crafts story. It turns out that craft submissions are up. Substantially.

As writer Veronique de Turenne reports:

"In recent years, indie craft fairs such as Felt Club, Renegade and Unique L.A. have let younger 'makers' showcase their monster dolls, silk-screened alt T-shirts and chic letterpress stationery, but if the spike in the number of participants is any indication, the crafts renaissance has circled back to one of its traditional homes here in L.A. County. ... In 2009, 694 contestants entered 1,940 items in the fair. This year, 750 people made 2,248 items to be judged. Crafts contestants ranged in age from 17 to over 90."

Read more about this year's uptick in crafts at the L.A. County Fair, which runs through Oct. 3, or check out our photo gallery for a peek at some of the best of the 2010 fair crafts.

-- Deborah Netburn

Top photo: A mosaic by Susan Helms. Credit: Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times

Bottom photo: The first-place winner in the quilt block challenge. Credit: Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times

P.S.: While we're on the topic of the L.A. County Fair, I can't resist adding this link to a 2007 story about competitive table setting at the fair. I remember loving it. Hope you enjoy!

A selection of textiles by designer Paula Smail are 60% off in Henry Road's first fabric sale, ending Tuesday.

Translation: Fabric that was $50 per yard is now only $20.

I checked in with Smail on Sunday, and she assured me that she has more than 40 yards of fabric left to sell. Some designs are available in increments as small as three yards, but don't let that stop you: Think pillows. Smail's Studio City store is filled with fun accessories -- sachets, pillows, table runners -- that demonstrate what you can do with her colorful prints.

You can view the fabrics in the online sale. All of them measure 58 inches wide and are 100% cotton duck, so be sure to preshrink any purchase by washing it in warm water before you start sewing.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Henry Road

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The Echo Park design office Scout Regalia is giving new meaning to the term "Made in California" by launching a series of free instruction sheets showing how to build your own furnishings.

The SR Planting Table, above, is the first of the SR Cutsheet Projects. The outdoor plant stand is designed as a simple and affordable project for the average DIYer; it requires only an electric drill, hand saw and countersink drill bit.

"Good design should be accessible to everyone," Scout Regalia co-founder Makoto Mizutani said. "We decided to start the Cutsheet Project as a way of opening up the design-build process to people and hopefully instilling an appreciation for building."

The easy-to-read instruction sheet is available as a free download. Contact Scout Regalia at info@scoutregalia.com.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo: Scout Regalia

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Artist Leigh Adams says she has an unusual perspective on earthquakes. "Instead of getting upset when something breaks, everyone cheers," she says of her family. "It's called a paradigm shift. I enjoy taking something broken and making something whole and wonderful out of it."

Adams' latest paradigm shift is for the birds: She hosts a class on making mosaic birdbaths on Saturday at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. In the hands-on workshop, Adams will demonstrate how to use broken tile and glass on saucers or bowls, fused and grouted into place. Everyone, she says, will go home with a finished piece.

The class will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Participants should bring a 12-inch or larger glazed saucer or bowl like the one pictured above. Admission is $40 to $50. Reservations: (626) 821-4623 or e-mail jill.berry@arboretum.org.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Leigh Adams

Visitors to Wave Hill, a New York public garden and arts center in the Bronx, can take in the scenery in the exceptionally comfy armchair above. The slat back and seat construction are reminiscent of Adirondack chairs and have an eye-catching architectural presence.

It is inspired by the Red and Blue chair, right, designed by the Dutch modernist Gerrit Rietveld in 1918. This classic was reproduced in the 1970s, and a chair of that vintage is currently for sale at Pegaso Gallery International in Los Angeles for $2,200. New versions of the chair, still offered by the Italian firm Cassina, are $3,132.

The Wave Hill chair is a bit chunkier but a good deal less costly, especially if you're handy. It's sold as a kit -- pine pieces that screw together and are shipped flat-packed with assembly instructions. It costs $200, and shipping is $28.50 for ground transport or $183.26 for next-day delivery.

Feel at ease with a power saw? For $12.95, you can order the plans and build it yourself. The Wave Hill chair needs only square cuts, no miter joinery. The folks at Wave Hill estimate the cost of pine lumber at about $60. Figure more for redwood or other all-weather wood, and add at least half a day if you want to paint it in four colors a la Rietveld. 

-- David A. Keeps

UPDATED: Since this post went live, Wave Hill has alerted us that the chair has proved popular -- so popular, in fact, that the center can't guarantee that orders will be shipped before Oct. 15. Consider that one more reason to buy the plans ($10 plus $2.95 for shipping) and build the chair yourself.

Photo credits from top: David A. Keeps / For The Times; Pegaso Gallery 

Connoisseurs and collectors of authentic Craftsman, Spanish Colonial Revival and Art Deco architectural details can enjoy one-stop shopping in the San Gabriel Valley now that Pasadena Architectural Salvage and Architectural Detail have teamed up at a new joint location. The companies, popular resources among preservation-minded contractors, designers and homeowners, this month opened a 14,000-square-foot retail space on Foothill Boulevard.

"Before, we were serving some of the same clients, but they were having to drive back and forth from store to store. This place is more convenient, with much better parking and a loading dock in back. It also allows us to be under one roof but still remain two separate businesses," says Gayle Stoner.

With business partner Chris Shackelford, Stoner bought Pasadena Architectural Salvage in 2008 following the death of original owner Cary Pasternak. After the 5-year-old store lost the lease to its San Gabriel Boulevard location, Stoner and Shackelford found spacious new digs for rent just four blocks away and approached their crosstown colleagues with the possibility of joining forces.

Architectural Detail, an architectural restoration consulting firm and online salvage dealer that was established in 1997 and located on Valley Street, considered the shared storefront a win-win proposition.

"While our business is still primarily online, we can’t help but benefit from the bricks-and-mortar association with Gayle, who is very customer-oriented," says Skip Willetts, co-owner with wife Janice.

Setting up showrooms side by side has prompted the companies to tweak their respective inventories to avoid direct competition. Pasadena Architectural Salvage sold all of its bathtubs, lavatories and toilets to Architectural Detail but continues to trade in accessories such as medicine cabinets, towel bars and soap holders. Meanwhile, Architectural Details sold its inventory of doors -- hundreds of them -- and about half of its hardware to Pasadena Architectural Salvage. Keep reading for more on the offerings, including additional photos.

There’s a beehive in the backyard, a dark closet full of fermenting kombucha tea and music from cigar boxes-turned-guitars floating through the air: Welcome to the do-it-yourself Studio City haven of Mark Frauenfelder.

Jessica Hundley over at Brand X recently spoke with Frauenfelder, who is the current editor of MAKE magazine and founding editor of tech/culture webblog Boing Boing, about these DIY experiments and others, chronicled in Frauenfelder’s new book “Made by Hand.”

What immediately stood out about this DIY approach -- which also includes pickling experiments to make sauerkraut (“great with eggs”) and a machine to make the homemade yogurt Frauenfelder eats with fruit and nuts twice a day -- is its function over form.

“I think it's great that people make these bizarre robots, or windmill or Burning Man style sculptures, but ... I wanted to make things that would be part of my life -- coffee, yogurt, that sort of thing. I wanted to try to make some things by hand that I would normally just go out and buy,” Frauenfelder said in the interview.

“With this book I wanted to do things that would enrich our lives and would be possible to do and still work and write and spend time with my family.”

As for the attached temperature control device on his espresso machine that helps him brew the perfect shot (the same one is used by NASA), well, that would definitely enrich my life.

Read Brand X’s full interview with Frauenfelder or see more of his DIY projects.

-- Kelsey Ramos

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Photo: Mark Frauenfelder tending to his beehive. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Become a fan: Join our Facebook pages for home design and California gardening.

Two new floral graphics by Venice-based Ilan Dei Studio for Blik will bloom long past any flower you might place in a vase. And you don't have to water them. Simply tape the graphics where you like, squeegee the back, peel off the paper backing and hang.

The Calla graphic stands 6 feet tall and comes in a set of three flowers ($70). Installation is harder than some other Blik designs, earning the highest degree-of-difficulty rating, "grab a pal." Rose is available in black or white and comes with two branches of blooms ($60). Degree of difficulty: "a worthwhile challenge."

Buy them online at www.whatisblik.com.

-- Lisa Boone

Photo credit: Blik