Showing posts with label Home Decor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home Decor. Show all posts

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Review: PicStick Photo Magnets

Today's review is of PicStick.com, a company that makes magnets out of your pictures. PicStick sells magnets by the sheet, and each sheet is made up of 9 magnets and costs $14.99. They are based in the UK, but ship worldwide (for FREE!).  I recently received a sample of 1 sheet (9 magnets)  for free in return for my honest review.


To start, I was very pleased with how easy it was to create my sheet of 9 magnets.  PicStick offers the options of uploading photos from your computer, or connecting to Facebook  and Dropbox and choosing photos from your online albums.  I chose to connect to my Facebook account and choose 9 pictures that I thought would make nice mementos from the past several years.  I chose to use a few photos of my parents' cats as well as some pretty pictures from my wedding. It was very easy to upload and resize my pictures, almost completely foolproof.  The only problem I encountered in this step was that a few of the pictures I wanted to use were automatically changed to a weird crop/orientation/size that didn't look all that great. I couldn't figure out how to fix this so I simply chose other photos.

After I uploaded my pictures all I had to do was check out and enter my shipping information.  I promptly received an email receipt and confirmation that my order had been received.  It took considerably less time for me to receive my magnets than I expected; only about a week from the day I placed my order.  I was very impressed by the speed I received my order and by how well informed the company kept me of my order status. I received emails when my order had been processed, produced, and shipped.

Once I received my sheet of magnets, it was just a matter of folding along the perforated lines and snapping the individual magnets apart before they were ready to hang on my refrigerator.  This was super easy and convenient, but I do have some mixed feelings about the quality of the magnets themselves.  To start with, I was pleasantly surprised with the picture quality of the magnets, especially considering that I used pictures from Facebook.  With other photo printing services, the pictures I had printed from Facebook albums always turned out grainy and looked very bad.  Nearly all of my PicStick magnets looked great, with the exception of one photo that wasn't very high quality anyways.  My biggest complaint is that the magnets themselves aren't very strong.  They stick to my refrigerator just fine, but they are a little bit too weak to hold much. They are too weak to hold more than a few thin sheets of paper up.

My 9 magnets

Overall, I think the best use for these would be as a space-saving way to decorate your office space, dorm, or kitchen with your personal photos, but I wouldn't expect them to be highly functional.  I like the way they look and it's nice to be able to add some personal touches to my otherwise boring refrigerator.  They work just fine to post my shopping list or a note, but I will have to look elsewhere for a stronger magnet to hold cards and coupons.

As a special offer to my readers, PicStick is offering a 25% discount with the code FAUX25

*I received this product for free in exhange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own*

Saturday, June 21, 2014

More Free Crochet Patterns- Modern Pillow Patterns

I like crocheting my own decorative pillows because it saves a TON of money! Pillows are expensive, especially if you like to change your decor seasonally.  It doesn't take much time to crochet these pillows and you can make them in the exact size, pattern, and colors that you want.  A basic skein of RedHeart brand yarn costs less than $5 and can be used to make several small-medium sized pillows. For a lot of the modern, intricate patterns that are in fashion right now I recommend making a single-crochet background square and then cross-stitching your design onto that. Here are several free designs to get you started: 

Scale Pattern Pillow

Modern Pillow #3


Leafy Pillow

Modern Pillow #1
Modern Pillow #2