On Thursday, I’ll be saying goodbye to San Diego and aloha to Hawaii, and with this inspiration, I’ve rounded up more ideas on how you can repurpose vintage suitcases into new treasures.  Enjoy — and I’ll see you on the other side of the Pacific next week!

This is the BEST repurposed suitcase idea I have ever seen.  Yes, you are looking at a bass made out of a vintage suitcase by Daniyel.  And the best part is that this crafty musician has posted step-by-step DIY instructions on his blog.

Use your vintage suitcase as a planter tray for your indoor specimens, as seen via Junk Warehouse Online

I’ve blogged about suitcase tables before, but I love what lovenostalgicwhimsy has done with creating an entire set of luggage coffee and end tables with their color-coordinated legs.  Charming!

I once hoarded half a dozen vintage suitcases in the hopes of stacking two columns of three to four suitcases and then topping it with a glass piece or antique French door to turn into a desk.  Alas, I sold all of my vintage suitcases during my last move, but here is a modern creation made of leather briefcases from the talented Maarten De Ceulaear, who you may know for the pile of suitcase armoires.

From the uber-creative JunkTion comes a great piece of repurposed furniture – a sofa made from an old vintage trunk.  It’s like the human version of the repurposed luggage pet bed that has been quite popular in the blogosphere.

A vintage suitcase gets a new life as an ambient light by Jo-Annie Larue – what a clever idea!

While catching up on my DudeCraft reading, I stumbled upon Sean Woolsey‘s work, and his recent lamp logs really intrigued me.  I love the wild feel of these lamps and how each neck is shaped based upon the unique base.  The reclaimed wood wall in his studio (which serves as this photo’s backdrop) is wonderfully rustic and wabi sabi too.

This repurposed grand piano gives an entirly new meaning to the phrase “piano bar!”  While I strongly oppose gutting a working or salvageable piano (which is, of course, how I feel about despicable typewriter “key cutters”), if a piano is beyond repair, repurposing it into a bar is a marvelous idea, as created by Retreat Design.

The hammer box was gutted to create a storage space for bottles, an ice bucket, and glasses.  In the body of the piano, the strings were replaced with wine storage racks, creating a true bar from top to bottom.  Now it’s possible for us to have a piano bar in our homes!

Kitchens are the heart of the home, and now they can be the center of repurposing!  With a few free shipping pallets that grocers always throw away, fruit crates, and even tea crates, you can turn your kitchen into a repurposed haven.  With a little bit of wood stain and a rag, you can transform nearly any wooden pallet or crate to have vintage-esq patina and glow.

Katrin Arens ingeniously repurposed a shipping pallet into a beautiful dish display.  The aged wood patina in this rustic kitchen is calling me to make a few good stews!

As seen on HGTV, an old wooden crate is repurposed into a lovely, weathered spice rack.

If you really want a kitchen that is repurposed swoon-worthy, then it’s time to take shipping tea crates, complete with their original shipping imagery and type, and turn them into cabinets like Rupert Blanchard did.  Aren’t these incredible?!

If your cabinet doors leave something to be desired, why not take off the doors and use vintage apple crates in their place, as seen in House to Home?

Vintage fruit crates make another appearance as open shelving for your jars of dried goods, as seen in Country Living.

For one week, Simon Hoegsberg gave out free advice and coffee in Copenhagen to people walking by.  The project itself is quite intriguing, but what really caught my eye was the advice station he created out of shipping pallets.  This would make for a great repurposed kitchen island or kitchen table!

Crate appetit!

For 2010, I am excited to introduce an “Affordable Anthropologie” series, wherein we explore more budget-friendly and DIY alternatives for Anthropologie inspired rooms. My goal is to recreate the Anthropologie look at 1/10th of the cost (after all, elbow grease is free).

To welcome the series, I thought we could start with one of the nooks from the January catalog.For the mirror, chair, and dresser pictured above, the tab would run you $2,294 – before shipping and taxes.  Let’s see how we can recreate this entire look for less than 1/10th of the price.  In fact, we can create the entire $2,294 look for $180!

Affordable Anthropologie version for the conservatory chair: $150. I often see beautiful vintage armchairs on Craigslist that simply need a little reupholstery love to be revitalized into a gorgeous sitting piece.  While some cost as little as $40, on average, the chairs with good bones can cost you $100.  There is not much yardage involved, and I would budget $50 towards upholstery linen fabric.  I personally think a vintage-inspired fabric with type would look dashing sitting next to the numbered dresser in the Anthropologie-inspired room.I have written up a simple chair reupholstery tutorial, and for how to stencil your own vintage-inspired fabric, visit the DIY tutorial via design*sponge. 

Affordable Anthropologie version for the reassembled mirror: $15. Make your own driftwood mirror in any shape and style you please, and spend only $15 when you follow this DIY tutorial via Create Studio.

Affordable Anthropologie version for the Ordinal Dresser: $15 (if you already own a dresser). The dresser in this Anthropologie room does not have any particularly special lines or design elements, save for the aged wood patina and stenciled and painted numbers.  Download free number stencils, buy a package of Peel Away for $7,99, and a small jar of black paint or finish for $5 to create your own version.  To strip paint or finish from a dresser you already own, follow Brooklyn Limestone in her adventures in taking white paint off to reveal a beautiful wood door using Peel Away.

The final cost for our Affordable Anthropologie inspired room is $180.  Even if you have the chair professionally reupholstered, the price tag would jump to $380 – $450, a far cry from the $2294 Anthropologie price tag!

One look at the final result has me searching high and low for a vintage Vespa beyond repair.  A very chic grandpa turned his old Vespa into a custom rocking scooter for his very lucky grandson Diego, as seen via Greenwala.  How happy does that little boy look?!

I hope that your holiday season has been filled with happiness, cheer, and festivities!  As we prepare to ring in 2010, I thought it would be fitting to reflect upon 2009 and share the nine most popular posts of this year.  Enjoy a very happy New Year my friends!

Can love be considered the most popular blogging topic?  Yes, if you count the fact that the Catalog of Love I made for my husband for our second wedding anniversary was the most popular post of 2009.

If you are like me and tempted by all of the antique and vintage suitcases that you spot in your treasure hunting journeys, consider these seven ways to repurpose antique and vintage suitcases.

Who says ladders are made for climbing?  Revisit some of the best ways to repurpose ladders into useful pieces of furniture in Edition 1 and Edition 2 of Upcycled Ladders.

Be shocked by the ugly upholstery covering this beautiful antique horse carriage before I repurposed it into an entryway bench.

It’s acceptable to write – or type – on the wall, as long as you are inspired by these decor ideas on how you can display your typewriter collection on your walls.

Take a peek into my favorite vintage things, ranging from theater seats to my obsession with antique library card catalog cabinets.

Repurposed bookends come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from brass architectural salvage pieces I found to even vintage LPs and antique cameras.

And last but not least, start of 2010 with a pop with ideas from last New Year’s repurposed champagne cork series!

Is it faux pas to use fall’s pumpkins for your winter holiday decor?  Perhaps — but not when pumpkins are repurposed into a winter wonderland mantle-scape!  I simply could not let all of my pumpkins go to waste after Thanksgiving, and I turned the white pumpkins into a friendly, au natural snowman.  Although it’s hard to see in the photos, I glittered the pumpkins to give them an extra zing of winter cheer.  This would be a great project for kids as well, giving them free reign to choose the right eyes, nose, mouth, and other snowman characteristics.

We don’t have much of a winter wonderland feel living close to the beach, but I wanted to recreate that aura inside of our house.  I picked up tree trimmings from my local Home Depot (these are the bottom branches that are cut from purchased trees and are free for the taking) and created a mini-forest amidst antique apothecary glass bottles and a birch bark vase.  Red paper cardinals from an upcycled card dot the forest, as does our family monogram, which was made with floral wire and those ever-so-useful free trimmings!   The best part is that the total cost for our holiday decor this year was $0! 

I wish you the happiest of holidays, filled with cheer, treasures, and good tidings.  I can’t wait to share 2010 with you!

The talented Paul Overton has assembled the neatest Christmas gift tags I have seen in a long time.  Yes, I am biased because I love repurposing, vinyl records, and vintage inspiration, but these repurposed mini-LP gift tags are sure to be well remembered by any recipient this holiday season!  Better yet, Paul has kindly shared his .pdf files for download, as well as a very detailed DIY video, on DudeCraft.

Vintage bottle brush trees add cheerful nostalgia to any room for Christmas.  My favorite antique bottle brush trees are the ones that still have their mercury ball ornaments intact, although they cost a pretty penny these days.  I’ve seen larger bottle brush trees with their mercury ornaments sell for upwards of $100, but with a bit of grease and DIY spirit, you can make your own!

At any craft or hobby store, you can purchase a bag of 10 – 15 green bottle brush trees for less than $10.  In a large bucket or sink, add warm water and two tablespoons of bleach.  Simply dip the trees in the water and let the bleach begin stripping the color until it is your desired hue.  For all white trees, simply leave them in the water until all of the color is gone.  You can also dye the bleached white trees any color, such as pink, red, or blue, with RIT dye (using this tutorial).

Now comes the fun part – decorating the trees!  For an “authentic” vintage touch, consider adding mercury ornaments (Papier Valise has vintage stock mercury glass beads that work nicely) and dusting the trees with touches of glitter.  Here are a few ideas for your inspiration!

These quintessential bottlebrush trees from the 1940s are both nostalgic and glamorous with their mercury glass ornaments (via Country Living).

Grouping antique bottlebrush trees together by color is a wonderful way to create a holiday theme, as seen in this lovely grouping from ALifeinFocusPhotography.

This grouping of charming vintage pink bottle brush trees from Cydneys Antiques caught my eye with how the ornament sizes were generously arranged.

More color-grouped fun!  nellie loves vintage left the bottle brushes “as is” without glitter, embellishments, or dye, and they look simply charming.

Theresa Thompson created a nostalgic wonderland with her bottlebrush trees, cotton “snow” and the perfect Scottie!

Although they are petite in nature, bottle brush trees – even in simple white – can make a lovely statement on your mantle.  (If someone knows the source of the above photo, please let me know!)

Have you caught the vintage bottlebrush bug yet?