trips and surprises

my husband was in vegas this weekend and came home to a new huge triple mirror hung in our dining room...

our family room fireplace brick primed...

and the mirror above our fireplace painted blue!

at least, after 10 years of marriage, it is no longer a surprise that surprises will be waiting for him when he gets home :)

the mirror is from an estate sale i went to on friday. i am going to paint it white to freshen it up since it currently looks a bit 80s gaudy and blends in too much with the antiqued brass chandelier. hopefully today, the fireplace brick will turn a mid range taupe color and i will clean up the mirror. i can't believe i am already making progress on my make-over to do list.

family room and a redo

it's redecorating time! something about my family room has never felt right. i have a pretty eclectic design style, which usually works, but this room isn't pulled together as well as i would like.

items on my to do list:

1. recover the orange pillows with this fabric. possibly using a plum colored fabric for the backs.

2. paint the fireplace brick a dark taupe (i know that is controversial!!!) but i think it will blend better into the wall.

3. repaint my gold leaf mirror frame. mom, don't have a heart attack :) i bought a quart of behr's "lagoon" which is a teal color pulled from my floral chairs.

now place your bets on how long it takes me to finish this makeover!

transportation and scooby

this is what happens when you go to yard sales on your golf cart and have a munchkin who loves scooby. i laughed the whole way home at the looks i was getting :)

roses and spring

i bought my house because of this rose bush. honestly, i did! lady banks roses are my absolutely favorite. they are super small with a super large sweet smell. and best of all, no thorns. at the beginning of spring, small yellow and white roses travel up an arbor which leads to my backyard and if time let me, i would spend my day sitting right underneath it, breathing in it's sweet scent.

stitches and shipping

a new shipment is headed out the door today. this time, my crafty aprons are traveling to wildcard in pittsburgh. if you are in the area, stop by and tell them i sent you!

fabric and a new scheme

saturday, i left the munchkins at home with their dad and i went on an all day fabric excursion. atlanta has a few discount fabric stores, and if you can handle the drive and scavenging, you can find some really great stuff. the first store i started at is deep, deep discount - $2 a yard or $2 a cut. for the cuts, you pull and sort through piles of fabric. some of the cuts i found had to have at least 6 yards in them and you guessed it, $2 for the entire 6 yards. now, this store is not one you go to for the key piece of fabric you are looking for, this is more of a curtain liner, pillow backing store. but for the cost, you can now afford to splurge on your main fabric.

my family room had never felt quite right to me. it is a dark room, and it just doesn't have the same lively decorating style as the rest of my house. i have 2 of the above chairs, plus a chocolate brown couch. i love the chairs, i really do. i always say that they are so ugly they are pretty. know what i mean? anyway, i have 3 super large floor pillows that the munchkins lay one. currently they are covered in a burnt orange fabric which, yes, do match the chairs, but it just isn't a fun fabric.

at the second store, a bit pricier at $5.99/yard (i'm getting crazy now!) i found this awesome chartreuse geometric. it is really thick upholstery fabric and now, finally, i can see where i want to take this room. i have sewing plans and a fireplace painting plan and hopefully i will be back soon to show you the result!

and yet another piggy bank

remember this post when i found the most endearing piggy bank? i passed it up due to it's $24 price tag which i thought was really steep at the time. but for some strange reason, i keep thinking about that obnoxiously large and a bit tacky pig. yesterday during a random antique store stop, i can across another one! i couldn't believe it. this one is half the size and had a price tag of $18. it was labeled as a 1971 new york piggy bank, and the plastic stopper had new york embossed around it's rim. the store had very reasonable prices, so now i am thinking that the original one i saw really was worth the $24.

i passed this one up as well, hoping to find some more on ebay, but no such luck. anyone know anything about these piggy banks?

art and photography

jessica came over today and we got a head start on building my ttv tube. in my research, i discovered that there are no set rules for your tube. some of the more popular building materials are cereal boxes, a pringles can, a mailing tube, black board and/or duck tape. i chose a pringles can because i like the fact that i can cap off the top of the tube to keep dust out of the camera since i removed the lens cap on my brownie. due to the zoom range of my digital lens, i ended up cutting off the bottom 2-3 inches of the can. being closer to the brownie lens meant that more of the old dust and scratches were picked up in the photo.

a few minutes of trial and error, and i am already ecstatic about how the photos are coming out. it is a bit awkward framing the photos since what you see in the view finder is flipped, but other than that, the entire process has been really easy.



this photo of the wisteria in my yard is my favorite so far. it makes me want to sip some mint juleps!

cameras and a new hobby

ever since i read this blog post, i have been obsessed with the look of ttv photography. the photographs are super romantic and entrancing. plus i love their square shape. i have been scouring thrift stores for an appropriate old camera, but haven't found one, so i finally bit the bullet and turned to ebay. i was originally looking for a kodak duraflex, but settled on this little brownie for $20 after shipping. not great, but not an awful price either. i am going to build my contraption this weekend and hopefully be back early next week to show you my first batch of photos.

looking through the brownie lens, i can already see flecks of black which will add to the end result. super excited!!!

baby showers and new heights

one of my favorite blogs to read is written by amy turn sharp. she hides nothing about what she is thinking or feeling as she makes her way through life and every entry stirs some kind of emotion.

amy, along with her carpenter husband, is also the driving force behind little alouette - a sweet family business creating eco-friendly wooden teethers and blocks for wee ones. i have been working on design/branding with them for over a year now and am so excited whenever they get a leg up in the industry. i designed these letterpress tags for them a few weeks ago and they have already made their way to a pretty large client. curious? well, you will have to go here to find out which celebrity sported little alouette teethers at her baby shower!

crazy!!!!!!!!!!

strawberries and spring

have you guys seen the price of strawberries lately? my husband was explaining the gulf coast strawberry crisis to me - something about the cold weather so they thought they would lose their crop, so they over watered and ended up with a surplus of strawberries. which means that they are a little over a dollar in the grocery store. no joke, i came home with 4 quarts for $5.

which meant i needed to change my easter dessert choice. i made this strawberry pie and it was a HUGE hit. the recipe says it makes enough for 2 pies, but it was definitely only enough for one. such an easy desserts which tastes like spring. it will definitely be made again :)

spring and a long weekend

the signs of spring are here in the south. there is a lake a short distance from my house that i walk around every morning - well, try to! anyway, for a few hundred feet, i get to walk under the canopy of these beautiful trees. i wish i could take a nap under these trees and wake up staring at the white flowers against the intensely blue sky.

we are gearing up for a long weekend of warm weather loving, eating and trampoline shopping. yes, trampoline shopping, you read right. the munchkins will be very happy in a few short days. i just hope that trampoline broken arms are not as wide spread as they were when i was a kid. yikes!

work and a sweet surprise

i have been working like crazy this week - trying to pay for a new furnace that our house desperately needs :(

after 10 solid hours of sitting at my computer, i received an unexpected package. my mom sent easter goodies for the munchkins and tucked in there, was a little something sweet for me...

sarris chocolate!

everyone thinks the chocolate from where they grew up is the best, but believe me, this really is the best chocolate out there. these little foil balls graced our easter table year after year, and the foil wrappers, graced a few too many craft projects along the way.

if you aren't in the pittsburgh area, check out their website to see all the tasty treats they offer. i recommend the choc. covered pretzels or caramels - love them!!!