tiny moments and the beginning of summer

this weekend marks the start of summer for us. lots of days by the pool, book reading, ice cream making, bike riding and lake visits.

i hope you all are able to let lose this summer and enjoy the tiny moments - because they are plentiful if you know where to look :)

a peony and a chuckle

peonies from my mom's yard graced the yard sale check out table. such a beautiful sight to look at all day.

and i couldn't help remembering when a few weeks earlier, i told my brother i thought my peony was sick because the blooms were infested with ants. i had been going out there everyday for a week and knocking the ants off so that they wouldn't hurt the flower. he chuckled and told me that ants love peonies and in fact help the blooms to open. :) oops - green thumb here, i tell ya!

a dollhouse and furniture

when i was in pittsburgh the other weekend helping my mom with a moving sale, i definitely got a bit nostalgic. i have two older brothers and by the time i came around, i am sure my mom was ready for some girlyness. this dollhouse was a christmas gift for we think when i was 6 or 7. all i remember is that it had a small bottle tree on the widow's walk and with that addition, the dollhouse was taller than me. i remember having some fun with it and going to the special dollhouse store to buy some furniture, and putting up some wallpaper in the rooms, but i never got crazy into it. i think my adult self would have had a lot more fun decorating it than i did when i was a child. sadly, i live too far away and have no space to give it the love it needs. i figured it would sell, but i wasn't prepared for the dollhouse to be the first thing to go. i quickly ran into the house to grab my camera to capture the memory and that was it.

while getting the dollhouse ready, we also came across boxes of vintage dollhouse furniture from my mom's childhood. i had to set up a few room vignettes just to show you all the sweetness. and before you ask, we did not sell these, they are keepers (for now, at least). this furniture is from the late 40's and was bought in germany where my mom's family lived on a military base. this is the dining room set complete with sliding glass doors on both storage pieces.

the kitchen is to die for with the sky blue accents.

and last but not least is the bedroom set - my favorite. my mom remembers her mother sewing the bedding for her as a christmas gift. notice the ruffles and the dressing table cover. the mirror on the dressing table is beautifully aged and i love that the little yellow flower pot has survived through the years.

i have such a soft spot for anything vintage, but when the vintage comes from my own family, i can't get enough!

products and a mess

i have so many pics taken that i really want to share, but somehow i can't get past the mess in my dining room right now!

i am prepping for a show at the end of june and my dining room has pretty much been useless for the past couple of weeks. this show is a bit different, so you will find my usual items, plus a bunch of new things. spy the cream buffet in the right background? yep, that is coming with me! and the tinsel love hearts in the foreground? yep, another new "love"ly. haha!

my poor husband is so understanding - i asked him if he wanted me to cart all this stuff up to the guest room upstairs and he said no, that it didn't bother him. i sure do love him, cause the mess bothers the hell out of me :)

more randomness to follow...

a walk and some beauty

i walked around the atlanta botanical gardens last tuesday and of course brought my camera since i am a sucker for flower pics (and anything painted with a child's eye).

i just can't stop snapping because i love capturing their quiet beauty up close. and the colors, oh, the colors!

the gardens have a huge orchid house and these pink beauties were my favorite. each blossom filled with the tiniest orchid blooms you ever did see.

rain, roads and loot

my pilgrimage of yard saling which coincides with the bi-annual Cotton Pickin Fair festival weekend happened last friday. due to a very rainy night and morning, we pulled on our rain boots and were off! it is a long day full of sights like this..

and i had high hopes for amazing loot, but i only ended up with this...

well, this and a round side table that is pretty cool. thrifting is my crack - i honestly get a high off of it, so when the day is so so, i crash really hard.

the favorite find i ended up with is spools and spools of vintage tinsel (background of photo) which i have already repurposed into something pretty cool. are you following me on instagram under "linwoodavenue"? if you are, then you already have an idea of what my brain conjured up :)

a nursery and nature

i recently had new head shots taken, along with pics of my munchkins) in one of my favorite locations. there is a beautiful nursery about 20 minutes from my house that is a wonderland. the owner lets photographers use the location for a small fee and you get to go in after hours and explore all the beauty. there is a pond, tons of old vintage sheds, chickens, rusty metal chairs...

lovely vignettes like this angel birdbath and...

baby geese! let's all do a collective "awe" at the sheer cuteness captured with them being back lit.

once i get the pics, maybe you all can help me decide on my new head shot???

a wooden chair and some attention

meet my latest project.

i found this chair at a yard sale and the people pretty much paid me to take it away. seriously, this beauty was less than a value meal at your favorite fast food place. it is an old wooden swivel office chair that also sports castors and a moveable back. it was another love at first site moment for me!

the chair had been painted black at one point in time, but most of that has worn off. i loved the aged finish, so all i did was clean it up a bit and then gave it a coat of danish oil. to spruce her up, i added a strip of gold leaf running down the sides (inspired by this piece) and then came time for my favorite part - adding fabric.

i am obsessed with the final product and can't wait til i can display it at the vintage show i am doing at the end of june. more on that to come...

hearts and lights

i know that i am super late to this party and most of you probably learned this in a college photo 101 course, but i am just now experimenting with all the cool things i can do with my camera. and right now, i think this is the coolest by far!

following this post that i found through creschendoh, i promptly got to work. i made lens covers for my slr in the shape of a heart, a 6 pointed star and a flying bird. then i waited until nightfall, plugged in the twinkle lights on my deck and started shooting. so, so, so fun!

the pics are a bit blurry because i couldn't find my tripod camera clip and had to steady the camera with my hands. i have this crazy habit where i put something in a certain place because i know it will be safe keeping, but then i can never remember the place. (i think my oldest munchkin has the same trait because his ipod has been missing for weeks, ugh.)

the above shot was taken on the back deck, and...

this is a shot of my 6 bulb dining room crystal chandelier. i think all the lighter hearts are reflections off the crystals. again, so cool! i am definitely going to have a lot of fun with this technique!

the only post editing i did was turn the chandelier shot red instead of an icky orange color.

wouldn't it be cool to take night shots of your kids and use a filter in the shape of the first letter of your last name?

tutorial and a blog hop

for my latest May Arts tutorial, we are doing things a bit differently - a blog hop with a chance to win some goodies. what could be better than that!

making a camera strap has been on my to do list for months now. nothing too complicated, just a bit of prettiness to quickly identify my camera. click here to download the tutorial or, as always, visit my "make-it" page through the link up top to see this and other tutorials.

for the first set of prizes, you can comment anywhere along the hop for a chance to win either a ribbon carousel from May Arts or 4 spools of ribbon from Ribbon Carousel. there are also give-aways happening on both companies facebook pages. all winners will be announced through May Arts on friday, may 4th.