calgon, take me away

Have you ever had one of those weeks? Those weeks where you feel like you are behind on everything and no matter what you try to get done, more things just pile on top? What do they say in Alice in Wonderland?

"The hurrier I go the behinder I get."

Yep, that's me this week sister. No worries though. I'll have met the bulk of my deadlines by the time Monday roles around and then I'll start myself fresh. I've never been so excited for a Monday.

So I'll stop by bellyaching and leave you with this beauty.

A bouquet for you.

Because flowers always make me happy, even the virtual ones!

But on the bright side, make sure to stop by Simply Baby this week, I'm talking nurseries.

the fourteen bears in summer and winter

Happy Wednesday all! How is your week moving along? We are on day three of summer vacation and I'm already worn out. We've been spending a lot of time outside and playing many many games of 'library'. Basically I sit on the floor in their room and pick out books and the girls check them out. It is one of those great games that requires minimal brain power from me and keeps the girls occupied for hours. I am a game creating genius.

The hot item at 'the library' these days is my absolute favorite childhood book. The Fourteen Bears in Summer and Winter. The fourteen bears are kind of like the Duggars of the literary world - 12 sisters and one brother who live with their mom and dad in the forrest. They have great adventures in the summer and winter (duh, as the title implies) but what I would pour over for hours were the pictures.

Each sister had her own tree and each tree was decorated differently. It was like House Beautiful for those under 10. You had traditional, mid century, chippendale, country; you name it they covered it. There is even a feature on how they decorated their front doors. Pure heaven.

My copy is well loved, shall we say, and over 35 years old. So just for fun I did some digging to see if I could get a new copy. And I can, for $641.70.

Excuse me?!

Apparently this book went out of print not long after my sisters and I got it for Christmas and it became quite the collectors item. They started a reprint in 2005 but it went back out of print in 2008 and has been 'a get' ever since. Who knew?

Makes me think twice about playing library with it. But part of what I love about the book is how used it is. One page even has a rug that has been colored in by...someone. I vividly remember doing it oddly enough. I was watching Punky Brewster at the time. Ah, like it was yesterday.

Do you have any items from childhood that were a glimpse into what you wanted to do when you grew up? Any happy memories about an old book? Ever color in a book? Yeah, me neither.

weekend plans

Who's ready for a nice long weekend?. School is officially out (cue Alice Cooper) so we are going to do some of this

a little of this

lots of this

and hopefully this

Ahh summer. I'm ready for you baby! What are your plans this weekend?

And don't forget to check out Kelly's feature over at the Simply Baby blog party!

DIY ribbon trim curtain panels

So since my wrist has been giving me troubles, I've had a chance to catch up on other things; like gardening, reading, butter churning. You know, vintage pre-computer things. I even got out my old design binders. Those glorious files of tear sheet after tear sheet stuffed into six (yes six) binders. Basically the paper version of Pinterest.

And while searching thru my old piles of inspiration I found this.

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An image from one of my all time favorite articles on Fran Keenan in Cottage Living (hand over your heart. How I miss that magazine). I have been looking for a way to spruce up my plain white curtains in the dining room since, oh the day I got them. I'd even toyed with adding ribbon along the leading edge of the curtains, but it just looked dinky so I never went thru with it.

But this looked more... substantial. And big key, simple(ish) enough to attempt. I tried several different sizes of ribbon from my stash (c'mon, like you don't have a ribbon stash?!) to figure out how big the ribbon needed to be. 1" was too thick and 5/8" was too small, leaving lucky 7/8". Before I knew it I was putting the girls in the car and we were off to Michael's to buy a 20 yard roll of 7/8" navy grosgrain.

This project went down so quick I didn't take many pictures of the process but I will tell you it is as simple as making an X with two ribbons, repeating it about 50 times and then trimming the whole thing with more ribbon. I just tried out a few different size Xs to see what I would like best and then once I found the right length, I cut 24 strips in that length to make the Xs. I glued down each one and then finished them off with trim at the top and bottom of the X and along each side of the drape. One thing to note, this takes A LOT of ribbon. My 20 yards wasn't enough and I had to go back and buy another 13. Crazy, I know.

Very simple and a great detail against the white curtains. I knew I kept all of those old magazines for a reason!

Can't show you the right side of the dining room as there are some other projects over that'a way that I'm finishing up. Soon enough my friends.

So spill it. Have you been so inspired by an image that you needed to create something right away? Is there an old magazine article that is burned into your brain? Have you ever used 33 yards of ribbon?

it's all in the details, trim details

I'm in love with trim. I want it everywhere and I can't get enough of it. It might border on addiction, but since it is so awesome, I'm happy to call myself an addict.

We all know how amazing it looks on drapes, pillows and even walls, but how about your furniture? Particularly to finish off the bottom of furniture. I think it can be like a great pair of shoes - it 'makes' the piece.

Let's take a look shall we?

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Nick Olsen for Lee Jofa

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So what do you think? Amazing right? It's pretty major. Now I've got to go and trim something.

And don't forget, it's Friday which means another great week of the Simply Baby Nursery blog party. This week's party is hosted by the lovely Katherine of Rhymes with Smile. Check it out!

blue and orange library - before and after

There once was a girl who wanted to switch her living room and dining room. She worked hard and made herself a swanky new dining room, but the living room needed a pick me up. So, she asked her friend for some help. Luckily this girl can DIY with the best of them, and also luckily her friend is me.

My very great friend and her family wanted a cozy space where they could read, do homework, practice the violen and spend hours on Pinterest. And although she knew she wanted to invest in grasscloth, the goal was to work with what she already had, just adding a few things here and there to spruce up the room.

You might remember this little board I did awhile back to get the juices flowing.

Here is the space before. (cute children not included)

And here is the after.

My girl is hardcore. She put up the grasscloth all on her own. Right after she painted that mirror orange and before she put together those IKEA shelves. Unstoppable I tell you.

I love that we talk about the gallery wall and play with some pictures one day, and the next time I talk to her she says, "oh yeah I hung the gallery wall". All I do is plant the seed and she runs with it and makes it look great.

All of the artwork was created by her, in addition to a few pieces by her dad and her kids. They are basically the Partridge family of art.

I love a new tray on an old coffee table. It's almost totally better than a pair of new shoes. That's right, I will always pick a tray over a pair of shoes.

That grasscloth makes all the difference. It makes all of the moldings pop (which she put in during a previous project) and it makes the room so warm. It's like a big huge hug.

The lamp was originally orange but she gave it the gold touch with a can of spray paint.

A collection of gold animals has begun and the gold K looks great against the wallpaper.

The milk glass acquired by the two of us at the single most uncomfortable and slightly bigoted garage sale ever. I'll have to share that story one day.

Yes, this book is upside down. I'm quirky.

And because I hate it when magazines talk about a space and don't show a picture of it, here is her wonderful dining room. Good, right?

So that is the story of the girl who switched her living room and dining room and ended up with a great family space.

How about you? Have you switched rooms in your house before? Made some changes to a room that wasn't working for you?

weekend recap

Oy! I hope you all had as much fun this past weekend as I did. It was the perfect mix of shopping, projects, family and good food. Fun was had by all.

Here are some peaks into the last 72 hours.

We took pictures of each other taking pictures of each other.

I got out some ribbon and my glue gun.

Did a bit of shopping/research. Sadly this hot little number didn't come home with me but I'll keep my eye on it. Wouldn't she be saucy in a bathroom holding all types of pretty hand towels and jars of pretty soaps? I miss her already.

But this little tray did come home with me. I'll have to take another shot of the top - think dragons and billowy smoke. Look for that on Instagram.

Finished up one project.

And started another.

All was wrapped up with an attempt at a family selfie. Mouths full of cookies have some sort of power to make the girls look at the camera. Go figure.

Stay tuned for more info on those projects, and make sure to come back on Wednesday for another client before and after!

happy mother's day

In honor of the holiday that should be celebrated every month (in my opinion), I thought I'd take a moment to say a big Happy Mother's Day to my mom, Jan. I owe every inch of my design sensibility to her, she taught me everything I know. I could tell you the difference between Biedermeier and Baroque by the time I was 10 and I was picking out estate jewelry before I could talk. And thanks to her I've toured every old home on the eastern seaboard and been to 46 state capitals. She is a great teacher and friend and there is no one I would rather go shopping with.

Basically what I'm saying is this...

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And for something only she will understand - this is as close to a card as you will ever get. xoxo


And speaking of moms, don't forget to check out the Simply Baby Spring Blog Party today. My girl Heather, from Vivid Hue Home is hosting this week and I know she's got something special cooked up.
And stay tuned in the weeks to come for great ideas from

• Rhymes with Smile- Katherine
• Forever's Like a Dream- Kelley

How are you going to celebrate Mother's Day?

this little light of mine

So, I got a new chandelier for the dining room.

Would this be the dining room that just got a new chandelier last year? Yep, that's the one.

Now, before you go putting me in the loony bin for buying yet another lighting fixture for the dining room (this makes #3), let me state my case. It is a vintage bamboo chandelier at a wicked good price. I couldn't very well leave it behind once I saw it. What if someone bought it who wouldn't have taken care of it? There was a lady with a bedazzled purse and a scrunchie eyeing it at the same time my mom and I were fawning. I couldn't let this light go home with Mrs. Scrunchie, that's just mean. So really I rescued this light from certain doom. I'm a humanitarian. Me and Angelina.

The only problem I had with it was the color. I am a card-carrying member of the black fan club but I've already got a lot of black in the dining room and the walls are darker so adding this big and wonderful black light was just sucking the remaining light out of the room. And the black was hiding all of the great detail that made me love the light in the first place.

I wavered between something sparkly and something with more pop. But while I wavered, I made myself useful and primed.

Sparkle took over and I went with gold. I think I had spent a few hours play dress up with the girls before hand, so that might have influenced my decision. But the subtle, glam, vintagey gold I was looking for didn't happen.

Bust.

It was a little too Golden Girls for my taste. I suppose I could have taken some rub n' buff to the thing to tone it done a bit, but have you taken a close look at this thing? It has no fewer than 47 sides. It's a mathematical anomaly. It was hard enough to spray it, I wasn't about to hand rub the sucker.

I decided to go with what my gut had told me originally and go with my color pop. Why I ever tried to ignore you gut I don't know. My apologies. After something red, with a bit of orange in it, I went to Michaels to look thru the hard core arty spray paint and landed on Cadmium Red by Liquitex.

The color was perfect and the paint goes on wonderfully. It dries super fast and the odor is almost non-existant.

I will warn you though this stuff chips like a... it chips really bad. I wouldn't use this on anything that would get any sort of day to day use, but since people rarely touch my chandelier, I figure it will be safe.

So up she went, looking beautiful. All of her pretty details showing up so much better now in her bright red. But she was missing one last detail. This was the perfect piece to try out one of my favorite blogger 'I want to try that one day' DIYs.

Yep, I followed Emily's lead and added some polka dot fabric to my plain little candle sleeves. You can go to Recently for the full DIY but I will tell you this was easy as can be. All you need is some fabric, scissors and Mod Podge and you'll be done in 10 minutes.

I love my little lady. She is bringing it. 

So the moral of the story is this - ignore trends and always go with your gut. Your gut will never lie to you. And never pass up a good light because you already have one. There is always room for one more chandelier in your life.

What about you? Have you added something to your house only to replace it with something else a year later? Painted anything with 47 sides? Watched Golden Girls lately?