Friday, February 26, 2010

Squirrel fishing.

I love these fuzzy little creatures. I think they are adorable. I have no idea why or when I really started liking them. To take a stab at it it was probably as a little girl and feeding them on my Grandma's picture window in Detroit. So of course Eric knows of my love of squirrels  and tells me about Squirrel Fishing! The conversation went a little like this..
Him: Hey have you ever heard of squirrel fishing?
Me: (looking over the arm of the couch) What!?!
Him: Squirrel fishing its when you place string with a nut and try to get a squirrel to catch it.
Me: OMG I sort of want to do that. Especially after I saw a picture of what it looks like.
 
It just makes me laugh. I love it. It seems to be growing in popularity. Check out this page where I got the above image for some other funny squirrel images.
It even has it's own wikipedia page. Maybe I need to pack up some string, make a trip to North Campus, in Athens at my old college to try my hand at squirrel fishing. I say Athens because the Squirrels on North Campus are friendly. 

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Olympics

Every 2 years I camp out in front of my television, captivated by the Olympics. I've been sort of obsessed since the '92 Barcelona games when my brother was a basketball fanatic.  Then the Summer Olympics came to my hometown, Atlanta. It was awesome. I attended a baseball game, I traded pins with other people from all over the world. It was so much fun.  Fast forward to 2010 and the Winter Olympics are in Vancouver. I wish I could go. Instead I stay up to ungodly hours in the morning watching and cheering for the athletes.  Watching Shaun White fly in snowboarding, Johnny Weir skate his heart out and even the o-so scary skeleton. Who came up with that!  Which brings me to something that is super cute, makes me wish the Americans had something so cute to symbolize our country. I have seen them at all the outdoor coverage... the maple leaf mittens! They make me so happy. I totally want a pair.  So though the athletes have had me cheering and excited for them. These little mittens in all their cuteness have captured my attention.


Monday, February 22, 2010

Make it work

I love Project Runway. I watch it every week when it is on and today I had the opportunity to see Tim Gunn!
My fabulous friend Jill, pictured below at with me at my Bachelorette party, told me about him coming to speak at Georgia State University. So we 'made it work' to get our fashion loving butts over there.
 
Yes that's me with my fantastic tiara. It lit up.

Tim Gunn was there to speak about his book Tim Gunn:A Guide to Quality Taste and Style.
(The whole title is an inside joke to how one of the Deans at Parson's School of Design thought those things were irrelevant to fashion and design. *face palm to that guy.)
 Tim Gunn: A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style (Tim Gunn's Guide to Style) 
as well as Project Runway. He was a great speaker, looked impeccable as always and made me wish I still worked my sewing machine as much as I used to. It was really great to hear him speak and right before we left. ( Duty calls we had to get back to work.) He spoke about how 'make it work' came about. Click it for a link to the Youtube video.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

So true.

 

Secret stuff

When I was a kid I desperately wanted a secret room, ah-hem, a secret library that I could read all day in and have all my books. I still somewhere would love a secret library room. So hiding things in plain site or very cleverly has always been fun for me. While I was repainting our bedroom furniture I didn't want to put back all the junk and jewelry boxes that were on our dresser. Side note: most of them were stolen so I didn't have them anymore to begin with but that is another story. So I decided to try and come up with a way to get my jewelry off my dresser for a more clean look.  Which is when I found these jewelery boxes. I just happened upon them in a random ad for the store. I never look at the adverts so it was very serendipitous.  You can see them in the picture this post.  Here is a close up.
 
closed.
 
open

I removed the collage picture and re matted some of our vacation pictures and viola. Besides the boxes being slightly thicker than an average frame you wouldn't really notice. I love it.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Happy Paczki Day


So almost 100 years ago my great grandma came here from Poland. She eventually made it up to Detroit, where a lot of my family still live and a lot of Polish immigrants made it around the same time. So even though it is also Mardi Gras down in New Orleans. For some of my family it is also Paczki Day. Below is an article for some clarification on what a Paczki is. So I'm going to go seek out a jelly doughnut and celebrate.


Article from: Six Degrees of Inspiration as well as the photograph.
"Paczki are traditional Polish doughnuts. Pączki is the plural form of the word pączek in Polish, but Michiganians use paczki as singular and paczkis as plural.

A paczki is a deep-fried piece of dough shaped into a flattened sphere and filled with jam or other sweet filling. A traditional filling is marmalade made from fried rose buds. Fresh paczki are usually covered with powdered sugar, icing or bits of fried orange zest.
So, basically, they’re jelly filled doughnuts, though there are literally tons of flavors nowadays. "

$137.49

That is the amount I spent on paint and supplies to repaint my bedroom furniture.  I think I made out like a bandit. I really wanted new furniture but with trying to save for a house, and not knowing where we are going to live in a few months it seemed silly to buy new stuff. I also like refinishing and redoing stuff. (Thanks Mom and Dad for that inherited hyper active syndrome.) Regardless I am pretty stoked by my hard work. I think It really did come out like my picture inspiration.
 
  
All in all I think It came out pretty well. I now want to hang out in my room instead of escaping it. :) Just in case you are curious here is a close up of what the furniture used to look like. I have one piece left to paint and wardrobe that is in my office since we don't have space in our bedroom for it.

 
It is a pretty big difference. 

Trash




I never thought the day would come where buying a trashcan would make me so happy.  Eric and I decided to spend the last of our Macy’s wedding gift cards on something that we could use for our place. We both have been loathing our existing trashcan probably since we bought it. We could not see the reasoning in spending a large amount of money to replace it though. However… gift cards are a completely different matter. That’s where the new SimpleHuman Trash can enters the picture, it’s fingerprint proof, sleek design, slow closing lid. hardware and hinges that impress the Mr. had our hearts at first opening at the store. We were at first skeptical about spending the rest of our wedding gift cards on a trash can but as we set it up we knew it beat our old plastic thing and we never have to touch the trash can lid again. Fabulous. 

When I logged onto their website to find a image of my new trash bin. This is the image I first saw. I guess we aren't the only one's that love to through  throw ( I'm so excited I can't spell) our trash away in something shiny.


Monday, February 15, 2010

Do you like Snow? Do you like it yes or no?


The title of my post is from one of my favorite kid books. Snow! and Yes I do like snow.
This past Friday it snowed down here in the south. It sends everyone into a tailspin and the grocery stores are emptied like it's going to stay for days.  It took me almost 3 hours to get home Friday night. When I got there this is what I saw. We had 4.5 inches of snow! (I took out my measuring tape and measured.) Which was melted by Saturday. It was nice to stay indoors on Friday, making chili for dinner and watching the Olympics. It was the perfect amount of snow. We got to enjoy the beautiful winter wonderland and then it was gone before it could get gray and dirty. If only I had a chance to make a snowman.

Fierce!

I love Project Runway. I make sure that I catch it every Thursday when it's on.  A few seasons ago though had to be my favorite contestant, Christian Siriano. I love his fashion sense and designs.
 

So yesterday when me and my sweetie were walking through the mall and I spotted his name at Payless I had to wander in just to see and of course buy these.

 
from Payless.
I absolutely love the fabric. I saw a scarf and blouse on Christian's website but everything was already sold out. :( So I was really excited when I saw these heels. Also for $30.00 what a steal. Shoe happiness, and Valentine's day. How perfect.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Valentine's Day

 

Happy Valentine's Day!
This is our 7th Valentine's Day together and our first being married.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day. 
*Eric once Gave me the card pictured above for Valentine's day. I laughed so hard. That episode of the Simpson's is one of my favorites.

Monday, February 8, 2010

A new room.

 

This weekend I decided to finally take a chance. To remake our bedroom furniture.  I made a list of the things I needed, sand paper, primer, paint, polycrylic sealer, plastic tarps, brushes and finally new hardware.  I made my way to Home Depot in search of all those things.  I ended up finding everything I needed and headed home to begin my Friday night.  I figured I would start with my nightstand and if I absolutely failed. It wouldn't be the end of the world. So after some moving and shifting around of my dining room. I set to work.  Sand, vacuum, prime, wait, paint, wait to dry, second coat, wait, polycrylic sealer, wait, second coat of the sealer and wait. My weekend was filled with a lot of work and a lot of downtime waiting. But my patience paid off. Saturday morning I awoke to a very lovely nightstand. So I began to work on our dresser and our headboard. This is the only picture I took this while my living/dining room was covered in drawers. (excuse the terrible picture it was from my phone.) So by Tuesday everything should be back in our bedroom and our house will be back in order and we will have 'new' furniture.

Before and after pictures of my nightstand and pictures of my finished room to come. :)

Thursday, February 4, 2010

On the interwebs. Something Interesting

 
 from here

My good friend shared this with me so I had to share it. I think it is really interesting and pretty cool. With the white linen's it makes me think of sleeping in the clouds. I also love the sliding door off to the right. I love seeing the mechanics of things.  Bernstein Architecture who designed this bed has some fantastic pieces on their web page. A floating coffee table, stairs very cool stuff.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Inspiring walls

 
I wish I could remember where this is from. 
I love colored walls. I love paint. I love anything that brings a room life and character. Paint for me can change a room from boring to beautiful.  Since my husband I are going to rent another year painting is not in my future. It could be but since it's only a year that seems kind of a waste of my time. So I am going to hold off on painting something like the inspiring picture above and bring it down a notch. Which is where these babies come in.
Wall Decals, they seem to have gained popularity since I first heard about them a few years ago. Which opens up options for different styles. I think they are a great way to change a wall with out using paint.
The first company I have heard of and used is Blick, and through some internet searching I found these other companies Walltat and Roomates. All of them have a variety of different colors and patterns. I will wait until we get into our new space to order some but for now I'll just get inspired.


 
from Blick

 
from RoomMates

 
from Walltat