Whozits and Whatzits Galore

Twenty bucks if you know what that line is from.

Ok, first: it’s from The Little Mermaid. Second: you’re not getting twenty bucks. How about you give yourself a pat on the back if you got it right and we call it even.

I’ve been holding out on you guys. I’ve collected a few more Whozits and Whatzits over the last two weeks and it’s time to show you the goods. Two weekends ago I visited Midland because my gift card was burning a hole in my pocket, and I came away with lots of new treasures and only had to spend $1.93! (Thanks Aunt Shelley!)

It’s a clear container. It must be mine. And for only $6 I couldn’t pass it up.

I’m not really sure what my obsession is with clear, glass bowls. I will confidently blame it on my mom because I’m sure she passed it onto me.

The reason we actually went shopping was to find a chair for our new desk in the family room and found one we did:

It was a complete and utter score. SIXTEEN DOLLARS. No, I didn’t say Sixty.

I said S I X T E E N.

I couldn’t believe it. It has perfect mid-century lines and woodworking and I actually even like the color of the cushion. I’ll probably pop it off and throw it in the wash, but the chunky, green corduroy is seriously doin’ it for me.

We still have a lot of work to do to the desk so ignore the reddish, dark color of the wood.

Isn’t she yummy? It was love at first sight.

Our next purchase was a tall filing cabinet for the office. Since our office is in the loft, sans closet, we have a teeny bit of a storage complication up there.

Problem. Solved.

I love that it has the durability of a metal filing cabinet but it has the warm, bronzed hardware and faux wood grain exterior.

And we have a little piece of Indiana University history sitting right in our home!

After our Midland adventure I drove down to Cincinnati to visit Molly and we hit up one of my favorite home goods stores: The Home Emporium. It’s set up like a warehouse so it’s more or less like a treasure hunt. Their prices are superb and the selection is mouth-watering.

And they have free popcorn. So.

My plan was to find a cool frame somewhere and make a bulletin board for the pantry, but then I found this pre-made one for only $18 and knew I had to get it. Once the pantry is painted I’ll give this frame a coat of brightly colored paint. It’s a quick and easy way to keep papers off the counter tops. (And it’s where my birthday print is living until I can find a frame for it.)

See the new addition in the family room? (I know I’m practically screaming that Waldo is sitting next to the topless sunbather but I wanted to make it an easy find.)

A new side table! We have really been needing something between the chair and loveseat to give some balance to the room, and I’m happy to say I’ve found the perfect piece.

How about a little love for my new ceramic drum?

I’m not going to lie. I have another picture of the drum without the magical sun beams and chose not to use it. This picture does a bang-up job of clearly illustrating our passionate bond. It’s like we’re gazing into each others eyes and the twinkling light is filtering through our love.

Yeah. I just said that.

I have to say that I am super thrilled with everything that was purchased last week. I never buy anything that I’m not 100% in love with, so even though we accumulated quite a few new roommates, we have a place for all of them.

Everything needs a home. Don’t even get me started.

The Birthday Taco Night was a success and I feel more loved than ever. Thanks again for all of the birthday wishes. I’m a lucky gal. xoxo

Three Decades of Me

THREE DECADES. Do you have any idea how many decades that is? THREE! I can’t believe I turn 30 today. I also can’t believe how totally okay with it I am. I’m just a happy girl, what can I say? I love my husband more than I ever thought it was possible to love another human being and I have some of the most supportive, honest, and just down right damn good people in my life. My parents are beyond words. Seriously. I have no words for how incredible they are. And same goes for my best friend, Molly. So, 30? Eh. No big deal. I’m just excited to see what the next few years bring.

Thank you to all of the people in my life who bring me joy, love, and peace. I love you all — and you know who you are.

OKAY. Now that that’s over. I’m just going to dab my tear ducts dry and continue on.

Birthday weekend! I promised some pictures so here we go:

We arrived at Brown County State Park Saturday morning ready for some hiking. Even though it was cold, I couldn’t wait to spend the day outside, breathing fresh air.

Not even 10 minutes into our hike Steve was already trying to roll logs down into the valleys. He can be such a little boy sometimes, and it’s kind of adorable.

After the failed log roll attempt he thought it would be fun to make a slingshot out of a sapling. I have a regular ole Dennis The Menace on my hands.

Even though it was blustery and snowing, we managed to stay warm.

There were some log acrobatics:

And then the sun came out! It turned out to be a stunningly beautiful winter day.

We found a playground that had this See Saw-esque type of apparatus. Of course we got on — DUH — and Steve had me practically flying through the air. I was laughing so hard and then my laughter perpetuated with each string of saliva and snot that flew out of my face.

We visited the park’s nature center and my favorite exhibit was the bird watching room. I am an avid bird watcher so this was my perfect scenario: the window was like a two-way mirror. The birds couldn’t see us, but we could see them. In the picture it doesn’t look like there were any birds, but there were. OH THERE WERE. So many! And so many new kinds that I have never seen before!

After we explored some of the trails at the park we visited a local antique shop.

They had lots of really cool milk glass jugs and all types of gorgeous glassware. I managed to restrain myself and I walked away with a single item: a geode! Who doesn’t love geodes?

We finally mosied our way into the little town of Nashville, which was about a mile from the park. We strolled around for about an hour and then decided to check into our room and relax before dinner.

It was the cutest room! We had a pretty rugged (but gorgeous) honeymoon, and we joked that this room was nicer than our Curacao Bungalow. We soaked in the hot tub which was so nice after a day of hiking and walking around outside.

The next morning we visited a cute and seriously delicious breakfast place, and headed home to scoop up our girl, Olive, who was patiently waiting for us at her doggy day care. They take good care of her there so we knew she had just as much fun as we did. Next time we visit the park we’re definitely taking her with us so she can play on the trails alongside us.

This wouldn’t be a birthday post if I didn’t show you a few pictures of my new treasures!

YES I FINALLY GOT MY SEWING MACHINE! AND YES IT IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE. Sorry, honey. The wedding was awesome and all but, you know. This is pretty rad, too. Thank you Mom and Dad. xoxo

And to really top it off, Molly totally surprised me with two little gifts. I unwrapped the first present and just about it lost it. She found this artist on Etsy that I’m obsessed with and got me one of her prints! (Molly said she was super sweet during the whole transaction. I recommend you check out her work!)

I’m obsessed. OB – SESSED. Doesn’t it look like an octopus? Yeah, Molly and I thought so too.

And then to really get the waterworks started I opened up the second gift.

Excuse the gratuitous close up of my skin, but I wanted you to be able to clearly see the necklace. She told me that it says “SISTER” in Morse Code. Yup. Started crying. Right there holding the necklace in my hands. Before I even got it on, actually. She is the best sister anyone could ever have, and trust me — I realize how lucky I am to have her.

So, that’s it! The best birthday ever and it’s not even over yet! Steve and I went out and got some sushi last night, so I think tonight we’re just going to kick back, open up a glass of wine, and eat some tacos in our PJs. Perfection.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, everyone!

Sniff Sniff: an Ombre Tissue Box Tutorial

The title eludes to two things: the subject matter of this post and how sad I am that my birthday weekend is over. Steve planned the loveliest of lovely weekends down in Nashville, Indiana for the two of us. We went hiking in Brown County State Park, visited a few antique stores, and pruned up in our hot-tub room. I’ll wait until my actual birthday (tomorrow) to share some pictures and give you a rundown of our ultra-relaxing trip.

Until then, I want to show you a quick and easy way to spruce up your tissue boxes. You guys are going to have the fanciest tissue boxes on this side of the Mississippi. Unless you live on the other side of the Mississippi. Then you can be the fancy-pants of the West Side.

I happened to find a $6 wooden tissue box cover at Jo-Ann Fabric that would do the job. While I was there I also grabbed three different craft paints in the color of my choice (TURQUOISE!) that ranged from dark to light. And don’t forget the white paint! I just buy the cheap stuff: at 46¢ a piece you really can’t go wrong.

I started with the white paint on top. You never want to start with dark paint because then you’ll have to keep thoroughly washing your brush every time you change colors.

I dragged the white paint from the top onto the sides of the box.

Then I just started slowly adding color, continuing to keep my brush strokes light and somewhat dry.

Water-based acrylic paints dry so quickly so it really ends up being more of a dry-brush technique.

When it was time to start bleeding into a darker color I started with a blob of color in a straight line.

Take that paint and drag it up and down with your brush, blending it into the light color above it.

Now you just continue to work the paint until you get to your darkest color at the bottom.

And…. you’re done! Seriously. It’s that easy. I literally painted this entire thing while I was on the phone with Molly. The painting takes very little concentration and it actually looks better with more inconsistencies.

That’s it! Now go watch The Notebook and cry your little eyes out in style.

I’ll be back tomorrow with lots of pictures from the weekend. I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. Let the week begin!

An Archnemesis Update

The paint. THE DAMN PAINT. My parents were here on Tuesday helping me with colors while Steve was at work (I took the day off). I spent $36 on paint samples and am not any closer to making a decision than before they arrived.

In a last-minute fit of desperation I tested a few brush strokes of the bathroom/laundry room paint color and of course it’s our current favorite. The paint can that we’ve had sitting in our garage for over a month now. Yup. That one.

Here are the samples from when my parents were here:

I know the picture is dark and grainy and doesn’t really do a whole hellofalot to truthfully show these colors. You’ll just have to trust my opinion of these colors in real life.

The only color I’m 99% sure of is that gold-yellow-green color at the top. It looks WAY less bright than that in real life. It’s more of a yellowy-avocado color which is right up my alley. At this point I feel like giving up and painting the entire house tan. Or white. Or hot pink if it will just make this go away. I have 4 more samples I want to test and then if those don’t work then I give you full permission to wrap me up in one of those lockable loony-tune jackets and wheel me to the nearest mental hospital.

You may (or may not have) noticed that the Chicago print is now taking center stage on our gallery wall. Have no fear, we’ve just swapped out the Steve Jobs poster for the other wall to give the gallery wall some more color. Ch-Ch-Ch-Chaaaanges.

In attempts to salvage the evening I was all too happy to turn on 30 Rock. Thursday is all about 30 Rock for me. That Liz Lemon. Sometimes I wish she was a real person.

Even Olive watches with us.

I’ll let you know when and if we are ever able to pick a color. I might just have to do the thing where I cover my eyes, flip through the swatch book, and pick whichever color my finger lands on.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. We’re celebrating my birthday this weekend, so even though we won’t get to any house projects I’ll still have a cute tissue-box cover tutorial for you next week. Toodles!

Trashcan Makeover

Yes. We’ve come to that point in our relationship wherein I start giving you the smallest of makeover news. Deal with it.

Even trash cans need some love, you know? Especially our fancy, bottom-hinged, aristocratic trash bin. It’s a strange day when you realize the fanciest thing in your home is where you keep your chicken bones and candy wrappers.

Behold:

Steve spent, I’m not even kidding you, probably 3 hours fixing up this bad boy on Sunday morning. Aren’t we romantic? The problem was that it opened much too far and would too easily fall into the open position, blocking the walkway.

It was quite a simple fix and is much more operational now. We both agreed how worth it it is to fix these little daily annoyances. First world problems… I know, I know.

See that gap between the door and the bin that holds the trash can in the picture above? I’m getting queasy talking about it so all I’m going to say is when Steve removed the wooden bin to add the stoppers he found, um, what I suppose used to be food? Relics from the 90′s. I’m sure you can imagine.

After a good scrub he put the whole thing back together again and devised a plan.

He made a ramp-type appendage that will eventually get polyurethaned and nailed into place. We will no longer be collecting rotten food in our trashcan door and that, my friends, is what I like to call a productive Sunday.

Not the most exciting makeover but I’m stoked about it, nonetheless.

Anywhoodle, have a terrific Thursday. Only one more day until Friday which means it’s perfectly acceptable to have a few cocktails tonight!

A Thank You & A Posh Pillow Tutorial

First of all, I hope everyone had an awesome, and hopefully long, weekend because of Presidents Day. Thank you presidents! Second of all, I had around 1,200 hits on my little ole blog yesterday and I can’t believe how many nice comments I’ve gotten. I know for most bloggers a thousand clicks is just a drop in the bucket, but to see so much interest in a little blog I started with the single goal of keeping my parents in the loop is pretty darn awesome. So from my blog to yours, thank you so much for the views and the kind words.

Moving on to more pillow talk. Not that kind you dirty bird.

I attempted to sew a pillow this weekend that was WAY out of my league. I’m talking on a Julia Roberts marrying Lyle Lovett scale, here people. I jumped in with two feet and managed to come out okay. I’m going to share the way that I tackled the project and the lessons I learned along the way. Because that’s really how I do things. First I try, then I learn. I like reverse order. Dessert before dinner, if you will.

First I drew a little sketchy sketch.

After the fact my genius mom filled me in on a not-so-secret secret. She said if I was trying to cover a 16″ pillow, I should’ve made a pattern for the pieces at the 16″ size, and then added a half an inch all the way around when stenciling the shapes onto the fabric. Too bad I didn’t consult her before I started. I ended up with a way-to-small pillow that I had to stuff with extra stuffing because it didn’t fit my pillow insert. Ah, well. I learned my lesson.

Look at that dog hair! Impressive, no? After I had all of my pieces cut out (AND IRONED!) it was time to sew them all together. (I cut out pieces for the backside during this step — with the opposite color fabric — using these shapes as stencils.)

After every line that I sewed, I ironed the hem flat in the back. I learned it’s best to iron the hem on to the dark side of the fabric so it doesn’t show through the light color. Yes. The DARK SIDE. That’s all I have. I don’t know Star Wars well enough for a punny joke.

Iron, sew, iron, sew, iron, sew. that’s about how it goes.

I got to the very last corner and I was obviously too tired to be working on a damn puzzle pillow:

That’s the first oops. So I ripped it out and tried again. And then proceeded to sew on the wrong side: Oops, I did it again.

By the way – you’re only seeing these pictures because Steve made me document it. He was laughing “with” me and not “at” me. Mmm hmm.

After two failed attempts I finally figured it out and decided to get some rest. I obviously needed a good night’s sleep.

The second side went much faster than the first since I was wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. Once I had them both sewed up I trimmed them down to a 15″ pillow, using one as a stencil.

For sort of winging this project the lines matched up better than I had hoped.

Ray of Light by Madonna is going through my head right now as I’m looking at the fabric pattern and I sort of hate myself for it a little bit.

I had already ironed everything once, but I ironed again after the two halves were sewn together.

Now it’s time for the fun part: STUFFING. It’s like being reverse-destructive. But still as fun.

Then it was time to stitch ‘er up.

Since once side is brown and one side is white I knew the stitch was going to show. I had to keep chanting “LEARNING EXPERIENCE” to myself so my OCD didn’t go haywire.

All in all I still have a lot to learn. Like, dump-truck loads. But I am happy with how my first somewhat-complicated design turned out!

Even Olive got involved with the photoshoot:

She’s showing my pillow a little love.

This is what happens when you get on the floor with a dog who loves to be all up in your business: “HI MOM! WHAT ARE WE DOING? ARE WE GOING TO PLAY NOW?”

Hope you enjoyed my somewhat-logical-but-totally-needs-improvement pillow tutorial. I welcome all tips and tricks, just so ya know.

I’ll be back later this week with paint updates (even though all my hair will be gray by then) and a few photos of some of the new treasures I’ve hoarded welcomed to the family.

HUMP DAY! YAY!

Conquering The World…

One pillow at a time. I managed to assemble a somewhat descent looking envelope pillow cover last night. Imagine that right now I am taking a bow and doing the wavy hand thing.

After it was all sewn and sitting on the sofa I realized that I severely dislike the fabric. Close up it looks rich in texture, but from afar it just looks bland and vanilla. I’m going to chalk this experience up to practice and I’ll probably be on the lookout for some new fabric for a do-over. I’d score this project: sewing-WIN and fabric-FAIL. You can’t win ‘em all.

It went a little something like this:

The panel on the left is four inches longer to accommodate the pocket in the back. You’ll want to cut that panel right down the middle. (Hamburger, not Hot Dog)

badaBOOM badaBING Now we’re cooking.

You can set aside the square panel for now. Take the two halves you just cut and iron a hem into the inside edges. (At this point it doesn’t really matter which edges you hem. There is really no “inside” yet. I just like to be tricky.)

Pin your hem before running it through the sewing machine. I apparently like to pin mine as awkwardly and unevenly as possible.

Now the fun part: Sew baby, sew!

After sewing both edges you are left with your original square panel and two partially hemmed half panels. Lay the two halvsies, face down, on top of the square panel. Make sure you match up the edges; the sides you just sewed should now be overlapping.

You’ll be sewing around the edges of your pillow while it’s inside-out, so be sure when you lay your pieces together the nice sides of the fabric are touching. They’re probably having a steamy make-out session in there.

Pin ‘er up:

Almost done! After you’ve sewn all the way around the edges go ahead and remove your pins and run an iron over it. The last step is to trim the corners. That helps give your pillow nice sharp corners once it’s flipped right-side-out.

By golly, you’ve just made a pillow cover! It really is as easy as that. All these years I thought it was up there with rocket science and brain surgery.

Again, not the rich, creamy fabric I was hoping for. Use your imagination.

Here’s the backside: (Ow! Ow!)

I’m not sure I’d make another envelope pillow because of that whole you-can-only-use-one-side thing. Next time maybe I’ll try stitching all four sides for a cleaner look. Oh, the possibilities.

Olive cared tremendously about what was happening.

She was pouting that for five seconds I took a break from throwing her ball. That ball is never more than a few feet away from her.  And it squeaks. VERY LOUDLY. Thank you Grandma & Grandpa.

I have a wonderful weekend ahead: a date tonight with a very handsome lumberjack, a visit to my best friend in Cincinnati, a visit from my parents on Monday (a free day off work!) and then a vacation day on Tuesday. Lots of good times will be had. I hope everyone else has fun plans for the long weekend! TGIF.

First World Frustrations

Who knew picking out paint colors was so vexing. This was my night last night:
(The sewing machine has no relation to the story.)

The water-glass is slightly misleading as one would presume I wasn’t chugging wine in hopes of it becoming liquid courage. The color swatches made me do it. They forced me to drink with their baffling undertones and inconsistencies.

About five minutes after this picture was taken I felt like doing that move you see in the movies where in a fit of rage the main character makes a sweeping move with their arm across the desk, demolishing everything in its path. Fortunately I had the foresight to know that I didn’t want to have to clean up after a rage-filled explosion, so I chose to calmly walk away.

I must admit that I’m making myself sound like I handled this frustrating situation in a much more mature manner (alliteration For The Win) than I actually did. Yes, I calmly walked away, but then I promptly picked up the phone to call my mom.

Mom & Dad to the rescue! They’re coming for a night next week to help me sort out my color issues. Well, Mom is going to help me. Dad will probably sit there and look at us like we’re nuts, while tossing out encouraging words of advice.

The reason for all this frustration is simply not knowing what color to paint my ENTIRE house. It’s going to cost us $$$$ and I want to make sure that we’re going to love all of the colors on the wall when all is said and done.

Last night I went to the paint store to get some samples of colors I was pretty positive I loved. But sure enough, I slapped those greys on the wall and almost barfed all over them. They were nothing like I had pictured.

The grays were chalky and too light and then too dark and just oh-so-wrong.

The yellow is actually a color that may work out in little chunks here or there. We’ll just have to wait and see. You can see here how they go with my rug:

The moral of this story is: BUY SAMPLES. No matter how much money you spend on samples, you’ll be glad you did it. I should just be grateful that I didn’t have the painters paint the entire house with that corpse-skin gray. One point for the good guys.

Hopefully I’ll get this resolved soon. Since I’m an over sharer, rest assured that I will keep you updated. In the meantime, enjoy not being overcome with pressure to pick out paint colors, and have a terrific Thursday.