Loving Husband

Matt picked some flowers from the yard this morning and hung them up before going to work.  So sweet.  We have azaleas and dogwoods galore.

DIY Curtains

I love this tutorial from Apartment Therapy.  It looks pretty basic and very time consuming which is usually in my opinion, what makes for a great "wow" project.  I could do this for any room in the house.  He used the wall color paint from the room he put them in but really any color combinations would look great.  I'm putting this on my possibility list.  found via Strawberry Chic

Strawberry Chic

I came across a new blog I'm enjoying reading through the archives of:  Strawberry Chic.  The link that initially drew me to it was for this great pencil holder, shown on How About Orange. 

This will sound silly, but she seems like the kind of person I would be friends with in real life.  Same style and seems to have a very sweet personality. 

Bedroom update

The headboard we used to have was one my husband bought on his own years and years ago.  There wasn't really anything wrong with it, except that it wasn't my style.  So I used the wife veto power and decided to upholster a headboard.  I took a 4x8 piece of plywood, drew off the shape, got Matty to cut out the shape with a jigsaw, then it was all up to me from there on...mostly.  I bought the foam at Joann's with a 50% off coupon because if you've ever bought foam you know it is absurdly expensive.  I had to cut it into three pieces, one that ran straight across the bottom half, then two small sections I pieced together for the top.  I traced the headboard on the foam then used a bread knife to cut it at an angle.  Next I glued the foam to the plywood using spray adhesive.  Attached batting over the whole thing using an electric staple gun and what felt like hundreds of staples.  I then laid the whole thing face down on the back of the fabric and stretched and stapled for hours until I felt like it was all on their good and tight.  Lastly I measured and drew dots where the nail heads where intended to go and Matt hammered them all in.  Added legs off our old headboard and attached it to our current bed frame.

This is the finished headboard, without any pillows in front of it.

Here is a close up of the nail heads.  I used a nickel colored head to match all the brushed nickel details in our house.

The pillow sitting in front is one I picked the fabric for, and my mom finished sewing for me.  It was actually inspired by this pillow from Cup of Jo.  Her room makeover was done by Jenny Komenda from Little Green Notebook, which is another one of my favorite blogs.

This is a close-up of the fabric.  I really love the colors, the pattern, and all the detail it has.  Next on my list for our room is new, fancy sheets, possibly changing the curtains, fixing up the side tables, husband finishing the dresser he started building me, and bookshelves in the corner of our room.  Oh, and some kind of art.



Our Sunday in New Orleans

My husband, his sister, brother-in-law, niece, nephew and I all went for a day trip Sunday to visit New Orleans.  Matt had never been before and I have been more times than I can count.  We started the adventure eating beignets at Cafe Du Monde and it was as delicious as I remembered.  I failed to take a picture of the beignets before we devoured them.

Cafe Du Monde

We then proceeded to walk for a couple hours around the French Quarter, admiring the art and people watching.  We stopped for photo ops in Jackson Square where I took far too many pictures of this giant tree.  It was just so grand and majestic I couldn't stop myself.

I love all the balconies of the French Quarter.  They make me feel like I'm somewhere totally different, a more romantic country where everyone speaks French or Italian and eats delicious, exoctic food every meal.

 

 Here's the whole crew walking along the street, my husband's wearing blue.

I saw this lady and her amazing bike and just had to take a picture.  Isn't it bambootiful?  I know, cheesy, but really I love that bike.

We ended the day at the Riverside Restuarant where I had the shrimp po-boy.  It was delicious.  Again, I didn't think to take a picture before enjoying my meal.

Luter & Townsend Wedding

Tonight I was lucky enough to attend my life-long friend's wedding.  Julia and Spence are both amazing artist and all around fascinating people. Their wedding was equally beautiful.  It was in a friend's backyard, very intimate, and the decorations were knock-your-socks-off dreamy.  I wish my house had that ambiance all the time.  Here are the few pictures I was able to capture with the low lighting.

Here are the bride and groom toasting their marriage after cutting the cake.  You can see one of the terrariums sitting on the end of the table.  The decorations were all done by the bride, friends, and family.

The lights were strung through all the trees and bushes, and lanterns were everywhere.  Candles were hung and placed all around the yard.  It gave off a very magical glow to the night.

Note the beautiful four tiered ombre cake.  It went from a lovely medium green at the base, and lightened with each layer.  There were delicately made sugar flowers circling the base of each layer, then when you get to the top, the best part: two dinosaurs, one dressed in a top hat, the other in a veil holding flowers.  Veloceraptors, none the less.  Plus the petite ribbon banner above their heads.  I laughed each time I looked at that cake.  Truly brilliant and unique.

Had to use the flash to get any kind of a picture of the cake topper, but couldn't go without.

The lovely bride and groom, Julia and Spence, enjoying a dance.
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There was one other thing about the wedding making it truly memorable.  Julia's grandmother married her grandfather the year before World War II.  Her grandfather was then deployed to Japan for a year.  While there, he sent back a wedding present to his new wife; it was packed in a wooden box.  She didn't want to open it without her husband so she waited the year till his return.  Only problem was she lost it or forgot about it.  Later finding it, she said they would open it at their 5 year wedding anniversary.  Again it was forgotten, and later found.  She said they would open it at their ten year wedding anniversary, and so on and so forth until finally her grandfather died without the wooden box having ever been opened.  After the death of Julia's grandmother a few years back they found the box in the attic with a note for Julia telling the story of the box and instructing her that it was to be opened on her wedding day.   And that is just what they did.  Julia and Spence, told the story, then pried and hammered until the box was at last open.  Inside, packed in old newspapers, and even an old postcard, was a cardboard box tied with a string.  Julia opened that box, tore through the packing and unwrapped a beautiful tea pot, creamer, cups, saucers... the whole set.  From Japan during World War II.  The amazing thing about this is how much Julia loves tea, and collects tea pots and cups.  This is a gift she will undoubtedly treasure for the rest of her life and such an incredible story to tell.

Pear Blossoms

 We have a pear tree on our property and right now it has the most beatiful little clusters of blossoms.  I took these pictures this morning before heading in to work. 

I hope this year to learn to make pear preserves or jam. I really like pear preserves and I have a hunch I'd like them even more if I knew I'd made them myself.

Journals from years past

I have been keeping extensive art journals since around 7th grade, averaging one a year.  These are all my journals, sitting on a shelf in our dining room bookcase.  A few weeks ago I went through all of them, looking for pictures, collages, drawings, or ideas I still found interesting and marked them with green ribbons.  I also sorted them by dates and put tags on them so I would know at a glance which one is which.  I scanned some samples of what I found noteworthy.

 I really enjoy making collages, so I have a few scans of those.  The one below is inspired by the Mississippi Delta where I went to college.  The delta seems a large vacant place, yet somehow still maganges to offer so much culture and inspiration.  On the page beside the collage I did a sketch of a crab.

Below is another collage inspired by traveling, photography, and teaching.

This collage is in the front cover of one of the art journals.  I think this one was done in Australia or around the time I went to Australia.  Just some images I found to be beautiful and placed together.

Here is a page about a calendar I intended to make but never got around too.  I still want to make a calendar and put it on etsy.  Will blog the process if I ever do it.

This is one of the first pages I did in Australia.  The chicken is from a strand of blue and white fabric chickens I bought at a faretrade store, and the drawing is an old man sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean at Manly Beach, Sydney, Australia.

This is from one of my older journals, maybe around highschool, senior year or so.  I've never been great at drawing faces, so I chose to leave the child out of my version of the photograph.

A page from college, or late highschool.  Photography ideas, a recipe, and planter idea.  About as random as all the journals are from page to page.

A drawing I did from a photo while in flight to Washington, DC one summer by myself.  I used the Sky Magazine for the image so I couldn't cut it out and put it in my book.

This collage is kind of dear to my heart.  The left page is about my now husband, Matt and his hobbies, and the page on the right is inspired by my hobbies.  I was kind of annoyed with Matt when I finished this collage, so if you look closely, the bottom of his side has English peas kind of hidden in it.  Matt doesn't like English peas at all.

Sketches of shells.

A contour drawing of a girl from a magazine.  Again, not a fan of drawing faces so I just left it off.

There are of course lots more pages from the journals, but didn't want to bore anyone so I just loaded a few.  Hope you enjoyed a look into my art journaling past.

Brooklyn to West

I am currently obsessed with reading every last post from this blog.  Ariele makes the most incredible pieces of art/furniture out of reclaimed wood.  She is who I would want to be if I weren't afraid of losing a finger or an entire hand by way of power tools.  Here are some photos of my favorites with the links to her site.

This is what she collected from a trip to the beach at a Bay of Dead Horses in New York, I think.  It looks exactly like some of the collections of junk/treasures I have collected over the years.  Also makes me want to take a photograph of all my pretties and get it printed on a grand scale.

These are doors she made for a window seat.  Here is the post with the finished product. So breath-takingly beautiful.  She has made me rethink the way I wanted to do the dining room table.  Maybe that project will be my first try at woodworking.

There is an entire wall in her studio/workshop that she covered in eucalyptus leaves in an incredible pattern.  This is exactly how tedious and detail oriented I get sometimes.

She also sells things, cheese boards, headboards, tables.  Check out her shop.

Working on the blog

Just wanted to write a quick post to update that I'm working on the appearance of the blog.  Sorry if it looks rough over the next few days.  It's a work in progress.

Indoor plants, so far no casualties

I am definitely not a gardener of any sort, but I wanted to try my hand at keeping some plants alive in the house.  Right now I have 7 small pots of plants, 3 leafy plants and one orchid. 

 They all stay grouped together on our kitchen table. None seem any bigger than when I bought them last month, but they are still alive so I think I'm doing pretty well so far. When the soil gets dry I use a spray bottle containing water and Miracle Grow for indoor plants to rehydrate them.

  

I have always loved orchids, but didn't want to pay to kill one.  Then I saw some at Lowe's on sale for $7.95 and couldn't resist.