Happy Weekend

Hope you have a fun-filled, creative, productive, relaxing weekend! Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will have settled on what to give up for lent.  

Love this fragrance bar at Bond No. 9 in New York, using a vintage brass offering table and quite a colorful assortment of perfume bottles. [Please pardon the grainy iPhone image.]

Laissez les bons temps rouler

Heading out the door for the weekend.

Sorry I haven't been around here much this week...our internet was on the fritz.  Let's catch up next week!  Have a great weekend.

Revitalized and reinvented

Don't you love finding cash in your pockets while doing laundry?  I had a similar sensation this weekend, while nesting I found these lovely linens from Studio3, never used, and completely forgotten.  Talk about a cheap thrill!

"Revitalized and reinvented." Each piece is an upcycled vintage linen with a new silkscreen print.   Much like these linens, I am starting to feel like our little bit of cabinet space is starting to serve us better.

Heart on a string

I was contacted last week by the lovely Houston Smilebooth crew to create a custom Valentine backdrop for a Menil mixer, called Menil by Moonlight.  So I whipped up some heart garland, using my favorite bingo paper + color aid + baker's twine.  The color palette we chose is so very J.Crew Spring.  I love it.  

How was your Valentine?  Mine was splendidly low key.

Best part of 'making groceries'....

Fresh Flowers!  Will's favorite chore is grocery shopping, and he often tackles it without me.  As if that's not enough to love, he also frequently brings home a little prize bouquet for me.  I lead a charmed life indeed!

Can you taste the color?

I am combating this hazy gray morning with a vibrant breakfast. Doesn't nature give us the most wonderful colors?  I am completely inspired by pomegranate red!

Drop me a line.

It's National Letter Writing Week!  Time to bust out the stationary and pens for a little old fashioned correspondence.  

Although they are not yet released, I am highly anticipating the new Forever Stamps to be issued this summer.  

Let them eat cake!

King Cake!  It's the start of Carnival Season, y'all!

Thinking about this quote today and wishing I was in New Orleans.  I would certainly be at Chicky-wah-wah tonight to celebrate the Twelfth Night with the Creole String Beans dancing to some great Swamp Pop.

Since I am in not....I will be celebrating with these really lovely ladies.

Make a splash, 2011

Happy New Year!  >> new decade!  >> new beginnings!

I tend to stumble upon things, more so than diving right in....particularly when it comes to my career.  I like to ease into situations, maintaining my comfort zone while I test the waters.  This year my resolution will be to get out of my comfort zone.  I think Billie is a bit like me {okay so she is only 13 weeks old and I'm 31 years old}.  Much like myself, she inadvertently discovered the swimming pool this New Years weekend.  She was just tagging along behind me when she stumbled over the edge of what she apparently thought was a blue rug.  She trotted right into the frigid water.  Her water dog instincts kicked in and she paddled herself back to the edge from which she tumbled.

I guess whether you stumble into something or dive in, you better make a splash.

Deck the Halls Reveal, Part II

I am a pretty sentimental person, saving Christmas cards for years, storing them away in zip-lock bags.  In the spirit of my upcycle decorating, I was inspired to create festive bunting (after I spied this on Martha's site.)   Merry Christmas to you and yours!  

I have to say it was much easier than the pom-poms...once my template was created I just traced and saved the portions of the front, back, and inside of the cards.  Created a layout and strung on string that was lying around.  Ta-daaa!  

I hope you are having a wonderful time with those near and dear!

Holly Jolly

My sweet friend Meg gave me this adorable little vase in which I placed festive trimmings from our holly bush.  Merry, merry!

Ceci n'est pas une cheminée

"This is not a fireplace." 

When we bought our house it was advertised as having a faux fireplace...so we imagined a beautiful historic mantel installed on a non-working fireplace. Were we surprised to find a lovely little piece of SkyMall furniture.  In five years we have grown to appreciate its kitschy, humorous nature.  Will thought of the perfect way to wittily celebrate our awkward acquisition.  He is a Rene Magritte fan so he "commissioned" me to create this piece, drawing inspiration from one of his favorite paintings.  Neither of us speak French so we might have botched the translation, but we kept it close to Magritte's painting inserting the word 'fireplace' for 'pipe'.  

On a side note, we finally burned our only can of fire gel and it really does add a nice ambiance to the room (as long as you remove the paper label before burning...or else it stinks up the house).  

Deck the Halls Reveal, Part I

I have this ridiculous nesting/crafting bug right now, so rather than attempting to knit everyone on my list a pair of socks, which could go horribly wrong, I am sticking to what I know best, decor.  Everyone loves tissue pom poms and short of ordering tons off of Etsy, I decided to see if I could whip up a few.   It was so simple, especially with the slew of instructions out on the web.  In lieu of a whopping eight sheets of tissue per ball, I used one single sheet per ball and cut it into eight smaller segments.  The result is the perfect size for a pom pom garland. I am not one to save wrapping paper but I always save tissue paper, especially Anthropologie's.  I also saved their felt circle gift ribbon to use as accents and the actual strand.  And since this is Christmas, I added a few red felt circles to give it a little more cheer.  The color scheme was inspired by my robin's egg blue ceiling + how fresh red and apple green look when thrown in.

Introducing...

...the newest member of our family, Billie Holiday!  This snuggle-boo came home with us on Saturday and we couldn't be happier to have the little pitter-patter of four paws in the house again.  She is all that I want and need for Christmas!