Sometimes I think I’m going to get creative and decorate with unconventional colors and textures, but then I realize that requires my buying ALL new decorations.  And I have a lot of decorations.  So red and gold are my Christmas bread and butter…gold has gained more and more of a foothold every year.  My obsession just keeps growing.  The mantle features a length of unlit garland, gold mercury glass candlesticks with red glitter candles, gold beaded trees and some extra little accoutrements (trumpet, snowmen, vintage Santa and red metal star.) The vase is the same textured cream vase I had on the mantle for fall decor only its wrapped with ruby red fabric that is secured at the top back with a chip clip and then tucked at the bottom! The vase is filled with evergreen greenery, gilded leaves and crystal vines.

Our main Christmas tree is absolutely covered in white lights, all different sizes.  I usually use ONLY gold, silver, bronze and red ball ornaments but this year, after moving to Colorado, my mom and dad kindly gave us (unloaded their basement) all my childhood ornaments and the tree features old clay unicorns, angels and preschool apples from 1985.  I couldn’t be happier about it.

Pillow covers were changed from fall florals and browns to large scale buffalo check and red/gray plaid.  A bowl of pinecones took its place on the end table and a christmas JOY plate sits with a cloche covering a bunch of candy canes.  Our second Christmas tree lives on the kitchen counter now…I can’t believe it took me this long to put a giant evergreen behind the kitchen sink!

A silver sparkle tablecloth is topped with a gold tone beaded runner, a trio of emerald feathered trees and gold tapers.

The family room.

My old buddy, the Santa Baby painting, holds court in the foyer.  The floral lamps were replaced by small brass lamps and the glass apothocary jars from the mantle were filled with pinecones, ornaments and candy canes to decorate the table top.  A snowman candle adds a little whimsy.

The Christmas floral ball I made last year found its way to hang from the dining room chandelier.  A berry wreath anchors the poinsettias and is flanked by glass vessels filled with gold glitter pillars and pinecones.  Round candles remind me of snowballs so they earned a place at the table as well.  Cute little buggers.

We have a third christmas tree in the living room, right smack dab in the middle of the front window…

Lit garland starts at the bottom of the stairs and runs the entire length of the upstairs banisters…

Our lit Christmas tree at night…

Aaaaaand, the kitchen Christmas tree lighting the way to doing the dishes…

Merry Christmas to all! Happy Holidays! Jolly decorating!

Have fun and if you haven’t started yet, GET TO IT! Enjoy the season everyone.

I keep seasonal pillow covers so all I have to do is pull the right season out of the box, pop ‘em on the pillow fillers and the pillows are done. I took the apple green tray away and added a bronze tray as well as trading the bowl of pink flowers for an urn of red blooms.

A sky blue vase of white roses was replaced by a white textured cylindrical vase of fall leaves and grasses.  Blue candles went away and red candles coated in glass beads took their place.  The previously empty apothecary jars were filled with red, orange and yellow roses.  A pumpkin makes it perfect for fall and the stuffed ghost will hang out through Halloween.

None of these paintings are new, I just shift all my large paintings around for each season.  The birch trees took the place of the tulips and I created this centerpiece with a raised basket, cream flowers and draping berries.  Clear candlesticks with gold tapers flank the flowers.

Again, I just moved this painting from another spot in the house, the green painting with the pink flowers was too summery.  Lamps and trees stayed the same and the haunted house will live here with the witches until Halloween is done.  As of November first a glass bowl of sugared fruit and gourds will take over for the haunted house.

One: the black frames around my new paintings are going to get a treatment of gold paint.  Two: This room is very halloween-y right now but will very easily shift into simple fall when we take the bat garland off the chandelier!

Tiny changes here; the tray that used to hold the bottles has been replaced with a bottle basket.  I added a vase of dried wheat for a little fall sumpin sumpin’ and nothing else changed.

We have these little paper pumpkins taped up all over the house…we’ve had them since I was a little kid so they are quite special to me.  Pumpkins, ghosts and bats are hidden all over the house.  We’re all loving the Halloween decorations for now, but as soon as the sun comes up on November first all those ghouls will be retired and we’ll start getting ready to host Thanksgiving!

Easy changes can make a big difference; go ahead and change your pillows.  Just change your candles.  Even a single bouquet of seasonal flowers can make a home feel warmer and more cozy as we leave the summer months and prepare for sweaters and hot chocolate.  Give it a shot, I’m sure you’ll love the updates!

I focused on not putting TOO much stuff on the countertops.  I have an issue with this because it is in my nature to want to look at all my pretty things, but as I get older I find I am drawn to a cleaner look.  Conundrum.  So we left the essentials: tv for breakfast cartoons, coffee maker, tea kettle on the stove and three glass stopper bottles.  The bottles ended up there as a fluke; when I unpacked them I set them against the wall and loved how they filled the space but at the same time left the illusion of space due to the clean, clear glass.  The bird is just cute and will probably fly south when the Christmas decor makes an appearance.  A simple silver mini-cake stand holds the apple green timer and my vintage brass salt and pepper shakers.  Paper towels are essential, of course, and to finish things off I have my copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking propped up on a cookbook stand suggesting that I have actually made something fancy and french out of the famous book.  I haven’t.  Anyway…the end cap shelves were like a special little gift for me.  Bottom = white shelf with small selection of letter coffee mugs.  Next = color pop shelf with vintage cracked glass decanter, cream and sugar set. Second from top = white shelf with tin pitcher, bird slat and pepper shakers and Top = color shelf with bird coffee mugs and a grapefruit sugar bowl with a tiny bird perched on the top.  Not too much, not too little.  Goldilocks.

The glass cabinets gave me an opportunity to show our fun dishes.  There is a good balance of white dishes, glassware and then pops of fun and color.  Bowls are colorful and interspersed throughout the white plates and clear glasses.  On the higher shelves I popped a tea pot and my favorite tea cup and a pretty creamer pot.  And to no one’s surprise, little birds pepper every shelf.  This is a great room, and not because I did anything wonderful to it; just a beautifully planned space.  A good place to make jam!

Bright multi colored polka dot quilt from Land of Nod: Check. Light blocker/thermal protective lavender-per-Addie’s request curtains: Check. Canopy fit for a Princess. Handmade airplanes in multiple hues.  Walls covered in clouds. Check, check and check.  Her ceiling fan even has a different city on each blade affixed with silver contact paper I cut into letters.  This kid has it made.

(note: the planes, hot air balloons and canopy are all attached to the ceiling with command hooks.  You DON’T have to turn your walls into swiss cheese. Just sayin.)

Does your kid’s name find its way around the world in wacky and unexpected ways? Mine does.  I found and printed photos of some of the rad applications of my Goose’s name, framed them in bright pink painted frames and popped em on the wall by her bathroom. IN. DI. VI. DUAL. IZE.

What do we have here?  The little hook rack on the wall is engraved with her name.  It was probably meant for clothes or maybe even dried herbs tied in bunches.  We use it for pacifier storage and it’s awesome.  Above the paci rack is a compass I cut out of the same silver contact paper I used on her fan and made a compass.  How else will she find her way around the world? The dresser is the same one from her nursery with the same name letters that I made before she was born. It IS still her name after all.  There is also a US map puzzle (she already knows all the states thanks to that puzzle), a sailboat and a pair of jammies I forgot to take off the top of the dresser.  Oops.

And in this corner we have shelving full of globes found at the french market, an Eiffel tower birdhouse I painted the same color as her bedside lamp and curtains, decorative suitcases (how cute are those?), some storage baskets and trinkets.  The hot air balloons you’ve seen in my posts a thousand times because they took me so long to make I have to keep showing them off, and some more clouds on the wall.  A note about the clouds: you can spend money on etsy or amazon buying vinyl wall decals, but you can also spend about $5 on a roll of contact paper at home depot and cut out the designs you want then stick em on the wall.  I did it with the compass, the clouds, the fan letters and this project.  SO EASY.

The headboard cover was a queen sized fleece blanket that I folded in half, sewed the end seams, turned it inside out and popped over her headboard.  The cabinet was her diaper cabinet in our apartment, now it holds…emergency middle of the night pull ups.  The “A” is just a cardboard letter painted green.  Her lamp was part of a set (the two side table size lamps are now hunter green and in the guest room) that I painted lavender and have YET to find the right shade to fit. The bedrails keep her from falling out of her big girl bed and screaming in the middle of the night.

Addie’s bathroom: color, birds, fun, and bright.  The birds used to hang over Addie’s crib and now they are the perfect unexpected element in her bathroom.  EVERYONE comments on the birds.  Below, the airplanes are hung with white thread and command hooks and are one of Addie’s very favorite elements in her room.  Are you going to decorate your kid’s room?  Go wild! But please make sure you listen to what your kid wants,  you are not going to live in that room, your child is.  Think about not only what your child likes, but who they are, and you will come up with something more special than the standard character room.  Have fun and get your bugaboo involved in her/his own space…you’ll have a blast.

The photo below shows the buffet in its final dress clothes. I wish I had taken photos of all the things I tried that just didn’t work.  There were LOTS.  Finding the right look takes some serious trial and error, so keep at it until you find something you like.  Here, I placed two very cool green lamps on the ends of the buffet with a large gold framed mirror that spans the entire length of the furniture. The lampshades sport the same natural linen feel of the living room shades, giving the rooms some consistency. I then layered some framed artwork, a gold toned “O”, an unexpected condiment carousel and a bar tray to finish of the look.  Rather than using decanters I used glass stopper bottles with a single letter on the front to let people know what they’re drinking (V=vodka, G=gin etc.) The tequila bottle just hasn’t been transferred to the appropriate T yet!

It took me quite a while to find the right wall coverings for this room.  I FINALLY decided on this set of framed artwork wrapping around the wall, mimicking the collage over my desk in the living room.  This time, I painted all the frames a soft gold and gave them a consistent thick, white mat.  All the photos in the corner are representations of my idea of “dining”: paintings of utensils, people gathered around a meal from various eras, stacked plates etc.  The greenery and the gold candles are temporary table fillers until I figure out what the heck makes my perfect table.  I’m still not really sure.  The area rug was, on the other hand, a special find.  I wasn’t planning on having an area rug in this room but I saw this hanging in a store and knew it was perfect and it MADE the room for me.  After placing the rug I could finally decide on curtains (gold dupioni silk) and the room felt like it had legs.  Now I just need to finish the two 24″x 48″ pieces of art that will hang on the angled walls and I will be happy with this room.  I think.

This room gets so much light from sun up till sun down that I didn’t want to add anything that would bring it down, or have any sense of weight.  In the summer I want things to feel as fresh, light and natural as possible.  Glass lamp bases, glass apothocary jars and the mirrored tray on the coffee table add a bit of reflection and sparkle, woven baskets at both ends of the fireplace facing couch add a warm, natural touch and are topped with a wooden tray.  Stacked round end tables keep things from being too linear.

The TV wall was a challenge in itself because our TV stand from the apartment wasn’t big enough for the ‘cove’ in the wall.  So I took a bookcase and popped it next to the tv stand, mainly beacause I had no idea where else in the house it would work.  It was so unbalanced I decided that I could finish the eyechart painting and hang it opposite the bookcase to make it visually even without making it match.  The black frame with a touch of gold makes it heavy enough to counterbalance the bookshelf.

The bookshelf itself was super fun to style.  I made sure to attack it as a piece of art rather than a storage piece; books were second fiddle to the overall appearance of each shelf.  I chose specific books out of my ridiculous collection for their size, subject and appearance: Monet books are stacked together, Audrey Hepburns are in another stack and Shakespeare gets his own little spot as well.  Some books are placed upright and others are stacked horizontally, bookends act more as accessories than their intended function.  Stacked cups, a metallic O, a silver bowl and various other snippets bring personal interest into the shelves.

It is so easy to sit back and relax in this room; it is spacious and light and airy (the two story ceilings don’t hurt, neither do the floor to ceiling windows) I really feel my personality in the room, but the rest of my family’s as well.  It managed to be quirky but homey at the same time, comfortable but elegant as well.  Other people may never notice all the small decisions that go into making my spaces what they are, but each little design element works with the others to make a beautiful room…and people definitely notice that!

Finally! I have been done with the house for a while but have been so busy I haven’t had any time to post them all. Let’s start with the living room.

The most important aspect of this room was that I could maintain my quirky design personality while keeping a hint of traditional formality.  The curtains are dummy panels hung with command hooks; no walls were hurt in the hanging of this fabric.  Next, I wanted the side tables to speak to one another but not be mirror images, so I used similar accessories on both (picture frame on one, plate on easel on the other) and similar small green plants.  The table on the left is much lower than the one on the right so I stacked two vintage suitcases to keep the lamps level.  I cycled through all sorts of lampshades before I settled on my final choice.  All the others were too formal or fussy but when I found these natural woven shades they played perfectly off the slip covers I sewed for the wingbacks.

Speaking of wingbacks, we bought the chairs in a pink floral fabric that was in great condition but didn’t fit my decor.  I checked into having them reupholstered but the cost was right up there near the $1000 mark so I quickly abandoned THAT idea (for now.) I then ordered slipcovers online but they were ill fitting and looked pretty awful.  So I bit the bullet: I sewed slipcovers.  I had never done it before but had a general idea how I should proceed.  I found a sturdy khaki duckcloth and pinned it to each section of chair, cutting out around the exact shape of each section with am inch and a half seam allowance.  I then pinned all the pieces together until I had the entire chair covered with pinned sections, pulled the inside out pinned montrosity off the chair and sewed along all my pin lines.  Simple.  Time consuming, but simple.  The only tricky part were the curved arms where I had to fashion a pleated curve as well as the “patch” on the front of each arm.  But once the chairs were finally finished I was so in love with the final project I give myself a little pat on the back whenever I walk past them.

The pillows needed to follow the same idea as the rest of the room: playful but not too casual.  I chose a stripe that has a nod to the nautical and backed it with natural canvas that matches the couches exactly.  I added a deep red ticking accent as well as an aqua batik-ish print that adds a little of the, “huh, I would never think that would work” that I like to have in all my rooms. I made a table runner for the coffee table with the same fabrics I used for the pillows.  On top of that, I placed three glass candlesticks for height topped with map patterned candles and a woven basket of greenery and bamboo balls.

I hung my “Birch Tree” painting over the love seat to fill the space.  I’m not in love with it as it sits right now but I think that once it is framed it will work perfectly.  In the opposite corner from the painting is my desk/work station.  I transferred the frame collage that I originally had over the couch between the windows to over my desk wrapped around the corner.  Why did I move the artwork? The collage was too busy over the couch and conveyed a super casual feeling…since its one of the first rooms a guest sees when the enter the house I wanted it to make just the right impression.  I replaced the look with a large mirror with a dark wood frame that works with the accent tables and surrounded the mirror with a more conventional look of photos with white mats and black frames.  The photos themselves are off-kilter representations of what I imagined would be in a living room, or sitting room, in the 30′s or 40′s:  glimpses of a globe, horn rimmed glasses, a typewriter, a settee, a clock face and a rotary phone.  I cropped them so they were jsut a little “off” and adjusted their color so they were more faded and antiqued than the original.  They’re perfect.   With the collage situated around the corner over my desk, I still get the fun vibe that I love, people just have to enter the room and look around in order to find the treasure!

My desk top is littered with french flea market finds (vintage milk basket, old school pencil sharpener) as well as books, glass cloches, a couple of topiaries and a large hourglass.  I used a pewter layered display plate as my notion wrangler and a small brass lamp and vintage gold plated ceramic dish round it all out.  If you remember my sewing station in our apartment in Naperville, you’ll remember the green “idea” bulletin boards I had above my desk.  I used the same frames and foam core board and just replaced the green cotton with a natural flax.  I also sewed pocket panels in the larger board to hold some of my supplies.  It’s all working out rather well so far!

So, there is room number one, the Living Room.  Let me know what you think, hopefully it has inspired some great idea for you that you’ll utilize in your own home.  If not, I hope your little bit of voyeurism liked peeking into my most ‘formal’ room.

Later Gators.

I’ve been planning on making Gooser’s dress for quite some time. I had the fabric picked out, washed & dried, cut as per the pattern and a plan on how to tweak it to fit Addie’s needs.

I couldn’t pull the trigger. The fabric sat in a pile next to my sewing machine for over two weeks when I decided I’d rather just buy her dress this year. I decided to give up. We bought her a beautiful lavender silk dress from Janie and Jack…its really perfect for her.

Fast forward a day, I am at my sewing machine finishing the Easter dress I intended to make all along. It’s as though buying the Janie and Jack dress took the pressure off and I just whipped up this one in no time! Ridiculous how these things work.

The changes I made are:
*Shortened bodice
*Deepened the v at the cross over
*Self rolled hem around neckline
*lined skirt with French hems and inset silk border
*inset waistband (no stitching visible)
*narrowed the waist ties for comfort

Anyone can do it, just get some paint, some brushes, a ladder, some good painting music and a little time and you’ve got yourself a mural…in fact, you should give it a try!