Moving My Folks To Tennessee

Family Style Living is about to get more interesting. I am so happy to say that my mom and step-dad are packing up and moving to live near us!

I haven’t lived by my mom in 39 years. We are both looking forward to it. She too is a quilter and loves to do handwork. So you will be seeing some of her projects as well. I just have to get her more computer savvy. She’ll get there.

Mom, her name is Pat, and her husband Pat have had it with the winter up north and are ready to try it Tennessee style. Roger and I have been very busy house shopping for a condo for them that they can enjoy the rest of their years. In one week, we found it, the offer has been accepted and they will close on June 14th. Whooosh. They are going to be two tired cowboy and cowgirl when they get here. I did talk them into having their house up north packed for them so to avoid the exhaustion and any injuries. They are 76 and 78 and were high school sweethearts back in the day and married 10 years ago. It was like watching two high school kids when they got together. Kind of funny from my perspective, but sweet. I kept telling them I was going to tell Oprah about them. Hah…I didn’t do it though.

And this is there new house. I won’t share the inside until they close.

It’s a great patio home community filled with retirees, so I hope they make lots of new friends when they get here. I’ll fill you in as Lindsey and I  get to do a whole house, on mom’s approval of course. At least this will all be after my show, so I can concentrate on the big move in. I just had to share the great news!

 

Annie Oakley Meets Lucy

I have been soooo busy lately with getting ready for my first jewelry art and craft show that takes place June 1st and 2nd. I’m having a ball doing it  too. That is the important part. I made the cutest aprons for Caroline and I to wear. They’re a hoot. I had this faux tooled leather that I have been planning to make a purse out of for the longest time. I have been cutting bits from it for bracelets and cigar boxes. Then I got this idea for the aprons.

I found several bright pretty florals in my fabric stash and ripped them at the length I needed for that true shabby chic gypsy cowgirl look.  First I cut the front panels of the faux leather and then the pockets for the CASH  I hope to bring in. I need my CASH for Round Top TX Antiques Week when we go in Oct. (Did I tell you how excited I am to see this event?!) Check it out here.

Here is a closer look at the apron. I was so lucky that the mannequin had the same waist as mine… just kidding. I can’t make the bow when I wear it . The necklaces that she is wearing are more of my Tennessee necklaces that I have priced and ready to go. I made Caroline’s apron in two different bright fabrics. She has already asked if she can keep it. Of course she can!

I found a few great pieces that will be props for the show, then I may make spots for them in my home. The shutter is old and I still may give it a chippy white coat so my jewelry shows up better. The barn windows, I simply hosed off and Roger nailed hog wire to the backs so I can use the mini clothes pins to attach the earring cards and necklaces. They would make great jewelry hangers in a bedroom too. I’ll have to show you the one I created for our bedroom. It is a little more elaborate. It hangs behind my bedroom door and holds many necklaces.  It sure prevents chain tangles and keeps them out of the way. I could see the barn window painted in bright glossy colors… oh well, I digress.

The neighbors are always laughing at me when I drag birch branches home. We stuck these two in the back of the golf cart and took them from a refuse pile that was ready for pick up. Aren’t they beauties?! I think I will trim the branches and use them to drape bracelets across. These branches will be used in containers for Christmas decorations.

This ladder caught my eye as Caroline and I were walking out the door of a junk shop. I yelled, “how much,” he said “$25.00,” I yelled “$20.00″ and he yelled “SOLD!” It was invigorating!

I have been making my jewelry cards from birch wrapping paper. I simply applied glue stick to the back of it and stuck card stock to it to give it some body. When it was dry , I used a  rotary cutter to cut the strips as I needed them and I have a hole punch for the earring  holes.

So now you are getting a sneak peak of the show preparation. I will take lots of pics to show the set up and completion. Now we have to hope for sunny weather.

Cabinets Dunzo

Ta da! After completing my cabinet wood restore action, I finally got some hardware back in the kitchen. After a swing and a miss with the first order of hardware I made (and returned), I found these on Overstock and am so happy with them! They were such a bargain compared to tons of others I looked at and the basic Euro bar style fits pretty easily into any modern decor. Kind of makes this kitchen look a little more modern too I think.

Here’s where we were back in the beginning, with the teeny tiny old and grubby nickel colored hardware. Usually I opt for nickel finish, but I was kind of feeling the oil rubbed bronze in this kitchen because those honey oak cabinets I felt needed some deeper contrast and I think it’s working well against the black in the appliances and what not. The set I ordered was just under $55 with free shipping which I think is a great deal for this big change in impression in the kitchen. It’s not worth investing a lot in a temporary place, but $55 was totally worth it to have the kitchen feel just a bit more ‘quality’ and less low-budget-rental (Plus, hardware is easy to take back off and take with you when you go!)

Along with this little upgrade, I also took the time to make a few other spruce up improvements- 1) removed this old blind that was crusty and never used anyhow, and 2) removed the two white plastic hooks foam-taped to the inside of the cupboards over the sink.

That move was free and only required a screwdriver, scraper and Goo Gone. Now it looks so much cleaner and tidier over there! Plus, I made a few more de-cluttering steps, moving the paper towel holder over to the mixer on the island, ditching my long-lived utensil holding pottery vase since I had a little drawer space to spare after moving the pots and pans out to the rail a few weeks ago, putting the salt and pepper shakers in the spice cabinet, and putting the coffee maker away in the basement since we really only use it for company.

I have a few more plans for decorating this space up, playing off citrus colors that will tie into the yellow color this area was already painted in. Also have a plan for a little decorative window treatment… so stay tuned! What do you guys think? Was oil rubbed bronze the way to go?

Foxy Photography

This is the second fox-themed post on our blog within darn close to a month, this being the second to Mom’s fox quilt. This is a fox of a slightly different nature, or actually straight out of nature, however. I’ve mentioned our awesome friends that also live here in Northern VA, Tania and Robert before wen we went to their place to can tomatoes last fall. Well, among their many talents (gardening, bee-keeping, carpentry, etc), Robert is an excellent photographer and has been since I met him almost 10 years ago. He recently started printing and selling some of his most select photographs and I’m so excited to be an owner of one now! We purchased our first properly printed, matted and framed piece of photography– which is exciting in and of itself when most of the artwork on your walls is either DIY or wedding photos– but coming from a great friend (and talent!) makes it all the more special. I love the phrase he created on the label, which is on the back of the frame. If you can’t read the find print on your screen, it says, “Photography is not art. Since the invention of photography, it has been, and still is, about the capturing of nature’s art.” Love it!

If you’re interested in purchasing a piece of your own, you can check out other photographs and get in touch with Robert through his Facebook page for Robert Drake Photography. I’m so proud for Robert to have his own business since his photos have always been so amazing and now I have my own legit signed piece

Anywho, without further ado, here is my sweet little squinty fox. I love how the contrasting matte and frame set off the shading around his ears and nose. I just love this photo.

I think I may redo the photo arrangement above the couch in the living room to incorporate this guy, but for now we are enjoying Foxy McSquinty in the stairway where’s there’s lots of natural light and we get to visit him every trip up and down.

Thanks for the beautiful photo Robert! We look forward to building our collection

Pinterest Challenge Duo- complete!

We did it- Mom and I pulled out our first Pinterest Challenge, a fabulous idea dreamed up by the blogging pros among pros (and this round guest hosted by this sparkly gal and this chipper gal) to get us all hands-on-to-those-pinned-ideas-we’ll-never-actually-do-otherwise. So, here’s what we accomplished- this post is a two-parter, begins with signage and ends with sandwiches!

Mom first…

I have my first arts and craft show featuring my jewelry coming up in June. I have been pinning tons of booth ideas. I have been really busy making many of them. So, for my first Pinterest Challenge, I will show you my sign project. I found a pin that was “Free Must-Have Fonts.” I had a few oval canvas boards that had been laying around for years, so that is perfect. I love it when I have everything I need for a project.

My first plan was to paint the canvas with black chalkboard paint. I happened to have a bottle in my paint cupboard. I knew I wanted to do something with chalkboard paint someday. This is the day! So I brushed it on. Easy so far.

This is the font I chose. I printed it out for a reference. If I had planned to take more time, I would have enlarged it and made stencils from it.

I decided to free-hand it instead and I drew the letters out the best I could. I used my chalk line pen that I use for quilting. It’s very sharp and I needed something white to show the letters on black.

This is the hard part. Getting my letters perfect as possible. Perfect they are not, but I think it turned out cute.

This will sit on my chippy yellow $4.00 chair that I use for photos. I plan to place it at the front corner of my tent and sit the sign on the chair. It’s a little wonkie, but it will look cute when the whole set up is all together. My first Pinterest Challenge is complete. TahDah…!

So, Lindsey here now… Yeah Mom! Love the combo of the cool new font on stark black matched with the chippy yellow chair. I wish I could be there for your show! But glad we have our blog to share in the preparations

For my Pinterest challenge, I picked this crazy looking sandwich that I pinned a few weeks ago from Big Girls Small Kitchen, a fabulous foodie blog I recently discovered. I liked the concept of this bizarre sounding sandwich (eggs and eggplant?) and I would never normally cook anything just to go onto a sandwich, so this was the perfect Pinterest Challenge for yours truly. Obviously the full details and recipe are on their site, but I did a slightly simpler version… and an also slightly botched version cuz I kinda rushed it :-/ Step one, slice thin the eggplant and salt liberally to draw the water out. I did this when I got home from work (as well as put eggs on to boil) so all this was doin’ its thing while I was doin’ my thing.

After squeezing it dry with tea towels (or paper towels), I totally messed up and put it in the oven on parchment DRY— oops. That gives you eggplant chips. I realized this 10 minutes in and pulled it out and quickly slathered it in some olive oil. This gives you fried chips. Ugh. I finally kind of worked it out after some blotting, further roasting, etc and after a little more slicing (thin slices of cucumber, sliced hard-boiled egg, chopped cilantro), the major players were ready.

I opted to simplify things and use mayo with the cilantro sprinkled on top instead of making the tahini based herb sauce in the recipe. I’m a workin’ girl after all, can only handle so much on a weeknight!

Ta da! I think my final product, despite some eggplant problems, turned out pretty similar-looking to the original! And, as surprised as I honestly was, it was delish! Kind of like an egg salad sandwich with thin slices of eggplant. Pinterest Challenge dunzo!

Turning Pinners into Doers

Mom & I are participating in our first ever Pinterest Challenge! Basically, it’s a way to get us Pinterest-ers and bloggers to get going on and actually complete a fun project we’ve pinned at some point or another.

The concept was dreamed up and is hosted by four top notch bloggers: Emily from Sparkle meets Pop, Katie from Bower Power, Sherry from Young House Love and Renee from Red Bird Blue. Visit their blogs because they are awesome and here and here you can find out more about the back story and details of the Pinterest Challenge. Mom and I will be participating by choosing something off of one of our Pinterest boards and finally getting down to business to create/cook/restore it… get the idea?

Let us know what projects you picked off of your boards by blogging about it and linking back (as well as linking back to the hosts Emily, Katie, Sherry and Renne whose links are above!), or send us a ditty on what you did so we can feature it here. Make sure to link and credit the original place the pin was from too! Sounds like lots of linking, but that part is easy and it’s great to share the love around the blogisphere. Hooray for actually completing fun ‘someday I’ll do that’ stuff from our overflowing Pinterest boards… love these girls, their awesome blogs and their awesome ideas that we all get to participate in! Mom and I are excited to participate in our first ever Pinterest Challenge- woo hoo! The deadline is set as Wed May 8th (yikes!) so we’ll do our best to reconvene on these projects later this week… better get to work… well, real work for now, but then Pinterest work!

Derby Day

Just a quick note to remind you that tomorrow is Derby Day! So get crafting a fabulous hat and pick up some bourbon… after all, the official drink of the Kentucky Derby is the mint julep and other bloggers have been savvy enough to post this cocktail recipe to share so that we all may indulge in Derby Day traditions. Enjoy responsibly and have a fun Derby Day! May the best horse win… lots o’ carrots!

Saturday morning update: The favorite to win is a horse named Orb… Oil Rubbed Bronze anybody? And my new ORB cabinet hardware just arrived yesterday… a sign?

Saturday night update:  Orb for the win! I think my new hardware is a win too… but more on that later.

In Case Your Chef is On Vacation…

… make sure to have a handy calendar that tells you what’s on the menu what you need to put together for dinner. This has been my realization after two sources of inspiration: 1- a crafty paint chip wall calendar demonstrated on my fav daytime show The Chew (DVR) and 2- a post about making a monthly meal plan by Deme over at Fresh Coat of Paint. So, my brain said, colorful calendar for my kitchen involving pocketing extra paint chips at HD + hyperorganization to make dinner plans easy for weeks to come = my brand of crazy savvy! I was even more delighted to come across this neato openable frame with a hidden pocket at Target to create my calendar. The basic idea is that you can write on the glass inside any picture frame using a dry erase marker, making it a totally erasable customizable calendar frame…

The calendar takes shape by choosing an array of *free* paint chips in any color or collection of colors that suits your taste. I trimmed mine down to a matching size using my very handy paper cutter (from Michael’s… prob around $8, use a coupon), that would ultimately fit 7 days across and 4 down on the size frame I bought (12 by 15 inches in my case).

According to Clinton Kelley, double stick tape is the way to go to attach each paint chip ‘day’ on your calendar. It worked well for me, so I’d say if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I remember he mentioned that glues cause the paint chips to get that wave in them, which makes sense since they actually aren’t designed for making free crafts (what?). For the backing, you could use a nice piece of large scrapbook paper or posterboard/card stock here, but I was in a hurry and just stuck these to the back of the paper insert that was in the frame when I bought it. Yup, has a little picture of kid’s artwork and a barcode on the other side.

Then for the crazy organization part. I promise it seems kind of OCD, but it is so great! I cannot tell you how much I dread that “What are we doing for dinner tonight?” question in the evening after a long day of commuting, working all day, commuting back… when I have no plan and neither does Chad. We stare blankly and complain about having no food in the house, even thought we grocery shop every week. The problem was we grocery shopped kind of aimlessly and cooked mainly on the weekend which only got us until about Tuesday when we have no food again somehow… you know the drill. So I scribbled down a list of meals that are more involved that I know we like cooking to put into weekend slots and the weeknights I know we have time for cooking. And then put meals that are quick and easy but still reasonably healthy (that are not cereal or peanut butter toast) for quick weeknight dinners when we have other things going on (yoga for me, boxing for Chad, late night at work, etc). Several nights get to be leftovers from the more serious cooking episodes and Fridays are always our night out. Voila. Deme discusses her family’s meal plan here, the first of a three part series, if you want some more details and inspiration!

Side bar- I realized after a bit of time with the new calendar in action that my frame designed for kids art that I bought for it’s nifty opening/closing, hidden pocket feature also came with a super cheap plastic (safer for kids)  insert which the dry erase marker was a bit more annoying to rub off of. So, new piece of glass cut by the good people of Lowe’s solved this conundrum for about $5 and we’re back in business. I’ve been told Home Depot doesn’t custom cut glass for you, but Lowe’s will.

Anywho, with the paint chips in place, glass in place, number your calendar with a dry erase marker writing directly on the glass, assign the days of the week and fill in your meal plan! Now we don’t have to think about what we’re eating for 4 weeks at a time! I just look ahead a day or two and make sure a trip to the grocery store is made to fulfill any extra recipe needs, etc. I find the quick, targeted trip to the grocery store during the week to be far less painful than the aimless long one that usually happens on the weekend. You could also just buy everything you need for your week ahead on the weekend if you really want to have everything in advance. Different strokes…

So, before we hang this up, and to make this a real marathon of a post, do you remember how our rental kitchen looked on the naked wall before the kitchen island was added, just kind of sad and empty (and more importantly, lacking any function) like this?

Well, after the island, I finally got to hang up my IKEA Grundtal rail as well, which made a huge difference in storage space getting our most used pots and pans out of the cupboards. We had a rail like this at our house in Pittsburgh too and it was so handy- easy access to make cooking seem even simpler. We also removed the crusty old phone and replace its plate with a plain, flat white cover plate…

… which I was then able to cover mostly with the new calendar! Doesn’t this wall look purposeful and cozy now? I must tell you I thought the meal planning thing might bust quickly, but after having it in operation a few weeks I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how both us really look to the calendar to find out, oh, ok tomorrow we’re going to make tacos- can’t wait! Maybe it’s something about the ‘needing direction’ mentality we’re programmed for or something? Best of all, no one asks, “So what’s for dinner tonight?” eliminating the need for irrational weeknight despair about dinner.  (yes, I know there is still an ugly wood switch plate on the wall— I’m debating what to do as they are all over the main level and it’s another issue of investing $ in a rental? beige switches, beige plates… but white trim… indecision, indecision…)

Almost forgot to show you the nifty hidden pocket in this frame- perfect place to tuck recipes I have printed off the web that I reuse over and over. More stuff to make life easier! Love.

Does anyone else use a system for planning dinners in advance? We’ve only used this for dinner since we usually just pack sandwiches and simple lunches for work 5 days a week. Anyone made a paint chip calendar? I think the two ideas just go lovely together, as I’m so happy to have my previously purposeless wall all filled out with importance and organization now

Spring Beauty

I just had to share my garden with you. Last fall I decided that the iris that came with the house 5 years ago were taking up a lot of real-estate without any benefits. They were compacted and heaving out of the ground and I decided it was time to thin and replant the younger rhizomes. That is garden talk for roots. So I began digging piles of them up and throwing what I didn’t want into the wooded vacant lot next door. Boy is that handy! I spent so much time on the Victory Garden last year, which you can see here, that my yard beds went unloved. Bad mom! So this spring I have been rewarded with a beautiful array of color.

It looks like an Easter basket out there.  One thing that people told us when we moved to Tennessee, is that “everything grows here.”  I just had to share my Iris. I have been cutting them and bringing them in to enjoy.

You should see the beautiful Iris standing proud in the vacant lot. I have actually thrown my pansy leftovers out there and one tomato  plant last year and they bloomed and produced cherry tomatoes.

I had scads of petunias pop up around my Camellia bushes and there has never been petunias there since I have lived here . Sometimes I wonder if there is a garden fairy in my yard. The Phlox in the front was started two years ago and really thickened up for this year. We did have more rain this winter and added pine straw to the bed, which makes me wonder if these are possibly acid loving plants. I know the Azaleas are and they are beautiful. I do fertilize them in the late spring and fall. And oh yeah, I have to show you the vacant lot display.

I added a few shots of the back yard flowers around the pond. I love the Salomon Seal on the back side of the pond. They will droop their pretty white flowers over the pond. My neighbor, Diane, shared them with me and I just love them. They will spread as time goes by.

The Lucky Winner Is…. Danielle!

Today Is the give away of the green stretch bracelet and our avid follower , Danielle from Storypiece, is the lucky winner. She has her own blog at Storypiece that you should check out. She has a real fun post on making cards today.  Danielle has been following us since we started and we have followed her as well. Thanks Danielle and I hope you love your new bracelet! Happy blogging