Bookshelf Styling + Ottoman Dance

How fabulous is this nursery?!?!  I mean really!  I helped my friend/partner at Novel. (Lauren) do a little bookshelf styling in her little girl's nursery.  I 'm not sure why she called on me because the girl has ridiculous style herself!!!  This nursery is to die for!!!!!  It is a huge room with super tall ceilings and a lot of gorgeous sunlight pouring in.  Lauren has also been a huge supporter of my business and just happened to have a few of my paintings hanging in the nursery!!  Love, love, love seeing them hung in a home!

Gorgeous baby girl!!!

Below is the wildflower tapestry I did last year to hang in Novel.  I think it looks so cute hanging above the fireplace in her room!!!

Love this little arrangement of pictures above her chest.  The picture on the far right is a framed 1st birthday invitation from her little girl's party.  How cute right?!  The other two paintings were two I painted that just happened to work perfectly with the colors in the invitation.

Ummm dying over this daybed and headboard!!  She just got the nailhead headboard back from the upholsterer and how great does it look!!!  Loving her Urban Outfitters (can't find online now???) spread and all those plush velvet pillows...one lucky baby girl lives here!!!!

Switching gears now, I had a wonderful surprise this week.  Take a look at what my friend Harriet did with my fabric (middle blue and white chevron)....

Ta Da!!!!!!!

Excuse the absolute mess /dog in the background but just keeping things real around here.  How amazing did it turn out?!!!  I told her I didn't want a slipcover because it shifts around too much and I didn't want it upholstered because I wanted to take it off and wash it. 

 Hmmm.... whats a girl to do???

VELCRO

She put velcro on the underside so the fabric overlaps itself to stay in place.  How ingenious in my book because I am totally not handy/inventive when it comes to sewing!!!

And sorry, had to do it, Mr. Big (who is HUGE now and looks silly in diapers but he is still under 2 1/2) needed to make an appearance.  

This child is my crazy one.

Happy weekend folks!!!

What do you know.....

They sell miniature Alpacas.  

Can you guess where I'm talking about? 

  

World Market of all places!!  

Who da thunk it????

I have to admit, I have never really given World Market much thought.  I have always thought for some reason that they had random knick knacks for the house (such as stuffed alpacas).   Let me tell you now, they have some GOOOD things at great deals!!!  I was wrong about this place.  Most of these below images are on SALE too so click below and check out their new site!  

Etsy Update

Since Etsy has made a comeback in my life lately, I decided I needed to update my shop and fill that void on the right side of my blog page. 

 So here you go, my shop has been updated...a tad.

Tease

16"x 20"

$65 

(unframed)

Yellow Sea

16"x 20"

$65 

(unframed)

Blush

24"x24"

$175

(gallery wrapped)

Transparency

20"x 20"

$50 

(unframed)

Straight & Narrow

16"x16"

$75

(unframed)

You like my little camel friend?  I thought he added the pop of color I needed against each piece of art.  I still have many more to upload but a good start so far.  

* These are being sold without frames but if you are local we can work something out!

End-O-Summa + Sheridan French

First of all can we talk about how typical this is?  I have looked at all of these perfect little pics of everyone else's kids dressed to impress on their front steps ready for their first day of school over the last two weeks and look at this.  I swear, I really took 15 pictures and not a one turned out "cute" but alas, typical!  These two are funny bunnies but I gotta tell you it was a sweet moment to have them both exit the car today around 8:45 for a few hours of church preschool!!!  

Yip Yip Yippeee!! 

 Been waiting on this day since May 16!!!!!

Ha. Kidding...a little.

 In light of the End-O-Summa we had a little shindig over the weekend with a few neighborhood folks.  Here are a few shots pre-party.

Thinking about putting this spread at the foot of my bed!!!  

What do you think?

Rental chairs aren't so sweet but the idea was there.  It's hard to tell but my hubby hung strands of lights  across the yard above the tables.  I always roll my eyes at how obsessed he is a working in the yard, but I got to say I'm so glad he is. 

And last week I made a trip to the plant nursery and spied a single stem fiddle leaf fig that would be perfect in our living room....

Terrible pic but here she is.  I will show you later this week the planter I used for her-think 

ex-toybox.

Ok, I know I'm switching gears here but is this skirt not fab?!?! It looks to me like pink Fiddle Leaf Fig leaves, right?  Well, you can see more here of Sheridan French's 2013 Spring Collection.  Good stuff to see here my dears!

FYI Yes, that is her, gorgeous as ever with three babes under 3!!!!

A little yard arrangement

Moving on to Sunday AM, desperate for entertainment, the boys picked up on the lack of supervision and went to town digging up our plant beds and spraying the hose at any and everything!

One thing I did accomplish yesterday while the kiddos were in school was finally finishing and shipping this 3 part 20"x20" fish painting.  Hope the client likes it for her little boy's room!

My sweet kindergardener...Lego Ninja necklace and all!!!

Watercolor Walls

Ok, this may be old news, but have you seen these watercolor walls by Black Crow Studios?  I am obsessed and would love to to this to our long hallway leading to the bedrooms!!  How cool would that be.  

Ahhmazing!!!!!!

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Tuesday Food Day

No Tahini Hummus

I should have "styled" this a little better but considering the chaos going on around me, this was the best I could do.

1 can chick peas-reserve the liquid and add as needed to thin out the mixture( I use Progresso)

1/2 lemon 

Salt

1-2 garlic cloves

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 teaspoon Cumin

dash (or a lot) of Ground Red Pepper (Cayenne)

This is such an easy recipe that I love having on hand but forget to make very often!  It is so perfect to have as an afternoon snack with celery and carrots or dipping pretzel thins into.  It all started when I didn't have Tahini on hand but wanted to make hummus.  So, I decided to give it a whirl without it!  And it was good!  

I don't have a food processor or any other fancy gadget to puree with so I stick all of my ingredients in the blender and it works just fine!  My boys, who won't eat anything these days, love it so I can't make it spicy at all.  You know that's hard for me since I love to feel the burn!!!  So I add Sriracha on top, in my separate container, and LOVE IT!!!!

Weekend Happenings

We are in Spring cleaning mode around here.  I guess I should call it "End of Summer Get this Junk Out of Here that we NEVER use/play with" mode.  I think I needed a moving break after moving back into our house in May.  I did the major parts of getting the house together and partially organized but now it's time to get those last little details finished.  Like finally hanging pictures on the wall, decluttering our upstairs room to actually make it an office/guest bedroom/ art studio, and moving our entire linen closet from upstairs to a more logical place-downstairs (where all the bedrooms and baths are:)  What was I thinking when we moved back in?



Hoping to have an after sometime this week!!!

We also did a little turtle hunting with my buds...

a litte shopping with Library: Archives of Fashion at Novel.  I am really kind of digging this new top!  What do you think about it paired with the light green jeans?

Still obsessing over my Jane Pope Collection necklace!!!  

Find yours here.

Worked on a new children's painting.  

Planning to hang from a wooden dowel on both top and bottom.

Also in the midst of a new abstract...

Sent a few fabrics to a friend to make into pillows and to recover our ottoman (blue and white fabric on far right from Designers Attic) in the playroom!!  Can't wait to see how they turn out!!!



Had a Novel. Girls night out at CO last week which was much needed and productive!  If you live in Charleston you must check out CO.  It is a new Vietnamese style restaurant on King Street (happens to be right across the street from Novel.!!

Hope you have a great week!!!  

We are getting shutters put on the house today-woohoo!!!!

Blake Avenue

Not sure about you, but Etsy has come back on my radar as of late.  It reminded me that I  really needed to update my shop, seeing that it has had NOTHING IN IT for about 6 months!!!  Pitiful that I let it go that far!!!!  Any who, while browsing around I stumbled upon Blake Avenue.  Have you heard of it?  Me either until now.  And oh my goodness, how beautiful are these pieces?!!!  Right up my alley!!!  Their tag line reads  "Sustainable Elements for your Modern Habitat"

Go have a look....

Shenandoah Desk

Jackson Table

Modern Reclaimed Wood Growth Dresser

Mt. Whitney Chair

Tuesday Food Day

Arugula Pesto

This may sound totally unappealing to most of you, but I promise it was good and really low in fat the way I made it.  I wish you could see more of the cous cous in the above picture.  Had I realized I was going to post about the actual pesto I would have taken better pictures of the steps I took!!!  I get grumpy and hungry come supper time around here (so does the hubster) leaving little wiggle room for the "perfect pic" of the meal I have created!!!  Anyway, above, I put the Israeli Cous Cous (larger grains than typical cous cous), that  I tossed with the pesto, on top of a bed of arugula-like arugula much??  As you may remember from last week's post, I put roasted zucchini and fresh tomatoes and feta on top.  Yumm!!!!

A LOT of Basil

3-4 garlic cloves

2-3 handfuls of arugula

chicken broth

Parmesan Cheese-(grated from 365 form Whole Foods is a fave)

olive oil

S+P as needed

I put all of these above ingredients in the blender and ran until pesto consistency.  I added chicken broth as needed but you could also use water if trying to stay low fat or olive oil to make it even better.  In my recipe I just use a very small amount of EVOO but I think the more you use the better it tastes sometimes!!

I have made this same recipe, but substitute the arugula with spinach and that is even better in my opinion!!!  You could totally add pine nuts or walnuts but I don't A) because I never have them on hand and B) trying to stay lower in fat.  Perfect to put on a pizza, toss with cous cous, make spaghetti, top off bruschetta or put a dollop on shrimp/chicken/fish..

On a completely unrelated note, I made pancakes this weekend from a mix I picked up at Trader Joe's.

  The mix calls for milk, eggs and oil.  I had no oil, except for olive oil.  I also had no applesauce to substitute in for the oil.  So, I put my cooking cap on and rifled around the fridge and found some low fat sour cream.  I thought, well, people make biscuits and cakes with sour cream sometimes, why not try it in pancake mix?  So, I did and also added vanilla extract and raw sugar.  Let me tell you they were delicious and low fat to boot!!!!  Just an FYI if you ever get in a pinch, try sour cream.  I bet greek yogurt would have worked as well.  

Pump Fake

Thats what I did all weekend.  Filling up online shopping carts and never checking out.  Ughhh.  So much cool stuff out there but completely indecisive and undiagnosed ADD
(at least when it comes to the WWW)
 A few shops I'm coveting...

Amber Interior Design's Shoppe

All images via Amber Interior Design....

Which then led me too Jamie Meares Shop 

Furbish

While then getting sidetracked, I moved over to Furbish's blog  (totally went back in the archives) and found a link to this Etsy Shop.

Pump Fake no more. 

"Busy Bodies"

I hit the Checkout button and this print should be arriving sometime this week. 

Squeals of excitement coming from this end!!!!

Isn't it great?!!  I find it so humorous for some reason.

 Now where to put it....