Sponsor Love

Stop by and see what our super sweet sponsors have been up to:

Signs of our Time

Old New Again

Etsy Finds

1. Zebra Hat: Ellie Bellie Design

2. A Line Jumper Tunic: Little Boats

3. Lets Shag Pillow: Sew English

4. The Black Swan: Ballet Art

5. The Captain Fringe: Kove

6. Organic Sheep Baby Blanket: Sewn Natural

Enjoy your Weekend

Bro with some peaches

With late summer and early Autumn it's time for the fruit lady and delicious peach season.  Mini-buns and I spent all morning and part of an afternoon making a peach pit ring.  Remember those?  That's a blast from my past...I remember sitting on the curb with my best friends sanding down the peach pit on the sidewalk and within no time we had a ring!  But for some reason to my adult mind, it seemed to take FOREVER!!

Have a great weekend and check out a few cool things we found from around the web:

When my son brings the garden hose inside the house and turns it on I like to count to 10 and then look at this, this or this...and think, it wasn't that bad.

A quirky Chick Flick weekend

A Beard and Mustache Competition, how fun!

The creepiest of Halloween table settings

Pretty Maps

(Prettymaps sfba)

These are my colors!!  Can't wait to get my copy and hang it up.  This pretty little map is by

  Aaron Straup Cope and featured on  20x200 a Jen Bekman Project.

Etsy Finds

1. Bumble Bee Bloomers: Peeper Doodle

2. Where The Wild Things Are: Paula and Erika

3. Fox: Sewn Natural

4. Little Red Ridinghood: Lover Dovers

5. Leprechaun: Carter 2 Campbell

6. Whimsical Fairy: The Ritzy Pixie

Neighborhood Gang

There's nothing like the neighborhood gang.

Bike in Style.

Meet Mini buns

She's my daughter, my Mini-buns.  She's smart, kind, cute, funny, great roller-skater, loves animals, bikes, her BFF and her Grandma and adores the color green.  Any and all shades of the color green.

 And when I re-modeled her bedroom she wanted everything to be green...

Green Green Green.  

Don't get me wrong, I love green too.  But imagine green walls, green bedding, headboard, dresser...I wasn't so sure I loved green that much!

So here's a partial sneak peak at my semi-green solution...

I have the basics of this room but now I'd like to add some unexpected pops of Green.  Maybe a sweeping green canopy above the bed and more green accent pillows, or a green slipcover for the papasan chair in the window, green crystals to hang in the window or a kelly green chandelier! Any ideas?

P.S.  I am not a fan of purple or periwinkle or violet or lilac or mulberry but I love how this periwinkle-ish color is such a calming background for the greens in the room.

Here comes the weekend

Have a great weekend and enjoy the beginnings of Autumn!  We celebrated the beginnings of Autumn this morning with an another Ode To Oatmeal and a bike ride to school.


And here are few cool little things we found from around the web:


Speaking of bikes, look at this bike on a bottle.


A boho spanish wedding braid


Our local gal, Becki from Whippy Cake, shows us how to braid


A gypsy caravan...perfect!


Dancing shoes


Enjoy!

Hey Locals!

This one is for you.

It's a shout-out for I Heart Mesa a local blog I really dig.
Why do I dig them?  Cause they are all about my 'hood', Mesa Arizona.  And they list loads of cool local happenings like the farmers market (best produce!) and every Thursday night is free admission to the Mesa Arts Center or even mentioning this new market near my house called Pool (I hear there is a magnificent cupcake shop inside) and the coming soon but not yet listed home decor/furniture Swap.

But really, what I wanted to say was...If you want to run, jog or walk join us, cause I'm joining them for the Shun the Sun Skin Cancer Run.  You know how running is, the more people cheering you on the easier it is.  I Heart Mesa doesn't have a team but wouldn't it be great to meet each other at the starting line, do a few stretches and give everyone a 'high 5'?  Then after, we could hoard around the sample tables...

(My girl and I exhausted after a little race we ran.)

Light is Magic

Light is magic...

I read that in Elle Decor so it must be true.   Magic has happened in our office.  This discarded lamp was found at GW on dollar day.  Hurray for dollar day!!  Here it is:

(The round towheaded boy is my little man of chaos)

and a closer look:

and the before pic:

I was having one of those
terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days
when I came home and saw these on our table with a very sweet note.  

Matt (the Man of my house, and someday soon, I will officially introduce you) surprised me with pink roses!  Somehow, that very thoughtful act whisked away my terrible day.  Thank you sweets!

xoxo


And now, I want to pay it forward.

We remember

a little self promotion...

I'm happy to say that we've finally opened up Our Etsy Shop, this has been in the works for a while now and it's good to finally have it done. So far it's just kids birthday party and wedding invitations, but we have great plans for our little store, vintage finds, great threads, up-cycled furniture...any great decor we can no longer fit into our rapidly growing collections. Here is a sample of what I've been up to...

This is the wedding shower invitation I used for our Mad Hatter Tea Party!

find it here

find it here

find it here

find it here

find it here

Bike in Style

It's the end of Summer!

Mad tea party bridal shower

                 falling...

                                   

                                         tumbling............. 

                             careening........

              down the

                             rabbit hole 

                and landing feet first 
                               in the center of

                                   our Mad Tea Party Bridal Shower.

Roger that

Dad picked up our discarded radio and speakers from our old record player project and whipped out a whole new stereo system! Perfect for the shop.

These stereo bits have been through the ringer.  They are at least 40 years old, 

they've been discarded, abandoned, beat, burned and finally found in the 'as is' section 

of our thrift store.  

Our Dad is a genius and can save just about anything and anyone.

We love you! 

p.s. his name is 'Roger'

Bike rush hour

This clip is fantastic!
Can you believe that over one third of people commute in the Netherlands?  My first thought was...what about the snow?  But I saw other videos with people riding their bikes in the snow too!
Love it!!!

Up-Cycled Record Player

I see these all the time and am intrigued by their interesting shapes and uselessness.  With all our technology and a million instant songs on our miniature iPods...these old record players are dinosaurs.  

                      
But, there is something fantastic about the scratchy, authentic sounds of music coming from an old record player.  
No wonder musicians are turning back to the vinyl.

Remember our cousin who got married this summer?  Amy and I bought this for her wedding gift:

An old record console!  Queen Ann legs and curvy lines this little gal wanted a new life.  We paid a couple bucks to the cashier and loaded it in the Toyota.

We sketched our plans.  Paint (our cousin loves turquoise and orange), replace the panels, check the stereo, record player and speakers.

 This would make a great sideboard or entry table.  And it would be so so so cool if the turntable still worked.  Can you imagine some mellow, crackly version of Louie Armstrong setting the mood for the evening.  I like!

But, it didn't.  According to our locally employed Peppertowne Engineer, there had once been a small fire inside the console burning and destroying the record player.  A small fire!  WOW!  But the speakers and radio stereo survived the flames.  Click here to see what happened to them.

After a little bit of

 The finished product!

We love it!  It was so perfect we used it for our cousins' tea party themed bridal shower.

It's not very often that Amy and I get to work a project together.
So this table holds a little sentimental value now.