sales

i've been trying to decide on artwork for the focal wall in our dining room. i'm 90% sure i'm going to try my hand at abstract painting. but every now and then i come across artwork online that makes me reconsider my decision. today i found these on one kings lane, as part of their emerging artist sale. love them. and great prices. (one kings lanes is a member only sale site... if you need an invite, let me know!)

by michelle armas

by cozamia

and speaking of the dining room, we also just made this purchase for the chandelier. it's from restoration hardware. if you didn't know, restoration hardware is currently having their friends and family sale until july 4th. 20% off of full price merchandise. the code is 'friends'. so with a little help from that sale and a buildup of american express points turned into gift certificates, we got it for about 25% it's original cost. i love it when that happens.

my trip home

before i get to my trip home to pennsylvania..... how did it get to be june?!? (i love my calendar from alex)

here are some photos from my long weekend visiting family. i put together a container pot for my sister's back porch. my motto when assembling garden pots is "more is more". this one has penstemon, chili pepper, daisy, stonecrop, and vinca.

much to my dismay i can't get from dallas to harrisburg in a nonstop flight. this was my 2nd flight from detroit into the harrisburg area. i hate small planes. and funny story... on my first flight i caught my seat mate staring at my reading material. yes, it was 50 shades of grey (i think i'm the only person still reading paperbacks!). in a fit of embarrassment, i blurted out "please don't judge me." he said "don't worry, my wife's on #3.

i did a little shopping. this will be my swimsuit coverup. my suit is teal. i love the floral pattern.

i found this cute summery rope belt at the jcrew outlet.

i

we went to the arts festival on the river in harrisburg. this was the first booth. i resisted buying the world's largest eclair.

i bought this print for my sister awhile ago. it's by michelle armas. funny... she framed it in the same frame i put winston in.

and now thankfully it's time for another weekend. have a great one!

meet winston

we got some new art in the house recently. when i dropped my flamingo giclee off at michael's for framing a few weeks ago, i joked with the nice clerk that he needed a name and said she should think of one. when i went to pick it up, there was a note written on the receipt. it said, "please tell customer i named him winston".

therefore, meet winston. isn't he regal. i love the simple matte brushed gold frame i chose.

he's in our dining room. we painted the walls jasper by sherwin williams. it's a gorgeous deep dark marine color.

a few weeks ago, ally posted this gorgeous snippet of a room with shades of navy, pink, fuschia, and gold. i immediately thought of winston and my dining room wall color. i love this color combo with a touch of gold.

 

and opposite winston, sits this oil painting. you may remember the canvas from this post. i bought this landscape in seattle and my sister left it at a parking toll booth in our parking garage. thankfully, we managed to get it back. i finally measured it and found that it was a standard size canvas and bought a premade frame for it at michael's. i think it's just the finishing touch it needs.

bits of our weekend

our weekend started with a trip to the local minor league baseball field friday evening to see these folks. as you can see below, we had very good seats.
seats so good this sign was no joke.
thankfully, no balls or bats came flying in our direction. that's good because i'm a slow reactor.

it was a beautiful evening and we had fun watching what folks will do to get their face on a jumbo tron.

saturday morning i headed to a local warehouse where a design store was having a sale. 15 minutes of shopping, 45 minutes in a checkout line, and here's what i walked away with...

landscape oil #1.
landsape oil #2.
and a blue/white ginger jar.
all 3 items added up to less than the original price of the ginger jar. score.

and on sunday i overdid my workout so that i'm now very concerned about bootcamp tonight. pixel and i jogged 1.5 miles (good for her as we're rehabilitating her leg from her partially torn acl and good for me as i have not run that far in one spell in awhile). and i followed that up with some weight training and a bikeride up and down, up and down, and up and down the hills in our neighborhood. i'm sore.

new art

we've got some new art around the house. a few weeks ago, i was ordering some stuff from paper source, one of my favorite stores. and i added this sheet paper/gift wrap , for $2.50, to my cart. i loved the colors and it went with the "theme" i've got going on in a hallway. i know what you're thinking.....and i don't like "themed" spaces either. don't worry, it's a very loose theme revolving around my husband's past water activites. and the colors lined up with my kitchen colors. the kitchen is at the end of that hallway.
i went to michael's and found this weathered wooden frame which is just perfect for the sheet wrap.
across the hall is this map. my mother-in-law brought it to me when she visited recently. i sometimes get a little worried when she says she's bringing something to us. she'll often call and say she found some of steve's old stuff in a closet while cleaning out her house and ask if i want it. this one she brought without asking. she knows that i like maps. she hit the nail on the head with this one. i love it! it's an aged map from steve's boy scout days.
the black line steve drew in. it was their canoeing path.she and i went to michael's and had it framed. we chose the frame together. and it's perfect.the last piece of artwork, which i didn't photograph, is some photos from steve's coast guard days. see, everything revolves around water, the theme.

this hall will soon be covered with this grasscloth. it'll be the perfect backdrop for all the art.

what i've been up to

steve was in ohio this past weekend surprising his mother for her birthday. i worked on some projects around the house. of course.

i bought this picture at a garage sale for $1 before we left seattle. i bought it for the frame.
here's a sneak peek of what i'm doing with it. i found this super fun fabric in albuquerque nm on our road trip from seattle to dallas. it's the ghastlies by alexander henry. and i painted the frame hot pink. it'll be a quirky addition on a dining room wall.
i also spent a lot of time framing some of my favorite artwork and hanging a small gallery wall in our breakfast nook/desk area. you'll see more of this area when i recover and paint the chairs in here. fabric for those is on the way.
and, steve and i went to homegoods last night! my first trip ever. yes, ever. washington state doesn't have a homegoods. somebody needs to rectify that.

ummm, maybe we hit it on a bad night, but i was expecting a little bit more. we did buy a pair of these lamps for our master bedroom, but sadly they don't work in the bedroom like i thought. love the lamps, but i'll be returning them and maybe picking up another pair i saw.
and lastly, occupying my time this morning was a trip to the dentist. ugh. i hate dentists. nothing personal to all you dentists out there. steve and i literally had dental check ups on our last day living in seattle so we wouldn't have to deal with finding a dentist here in dallas right away. yesterday while eating my lunch, i forgot to take the fork out of my mouth before biting down and chipped my front tooth. yikes. small chip, but still, it needed attention. nothing like going to a new dentist and having him work on your oh-so-obvious front tooth. but he did a fantastic job. and i'm snaggletooth no longer.

rachel austin

i already own several prints by portland artist rachel austin. i just spotted this in her etsy shop. i love it!!
and according to her blog, it'll be available on canvas from sundance and llbean. congratulations rachel!

this....

found here at little brown pen reminds me of sunshine. it's in the forecast for this weekend. sunshine that is. finally. 70s and sunshine. we seattle-ites have waited a long long time for it. i might go do cartwheels.

this little guy....

sits on a bench in our powder room. i painted him. awhile ago. while i was taking watercolor classes here. that was back when we lived in atlanta.
my mother-in-law coveted this painting and threatened to slip it into her suitcase on her last visit here. like i wouldn't notice it was gone. i made a mental note to paint one for her. it would look perfect in her newly redone bathroom where she wanted to hang it. i planned on painting it for last mother's day. didn't happen. planned on it for her birthday. it didn't happen. planned on it for a christmas gift. didn't happen. it was one week before this mother's day and i thought about it again. i already had the frame bought. i just had to sit down and paint it. and then i had a brilliant idea... do what other painters do. make prints of their original artwork! so off i went to have it scanned. it turned out beautiful. so much so that i made a print for my mother also. i framed my mil's in a dark aqua lacquer frame from pottery barn. and my mother's in a gold frame. and shipped them out last week. they loved them.

cake!

my birthday is coming up this monday. it's a big one. big ones for me end in 0 or 5. this one ends in 5. you'll have to guess which decade.

i started my no carb, no sugar diet monday. perfect timing, huh? no cake for me on my birthday.
that's ok... i'll take one of these instead. giclee prints by paul ferney. do you know of him? he's jordan's husband. i read her blog.


he's having a sale on his cake prints. just $25! normally $39.

they collaborated on this project. she baked the cakes and he painted them. cool, huh?

recent finds of the week

our community garage sale (one of 3 every year) was yesterday and friday. yesterday hubby and i went out scouting. i got these. knobs. heavy, top quality, retro-looking knobs. a box of 40 for $25. yes, that's right. only $25. i spent time yesterday cleaning them and replacing my old kitchen knobs.
my old knob on the left. half a dozen of the old knobs weigh the same as one of the new knobs, they're that heavy.
on the cabinets. and they'll look even better when we have the cabinets painted, wayyyy down the road.
butter dish. $2. i needed a fancy one. i thought it would look good on my rustic farmhouse table.
oil painting from an antique store near pike place market, seattle. i liked it because it reminded me of here, where we live.
bought it and then lost it. well, my sister lost it. she left it propped against the parking booth when she paid our parking lot ticket. we drove 30 mins home only to find out it wasn't in the car. luckily, hubby and brother-in-law were just leaving baseball game downtown and were able to swing by and pick it up. the garage attendant still had it.

mom bought me this print of the seattle market at a little art store on whidbey island where we visited this week. i found the frame in the as-is department of an art store, 75% off. i like it better then if it were not as-is.

penny and her peacocks...

may have to come live with me. isn't she fabulous? found here.

lovin' this

by artist kate long stevenson

these are my colors. the colors for my new office. love it.

(found via isuwanee)

foyer redo

this is the before. a little boring, huh. or rather a lot boring. it's ok, you can agree with me. actually i did have a few more items on display (like stuff with some height so the picture doesn't look like it's hanging in mid-air like now) but removed them in haste, stored them and then realized i hadn't taken a photo. i was too lazy to put them back. in the foyer, one level lower than the rest of the house, there's only one wall to style. to my right is the front door. to my left is the door to the garage.

i'd outgrown the red. and it wasn't representative of our decor any more. i have no other red in my house. therefore, time for this puppy to get a new coat of paint.

here she is. sporting rainstorm by sherwin williams. in high gloss enamel. and some dazzling jewelry from anthropologie.


atop sits my matchbook collection. i love these. i pick one up whenever i see them.

and the full gallery wall, using my train photos.
please ignore the glare. it's very hard to get a photo without one since there's a window directly behind me here. i think it's definitely an improvement from the before and more representative of the style and colors of the rest of the house.

lesson learned.... next gallery wall i do will be random. photos at random widths and heights. this was tough. 4 hours of my life i'll never get back.