May 11 : A Smile

Just one of my many elephant paraphernalia in the house. This elephant helps us keep hands clean. It holds the hand towel and says with a smile, "Dry your hands!" Takes 'service with a smile' to the next level.

Found: More books!

Going on a book craze here, but found these awesome pictures on Pinterest and just wanted to share with you book buddies! Enjoy, and happy week ahead!



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Now wouldn't this be an awesome nursery?

Found: Crates and Barrels

Ever since my weekend on the Chadbourne Farm, I've been dreaming of redecorating our house, or just adding special touches to the home.

Here are some nifty ideas refashioned from crates and barrels. So neat!






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I'd love a beautiful organic bucket like this!



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Crates on wheels!


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Half a barrel makes a whole side table!


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Be creative with your spaces


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Vintage barrel repurpose


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This one is my favorite. Repurposed from pallets into wall shelving units. How creative!!

Have an inspiring home decor week ahead!

Found: Jonathan Adler

Lovely Jess from Avant-Garde Living sent me this link from Jonathan Adler's collection on Nordstrom.

Found a few more awesome (elephant) ones to share!!

Aren't they cute!



Salt and Pepper shakers




Light of my life!



Darjeeling Tea, anyone?




ok. no more elephants. i promise. just one more from jonathan adler






Whale bookends!

Thrifting: Prints for the home!

Source: design-seeds.com via chuiying on Pinterest

Our walls are looking a tad plain. I think it's about time to dress them up.
Found the above image on designseeds.com, which by the way is a great site for color palette inspirations, go check it out!

My living room walls are a shade of forest green like the first color in the palette above, and the craft room is a pebble gray like the 3rd color.

I was hunting out frames for some pictures/ paintings/photos i already own and found this set at Goodwill today.



I think I love them on the green walls! And I love the gardening theme too! We got a seed catalogue in the mail and they have some lovely full page photos of fruits and vegetables that I might want to cut out, mount and frame. I'm keeping a look out for pictures/photos of birds / mushrooms / plants for the house. Here are some on the wishlist!






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Crafting: DIY Christmas tree tutorial

Just because we didn't get a Christmas tree for the house...




doesn't mean I can't have one!

So...I made my own DIY tree!

All you need:

1 styrofoam cone
1 styrofoam ball (or whatever tree top ornament you like)
Yarn (whatever color you desire. I stuck to traditional green)
Pearl studded pins
Styrofoam filler balls for ornaments on tree
Glitter
Sequins
Tree base (i used a recycled cardboard bucket turned upside down)
Cotton wool
Glue gun

To make the tree, I used the glue gun to affix yarn to styrofoam cone. Wind it from the base to the top. Set aside to dry.

Then i started making the tree top ornament, a disco ball sorta vibe. I glued sequins (one by one) all around the styrofoam ball, burning my finger tips countless times, so please be careful! You may use a pair of tweezers to help you in this process.

If you want to cover up the excess spaces in between the sequins, brush elmer's glue all over the ball (after the hot glue has cooled and hardened) and roll ball around in glitter. I didn't have any liquid glue on hand so i omitted this step.

Hot glue the ornament to the top of the tree.

Stick pearl pins and styrofoam balls randomly around tree.

Hot glue tree to base. Then glue cotton wool around base of tree to hide the tail end of yarn.



Ta-daa!!!

The necessary evil of Online shopping!

Especially if there's free shipping! Woot!

I was shopping for the J-man's Xmas presents (check!) when my itchy fingers skimmed over these websites:



Urban Outfitters

where I got us some new sheets.



J got the Amazon Prime this year and got me an iron. So here's the latest additions to the craft room:



And then i went on Etsy and found two cute vintage Coats & Clark embroidery magazines. Can you believe they used to be only 29cents each?



And i just got my groove on into making this year's Christmas presents, so busy busy times ahead!!

How's your holiday shopping getting along?

Not another Craft Fair??!!

Oh yes!

I'm preparing for another fair, this time on the sunny island of Singapore.

Which means I'm also going home soon!! In not one, not two, but F-O-U-R days' time. Oh i wish time would fly by!! Swing by the Red Dot Museum my friends! The craft fair is held on Friday, 11.11.11 (what an awesome date!) between 5pm-12midnight. Hopefully, the jet lag will keep me bouncing off the walls even at such late hours!

I haven't been crafting for it though, so i'm just going to be selling what was left over from the last fair. I actually made do with what I found in the storage shed in our backyard. The last tenants before us left some stuff in the shed and after rummaging through it yesterday, I found a table and these!




A cute little chair and stool!

The painting and candle sconces were gifts from the J-man's grandma. So this is the beginnings of some decency in my craft room. But i was able to sit down at my sewing machine yesterday... such joy! On my FIRST day off in THREE WEEKS! i don't know how much more i can emphasize my joy! I was also busy finishing my friend's backorder for my embroidered Matryoshka dolls, so i was sewing and embroidering ALL DAY. Love it!!!!

I still have the next three evenings to craft, pack for my trip, and do some laundry.



I've made a few trips to the coin laundry now, and the novelty is wearing off. Can somebody buy me a washer and dryer PUHLEAAASSSEEE!!!

Russell Residences Part I

Hello friends!!!

Finally got the internet hooked up in our new place! We found out from our neighbor that our house is at least 75 years old!!! He invited us to pick his veggies from his garden any time we want! So sweet! We offered him some long beans from ours but he politely declined because he said he had more than enough vegetables to go around. I hope it's not because he thinks our beans are inferior... :(

So anyway, here are the latest pictorial updates of our home:




I think the color red goes so lovely with dark wood. And I adore the bedroom set that was given to us. Don't you think it's just total old-fashioned cuteness?!!





I found this picture stowed away in one of the closets in the house. So I decided to set it out!





My favorite part of the house, the cosiest by far! The couch, loveseat and coffee table were given to us! It's so vintage!!! J'adore!!!



Check out the size of our fridge minibar. We need to get a fridge this weekend. Halp! We've been getting groceries one day at a time because there's just no room for weekly meals. But we've been doing lots of cooking in the kitchen so that's awesome! The J-man has made fried rice, chicken curry, oyaku-don and baked chicken wings so far and mm-mm home-cooked food is the BOMB!



The craft room is non-existent, this is the only part that is "set-up". My crafting supplies are in this dresser, which J thinks is hideous. I do see the potential in dressing it up. Think lace doilies, a picture frame above it, kitschy knick knacks atop. Alright alright!! I do need the storage space so it's staying! The rest of the room is piled with boxes half unpacked, so i'm not going to show you the mess. Hehe, or maybe I will:



Bleagh.

No crafting so far because we don't have a decent table for that. I have crafting withdrawals... *spasms*



Here's Don Vito chilling like a villain in his corner.



The J-man's ONE contribution to dressing up this house. His childhood prized collection -- this glass chess set.


It's almost a home!

Welcome to the Russell Residences!

So here's the little house we will be renting



So the bad thing is that the house is unfurnished. I know it usually is, but then the good news is we get to pick out our own stuff! though they will mostly be given or thrifted, but hey! more excuses to go thrifting!


I love the color of the walls in the living area!



This is linked to the kitchen so i'm guessing it's a dining area, but guess what? IT'S GOING TO BE MY CRAFT ROOM (i call first dibs!) even though the J-man doesn't know that yet. We can totally sit on the couch for our meals. D-uh.


What i love about our house (other than the fact that it is OURS) is the amount of sunlight that filters in through the windows. We've been there several times in the day now and the living and dining areas get so much light!!! That just makes me happy.

Did i mention that we have a lil 80 yr old neighbor who has the biggest garden patch?? well, technically that patch is in OUR yard, but he has them all planted out in nice little neat rows, we figured we'll let him take charge. He's also got sacks of sweet potatoes in his back porch. Now, this is ONE guy we need to get to know better. Think of all that wealth of gardening knowledge!!! And we don't want to start off our neighborly relations on the wrong foot by insisting on getting our yard back, do we?

My brain is going crazy with decorating ideas, but before we do any of that, we've got to get some electrical issues sorted out. We tried to start the stove the other day and the kitchen lights came on instead. Err.. hello? So utility glitches aside, we are mighty pleased and way over excited. Here's a little secretary desk i found on Craigslist that I'm hoping to get as a table for my sewing machine (if budget allows).



So what do you think? Will keep y'all posted! Send decor ideas this way please!!