playing catch up

It has been a while since I have had a chance to update my blog. Things have been busy and updates to the house haven't been as often as I would like but we still manage to bring stuff in.

Here are photos of the latest gems that we brought back from our Sunday favorite...the flea market.

Above is a photograph of our new taxidermy deer. We think its German. The eyes are hand blown glass and the mount is carved wood. The photograph doesn't really do our new friend justice. He is such a sweetie.


Next we have a metal....dustable of honest Abe Lincoln. Abe's head wasn't attached but once we put it on the bench sandwiched between him and his hat it seemed like it was meant to be.


And finally a new office chair. We have had such a hard time finding something small and comfortable that would fit inside our small office area. We found this little gem for $20. not bad for the perfect chair.

curtains at last

We started our apartment renovation in September and we really went at it full force for at least 3 months. I was so happy to have the time and energy to be able to make our place feel like a home. It has been a real challenge lately as the real world of job searches and obligations have been sneaking in and spoiling the fun. I would love to figure out a way to do this full time and make money at it. (if anyone has any ideas on how this might be possible please let me know) At any rate I have been focusing more on details that have been left undone to sort of finish things up. I say sort of because it will never be finished. You bring things in you take things out. You rearrange or you get tired of a color what have you. Anyway for those of you that have followed us from the beginning you know that we have been needing curtains for months. With all of the cold weather we have had combined with my unwillingness to look at the fabric that had been stapled up in lieu of curtains for even one more day I was finally motivated to stop everything else and make the damn curtains already.

Staying within our general theme of faded Cuban glamour as our bedroom inspiration I bought fabric a while back that had the best old world striped pattern. I also went on an ebay mission to find curtain hardware that I liked. This took a good month to round all of the hardware up. I ended up choosing the finials, brackets and curtain hooks that you see below. I really looked for things that I liked and it turns out that all of the hardware is from the Victorian era. The curtain rod holes are small so we were able to buy a dowling rod to use as a curtain rod. Richard stained the rod to match the color of the brackets and we were able to screw the finials into the ends of the rod. I don't really like big bulky curtain rods and hardware so the dimensions worked out well for me. Richard likes it too.

What follows are photos of the finished product. I am including a few 'before' and 'in progress' photographs so you can see where we started.

This last photo is a close up of the tie backs. Its funny because I usually like things less decorative but something about wanting this bedroom to be a little decadent inspired me to use these hilarious tie backs. Now I can finally stop waking up cursing the tacked up fabric over the windows. I have another set of curtains to do over the doorway that leads from our bedroom to the living room but I lost one of the brackets. I am thinking about casting a set from the one that I do have in ceramic or metal. I might even make enough to sell as they are such an easy solution and no one makes that type of bracket anymore. Anyway on to the living room curtains and all of the other unfinished details that make me crazy daily.

Thanks for looking!

sunday was the best

Sunday was the best. We have been having a lot of rain here for the past two weeks and Sunday was nothing but sun. Richard and I decided to do our favorite thing and go to the flea market. It was so nice to just walk around in the sunny day. We found a few little gems which I have posted above. I try to buy one new ornament every year for Christmas and we found a good mercury glass one on our trip. I also found a great glass dome and pedestal for a pocket watch. We will probably end up putting something like a small bird in it but for now we have a Santa that we also found on our Sunday. I bought a jar to house some Cape Cod shells I picked up on our trip to the East Coast for the holidays. Finally, we have a mini birdhouse/calendar/thermometer plaque? I love SUNDAY!

Happy Monday!

holiday wrap up

Well, we have had a very busy holiday this year. This is the first year in a very long time that I didn't fully particpate in the holiday shopping experience. I baked a lot of cookies, made a lot of meals and did a whole lot of the crafts instead.

On Thanksgiving day we watched the movie Elf and it really inspired me to want to create a similar atmosphere this season.Because of our East Coast trip we really didn't have much time to really go whole hog into decorating the house but for New Years eve I got a second chance. Some friends of ours asked me to co-host a party. I really wanted to transform the main room of the party so I invited my friend Heidi over for an evening of snowflake cutting and champagne drinking and below are a few photos of us in action. I have to thank Wikihow and Highhopes for having such easy to follow instructions for making the whole project work.




After about 5 hours we had enough snowflakes and garland made to really make an impact at the party. I allowed myself a budget of $20. to add some shiny store bought garland and snowflakes to complement the handmade gems that we already had. I found boxes and boxes of garland and what have you at Walgreens the day before new years eve and get this....everything was .25 a piece! What I am saying is I was able to buy a ridiculous amount of garland and assorted holiday action for pennies. (love it!)

The day of the event my friend Stephanie and I showed up 8 hours early to start setting up all the lights and holiday items and after about 7 hours we were done. Here are the after shots of the decorating marathon.





I think it turned out really great! I have to give a big shout out to Bob here for letting me put a million staple holes into his ceiling. I will get over there this week to patch all of that. (i promise)


After the party I brought home a few cute snowflakes and some fancy garland so that Richard and I had a festive house for our post holiday Christmas. We exchanged presents and ate too much and had a great time. Richard surprised me with a Gocco printer for Christmas...the cool one from Japan. I can't wait to start using it. Look for awesome Gocco printed tote bags in the next few days. (thanks Rich! you are the best!)

Happy new year everybody!

holiday hospitality and outings

While we were in NYC we stayed with our friend Carter. He was a super gracious host who showed us a great time. We took a lot of pictures above and below ground. We packed a lot into our outings. On one afternoon Carter was lucky enough to touch the leg of a Rockette.I think if you touch the leg of a Rockette good luck has to follow. Those ladies are magic!




Carter and Johnathan threw a great holiday party for us and we had the best time. We ate pizza and had cupcakes for dessert. Here is a picture of Johnathan wondering which cupcake he should choose.



We took a little trip out to Long Island City to see Carter's new studio. We had a great time eating cheese, taking Polaroids, making movies and looking at all of Carter's new work. His new paintings are amazing. (super secret so no photos of any of them but amazing) If you are in Geneva in March you have to make a point to see his work. For more info on Carter and the show in Geneva click here.



One of our destinations while visiting the city was The New Museum. Our friend Josh met up with us and showed us the way. I have to say....not all that impressed. It looks cool from the outside but it felt claustrophobic inside. I wanted to love it but...it didn't really live up to the hype. I mean the the building....not Josh.

The best part of the museum was the elevator. (is that awful?)


We planned on driving up to Cape Cod for the holiday in a rental car so we picked our rental up and decided to have a little field trip around Queens. I just remember always wanting to stop at the World's Fair relics and never doing it the whole time I lived in New York. Anyway we stopped and what follows are a few photographs from our impromptu outing.










The next morning we picked up Richard's brother and sister and headed up to their parents house on Cape Cod. From the moment we arrived everyone was so warm and fun to be with. We had a great visit!



The view from our room was pretty breathtaking.




In between eating binges we took walks on the beach and tried to make room for more food.









We tried to play as much Koosh ball and table tennis as possible. I think that if we hadn't we would be faced with a lot more "holiday weight" than we ended up with. (either way it isn't pretty but it could be worse)


Richard's nieces and nephew were so jazzed on Santa and Christmas it was hard to get a word in edge wise but they were a hoot. They are pictured below working on cookies for Santa. Could they be any cuter?




After a fabulous holiday on the Cape it was back to NYC for one final lap. I now leave you with a movie that we took on our last morning in Harlem with Carter. We were on our way back from breakfast at Kitchenette when we spotted a wild turkey in Morningside Park. It was pretty weird to see a turkey at 116th street but we rolled with it. Well...we chased it.

Thanks to everyone who helped to make our trip amazing. We had a great time!