Things that make me happy.....by alyssa

Once upon a time I had a sad, empty, little nook. For a bit he had a small basket of my husbands things... but he didn't look happy about it.... so I moved Eric's basket and found some moss... after the moss.. came some cute little forest animal candles on clearance from Pottery Barn and now he is a happy little nook. The End.

Say Bye... Before they become Egg Salad....

The post Easter blues eggs must go through... First they get boiled til they are hard and then cooled to be colored... then they sit in colored vinegar water until they are just perfect.  (That part must sting! :) They come out looking so happy and full of life... and then Bam! Easter is over and their happy little lives come to an end in an egg salad. Such a exciting yet quick life they lead. Here are a few of our eggs.. Saying good bye...

 Ahhhh... help me! I am going to be sick...

 Evil Scull Master with the Hoppy Little Bunny...

Bye, Bye! 

Alyssa

PS... I  have a 15-year-old step-son and a 9-year-old daughter.. can you tell by the egg styles? :)

A Spring Sale Worth Checking Out....

If you live in Minnesota, you may want to check out The French Flea. They are having one of their occasional sales this coming weekend. Alyssa and I have both been there, and many times we have had to hold ourselves back from buying WAY TOO much. It is an eclectic sale with lots of different home decor items. These women are a talented bunch and they price things to MOVE. Click on the highlighted link and check them out.

Happy Shopping!
Stacy

Terrarium Time!

You will all see, very soon, that Alyssa is the one in this duo with the green thumb. For some reason, no matter how hard I try...plants do not live under my care. Could it be the lack of water? I thought plants could go for a month or two without being watered. No worries, when I realize that it's been a while, I compensate by completely over-watering. So I saw this blog, The Robots Attack, and decided to try it myself! It is my husband's cousin's blog so please check it out! She has some very creative crafting ideas!

So I bought this apothecary jar for cheap! I wasn't going to spend a ton because who knows if it will work!

See this? $9.99...go to HomeGoods! They have a great selection of these.

Now go buy some small filler rocks. Target has them for pretty cheap, but Ikea would be better. However, if your only choice is to visit Ikea on the weekend stick with Target. Ikea can instantly ruin a good mood if you go on the weekend. There's no sense in that.

Then get some activated charcoal. You can find it at your local garden store or on Etsy.

Then some potting soil. I'm not a fan of this stuff because it's not organic but it's what I had.

So this is the order you put these things into the apothecary jar...
Filler rocks (about an inch)
Activated charcoal (about 2 inches)
Potting soil (about 4-5 inches)



Now loosen up the roots on your plant/plants.Once you have loosened up the roots, stick it in the potting soil and give it a drink of water...but not too much! I chose this fern because it pretty much fills the whole jar.



And here is the end result! I love this new green friend of mine. Keep it in a sunny window and water it once a week or so. Take the lid off every once in a while so it doesn't rot. There's lots of moisture in the jar. This is the part of my instruction that I can see myself forgetting.

Happy planting! What good stuff are you planting in your jar or garden?

I'll be back soon!
Stacy

Quick trip to Memphis...

So, I was recently in Memphis. Yes, I have been to Disney World, Copenhagen and now Memphis in the last 4 weeks. I am pooped and ready to hunker down at home for awhile. Memphis was a fabulous mini - 4 day trip with my husband. He was working..... which means I get to explore.

Actually, the reason I went along on this trip was that it was our 4-year-anniversary. He had booked himself to moderate at a conference and was realizing that it was going to screw up his schedule with his son. I looked at him and smiled and said, "Oh, honey. I think you are missing something a little bigger than that on that week.' He quickly goes back to his calendar and looks again. Then looks at me and is still confused.  At that point I took him out of his misery and reminded him that we will have been married for 4 years that Monday. Oh, how the time flies! He looked sheepsihly back at me and apologized. The next day I received an email that started out, 'Love, Would you like to go to Memphis with me?'  All-in-all, I lived up the teasing of him and still am... though I am/was not really concerned with the lack of memory. It is just a day after all. And he made up for it with these flowers...

Anyhow, I went along and had fun toodling around and checking out stores and of course eating BBQ.  My two favorite stores were Hoot & Louise and Delphinium.... Vintage, Handmade and Bare Minerals to boot! Wonderful little shops... with a cute baby boy (@ Hoot & Louise) and dog (@ Delphinium) to visit with while you are shopping.... (always a joy for me... I love the additional fun sales people.. ) 

 

We had a private tour of Graceland with his conference which was a hoot. From the design perspective that is... Check out some of our photo's....

eeeee!!! 

The fabulous living room stained glass...

 

The Dining Room.. where Elvis ate.. Wow! 

Welcome to the Jungle?? The family room... you'll note.. every room is a different theme... 

 I couldn't leave without a photo of an outfit... that would be sooo sacrilegious! 

Eric, I and The King of Rock.. Our private moment... :)

The last few things from the trip... My new favorite hotel.. The Peabody.. What a wonderful place and they have ducks to boot... Yes, I am a sucker for any place with animals.. 

Isn't she a cutie! Showing off her color... 

Enjoy my trip to Memphis and check out Hoot & Louise on Facebook - Anna the owner is just a doll.. and Delphinium at www.Delphiniumboutique.com

Ciao for now... Coming soon... My week of projects..

Alyssa

Another day, Another Door Knob....

Door knobs. How exciting! Recently, we changed out our entry door knobs from this:

To this....

The wonderful cipher lock. We did this because of my inability to take my keys out of the door after I unlocked it and my supreme ability at locking myself out on a regular basis... yep, almost weekly at times. Once I locked myself out during a mini show storm. Thankfully, my husband saved me after only 30 minutes of trying to snuggle and stay warm in my storm door. The added bonus is that the kids can get in anytime they need to and don't need a key to open it. Ahh, the wonders of technology. Now my only request is design... because the top one is a total yawn of a design if you ask me. The next one although, I like the cipher part, the handle is a little too curly cue for our 1950's rambler. When I was in Copenhagen I saw this... and sooo want it for our house. Now only if it came as a cipher lock. :) 

William the Walrus. Isn't he the cutest! 

Alyssa

One more post... Aren't these just the cutest!!

I saw these wall stickers on the Upon A Fold site... Super cute! 

They may show up in Miss Avery's light switch soon...we have 3 cats so that is the one that caught my eye...

Shopping - Copenhagen Style.....

So, I was recently in Copenhagen. (Ok, yesterday.... well, actually I started this post on Monday at least... I blame the rest on jet lag and taxes.  :) )

Unfortunately, I had the flu for the first few days left over from our vacation with the kids the week prior at Disney World. Needless to say, I didn't do to much those first few days. I laid in bed and looked out onto the square that I posted previously. The biker riders of Copenhagen have inspired me to bike more this season. I am going to get a basket so I can do my grocery shopping and other errands in the neighborhood.

The design and shopping of the Danish is super fabulous, as I found out a few days into the trip. The main shopping drag is Stroget. (the o should have a slash through it but I am not sure how to do that on blogger) This street has all of the big commercial stores that we have here in the states, but they also have Illum a large department store in Denmark. It was very typical of the department stores here, though the clothing is much more fashion forward and creative. They also had an artist (painter) working near one of the entrances which was fun to watch.

The real shopping I found was on Komagnistaede. I found a ton of antique stores as well as designer shops. Tons of fun! So... wishing I had a few thousand to spend on this trip. As it happened I didn't have much so I came back with a few coffee spoons. I have been collecting them on every trip it seems. How much coffee can one person drink! Also, this cute little red pig.

He looks scary here.. but he is really cute.... We are wanting to get a teacup pig.. ie.. why we picked him up.

The following are some of the other cute stores I found along my way......so many cute stores I will share over a few days... then get back to my projects at home..  Enjoy!

The most amazing silver jewelry.. unfortunately the silver smiths were not there when we were :(

 Owe Silver Artist is the shop. Above his shop is a fashion designer that had the best rain coats.. MaxJenny

 

This shop has the cutest ceramics and interior decor.. Love the flower me happy quote... Makes me think spring! I can't wait to get out into the garden this weekend.

 

This is the outside of the shop.. Stilleben

One of my favorites.. where we got Mr. Pig... Fannymia

The owls here and fabric were adorable... I had so many ideas...just not enough space in my case or dollars in my wallet :)

The last one of for today was this little shop around the corner from our hotel... We stayed at The Square Hotel. 

Artium.dk  Lots of Marimekko, ceramics and all sorts of things Danish. Fun shop... Oh and note the Carlsberg sign up on the top.... That is the beer of the area. The brewery is in Copenhagen. We walked there one day to see the architecture and take a mini tour of the brewery on our own.

Have a great day! Enjoy the links, shopping and ideas!

Alyssa 

PS... My husbands conference in in Vienna next year.... so excited!

Things that make me happy...

Check out the bike path through this construction site.
 Copenhagen, Denmark

A Long Winter...but a few new things that make me happy!

There's this wonderful occasional sale called The French Flea. It's somewhat dangerous for me, if I'm being honest. I go online and see what they have coming up at their sales and decide if I want to go or not. NOT such a good idea! I went online last week and spotted this:

Do you love it like I do? I knew I had to have it, but I WORK when they open on Thursdays at 10 a.m. and I knew it would be snapped up by someone immediately. I showed Alyssa and how nice is she...she went and picked it up for me! I feel so lucky! The best part about this chair, my friends, is that it was $105. That's it! Did I mention that I feel lucky??? Here's one more pic with the pillow that Alyssa also found for me:

I'm hopeful that Spring is on it's way. I want to start creating an outdoor room that we can enjoy for a few months out of every year. Until then, I decided to show you a couple more things that make me happy around the house. I love these green apples...they are so cheap and easy to add for a pop of Spring color! You can get them at Pottery Barn. I didn't get my bowl there but, wow, it looks similar!

And without these I would be lost...

Oh, and this one too...

Okay, okay! This one too...not me, the other one! My husband, Jason.

Spring Break is coming for me and I will get some projects posted. Do something cheap and easy around your house in the next couple of weeks and think of Spring! Things are feeling fresh and alive!

Salut!

Stacy

Mini pick-me-up...yes, I'm being serious!

I know you all have one of these and I would encourage you to replace it once in a while. I got my new one at Home Depot and you can find one there too! So here it goes...

Wait...you don't see that? Maybe you can see this...

Sorry for the flash glare, but can you see that scratch? It's gotta go! Can you guess what this is? I know you're fooled because I put the cute heart around it. Let me give you a hint...

I told you we all have one! I was sick of looking at that ugly scratch on my toilet seat so I got a new one! To be exact I got this toilet seat. It was cheap. Cheap like one latte at my favorite coffee shop.  So don't tell me you can't afford this mini (and inexpensive) pick-me-up! I had about ten minutes so here's how it went...

I unscrewed the bolts underneath the seat. I was not looking forward to this part, but I did it anyway. All for the greater good....I did this for you. If I can do it then I know, for a fact, that you can too!

Once I got the seat off I remembered how much I loved France. They don't have toilet seats in France, you see. So off I go to Home Depot to return the toilet seat. It's all about saving this year so I might as well suck it up and go without! I sorta like this new "clean" look. What do you think?

No can do! Here's the new one. Ten minutes and $5.74 and I have a new start in life. Happy buns for me! Now go get a new toilet seat and see how good you feel. I'll see you back here in a few days with a more colorful, creative project that I'm working on. Don't say I didn't do you any favors.

Au revoir,

Stacy



Little Touches of Happy

A little touch of happy in my bathroom.

I think they went out drinking last night... What do you think? :) 

Ciao, 

Alyssa 

**Oops... I forgot to give credit...
The cotton branches are from my favorite little florist in the hood - Brown & Greene

Ricky & Lucy are from CB2.