Occasional sales! Are you hip to these?

Alyssa and I have found some good occasional sales, close to our homes, pretty recently. Do you know about these? They are sales that generally take place on weekend a month. Believe me, the women who run then need a full month to get things prepared for these. They work very hard to collect furniture, lighting and many other great things and then display them. The vignettes that they put together are outstanding. Just try to go to one of these sales and not find something to buy. I dare you!

Yesterday Alyssa, Avery and I ventured to one of our favorite sales in Anoka, Minnesota....The Loft on 2nd. It was fabulous as usual! They had fun things like succulents planted in great little pots, cowboy boots for great prices, and some wonderful and fun furniture! If you live in Minnesota, it is worth going. They have a great selection of eclectic pieces and bargain prices. You really can't beat it!

I LOVE these lights! The fact that they thought to use huge round light bulbs makes them even cuter. I may have to go back this weekend to see how much they are. First I need to find a place to put them!

Here's Avery sitting in an old metal garden chair. Avery is such a great little shopper. She doesn't complain about a thing and goes with the flow. You probably can't see it, but Alyssa bought her the scarf that she has around her neck. Did I mention they have really cute clothing there too? Slightly used and very hip! Again, the prices are great!

Glass cloches seem to be very in style right now. They had lots of them this time around and I would have gotten one if I had a place for it. In a future post I will show you what I got. I think a cloche would look so cute over a succulent plant of some sort. Put it on the coffee table in your living room to bring the garden indoors.

I think this little vignette is so cute! It makes me want to have a dinner party with a bunch of bright colors...and you know I love birds so, of course, this won me over!

This was the greatest buffet. I'm sure it's gone, but Alyssa and I both looked at it. Seriously....it was $195! That's it! I want to get a huge house and shop occasional sales to decorate the whole thing. Maybe you should get a huge house and I will come over and decorate it for you? 

Look in your area for occasional sales. They are a great bargain and you will meet some fabulous, hard-working women who encourage creativity and have fun doing what they do. 

Have a great weekend!

Stacy and Alyssa

Oh, and Avery too!

Etsy find of the day!

Sometimes I see things that I think are so cute I want to buy ten of them. I must tell you that I need NOTHING in life. I have lots of "stuff." I've been getting rid of lots too. However, when I found these, I knew I had to get one and my only problem was deciding WHICH! Here are the ones I like:

See what I mean? How do I choose? They are only $8...so I think they are the perfect gift too.

Keep shopping!

Stacy

Glutton for Punishment. Yep. That is me.

So. Do you remember that post in which I shared all the things I did not get done? If not. Click here. If you do. Read on. 

I finally got around to painting the trim post new door installation. Only 9 months since the door was installed. Not bad. I had this feeling this was going to end up being a bigger project, which is why I kept putting it off. Well as you can see below. It is a much bigger project. I am now painting the whole darn room. Since I was doing touch up on the door I thought I would do some touch-up on the walls as well. Unfortunately for me, I did not have any of the paint left from the living room. Boo. I tried to match and of course was unsuccessful. Also the trim paint came out tons darker than it is. Which I did not like. So I threw caution to the wind and in complete frustration I decided to paint the whole room white. Trim and all. The old trim color is white with a little grey tinge to it... not cool. Just go true white if you are painting the trim white. It makes life so much easier! Anyhow.. enjoy the show.

 

 What a mess. 

 Ahh... some water got in and bubbled the paint.. so I thought I would clean that up as well.

 I tried.. to no avail. AF-96 was close but not close enough. Boo. :(  Now what color.

 Look at those bookcases. Filled to the brim. Should be fun to move! Note: that was sarcasm.

 The dining area.... Usually not this messy, but now...   The "valance" above the window was made by Avery and our neighbors daughter Miranda. They had a ball and the color was so fun we hung it up as a curtain.

Wow. What a difference a true white is. Now to hit the walls.

Well. The white is bright! I can't wait to get this done. To be done and to rearrange some of our knickknacks.

From tan to white. Wow. Wish me luck in finishing this weekend. Good news though. The back yard should be finished and ready for planting tonight! Woot!

Ciao for now!

Alyssa

Etsy find of the day!

I absolutely love bunting flags! I want a ton of them all over my house because I think they're really cute. They rate right up there with birds for me. The happiness factor is huge! Do you know what I'm talking about? You can use them for parties, leave them out as decoration all year, or take them out for whatever occasion you would like. I have thought about making them but the laziness factor kicks in for me. I love to sew, but I'm an instant gratification girl...sometimes this means the whole cutting thing bores me and leads me to forget about even starting a project. Then I found these! It's a bunting kit. Everything is in the kit and all you need to do is sew it! Yes, you can buy them completed, too, but that will cost you. These are $14.25 and you barely have to do any work! Love that!

These are all made out of vintage bed sheets. I think the reason why I like them is because I might have actually had some of these sheets on my bed as a kid. Wow, I feel old...they are now vintage. I am a child of the 70's what can I say! Anyway, I'm showing my age now.

If you don't sew yet, this could be a fun project to start with. I guarantee it will be easy and you can say you made it yourself. You did do the SEWING part of it afterall!

I hope you're starting to love Etsy like I do!

Stacy

Etsy find of the day!

I love this! I have purchased many wall decals off of Etsy and they usually involve birds. This is no exception! If you have kids or are getting a nursery together this is such cute wall art! Look through this seller's other stuff and you will come across a few things you might like.

Isn't this the sweetest?! It makes me want to have twins. Sorta.

Happy shopping,

Stacy

Backyard update.. Major progress on Mini/Major Pick-Me-Up #2.

 Staining the side boards.. reclaimed wood.

 Digging the trench for the block retaining wall that will separate the living area from the yard.We did have to buy the block for this area unfortuantely. So, our lots of labor/ mostly free project is getting a little more expensive. We also will be building a little mini deck/stairs along the sidewalk by the house. Again, unexpected add expense.

 Leveling said trench.  Egads.. that was painful. 

 The finished product... now for some more grating and a planting and a throwing wood chips we will go. Almost finished! I still can't believe we will have a flat area in our yard after this.. what a lot of work. You will notice us out here everyday rain or shine enjoying this area upon completion. :)

Also, wait until you see my next post... 

Oh, I added some kitchen photos here. I cleaned the floor last night and decided that it was sort of presentable enough to photograph. Scroll down to find them. Keep in mind the make-due nature of my kitchen. Not a design wonder that is for sure.

Alyssa 

To go to the next post for this project click here.

Backyard update.. Mini/Major-Pick-Up #2.

You've missed my stories about my backyard hell, haven't you?  I know. I can tell. Well... work was done today. A lot of work... I can almost see it now...

 We added a new worker. George. The college student.

 Checking out the progress. Pew. Smells like manure. But yes, it is getting flat.

 That would be a 1' drop-off. We will be spending some money here to create a new mini deck. 

 A path. What? Solution to be determined.

 The crazy, bitchy neighbors perfect back yard. They totally hate us. :) That makes me smile. 

 We are so ghetto. It's awesome. Even my dad said we should clean up the driveway. 

Finally, this one comes to ask me for bread so she can go bird watching. Wow.

Yep. There you have it. The backyard update in a nutshell. 

Alyssa

To go to the next post for this project click here. 

The Beds I really want.

So I received email confirmation that our bed has shipped! Yay. Now to get the room painted before the bed comes in. Then the room will feel all fresh and new and ours. I am going to go one step lighter that the shade on the right.Very exciting I know. Though with all of our colorful bedding, I think calmer on the walls will be better.

On another note... I would much prefer to have a white bed. Yum. Relaxing. Yum.  Alas, I am married to a man. Who works in the mud as you have seen. In the past when I tried this dreamy white bed it ended up the yellowy stained white bed. So, color my world we shall. In the meantime, I thought I would share my dream beds, so you can see how much we saved.


The beds that I waffle between for our "real" bed are:

 The BlutDot Nook Bed... $1499.00 for a queen.

Or this from Design Within Reach. The American Modern Collection at $2,400.00 for a queen. This would look the best with our dresser for sure.

So, there you have it. What I really want. See how much I saved! Wow.

Alyssa

The 36" Planter...

   Every year for the past couple Eric and I have been putting together the planter out in front of his office Architectural Alliance. This year we are a bit behind, but finally got it done last night. I lurv this one. It is by far the best one we have done.

  We hit up Sunnyside Gardens. One of the many, cute local gardens shops on the south side on Minneapolis. The only thing we knew was that we had some birch logs from our cabin to add to the mix. So, we wondered around for a bit, looking at this and that... and as I type I just realized I did not photograph the things that did not make it. Whoops. Sorry. Anyhow, back to my story. The planter they have out front is 36" wide and low. Which means we need some height. Last year we got this cool tropical palmy leaf plant. Which looked cool on the first day, but then was immediately shredded by the wind after that. So, this year we thought grass. Thin and wispy which the windy will like to blow around, but focusing on that word thin.. It will not shred. After seeing a lot of grass options we finally settled on one that has a little purple and green. It will get about 4" taller than it is and have some plumes. Fabulous.. color and texture! Next... which flowering item do we choose. We looked at some bright yellow daisy's. Cute. Hmm. Like the daisy. Not sure about the yellow, but we will see. Then we spotted this more traditional looking white daisy and thought.. Hmm.. with this white birch this might look good. Actually after reading the labels the white daisy is actually a Chrysanthemum. A Neptune P.P.A.F. Chrysanthemum to be exact. So, we piled those into the cart. We do a lot of guess work as to how many we need as the planter is 36" wide. This year we were only short 3. Pretty good, if we don't say so ourselves. Onto the next flowery type plant. First we grabbed this cute straw like purple ball with bright green leaves. It was considerably lower than the white daisy-like plant which we thought could be interesting. We had started to lay out the planter in fields. An area of grass in the back with a field of white on the right side of the planter. The grass being the tallest with the white a little shorter and the next item a little shorter yet, was looking to be an interesting composition. So, we grabbed a bunch of those and continued to wander and noodle. Then we saw this cool looking purple triangular leaf item called Charmed Wine Shamrock (Oxalis) ... Super cool.. We like it with the grass a lot better than the purple ball like plant. So, back went that plant and in comes the Shamrock plant. We wanted to add a little more green and after looking at and rejecting the traditional Sweet Potato Vine we settled on Colorblaze Alligator Tears. We liked to two colors of green in this particular plant. We tossed a bunch of those into the cart and went off pay.

Anyhow now after all those needless words get ready for the big reveal....

 Moving around the dirt after a winter of Spruce tips.

 The Sunnyside loot. 

 Laying out the planter. This is the most important part. I do this with all my planters to make sure it looks good before I plant.

 OK... We like.

Now to cut the birch.

 Eric with the chain saw... He scared a few co-workers who were diligently still at work at 7 pm..Poor guys.. :)

 The final look. The birch were hard to photograph from a true scale. They are larger than they look and a little more spread out. There are three if you can't tell at different heights. 

 As you can see we need one more of the alligator plant and we are going to get 2 more of the Shamrock as well to fill in. It was super windy also as you can tell. We had to work hard to keep all of our containers as well as the plants. 

 The much needed detail shot. Love the planter this year. Very Minnesota natural looking.

Hope you enjoyed our 36" in planter experience. 

Alyssa

The Last Minute Skirt.

Well, I would suspect most parents kids come home from school forgetting to tell their parents that they need to bring snack to school until.... 'oh, about 8 pm'. If you are lucky. Since those parents will have just enough time to run to the store before it closes. Otherwise, you are racing around in the morning trying to get said snack.

My house is no different with the exception that the other night I was told the choir concert is tomorrow and I need that skirt you promised to make me. Tomorrow. Wow. This happened to me on Tuesday night. Welcome back after a nice long weekend to you too. So.... at 9 pm I started making this much needed long skirt for her choir concert. The concert was music from 'The Music Man' and was fabulous by the way. (It was yesterday evening.) Little skirts for Miss Avery typically do not stress me out but this one had a lot of elastic. Lots. All needing to be brought through little pockets. Reminder, I started this at 9 pm Tuesday. I finished at 12 am.

 The fabric I purchased from Sewtropolis.  I picked up the pattern information there as well. The pattern is actually from Anna Maria Horner. It is the flirting skirt in the upper left hand corner.

Let me take you on my journey from 9 to midnight.....

 

 9 pm.. Started with a few rectangles... (shown here... the liner fabric)

 

Next.. sew the sides together for the outside and the liner. Though for the liner she has you baste 4" of one side to allow for easy entry when you get to inserting the elastic. The next time I make this, I will probably baste 4" on both sides as I ended up opening the other side up as well. You'll see below. 

 Press seam open. You will do a fair amount of ironing with this as with any sewing project.

 Once that is down put the right sides together and sew together at the waist area.

 Next create the channels for the elastic. The elastic channels are 3/8" with a 1/2" spacing between. There are 4 channels. Count them. 4. Doesn't sound bad until you try threading the elastic through.

 Open up the basted side at each channel. Insert Elastic. Now comes the fun part... inch each piece through. It works best to keep the all at about the same point moving one forward a bit then onto the next one, etc.

 This was about 10:30. Remember when I talked about 20 pounds of Trouble trying to get up on the bed. Meet Trouble. He is 20 pounds of really dumb cat. Amazingly, he has a brilliant sister. Oh, yes Trouble. What I wouldn't give to hang out on the floor with you right now.

 I was having trouble getting the elastic through at this point because of the pressed seam so... I seamed ripped the channels open here. This is where I would baste again, in a future project.

 Meet Hazel. Teasing me with sleep as well. We are getting to about 11:30 or so... She is Trouble's brilliant sister.

Publish Post

12 am. The final product... I hope she likes it! 

 And she does like any good, angelic child. :) 

 Here she is at the choir concert during her narration part. The concert was super fun. The kids were smashing.

Aww... now if this doesn't make up for the last minuteness of this project, I don't know what would...

Off to work! I will catch the spelling and grammar mistakes later today!

Alyssa