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Friday, September 24, 2010

Breast Cancer 3 Day


All across the country there are large groups of ladies (and some men) wearing pink and walking for someone they know who has breast cancer.
This weekend in the greater Seattle area my sister is walking for our friend Sherri.

If you know someone walking or who has this terrible disease, please donate. If you would like to donate to my sisters efforts you can click here and enter Denise Hall.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Yard Sale Recap

Yesterday was our yard sale that almost didn't happen. Friday night I had the kids help me lug all of our items out of our storage unit in the basement of one of the buildings. My living room looked like a really messy flea market.

Promptly around dinner time the skies opened and a torrential downpour started and lasted four hours. I went to bed wondering if I was going to be able to have my yard sale.

The next morning I was pleased the sky was blue and it seemed like it was going to be a nice day. We had four people move their cards from an area of the carport and started setting up.

The sale was to start at 8 but we had early birds starting at 7:15 asking us questions about what was for sale and your Craigslist note said 8:00 AM. Of course, the more questions we were aked the more we were going to be delayed. Most irritating!

All the work was worth it and the nice weather I was hoping for did happen. It was sunny and nice all day. We made about $140 which was really nice. We still have plenty of items we can sell piecemeal on Craigslist. We even sold another book on Amazon this morning. All of the money we are raising is going in to our savings account so we can build a little up and focus on paying off our credit cards.

After the sale we had a community BBQ which was a lot of fun. We got to meet neighbors we didn't know and get to know others better.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Yard Sale Tomorrow

Tomorrow I am having a yard sale. Well, some people in my condo community are having a yard sale and I am participating. There is a 50% chance of rain but we will be under cover.

If you live in the greater Seattle area drop me an email at paisleypenguin@gmail.com and I will send you the address.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

A Glimpse

A double post day!

Don't you just love it when you hear about someone who loves what they do? Like their job was meant for them?

Well, that is the case for Anna over at Door Sixteen. I have been reading her for aboujt a year now. She is a gal in New York who is slowly bringing back to life a house in Newburgh. Although her style is different from mine I really enjoy her design perspective and writing style.

Her real job is so very cool too! She is a book design cover. I have pondered a change in career direction and graphic design is at the top of my list. Not certain that is the way I will go but the thought of having her job for a living would be so very.

For more information on her job and how she got it in to it, link on over for part one and two.

Holiday With Matthew Mead

It's never too soon to think about the Holidays in my opinion. When I think of Holidays it starts with Halloween and goes through until New Years.

The specific Holiday we are talking about is Christmas and Matthew Mead's site is hosting a give away from one of my favorite bloggers, Brooklyn Limestone. Click here for the giveaway.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Halloween Pumpkins

I am getting a jump start on Halloween projects in preparation for one of my favorite holidays. To go along with my grey and white dining room I have painted up some black and white pumpkins. I saw the idea for these in the Better Homes and Gardens 2009 Halloween issue.



I already had the larger pumpkin (it was orange) and purchased the smaller pumpkin (also orange). I painted both of them with some white craft paint and used some of the grey wall color to paint the stems. The larger pumpkin has black velvet ribbon attached with pearly stick pins. The smaller pumpkin has swirls painted on ith black puffy paint and black and grey stickey backed "gems".

I have a small collection of silver and glass items I keep around to use for display and when I have parties. The larger pumpkin is sitting on a cake plate and the smaller pumpkin is sitting on a small glass plate which is resting on top of a small glass bowl. Both the plate and the bowl have a silver base.

I have a few more tricks up my sleeve to get prepared for the Holiday. I am having a candle party in mid October so I want to be ready.

How are you getting ready for the holiday?

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Dining Room - Update

Remember my inspiration post from a few weeks ago?

So, this last weekend C and I painted the dining room. The color of choice? Grey. Now, considering the weather is turning and we are headed in to fall, you might think that choice is gloomy and depresssing. Au contraire mon fraire!
We went from a dark olive green (forgive the blue painters tape in the photo below) to a room lightening grey with a slight brown to it. A "warm" grey if you will.



We LOVE it!


Sorry I don't have a more detailed photo of the dental molding. Suffice it to say it was really fun to paint! The owl is a halloween decoration that never went in to storage. I kind of actually like him hanging around. Stay tuned for more of this wall in our mysterious Buca di Beppo project.
We decided to keep our dining furniture brown. I will need to sand and re stain the dining table and sideboard as they are both in need of some updating. I am hopefull I can get that accomplished this coming weekend. The finishing touches I am in need of completing are new curtains, a table cloth and napkins which I plan to sew myself. I found some black and white toile at a yard sale for .75 so I am hopefull I can get at least four napkins out of the yardage.
I had originally thought I would do the accent color in blue but am leaning more towards green. Not certain yet. I think the main colors will be neutrals of black, brown, grey and white and I can add touches of any accent color I choose.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Living Room Inspiration

I am in a constant struggle between my minimalist ideals and finishing decorating my condo. My surroundings are very important to me. I don't want clutter or a lot of tchotkes and I don't have collections. However, I am a home body and want to look around me and see beautiful things that inspire me. I want to feel cozy and want others who visit our home to feel that way too.

I am not looking to spend inordinate amounts of money and would prefer to repurpose as much as possible. Repurposing makes sense to me as it's great on my wallet and someones else's trash becomes my treasure. I just love the idea of it. My dogs bed is an old suitcase of my grandmothers. My coffee table is my Grandfathers WWII army trunk. A lot of my furniture I bought at the thrift store and put my own "stamp" on it.

I do tend to have Cavier tastes on a Beans n' Weanies budget. That is where creativity and my sewing machine, knitting needles and paint brushes come in handy! This is also where all you bloggers and sites like Junkmarket are so inspirational.

The living room at my place is the room we spend the most time in. It's also the most challenging in that fact that on one wall we have a sliding glass door and on the connecting wall we have a fireplace angled at 45 degrees. Our dining room and hallway also open up to this room. We have no over head lighting but have to plug in torchiers. Right now we have one couch that can fit four people if it needs to. My goal is to mount our 50" flat screen over the fireplace to free up more space to get a couple comfortable chairs to go with the couch and finish the mantle and hearth project that seems to have taken forever.

I am not above finding chairs at the thrift store. I have big plans for our couch (a thrift store find for $30). I am working on a slipcover for it.

Here is some inspiration for my room. Burlap curtains to replace the ones I accidentally shrunk.

The wall color will be a neutral that goes with the grey we are putting in the dining room. My husband wants to make the walls look like leather. I would love to recover two matching chairs in a brown and cream houndstooth like the chair below.

A large art piece is in the works. Recently my husband and I were able to get some old movie reels for free and I would love to have a large map like the one below.



Followed by a little accent of paisley and leopard

.

These sepia and black tones are really neutral but I love them!