Under a blue moon

Friday's Favorites

Flickr Favorites (please click link to see the source of these beautiful images)

• Are bananas as bad for you as a cookies?  Easy to understand satiety scale
• Much cuter than having a roll of paper towels on your picnic table
• How common is your birthday?  Interesting how the rates drop during the holidays (via A Cup of Jo)
• I am not quite ready to embrace head to toe neon (I figure since I did it during the 60's AND the 80's that I can sit out this time) but this is lovely little touch of it (in pink of course).
• This looks like a sweet, gentle movie:  Salmon Fishing In The Yemen

We have a lovely weekend planned.  We started off with a early weekend guest last night and then we will be guests ourselves at my sister's.  In between we plan on doing some yard clean up and a dump run (seriously one of the most satisfying things you can do).  I love a weekend that is both relaxing and productive.  

I turned it into a four day weekend - taking today off and having Monday off as a holiday.  I think every weekend should be a four day weekend.  Who do I talk to about that?

(I just noticed how similar my photo montage above is to last week's.  I must be in a soft, muted color mood)

Friday's Favorites

Flickr Favorites (please click link to see the source of these beautiful images)

• Now that outside eating weather is here I want these sweet heart tablecloth weights
• Everyone is familiar with Jack Vettriano's The Singing Butler painting but I like this one even more.  Anyone know the name of it?  
• I think this clock would be sweet in a kitchen
• Vintage Lombard Street
• Books I am currently coveting:  The Sugar Cube ♥ Vintage Cakes ♥ My Life From Scratch (I must have a sweet tooth....)

I have one of those delicious no plans kind of weekends planned.  Last weekend was a whirlwind of projects and cooking so I'm looking forward to just relaxing and letting the day unfold as it wishes.  

What ever you have planned for your weekend I hope it is splendid!

5.16.12

A few months ago I saw a post on Centsational Girl about hanging beadboard wallpaper.  I never knew such a thing even existed.   I knew it would be a perfect project for our teeny laundry room quarter-bath (just a commode - the sink is in the laundry room proper).  

It is near impossible to get a good photo of this little bathroom because of how small it is.  It is about 3 feet x 5 feet.  

Here is a composite before picture:

Not bad.  Just kind of boring.  

I bought the wallpaper at Lowe's and the brand is Allen & Roth.  It is an unusual "paper."  It is actually a very thin foam like material with a paper backing.  I'll give you my tips for working with it in a minute.

Here's my random pet peeve of the day - I hate seeing pictures of people's bathrooms with the toilet seat up.  It takes 1/100th of second to shut it and looks so much better in photos.  

I used to hang wallpaper for a living.  That gave me just a teeny advantage for this project but honestly it was pretty easy to work with.   If I was brand new to wallpapering I don't think I would tackle a bathroom as my first project.  I'm tempted to do my eating area in the kitchen and I know that would be a breeze - all flat walls, no tight places and no toilet to wallpaper behind.  

As you can see by the top picture our walls are pretty heavily textured.  I hung a sample piece first to see if the thickness of the wallpaper would cover it.  It did not.  So I hung blank-stock first. Blank-stock is just a heavy paper that covers texture.  You hang that first then hang your decorative paper over it.  

I used heavy duty wallpaper paste for the blank-stock but the beadboard wallpaper is pre-pasted.  20 some odd years ago when I did this for a living I would not hang pre-pasted wallpaper.  It didn't stick very well.  I would just treat it like regular wallpaper and use thinned down paste.  However this pre-pasted worked brilliantly.

Here are a few tips for working with this particular paper:

• Use a fresh blade for every cut - I used a snap-off Olfa cutter and after trimming each piece I would snap off the top so I had a fresh blade.  Otherwise you get a ragged cut.  
• Since the paper is a foam like material it dents and dings very easily so take your time and be very careful.  Take off your rings and make sure your nails are short.  
• The paper is paintable (and I would highly recommend painting it) but make sure you scrupulously clean off any paste residue before painting.  Otherwise you end up with a crackle paint like finish.  

I am really pleased with how it turned out and, like I said, I may do the eating area in our kitchen.  The laundry room is off the eating area and I think it would tie it all together nicely.

 

 

Friday's Favorites

Flickr Favorites (please click link to see the source of these beautiful images)

• Homemade chalk paint.  Worth a try.  What's nice is your color choices are unlimited
• Pretty, beachy earrings in my favorite gold and palest aqua
• Okay now THIS is my kind of camping (click through to see the rest of the pictures too)
• This is such a clever idea for making little tartlets (I'm talking about the cookies cutters.  Although I've heard that using vodka in your pie crust recipe is the way to go.  Has anyone tried that?)
• I know this cake picture has been allover Pinterest but it really does make me want to bake a cake.  It is just so sweet looking.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and Happy Mother's Day to all you beautiful Moms out there.

5.9.12

Last year was the Summer of big outdoor projects.  This year we fully intend to reap the benefits of all that work.  We have been spending the last couple of weeks replanting the pots and getting the drip system all dialed in.  

Normally I do more of an eclectic mix of plants in the pots, aiming for a casual, cottagy look.  This year I wanted to do something slightly more formal and lower maintenance.  That casual look takes a lot of work!  

I have five pots that line the railing.  I planted a daphne in each one and then a mix of bacopa and calibrachoa (Million Bells) in shades of lavender and pink to spill over the edges.  I love the scent of the daphne and how it has an elegant look to it.  

I bought that standard rose bush at the grocery store.  Let's see how well it holds up.  Usually I'm not quite so impulsive with my rose purchases but it had so many buds on it I figured I would just pretend it was like buying a floral arrangement.  If it doesn't do well at least I'll get a few weeks of enjoyment out of it.  

Lots of naked cherubs in that picture.  

This is the view from my kitchen window.  Kind of a cock-eyed picture but I wanted to capture all the elements.  We hung hummingbird feeders all around the house and there was a visitor to this one while I was taking pictures.  Not very shy, those hummingbirds.

Now we can just sit back, sip our evening libations and enjoy the view.

5.7.12

On my birthday, back in April, my sister Kate and I braved the biting winds of Alameda and hit up the Alameda Antique Fair.  It seemed as if our favorite vendors were not as brave so the pickings (at least the ones we were interested in) were rather slim.

One thing we did see was a pair of lovely birdhouses made from odd bits and bobs and painted a lovely, chalky white.  Of course they were just part of a vendor's display and not for sale. Other than a skeleton Kate coveted (too expensive) and small table I bought (which Kate helped me lug the 18 miles back to my car) the bird houses were the only interesting thing we saw that day.

On Saturday Rick and I spent the entire day building a bird house in an effort to try to replicate the ones I had seen.  

We either used materials we had on hand or inexpensive items from the craft store.  The pillars on either side of the opening were made from a stool leg, cut in half.  The opening was a small frame.  The finial on top was from a curtain rod that has been in the garage for the past 11 years.  The blue knob came from the craft shop.  

The interesting detail along the roof line was cut from a picture frame. Rick also had an assortment of trim pieces left over from various remodelling jobs that we used for the base of the bird house.  The house itself was made from scraps of left over lumber.

Because there were so many different components the entire thing needed a good, color blocking, coat of primer before I could paint it. Once that dried I just sprayed it with flat white spray paint.  

I know the bird house in the background is crooked but we just hung it there temporarily and next thing we knew a bird was making a nest in it.  We didn't want to disturb it after that.  So pathalogically symetrical me is just going to have to deal with it until the bird moves out.

Anyway - I'm pleased with how the new bird house turned out.  And to Kate - who spent a cold, windy Sunday morning with me so I wouldn't have to brave it alone on my Birthday - Thank you.

Friday's Favorites

Flickr Favorites (please click link to see the source of these beautiful images)

• Love these measuring spoons from Anthropologie. Question: Do you keep your measuring spoons all together on the ring or do you separate them?  I keep them together but everytime I wash them after using just one of them I'm wondering how practical this is
• Gah!
• I love this idea of little libraries popping up all over the place.  
• Very cute balloon banner
• I am so trying this: Easy corn shucking (once we replace our microwave which just blew up....)

I should just change this blog to "Friday's Favorites"  as it is all I can seem to manage these past few weeks.  Work is the usual culprit.  Ah well - I have a job and it is keeping me busy.  I need to be thankful for that.

Meanwhile I have all kinds of small, perfectly blog worthy projects stacking up.  Once I get a little breathing room I'll have something to blog about.

I hope everyone is having a splendid Friday and has nothing but relaxation and fun on the agenda for the weekend!