tweaks... and an IKEA disappointment

If you're stopping by this weekend, you might notice some "tweaks" going on - I'm in the process of redesigning my blog with some SERIOUS tutoring from Michelle over at Decor and The Dog.  A special thanks to all who gave me blog layout suggestions - I so appreciate your input!  So, while I'm in transition, please forgive me if some things disappear and reappear in other places, or if a link gets lost, or the whole thing explodes in a puff of purple smoke, etc.  Hopefully soon I'll have a fresh new look, cue the excited squeal! 

In other news, I thought I had found the solution to my small kitchen counter top space woes in the form of an island from IKEA.  I was SUPER excited to go look at it and then text Eric a picture to see what he thought of it (the internet picture is garbage).  After I sent him the picture, he called me immediately to say "Buy it now!"  Every woman's dream, right?!  I was so super excited, look at how nice it is! (excuse the blurry phone pics)

It has storage space, room for bar-stools, matches my white cabinets and butcher block counters perfectly,  and is the right price for only $380.  It WOULD'VE been awesome.  Except that it is out of stock.  Everywhere.  Well, almost everywhere... If you live in Palo Alto, CA then by all means, head on over to your neighborhood IKEA and buy it (and-then-ship-it-to-me-immediately!).  But the rest of us are stuck. =(  The good news is that it is not being discontinued, as I originally thought, but rather so popular that it sold out almost immediately.  I'm on a waiting list to be notified as soon as it arrives in the store (hopefully between Sept 6-10 according to the website?).  I wasn't even expecting to come home with it tonight because I wasn't sure Eric would like it.  But then I got myself all excited and now I feel jipped.  =(

However, I am so super excited to bring it home (and make Eric put it together) within the next month!!  What do you think of Ikea furniture?  Love it or hate it?  How do you feel about this or other islands you've seen of theirs?  I can still back out if you'd like to share any IKEA island horror stories!  Happy Saturday evening, friends!

** And to my friends on the East coast, stay safe and dry!! **

Growing Pains

WARNING: Your input is required!!

My little bloggity-blog has been on my mind a LOT lately.  I feel like I've learned SO MUCH about design and decorating in the past few years, and this has been largely from blogs like all of yours that I read every day (does it take everyone else over an hour to catch up on all of the bogs you follow?  I think I'm waaaaay too addicted to this thing).  And I really feel like my projects are growing and maturing and I'm getting more gutsy with the things I trust myself to tackle. 

**Although I must remind myself that the first project I did was to completely repaint my kitchen cabinets, which I suppose was pretty "gutsy"**

I also felt pretty darned pleased with myself this week for being able to fit in time for blogging in my full time work schedule (I blogged one more time than I promised myself I would - success!), as well as learning to edit my photos which has been a longtime goal of mine, not that I have in any way "arrived."  This weekend I'm going to learn how to make buttons for my blog (using this tutorial!), which surely catapults me into the big leagues. ;)  I will have photo skills, original content, buttons, and 38 (as of today) followers.  I can't believe 1 person out there (apart from Eric who is forced by the ring on his left hand) wants to listen to me babble on about decor and food every day, much less 38 of you - so THANK YOU!!  You really have no idea how excited I get when I open up my inbox and I see that someone has commented - it makes my day!!

**I usually post a ton of pictures and since you're probably wondering if there will be any pictures in this post, I don't want to disappoint...

It's the best I could do on short notice.  Aaaaaanyway...


All of this being said (is this post going somewhere, you ask?  She's already posted about a llama in a scarf, what more could there be?), I feel like I can trust myself with blogging, meaning it's not a "fad" for me personally.  I've been doing this for over a year now, and I was worried I wouldn't be able to keep it up for even a month.  My enthusiasm keeps growing, and the people I've met are alone enough for me to keep continuing this journey. 

There's just one little fly in the ointment... One little thing that make me get a bit cringe-y (<- word?) when I look at my blog...  my layout.  I know, friends...  It's been the elephant in the room for a while hasn't it? You read my blog and wonder why I'm still using the standard Blogger templates?  (OK, you probably don't notice or care, let's be honest, but I do!)

Strangely Wonderfully, this blog has become something I'm really proud of.  I see people I haven't talked to in FOREVER and the first thing they mention is how they read my blog every day and love that I update regularly.  First off, I'm INCREDIBLY flattered, and then I start thinking about how I wish the look of my blog was more... me? 

It all boils down to this: I need suggestions for blog layouts.  And I'm going to get picky here and say that I want a layout that's ORIGINAL.  This means that I'm really not very interested in the free downloadable templates, unless they are unavailable to others after I download it.  (Is this snotty?  I hope not, I just want to be unique...)  I am willing to pay a reasonable amount ( < $50-ish) for someone to design one for me, if need be or to download a "limited edition" type thing, if such things exist.  I would love to have sections along the top where I could categorize projects (a "Ted" tab is a MUST), and an AMAZING looking header must be part of the deal.  Can anyone help?  Have you used anyone for your blog, or have you run across a blog designer who is just fantabulous??  I want to know!!  Thank you all for your help.  With your suggestions, this kitchen table will be a little more classy-looking soon. 

But while I can still get away with posting ridiculous oddities (honestly, will I ever NOT post ridiculous oddities??), here's a Texan para-sailing llama:

See, wasn't that undeniably enjoyable?  Happy Friday, friends!

new skillz

Free photo editing software is a beautiful thing!  Check out my "after" photo of my mint side table before editing...

Holy yellow!  Is my house really that mustard-y colored?!  And here's the photo after a little editing...

Yeehaw!  Now THAT'S true to life color.  It really is that "electric" in person, and I love it! 

How about this photo of Mr. Tedlington Bear before...

And after...

Who wouldn't want to make puppy pictures all the more "aaaaawww!"-worthy? =)  I'm enjoying Picasa right now, but could see myself wanting to make the transition to a more advanced program down the line.  If you're a photo editor, what's your program of choice?  I'd love to know!  For now, I'm getting back to Picasa - I'm addicted, for sure!  Happy Thursday, friends!  (It's nearly Friday!)

Linking to:

Dittle Dattle

Keeping It Simple

DIY Mint Side Table

My sneak peek from yesterday...

Is my most recent Goodwill acquisition for $6...

It's a sweet little side table that I fell in love with as soon as I saw it.  I stupidly forgot to take any before pictures, but you can see it here basically before.  I wanted it to tape it off so that a bit of the cherry wood finish showed through.  I wish I could've left the finish alone, but it had a few very large battle scars...

 

I filled most of the scratches with wood putty, and taped off the design of my choice, inspired by this Pinterest photo....

And here we are after several minutes of measuring and taping...

 

And here's the faithful help...

He's always willing to supervise =)  After a few coats of primer...

Here we are after!

Eeee!  (<- excited squeal!) I love it so much ~ the shade of mint is so fun!

I've been having fun rearranging little things on top of it...

You can see how the cherry shines through in the details...

Isn't it delightful??  I'm loving it in our living room...

I do need a few more mint accents in the room, but I have got these 2 lovely pots that I'm trying to place...

 More deep blues and minty greens.  I love it!  Now they just need the perfect home.
One more look at the before and after...

So, do you like my little side table?  I'm completely in love with it!  I like it almost as much as my last wood project, the chevron lazy susan.  I hope you all are having a happy Wednesday, friends!

Sharing the love with:
Coastal Charm






Primitive & Proper

Turkey Chili (& sneak peek!)

I'm getting better about this blogging-while-working business again.  This week I will blog at least 3 times - I miss it!!  Today's post is another cooking win: spicy turkey chili.  Even though it's a millionbajillion degrees outside, somehow, comfort food still sounded good last week...

 

Mmmmmmm!  I browned up some super lean ground turkey, onion, and added in beans, tomatillos and a few jalapenos for some kick. stew for an hour or so, and this is what you get! 

On another note, I am now learning to edit my photos - can I get a hallelujah?  It's really time, especially if I ever want to be taken seriously (but let's be honest, who's going to take me seriously? ;)) 

One more glimpse of yumminess before I leave you in suspense for tomorrow's post....

You knew I'd work a little glimpse of my lazy susan in there - still loving it!  Here's a sneak peek at what's coming tomorrow...

Be exctied!  Happy Tuesday, friends!

Bookends

No, not the Simon and Garfunkel song (anyone know what I'm talking about?  Time it was and what a time it was it was...), actual bookends - they were my mystery project!  Here they are after I purchased them for $12 at Homegoods...

Crazy bright, right?!  They aren't real coral of course, they're plaster or something (<-specific, huh?), and the paint job was less than ideal.  However, they do resemble these...

365 bones!  Whew, glad mine were cheaper, but I do love that Lucite base - gorgeous.  While the coral color is great, it doesn't go one tiny bit with my home, so I decided to get my spray paint on again...

 

 Still learning how to use this new camera, so it's a little scary with the Edward Scisorhands flash shadow, but I love the color!  I used the bookends to create a bookshelf across the top of our IKEA Expedit entertainment center...

I was inspired by the many pictures of bookshelves organized by color, so I made my own!  Please resist the urge to make fun of my poorly styled expedit shelves, I'm working on them (does anyone else find styling shelves horribly difficult??).  But you can see my little white elephant if you look closely!

Here's the full picture (and  Rick Steve's Europe episode about Norway - love that show!)...

In case you're wondering why i have a bright orange sticky not on my shelves, it reads: "I love you April Cylwik."  Eric put them up before we got married so I would come home to them.  More than two years later and I still won't take them down, now that's love! =)  Also, we have a yard gnome named "Gnorbert," can you see him?  Yep, we're just that classy.

So, what do you think?  Good idea, or should I have left them red?  I'm enjoying the books atop the entertainment center, it was looking a little naked before.  Now I just need to style the rest of the shelves and finish learning how to use this camera.  Tomorrow I'll share my sweet little table makeover with you - I'm so excited about it!!  Have a happy Tuesday, friends!

yummy

Back from my little blog vacation!  Last week was my first week back with students, hence my absence.  Boy, was I TIRED!  But I wasn't too tired to cook up some yummies.  First, we made spinach, chicken and cheese calzones...

They look a little funny, but they sure tasted delish!

And on the inside...

Just one close up...

Tasty looking, huh?  It's my mom's recipe - how she got us to eat spinach as kids =)  All you do is cook some chopped chicken breast in cream of chicken soup with some white onion, add in some chopped cooked spinach, and roll it into rosemary olive oil dough.  Bake 25 mins at 375 and - voila!  I'll share the next recipe (and some long overdue project updates!) later this week.  Hope you're having a happy Monday, friends!