Under a Blue Moon

Decorating

I’m feeling very blah about my decor these days. I actually started a post about rearranging furniture and when I took a picture of the space I realized how dark and somber it looks. We live on a piece of property that has a lot of trees. A lot. On the one hand it’s nice and shady which is lovely during the hot Summer months. But then it’s a bit dark in the house all the time.

(click on the picture to enlarge – this is looking from the entryway)

When we moved into this house five years ago we bought new living room furniture. We carefully picked out fabrics for the couch, loveseats and chairs. They really are lovely together but now, after five years I’m just tired of them. The couch is pretty innocuous – it’s a sagey, greyish/green that goes with a lot of colors. The loveseats are done in a blowsy floral in reds, pinks and the same sagey green on a tan background. Then the other two upholstered pieces are done in a faded red and green plaid.

In the second picture from the opposite end of the room you get a better idea of the colors – You’ll also notice the hot mess on the right which is our desk and computer – it doesn’t belong in the living room and was moved in here during our kitchen remodel and now is homeless. Hence my previous, unpublished post about rearranging furniture.

So my dilemma is I actually like these colors but the effect and combination of them is just so dour looking to me. I’m not sure how I can brighten things up and get the look I’m going for without a huge expense of recovering everything. The loveseats actually have slipcovers on them and underneath is a plain, creamy white. I’m thinking I could paint the round table in the corner a creamy white ($30 find off of Craigslist) and paint the entertainment center the same color (said entertainment center is a testament to the 80’s ~ heavy oak with and etched glass door. I’m not certain why we have hung on to it for so long except it does conveniently house our television and stereo system).

In one of the many decorating magazines I read a decorator was quoted as saying that one’s decor should always be evolving – move things around, shake things up. We’ll see what a can of paint does and if it has any significant impact on the room. It’s a start.

Wrapping

Click on picture to see it enlarged

Well it’s officially Fall so it’s time to start thinking about ~ Christmas wrap! (I really need to learn to live in the moment and not forever be scanning the horizon for the next season)

I just received Carolyn Roehm’s book on the subject. Pretty pictures but I’m not certain it’s worth the price. She tends to repeat ideas quite a bit. Anyway I wanted some inspiration and I do get that out of the book. She also has access to (and the money for) really swishy ribbons and Italian hand printed papers. I have Target.

I have a bit of a reputation when it comes to gift wrapping. It started back in the 80’s when one Christmas I wrapped all the gifts in cobalt blue wrap and tied them up with black satin ribbon. They were really striking. I don’t actually like the process of wrapping, fighting with tape, folding everything precision like – I like the end result. It’s fun to find interesting paper and ribbon combinations.

I did a present last year that I wish I took a picture of. I used glossy black wrapping paper and the same wide, green satin ribbon you see up on the right – I bought an assortment of faux flowers from Michael’s (pink peonies, pale yellow snow drop looking flowers, springs of lavender) and made a little posy that I tied to the top with the ribbon. I’m going to have to do that one again.

I like starting off with plain paper ~ even white butcher paper works great ~ then add the color with the details. My niece got a present last month where I tied a glittery tiara with the ribbon. Oragami papers are another good thing to decorate a plain box with. Oh ~ and rhinestones! Hot glue them on. Who wouldn’t love a sparkly present?

I know Carolyn probably spends as much on the wrapping supplies as she does the gift itself but you can wrap economically and still have spectacular looking presents. I like Target (plain wrapping paper), The Container Store (boxes and special wrapping paper), Costco (for ribbon), Michael’s and JoAnn’s (for embellishments and ribbons) for my supplies.

I also stock up after Christmas on supplies – last year I happened to be in the White Barn Candle store and they had gift boxes that were about 75% off – I bought 20 of them.

A great place for inspiration is Flickr – not for pictures of presents but I look at the color combinations in pictures and get ideas for wrapping. If you look at my Flickr favorites almost all of the pictures there are ideas for wrapping. I’ve been on a Kimono kick lately – I love the colors and constrating patterns of Kimonos and think it would translate really nicely into gift wrapping.

For this year’s Christmas wrap I’m thinking of glossy red paper and the pale green ribbon. I just need to find something else to gussy it up – a sprig of something white. Or maybe just a candy cane. Hmmm, maybe some vintage sparkly snowmen…

I’ve been on the search for pale pink and gold harlequin wrap – so if anyone ever sees anything like that let me know. I want to do a I. Magnin theme Christmas one of these years.

Belle

She is going to get me in so much trouble….

She just likes to be where ever I am. Actually I’m not her first choice. If Rick is around she’ll head straight for him. Animals really like him. Only he has rules he wants the pets to follow and I find it wearisome to enforce them. She hops up. I put her down. She hops up. I put her down. She finally wins. It’s just easier on both of us if I pretend not to notice she is up there in the first place.

The table is one of those places she isn’t supposed to be (and I can just predict the number of people that are going to start turning down my dinner invitations from now on. Honestly – I change the tablecloth before guests arrive. I swear.). The table where I set up my laptop and spend about ten hours of the day. She hops up, comes over and starts licking me on my nose then she settles down for a little self-grooming.

She just snuggled herself right into my heart the minute I laid eyes on her. My youngest (Evan) and I went to the local animal shelter "just to look." 45 minutes later I was signing paperwork and trying to figure out what exactly I was going to tell Rick when we got home. When we first saw her she was about nine weeks old and she was curled up in a teeny ball at the back of the cage, sleeping. Evan was more interested in the livelier kittens but she caught my eye and I asked if I could hold her. The rest, as they say, is history.

I think I have always had cats. Growing up it started with Himalaya, then Krishna (hey it was the 60’s, baby), then Ace of the Arctic North, then Baby Nels, then Dave, then Dolly Mae, then Baby (who actually hated me and thought I was a terrible mother. Seriously. She would bite me whenever my own babies started crying – like I wasn’t moving fast enough or something), then Sarge, then BooBoo and finally Belle.

And lest you all think I’m a nutso cat lady or something I’ve only had two cats at any given time. Although I see nothing wrong with more….

I have to tell a Baby Nels story – he was actually my sister Mary’s cat. We think he might have been gay but that’s neither here nor there. He was a black and white cat and he would ignore you unless you spoke to him in a falsetto. He disappeared, like cats are wont to do now and then. After a day or two we became concerned. My father, who generally professed annoyance or, at the very least indifference, to all of the household cats, was at work (Stanford University) and spied a black and white cat in the parking lot. Now keep in mind work is about six or seven miles from our house and it would be an amazing coincidence that Baby Nels managed to run away to the very place my father worked – never mind all that – my dad scooped him up and tossed him in the trunk of his car and brought him home. We all took one look at this very perplexed cat and knew in a second it wasn’t Baby Nels. Ah well, says my Dad and washes his hands of the entire project. So my sisters and I piled into the car, drove back over to Stanford to the very spot my father said he kidnapped the poor creature, and in front of a bunch of horrified onlookers who I’m sure thought we were the sort of people that would throw kittens out on the side of the road ~ we let the cat go. I’m sure for the rest of his days he would shake his head and retell the tale of being thrown in the back of someone’s car and the explaining he had to do when he did finally get back.

I would like to finish this tale with the real Baby Nels’ return but I honestly can’t remember if he did or not. Isn’t that terrible? I think he did – like cats do – just show back up and sleep for two days and not want to talk about it. Maybe one of my sisters can remember.

Finally finished something

I actually finished my Cath Kidston homage needle case. Two of them actually. I think I still like the colors and contrasts of the red one. Those glass leaves were kind of a pain to work with because you have to attach them to the felt first then sew the little felt square onto the case – the leaves, not being flexible, kept getting in the way of the presser foot and then my stiching would go all wonky. Thank goodness for seam rippers.

I think I’ll make another pastel colored one but do the decoration in ribbon embroidery. That would be pretty, me thinks.

One thing I learned is that real wool felt is SO much nicer than the polyster craft type of felt you buy in 8 1/2 x 11 sheets. I also learned that the minimum JoAnn’s fabric will cut off a bolt of fabric is two inches. I couldn’t find a blue that I liked for the background in the craft aisle so I wandered over to the wool felt aisle for it. In retrospect I wish I had just put back the red, pink and green felt sheets and had gone all wool. Next time. That’s what this is all about – it’s a learning process.

I wanted to share a picture of my photography studio.

Yep. My bed at my dad’s house. There is a skylight above it so the light is good and I like using a white background so the puffiness you see in my pictures is a comforter. You can also see my computer armoire in the left of the picture. I’m at my Dad’s a few days a week and this is my little sanctuary.

The quilt on the bed was made by my sister Nicole. The most talented person I know. And the most prolific ~ it takes me a year to complete a knitted scarf and she’ll have cranked out about 40. Same with quilts. Well I’ve never actually made a bed-sized quilt – just little table toppers and the occasional baby quilt. She’s probably made hundreds of them.

My goal this weekend is to start my Christmas quilted table topper. Just in time for Christmas 2008.

Office Supplies

I love office supplies. Well maybe I should correct that – I love paper and pens and I love going to office supply stores to buy them. It’s that same feeling you had on the first day of school with your new binder and zippered pencil holder with brand new erasers and No. 2 pencils.

I get rather attached to certain pens and get cranky when I misplace them. I love my Pilot V pen right now – it’s a disposible fountain pen with dark blue ink. That’s the other thing – I don’t like black or red ink – I prefer dark blue but will occasionally delve into other colors like purple or green. But mostly dark blue. And I’m a sucker for those gel pens that are creamy colored.

My all time favorite place to shop for pens and paper is a shop called MaiDo in Palo Alto. It’s loaded with Japanese goodness like sushi shaped erasers, beautiful papers, pens, pencils, cases, notebooks, stickers – seriously it’s amazing. I only wish they had a website I could share with you – instead you just have to come here (or Santa Clara’s Santana Row or San Francisco’s SF Center). It’s worth the trip.

Why is it that foreign office supplies always seem so much nicer or more interesting than your own local offerings? The uniqueness? I had the good fortune to spend a year in Turkey when I was growing up and I remember, with great fondness, the little office supply stores in Ankara. Whole tables piled with interesting pens, pencils boxes and erasers that smelled like food (and you had to surreptitiously lick one or give it a little bite to see if it tasted as good as it smelled. They never did). When I’m not looking at locally made linens on travels I’m poking around in the office supply stores.

I stock up on notebooks at MaiDo. I like to have several going at once ~ one for my personal musings and notes and other for work related projects. I used to buy composition notebooks (you know, the ones with a mottled black and white cover) but then found the above Japanese ones. They have such an old fashioned appeal to me. I’m not a good journal writer (not consistent or interesting enough) but it is fun to hang on to my old notebooks and see what was going on in my life at a certain time. Mostly they contain jottings like phone numbers or to do lists but you can still get a little snapshot of what was going on at that time.

Now who couldn’t use an eraser set like this:

Ow

Guess I’m not totally cut out for the roofing business. Woke up with the stiffest neck this morning. So I’m self medicating with heat, Advil and hot tea.

I’m really supposed to be working (I admit it – I’ve got it good, working from home) but while I’m in meetings (phone conferences) I have this tendency to go to my favorite web etailers and fill up my shopping cart with all kinds of goodies. Notions are big on my mind these days. Ribbons, buttons, lace, trims. Fabrics are another favorite. However. Since I don’t actually have actual projects in mind I fill up the cart and then just leave it. Right there in the middle of the aisle. I shove my hands in my pockets, whistle nonchalantly and wander off. If I bought everything I’ve carted up I would be in the poor house (okay poorer house). It is fun dreaming though.

It also funny to go back to a website and see my cart is still sitting there, full of all kinds of things I don’t even remember wanting.

Speaking of favorite websites I’ve discovered Posie Gets Cozy. I’m probably the last person on earth to have found her (and I found her like I’ve found all of the websites I love, by finding one blogger I really like and then looking at her links and so on. And it’s funny but all my favorites are women bloggers. Do men not blog? Can I also go on record to say that I hate the word blog. It sounds so heavy and ploddish and not nearly as enteraining and educating as most blogs I read are). Anyway – I spent all weekend (when I wasn’t on a roof) checking out her archives and photos. I wish I could package up her her life and drop IT into a shopping cart. I wouldn’t leave it, abandoned in an aisle ~ that is for certain.

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