Under a Blue Moon

Friday Favorites

B O U G A I N V I L L E A ◊ book storage ◊ the creative spirit ~ ◊ Paper Lanterns

I always forget H&M has housewares and decor items. This cloche and stand is really pretty and reasonably priced. This candle has Fornasetti vibes at about a tenth the price
Fascinating collection of photographs from early in the 20th century by photographer and sociologist Lewis Hine
Haha! This is completely me
Is this not the cutest thing you have ever seen? Little girl serenades cows I love how they all just line up in a row to listen to her

Another week went whooshing by. Last weekend Rick and I bought four antique cane back chairs that need some love and attention. The cane has split on three of them so that needs to be replaced. Rick is going to do the caning and I'm going to paint and recover the seats. So we might start working on that. We need to order the cane but I can get started on the seat covers.

Other than that I don't think we have any plans. Just the usual weekend puttering around. We are supposed to get rain on Saturday. And I think we do something with the clocks this weekend. Spring back forward (!! See what I mean!!)? I always dread turning the clocks back forward. It takes me weeks to adjust.

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Wednesdays are for blathering

Sorry for the slow start today. And for recycling Instagram pictures. Get ready – I'm in a blathering mood with nothing of substance to say. I feel like I'm in waiting mode lately. Waiting for Spring to truly and finally arrive for one. Waiting for inspiration for projects around the house.

Decor wise I think we are pretty dialed in. Although I will say it's always good to change things up so one's look doesn't get stagnant. You don't want to be in an online article, 50 years from now, describing how your home is a perfect time capsule of the early 2010's.

When I look at my Instagram feed for new people to follow I'm looking for something that looks new and fresh with how they decorate their home. But all I can seem to find are Chip and Joanna Gaines-esque farmhouse decor. Every feed looks the same. Shiplap, lots of white with some greige and taupe thrown in. I guess every decade has it's decorating style and farmhouse is having its moment. And before I offend anyone (ha – it's probably too late) it's not that I don't like that look because I do but I think it has played itself out.

I'm not entirely sure what my style is. I've described it as grandma chic but I think that is a little more kitschy than what I have going on. I guess it is mostly traditional with some grandma thrown in. While I'm not opposed to painted white furniture (as evidenced by the pieces I have in my house) I really do love a nice wooden piece to break up the space with some color.

That dresser above has been mine for as long as I can remember. My younger sister Trish and I used to share it, each getting a small and a larger drawer to call our own. When we finally got our own bedrooms I got the dresser and the library table that is in my living room now. I also got a small upholstered chair which I sadly had to get rid of about five years ago. I remember it being important to me to keep those pieces and Trish was happy to get new furniture. I liked the history back then and I like it even more now.

My dining room table for example; I was six years old and I went with my mother to look at a dining room table set that an older couple were selling. I remember them telling my mother that they got it as a wedding present 50 years earlier. When I was in my early 20's my mother had a new dining room table built for our ever expanding family and she gave me the dining room set. If I was six and it was 50 years old then, well let's just say it's REALLY old now. It's probably a decorating no no, since we rarely sit at it, but I love how it looks and I love all the memories of meals eaten there, homework being done, getting to sit at the head of the table with our revolving, musical cake stand for birthdays. So many memories.

I kind of forget where I was going with this. Oh yes – so while I like my decorating style and I love certain pieces I also want to freshen things up. I think what we really need to do is paint the walls. I get a number of questions about the paint on our walls (mostly inherited from the previous owners) and it does photograph well but in real life it is dingy and I'm embarrassed to say there are a number of places where the plaster has been patched and it only has a coat of primer over it.

So I think that should be our next decorating project. One really does have to gird their loins when it comes to painting, don't they? The thought of moving all that furniture and doing the prep work is exhausting. So while I will say stay tuned for that – at the same time don't hold your breath as it may be a while before I can muster up the enthusiasm.

Easter Ornaments

I have a plethora of vintage tartlette tins and I have been meaning to make vintage-y Christmas ornaments out of them. As I was looking for images for them I thought why not do something a little more season appropriate so I hopped (haha) over to The Graphics Fairy and downloaded some vintage Easter images.

First thing I did was embellish the edge of the tins with German glass glitter. I do love this glitter. I bought it about ten years ago and I still have a ton of it. It has some sort of magical quality to it where you can never use it up. I printed off the images (after resizing) on white card-stock and meticulously cut them out. Some I layered over sheet music or book page scrapbook paper. I used those foam sticky things so they weren't sitting flush with the back of the tin.

I added some additional sparkle to the edges of the images and to highlight certain areas using Ranger Stickles.

I printed the Easter Wishes banner to layer on top. And then finally I hung some beads and crystals off the bottom for some added bling.

I love the little girl in her bunny costume. She looks none too pleased to be dressed up like that.

Here are some of the Graphics Fairy images I used:

Of course I'm not exactly sure what I am going to do with them. Is there such thing as an Easter tree?

Friday Favorites

Lilies of the Valley ◊ gonna give my heart away ◊ don't you remember ◊ my winter

For my fellow font nerds – type anything on the Wordmark.it website and it will show it in every single font you have installed on your pc
Did you know that Elon Musk's (of Tesla fame) mother is a model? Quite a stunning one too
I bought this sweet little rose quartz heart (it's supposed to reduce stress and promote feelings of love, if you believe in that sort of thing…). The seller threw in extras and the best thing of all is that all proceeds from her shop, Grey Baby Gallery, go towards food and medical care for homeless animals. I didn't even know that when I ordered. She included a little note explaining what her shop does in my shipment
Two pretty home tours for you: Tiny Gardener's Cottage and Blue Barn and Cottage

For a rather dull, quiet week it sure went by quickly. We've had a couple of good storms with more rain expected today and tomorrow. I'd kind of like to get out of the house but need to figure out something weather appropriate. My car has been in the shop for two weeks now (blown transmission – buh bye $4K) but I should be able to pick it up today. Maybe a drive to some nice restaurant in a pretty location is in order.

Or maybe I can talk Rick into building me a garden obelisk like the one he made for me at our last house. We left it behind since it had a rose all growing up in it. I have plans to put my Arabian jasmine in the ground and will need a substantial structure for it to grow on. It's in a pot at the moment and not very happy by the looks of the yellow leaves.

I hope you have a lovely weekend my friends!

Rosie in the window

I have a whole lot of nothing today. But rather than just not posting I thought I would pop on and chat.

I was being all cocky about our fabulous California weather a couple of weeks ago and it has turned on me! Last night we had a terrific hail storm (drifts of it!) and this morning when I drove to work the hilltops were frosted with snow! That never happens around here. Luckily it didn't quite freeze in our garden. We have so much emerging growth so it could have been disastrous. We do need the rain (that accompanied the hail) so that is good. We'll take it.

I've started pulling out Easter decorations. I honestly don't have much. A few rabbits and my childhood Easter basket but that is about it.

Oh hi Grace always lurking in the background.

I love that rabbit. My sister Nicki gave him to me and when my dad saw it he asked "Is that a bomb on his back??" So it's the bunny with the bomb forevermore. I do love a rabbit with a serious countenance. No cartoony rabbits around here.

I'm also working on a crafty Easter project so my office/craft room is an absolute tip. I can barely get to my keyboard for all the bits of paper and glitter laying around. It actually started out as a Christmas project but I thought it would work for Easter too. Stay tuned to this space for more on that…

Did you know that Alstroemeria is dangerous to cats? I have to be so careful with what I put on the coffee table because a certain two misses like to chew on plants. I usually only have carnations or roses. Alstroemeria is for photographic purposes only. It went up on the mantel immediately after the picture was taken.

I hope your week is going well!

Etched Glass Window

So I mentioned on Friday that I might attempt a craft project over the weekend but I was nervous about doing it. I wanted to take a shabby old window and reverse etch a design on it.

The purpose of the window is to have it hang outside of our bathroom window to allow us a little more privacy from our neighbors when we have the window open. We want to let the fresh air in without alarming anyone next door.

I found an adequately shabby window at an antique store that just needed a little cleaning up and some white paint. I got to cleaning it up and then this happened.

I had it leaning up on a chaise lounge and ran into the house to get a razor blade to scrape off some paint and a gust of wind blew it over. Sigh.

Take two. I found another adequately shabby window and this time I set it on some saw horses to clean and paint it.

I used white chalk paint to cover the blue. I wasn't overly careful because I didn't care if it was gloppy or chippy looking. I also didn't tape off the glass because paint, especially chalk paint, is easily removed from glass with a razor blade.

Glamour shot. Not. The next step was to apply the design. I went on Etsy and did a search for wall appliques. You know – those big wall stickers. I found a design I liked in a size that would work and gives all those crafters that invested in a Cricut machine a purpose. This is what I ordered: Small Damask Wall Decal. Also I told the shop owner I didn't care what color vinyl he used since I was using it as a stencil. Might as well let him use up his stash of unpopular colors. He was great to work with and even emailed me to make sure he understood what I wanted.

Issue No. 1. I carefully marked where the top of the design should go on each pane of glass but once you try to position the decal it sucks itself to glass the second it gets anywhere near it and there is no repositioning. So one design is slightly higher than the other. It's less noticeable in the final result. But OH how it bugs.

Issue No. 2. So here we get into the controversial part of this craft project. And after completing it I'm not sure if I would recommend it or do it again. It's the etching cream. The Armour Etch directions say it's not for a large area of etching. I'm not sure what qualifies as large (and they didn't specify – in fact I could find no directions at all – either on the bottle or their website. I had to go to trusty old YouTube for directions on how to apply and for how long). The issue I ran into is how to wash off the very caustic etching cream once it had done its thing. Small projects you just rinse off in the sink. I ended up going behind the garage where we have a patch of gravel to rinse off and I hope I haven't totally ruined the ecological balance of our backyard.

I love the end result. I will say that using chalk paint and then hosing it off wasn't the smartest move since the chalk paint just wanted to dissolve. I had to go back and carefully clean the glass to remove the dissolved chalk paint. Perhaps an acrylic paint, dried an adequate amount of time, would have been a better choice. But overall the end result was what I was going for so I am happy. As are our neighbors, I am sure.

Here's a not very glamorous view of the back of our house. Building a screen around the a/c unit is on our to do list. As is pulling out all the spent impatiens. But the etched window does the trick.

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