Under a Blue Moon

Friday Favorites

goldentrees, ◊ beach ◊ Untitled ◊ Untitled

This literally made me laugh out loud. Instagram 1 Instagram 2
What a lovely idea for a nursery
Very glamorous Ikea hack. I covet the mirror – then I remembered I have one that is very similar (from Horchow)
Well this is rather exhilarating How crazy is that?

Yay Friday!! Last weekend was all about dealing with car issues, pruning the last of the roses, fertilizing, staining a fence so this weekend I am going to relax and do nothing. I have magazines I want to catch up with, the Crown to watch (still haven't watched season 2!), maybe some fun creative projects. I have one I've been putting off because it scares me a little bit so maybe I'll pull myself together and see if I can't give it a go.

Our temperatures are back in the 50's (after being spoiled with high 70's for a few days there) so it's a good weekend to just stay cozy.

I hope your weekend is as lazy and relaxed as I am planning mine to be.

Target

Target has really been killing it lately. I went in for a pair of sneakers and left with a cartload of stuff. As one does at Target.

They have really improved their in-house brands. They have some new clothing lines; A New Day, Universal Thread, Who What Wear to name a few. They are quite stylish. An interesting thing I've noticed at the Targets around me is that their mannequins are a more universal size. They look to be size 10 or 12 in the regular women's section and in the plus size section their mannequins are realistically plus sized. It's refreshing, I tell you.

Their Project 62 line of home decor is very on trend and very affordable.

I am going to admit something, and I'm probably in the minority, but I have not been impressed with the Hearth & Hand line (Chip and Joanna Gaines Magnolia line). There really hasn't been anything that appeals to me.

The first thing that caught my eye were these pink glasses. They have them in clear, green and blue as well. I have a collection of colored glassware that is fun to pull out at parties when you need a lot of glasses. I usually pick them up at thrift stores but when I saw these and they were only $3.99 a piece I snagged them. They had matching pitchers and cake stands too.

These are brighter than I usually go for but they are so cheerful and Springy and were in the $1 bin so I threw them in my cart. They will be fun at Easter. I always stop by the $1 bin because they almost always have cute greeting cards or notepads – both of which I tend to go through at an alarming rate.

Another item I snagged in the $1 bin was this small cake plate. It was $5, however. Still a deal. Because it was from the $1 bin I can't find a link to it or the straws or napkins.

It's the perfect size for a trio of cupcakes or a petite pie or cake. Or even a candle.

I am a note taker, especially at work, so I always have a notebook going. I have my bullet journal for keeping track of my to do list and action items for the week and I always have another notebook for jotting down things which I then transfer to my bullet journal if I need to. Usually it's a dreary old composition notebook but this notebook caught my eye. It's very old school Cath Kidston-esque. I just want it for the lined pages but it also has a yearly calendar and list of holidays at the front. I also love a spiral bound notebook because they lay open nice and flat. I can't find a link for it online but it was $6.99 and in the office supply area.

I always browse the beauty area which they have also spruced up. They have a kiosk in the middle of the beauty area with all kinds of sample sizes and interesting products to try out. I love doing a mask when I'm taking a bath. I haven't tried these Avatara masks before but they look promising.

And last but not least my annual pair of sneakers. I buy the same exact pair every year and if they ever discontinue them I will storm Target headquarters and demand they bring them back. Or send them a strongly worded letter. Actually maybe I should stock up just in case. They don't have the white online but they look like these grey ones.

It was time. Actually I finished staining our fence on Monday, which is what prompted the trip to Target in the first place. The old ones went straight into the trash.

Travel Wishbook

Any longtime reader (with a good memory) might remember this post I did almost nine years ago on creating a travel wish list. The plan was to come up with ten travel destinations and create a scrapbook like page for each. I shared my number one wish list destination – New Orleans and I actually made it there in 2016 for the annual Jazz Fest. I guess that old 'intentions' thing works, albeit rather slowly.

It was even better than I had imagined. I'll do a post about that soon. I have some great pictures and memories. I really want to go back so I don't feel like I can cross it off my list just yet.

The second spread I did was on Maine. I just love the idea of going there late Summer, early Fall. When I create the pages I try to pull in cultural references that might be a bit obscure. For the life of me I can't remember the significance of the spider web (or maybe the spider) but I know there is one.

Well that is where I left the travel wishbook. With just two entries. I initially was going to do ten but I have fourteen pages total so that is what I'm shooting for. I love this scrapbook. I don't know if it is really old or just a reproduction. The pages have that fragile, crumbly quality that makes me think it is actually old.

My latest entry is for Paris.

My favorite crafting medium has always been paper. I'm really getting back into it now (as the bomb site that is my office would attest to) with the Valentine cards and now resurrecting this project. A lovely thing about this project is I can work on it for a bit, then tuck it away for almost a decade and pick right up where I left off.

I do need to carefully think out my list of destinations. While I love traveling I like home better so the places have to really have a siren call. Here's what I have come up with for the next few spreads:

England
London (yes yes – it is part of England but I want to do a separate page just on London)
Ireland
Charleston, SC
Savannah, GA
Martha's Vineyard

Looking at my list I can see I'm not too adventurous when it comes to other languages. I just wrote the list from the top of my head and they are all English speaking locations. I'll have to ponder that.

Help me with ideas – where do you want to go or have you been that you think is a must see?

Friday Favorites

Peek-a-boo….I see you ◊ Pretenders ◊ Yearning for Simplicity ◊ yamate, yokohama

I'm probably a few months behind on this but L'Occitane and Rifle Paper Co. What a perfect marriage of brands. And what a great gift – birthday, mother's day, flag day…
The last hand/body moisturizer you will ever need to buy. Seriously – I have cloven hooves and this makes them soft and supple.
They made a movie out of The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society!
It's hard to make sense of what is going on in our country right now. My favorite quote reminds me that the majority of people you meet in life are good and intrinsically want the same things – a peaceful, harmonious life where you can send your children off to school and trust they will be safe. I know what the answer is but I am stumped on how we can get there

I feel like I've said this before but it's hard to come up with something cheerful these days. We are tragically broken, no matter what party line you align with.

I'm a firm believer in the kindness movement so that's what I'll continue to do. Be kind. Nothing more simple than that.

Have a lovely weekend and reach out to someone and just do something, ANYTHING, kind and unexpected. You'll both benefit more than you can imagine.

Love,

Bathroom Remodel

I wanted to show you the before and after of our main bathroom.

This bathroom is off the hallway between the two bedrooms. Some might argue that not having an en suite bathroom for the master bedroom is a negative but I actually don't mind. It is just the two of us living here so it's not like anyone is going to see me walking five steps down the hallway in my nightie or anything.

The bathroom must have had some sort of refresh in the past 75 years because the cupboards and the sink were obviously not original. It definitely needed updating but the overall layout was good so we didn't have to monkey with moving the plumbing or anything.

Here are some befores:

The above is looking in from the hallway. The tub had a very low soffit above it. So low that Rick couldn't stand in it without his head touching the ceiling.

Another angle. That wallpaper though. It looked like a collage of paper scraps with writing on them.

Here is the sink area. Another soffit. I'm not sure what the counter was made of. Some sort of composite. It doesn't look too bad in this picture but in real life it was super busy looking.

And looking towards the door. The bathroom has plenty of cupboard space, that is for sure. Not sure I would have picked that style of door but they are in good shape so we kept them. Other than that and the toilet everything else was gutted. The cupboards look white in the photos but in reality they were a pinky, beige color. Kind of like a band-aid.

One last before picture. When the baseboards were removed some vintage wallpaper was revealed. I thought it was a sweet detail and I love these kinds of glimpses into the history our home.

Okay on to the new! And by new I mean four years ago!

I love the end result but let me tell you getting here was a nightmare. We hired a general contractor and the guy that came out to do the work was so utterly incompetent. Things, as they do with remodeling, took WAY longer than quoted and the work was so shoddy. The general contractor fired the first guy and had someone else come in to finish. We had to actually hire our own tile guy (who was completely fabulous) to do a proper job on the tiling. Here's a tip – always hire a tile person to do tiling. Not a general contractor and not a flooring person. Someone who specializes in tile work.

(with the magic of Photoshop I edited out the light switch. It was making me mad)

The general contractor was completely sorry about how things were working out and really worked with us to make things right. What should have been done in two weeks took about seven. He said that every now and then you have a job that goes completely south and in this case it was ours.

I did an inspiration board before we started and for the most part what I envisioned is what we did. The exception being the wall color. We have white beadboard on the lower part of the walls (which Rick installed) and above we went with a pale aqua color which is so not like me but it just worked with the marble counter top. I was thinking I would do a pale taupe or grey but just could not find the right shade.

We used the same tub we did in our last house. Opening up that soffit made such a huge difference. We were afraid there might be duct work or something it was hiding but it was just empty space. A design choice they did back in the 40's when everyone was five feet tall.

The one thing I wish we had done differently is to have a recess for shampoo and the like. I think our initial thought was we wanted it to be more in keeping with the 1940's (when the house was built) which wouldn't have had such a thing. We have one of those over the shower thingies (removed for staging purposes) and it's okay.

(see why I edited out the light switch above?)

We lucked out on the marble counter top. We went to a stone yard (is that what they are called?) and there was a small piece left over from another project and it was exactly the shade I wanted. The price was great too. We went for honed rather than polished because I love the kind of Parisian cafe vibe it gives.

We still need to find a proper mirror for the space. I'm conflicted if I want to do something simply framed in chrome or go with something kind of Venetian which would be beautiful but not the least bit era appropriate.

I also want to replace the door but we have a few others in the house that need replacing too. Half the doors are original and a solid single panel. And half are flat, hollow core doors. It's on our household to do list to get those all replaced.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour and look back at our bathroom.

Here are some links to the fittings and accessories used

Canisters

Bathmat

Towel bar and toilet paper holder

Wall sconce

Acrylic tissue box (similar)

Wall color – Benjamin Moore Winter Ice

Sink faucet

Tub shower head (we replaced the shower head with an unrestricted flow one)

Bathtub

Valentines

I felt the need to get my craft on over the weekend and tried my hand at making some Valentines. I am super pleased with how they turned out.

A million years ago I ordered a set of cds from lunagirl.com with hundreds of vintage images on them. Now, a million years later, they offer the same images as digital downloads. I have gotten a ton of use out of these images over the years. I had a scroll through the Valentine images and was taken with the heart shaped scans on the cd.

Just trying to get some work done around here ladies.

I printed them on Epson fine art paper which is pricey I know but the results are fabulous. The colors are really vibrant. The only beef I have with the paper is that is says to print on the smoother side and both sides feel and look EXACTLY alike. However one side looks much better when printed. I generally put the sheet in to the printer upside down and print on the incorrect side but I just flip it over and print again. The paper is thick enough that you can't see the image showing through from the other side. And since no one is going to see the back of the hearts it worked out just fine.

Once I had the hearts printed and cut out (using my favorite Cutter Bee scissors for paper cutting) I layered book print scrapbook paper, coordinating cardstock and plain note cards from Michael's. Michael's has value packs of these cards and they had them in a lovely blush color.

I sacrificed one of the cards to make little banners. Since most of the pink card is hidden under layers I wanted to use the banners to tie it all together. I used my Sizzix Big Shot and a Spellbinders die to make the banners. I actually bought the set of dies just for the banner one. I have no use for the rest but the set was on clearance so I didn't sweat it.

Once I had the layers all affixed I added embellishments with grommets in the corners and glittery accents.

I go through these phases where I am completely obsessed with some crafting tool and I spend way too much money on something that will, in all honesty, not get much use. So it was fun to bring out a few of those tools for these cards. The grommet setter – I mean what was I thinking? I think I've used it twice. And it is a pain in the ass so I see why I never use it. The Sizzix Big Shot I use more but the dies are pricey. Someone really needs to start a library where you can just check out the dies and return them when you are done.

This does make me want to try my hand at other cards. Maybe if I start now I can get Christmas cards ready to send out in December.

Links to the materials I used:

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase

Lunagirl vintage images
Recollections Book Print scrapbook paper
Epsom Velvet fine art paper
Recollections value pack cards and envelopes (I don't see the blush on line but they had them in the store)
Sizzix Big Shot
Spellbinders die set with banner
Cutter Bee scissors
Tombow Xtreme adhesive
Stickles glitter glue
Making Memories grommet setter

« Previous Page