Under a Blue Moon

Friday Favorites

Untitled ◊ summer garlands… ◊ a little embroidery ◊ 011_2

Isn't a jewelry cloche a pretty way to store your jewelry?
I could probably be talked into camping if it was done in Mavis the Airstream
I love the simplicity of this bracelet. Would make a nice Mother's Day gift (if you are planning ahead)
Would you hesitate or just jump right in? Personally I would jump right in so as to not be seen (and filmed!) in a bathing suit for any longer than necessary. Boy you sure can feel how tense they all were

I have a three and half day weekend! No real plans to speak of. It's a good chunk of time to work on a couple smaller projects. I have two crafting projects I want to work on and I would like to enlist Rick into helping me add shelves to some cupboards out in the storage area. And by help I mean do it. I can stand nearby and offer unsolicited advice.

I hope you have a splendid weekend!

Tea time

In my last Friday favorites I linked to a tea caddy from Cost Plus and it got me to thinking that I should do a post about tea. It is my beverage of choice (after wine..haha!) and I have some tea related favorites that I thought I would share. I am not, and never have been a coffee drinker. I think, in the US anyway, that we are a very coffee-centric society and I think tea should get more love.

I start my morning with a mug or three of tea. My go to tea is Harney & Sons English Breakfast with their Paris blend a very close second. If I'm in the mood for something cozy I'll drink a chai tea. I haven't found one that I like any better than another yet so I'm just trying different ones for now. Later in the evening I go for Yogi Kava Stress Relief tea because it is decaffeinated. I'll switch to it during the day if I feel like I'm getting jittery from too much caffeine. It is calming, like it proclaims to be.

I have that exact Russell Hobbs electric tea kettle and I love it. I've had it for years and it has held up very nicely. Every now and then I fill it with water and add a lemon, cut in half, and let it boil and then cool down. It gets rid of any mineral deposits. Although I will say that since I switched to just using bottled water in the kettle I haven't had any mineral deposit build up. Also makes for a tastier cup of tea. I can't find that exact one online but this one sure is cute.

I don't have the pink Burleigh Asiatic Pheasant breakfast cup and saucer but oh how I covet it. I wanted to buy a set of two but the shipping from the UK costs about as much as the cups and saucers themselves. What I love about it, other than the fact it is pink and just lovely, is that is larger than your average tea cup. I have an extensive collection of beautiful tea cups but in the morning I really want a nice big cup of tea. Regular tea cups hold a teeny amount and cool off too quickly.

I prefer my tea milky except that I cannot stand milk. Back in 2016 I did the Whole30 for a couple of months and after trying every Whole30 compliant non-dairy creamer known to man I discovered Califia Better Half. Hands down the best non-dairy substitute for your tea or coffee. It is made from coconut cream and almond milk. No added sugar and it's only 15 calories and 1 carbohydrate per serving. It comes in a variety of flavors. I prefer the vanilla.

And you can see I bought the tea caddy from my favorites. All in the name of research, of course.

None of this is sponsored, by the way. Just me sharing my favorites. What is your favorite tea?

Junk Drawer

I'm fairly certain we all have one of these. I'll even confess to having an entire junk ROOM when Rick and I had our first apartment. It was a two bedroom and the smaller room was just a dumping ground for anything and everything that didn't have a proper place or we didn't want to deal with.

This is what happens when you don't want to deal with the little bits and bobs that accumulate on your counter:

You can see I had, at one point, tried to corral and organize the contents since I have individual compartments for things. But the things, they mingle when no one is looking.

I would have loved to go out and buy new drawer organizers but one of my New Year's intentions is to only buy what I need for the first three months of the year. No wants. So I re-purposed the organizers I have which are by Rubbermaid. They are actually very serviceable but I do wish I had a few smaller compartments. No matter – they work as is. They also have a lip on one side that hooks over the adjacent organizer to they stay together nicely.

The first thing I did was just dump everything out and wash the drawer and the organizers. I also cleaned the drawer liner. I'm fairly certain I have mentioned these before but if not I highly recommend The Easy Liner by Duck for drawers and shelf lining. I have used them for years and whenever a family member moves into a new house my house warming gift to them is to line all their kitchen drawers and shelves with it.

Even Rosie approves.

Another thing I did was to lightly sand and paint the top edge of the drawer. Our kitchen is original to the house and these drawers have seen 78 years of use. The paint was quite chipped and you could see the various colors the cabinets were painted over the years. Green, red, yellow, white. I could have painted the front of the drawer too but I didn't want to go down that slippery slope. You know how it goes – you intend to just clean something up and the next thing you know you have ripped out your entire kitchen. We are hoping to replace the bottom cabinets in the kitchen at some point so we'll just live with a less than stellar paint job for the moment.

Then came the arduous task of putting things back in that belong and returning the rest to their proper homes.

I am not sure why we have such a large collection of lighters. It's not like Rick and I have ever smoked. I do know why we have such a large collection of pens (someone clearly has a problem…). I used to just shove receipts into the drawer but last year I started putting them in an envelope. The envelope didn't quite fit in any of the compartments so I switched it out for a smaller one.

It feels good to get it back into shape. I hope you found this useful – either by motivating you to tackle your own, out of control, junk drawer or to make you feel better about your superior organizational tendencies. Ha!

I have added a new category to the blog – Organize – because I like both reading these types of posts and creating them. Let me know if you like them as well.

Friday Favorites

Untitled ◊ Colors Of Flowers ◊ Buttons ◊ Pretty in Pink

Pretty storage for all those assorted tea bags
Stands to reason that someone that works for Anthropolgie would have an interesting, eclectic home. I'm mostly in love with the all the late 19th century details but I also covet the large ottoman/bench in the first picture
Give Back Box sounds like a win win donating process. Fill a cardboard box with items to donate, print a label and ship it for free to your closet local participating charity
Has anyone seen Their Finest? It looks like a good period drama. I seem to love any movie that is set in the past and especially love the costuming of movies set in the 40's

I hope everyone is doing well after the past couple of weeks of festivities. It was hard to get back to work. The problem with taking a couple of weeks off is it takes you about a week to just start getting the hang of relaxing and then boom! Vacation over. I am going to take more frequent breaks during the year. I take a day of here and there but this year I will take bigger chunks off throughout the year. I have so much vacation time that I can never use it up.

It helps that we have a holiday (Martin Luther King's Day) on January 15th right around the corner to help us ease back into work.

I love today's photo mosaic – it's so cheerful. My motto for 2018 it to radiate cheer. 2017 was rather dour and I'm going to do my part to turn that around.

Happy weekend everyone!

Rehabbed Buffet

Having the TV in the living room is a necessary evil so I wanted to elevate what it sat on and have it be a unique piece. We started looking for a buffet with pretty lines and interesting details a few years ago. It was always my intention to paint it white since there is so much wood going on with the floors.

Rick is an expert Craigslist crawler and we saw a few that might work but usually they were too far away or too expensive. We also kept an eye out when ever we wandered into an antique store.

Well back when we were looking for our Wedgewood stove we went to a place in Stockton that restores them. They also happen to have a pretty great antique store in addition to their stove restoring business. We walked in the door and this was sitting right smack in front of us.

However…

It was attacked by a lunatic. The antique store is in a neighborhood of businesses and houses and one night some crazy person was walking down the street throwing huge river rocks through the windows of all the businesses on the street. This buffet sustained a direct hit. The picture doesn't do it justice. There was a huge gouge in one of the fluted areas and gouges across one of the doors. Plus the trim (the frame part on the doors) was missing in places.

The price was substantially reduced because of the damage and since I was planning on painting it anyway it was a perfect fit for us.

My supervisors. See the frame like trim (right above Grace's head) – it looks like the bottom of the frame is there but actually the entire piece was missing and you just see the lightened wood where it was. I had to recreate that. I bought a mould making product that stays flexible. I pressed it on the trim piece on the matching door and then I filled it with auto bondo to recreate the trim.

I also filled the gouges with auto bondo and sanded them down. I find that auto bondo is much easier to work with and you get a nicer finish than any of the wood filler type products. Here's a shot of how I dealt with the gouged out fluted detail. It looks a hot mess at first but once it was sanded and painted you can't even tell where the gouge was.

Once it was all bondo'd up I spray primered it and then painted it with chalk paint and finished with some soft wax. I have tried a few different chalk paints and the higher price of Annie Sloan's is worth it. I used Fiddes & Sons soft wax because I find it easier to work with than other brands including Annie Sloan's.

It was a bit of a project but I think it turned out great. I would not hesitate to take on a similar project. Recreating the trim was easier than you would think.

It's perfect for our television and we can hide all the electronics in the cupboard part. I swear the next television we get will be white.

Happy New Year!

As I mentioned in Friday Favorites I like to start the new year with a a clean house. But really I have more rituals, if you will, that I like to usher in the new year with. I think they are more about starting the year off on the right foot, more than anything.

Before we get into it I just want to wish everyone a Happy New Year. The past few years have been, not to mince words, super shitty for our family. We lost two cherished family members to cancer (my darling niece Camille at 21 and in a complete clusterfluff (ahem) of fate, her mother – my younger sister Trish, 18 months later). So it's been tough to feel any kind of gratitude. However – I am feeling grateful for my beloved family. So many fabulous accomplishments despite some very challenging distractions. There have been marriages, babies, career accomplishments, good long visits with faraway family, and just hanging in there despite everything – so many good things to be thankful for. We have a new baby (grand-nephew) coming in 2018 and that, my friends, will be what I focus on. New beginnings, old traditions, and treating everyone, myself included, with the utmost kindness.

So what do I do to usher in the new year…

Along with a clean and tidy house I always have fresh flowers. I try to incorporate this on the regular, throughout the year.

I make sure that I have a hundred dollar bill in my wallet and I put a new coin over my front door. To help usher in good fortune.

I have clean bedding on all the beds and make sure the guest room is especially welcoming to ensure a steady flow of guests throughout the year.

Clean laundry for sure. No undone chores when the new year rings in.

Do you have any New Year's traditions or rituals? My mom liked to run across the street and back with her luggage so that she would have lots of lovely travel in the upcoming year.

I wish all of you a happy and prosperous year in 2018 and I want to thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for coming here and reading what I have to say. I do so appreciate your camaraderie and friendship yet feel incapable of articulating how much. Do know that I truly appreciate it.

Much love,

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