HomeGoods Shopping

My mom and I had a pretty fun and hilarious day together over the weekend that involved a trip to HomeGoods, a few different Marshalls stores, a nice meal at Maggiano’s, and my first ever trip to World Market. :)

Here are some of the HomeGoods/Marshalls highlights:

We loved all these patterned accent chairs, especially the blue ones :) If only I had a place for them.

They had a pretty good selection of knobs this time…I especially loved these “mercury glass” ones. I don’t have a “need” for them now…but if they had been on clearance, I would have bought all of them! (If someone else wouldn’t have beat me to it, that is!)

I thought this 2-tier tray in the garden department would make a great addition to a craft room…or anywhere you want some cool looking storage/organization.

I love to look at their throw quilts/blankets, though I usually don’t consider buying them because I could make them myself.  Since I’m really trying to get the living room “done”, though, some of these really tempted me!

I did end up taking home this blue ceramic goldfish (blue goldfish?) Not that I need another blue goldfish in my home…but it was just too perfect! I will get a better (i.e. non-phone) picture of it sometime when I get it displayed somewhere! :)

My first World Market experience is coming up next!

Done any good shopping lately?

New Toy: Holga Lens for DSLR

We all have fun playing with the fun filters on Instagram and similar programs, so when, during my daily immersion in the internet one day, I found a plastic Holga lens to fit on a DSLR, I thought it might be a fun thing to play with.

I got the blue version :) because I love blue and because I didn’t really care if it looked a little nutty on my camera (there is a black version, as well as lots of other colors!). It’s a toy lens after all!

Before I got it, I read some reviews, so I was prepared to mess around with manual settings to be able to actually take pictures.  (Thanks, Shoot Fly Shoot, for teaching me how to mess with those!) 

Puppy the cat in the yard

Shadow the dog

Flowering bush

Siberian Wallflowers

The opening on the camera side of the lens is the tiniest hole ever, and the whole thing is plastic, so there are no aperture settings.  You adjust the brightness or darkness of the picture with shutter speed and ISO settings, and even then, it pretty much only works outside. :)  The day I took these pictures was sort of overcast. I can’t wait to get to try it when there’s some cool bright spots and shadows.

Here are some pictures where I was changing up the settings.

1/50 sec, ISO 800

1/15 sec, ISO 800

1/50 sec, ISO 800

1/25 sec, ISO  800

There’s a “focus ring” on the lens…I put it in quotes because it’s pretty primitive :) and really, the point of this lens is that it’s a toy lens, so I wasn’t too worried if the pictures were really in focus or not. I did notice when I took some flower close-ups it looked better when I had the lens set to “portrait” or whatever on the focus ring. The whole thing’s plastic, so I did have to be really careful when I was adjusting anything, for fear that it might pop off the camera! :)

I definitely want to keep playing with this lens and having fun with it. What do you think? Like the pictures? Would you want to play around with a lens like this?

Bigger pictures on Flickr.

How Should I Refinish This Dresser?

Wow, I’m just asking for all kinds of help lately, aren’t I? But isn’t that what blogging is all about? :)   So, do I paint it or stain it?

Images from here and here.

Okay, so here’s what’s going on. As a part of the great sewing room organization of 2013, I figured I should actually start working on this dresser I got from my aunt.

See all that junk on top? Yeah, this dresser’s just been sitting here collecting junk, which is pretty much the opposite of its intended function. (The junk is supposed to go inside the dresser, not on top.)

Last year (or longer ago than that?) I got this dresser from my aunt. It used to be my lola’s (Filipino grandma) and it’s just been sitting in my aunt’s garage.

I generally don’t love dressers for sewing room storage – they’re meant to hold clothes, not sewing gear. The drawers are usually too deep, don’t slide easily enough, and the dimensions of the dresser itself is usually all wrong. My dream is to have kitchen-type cabinets of all shallow-ish drawers. (I had something pretty much ideal when I was living at home with my parents, so I’m spoiled!)

But this dresser actually is pretty great. It’s 6 feet long. Yes, 6 feet long. So its proportions are more along the lines of something you’d special order in the kitchen department. And it’s just over 29” tall, which is almost exactly the height of my sewing table – so as an added work surface it’s going to be ideal. The drawers are still a little deeper than I’d like, but they generally slide very well, so I think I can make this piece work.

You can see that the style is such that all the drawers touch. Well, over time, they’ve sort of started to stick to each other, probably from swelling and expanding and whatnot. So I’m getting on sanding and planing down the drawers a bit.

I'm using an old planer of my dad’s that I found in the garage. :) Hey it works! I think the blade could use a bit of sharpening, which I’ll get on. I learned all about hand planes from Tommy on Ask This Old House.

This is my first time using a hand plane, and I’ll admit I’m making a mess of it in some places (from not following Tommy’s advice. Oops!).

Anyway, as I’m working on the dresser, I’m finding it’s made of some nice wood. I thought at first that the finish was that really thick plasticky finish that I’d basically have to paint over. I planned on using Valspar’s Pacific Pleasure (color #5009-10) for the body and keep the top nice and white. Something along the lines of this color:

Image from here.

Really gorgeous right?

But like I said, it’s a nice piece of furniture (Thomasville), and I’m finding it’s not hard to sand off the finish down to bare wood. So, then I thought, should I do something like this? And refinish and stain it something gorgeous like Clara’s changing table from Young House Love?

Thoughts, ideas, questions, comments? I’d love your advice! 

The sewing room is painted a neutral gray, and I’m generally trying to keep all work surfaces white. (Don’t want colors clashing or affecting your judgment while you’re working!)  I do have another desk that is blue and I plan on updating with Valspar’s Pacific Pleasure. 

So do I go with two blue and white dressers to keep things cohesive? Or bring in some nice, neutral wood tones? Opinions? Help!!

Blogiversary!

I have been looking forward to this day for a bit, but then the holidays came and preparations for holiday parties and I nearly forgot! Today is my first blogiversary!

I’m pretty excited because I have definitely attempted blogging before, several times, but it’s never lasted very long. I know I’m not the world’s best blogger by any means, but I’m happy to have made it through a full year of blogging!

So to celebrate, here are some pictures of my party-decorated house. It’s twinkle lights galore in here. I put them up yesterday for my work’s holiday party and I’m leaving them up for/until our New Year’s party.

It’s like living in Pinterest and I love it!

Happy Blogiversary and Happy (ongoing) Holidays!

“Quick” Door Makeover

Friday afternoon, I thought I’d go ahead and repaint our kitchen door and screen door.

Yes, I have other projects I really need to be doing, like baby gifts for my friend, Janis, and finishing the alterations on a wedding dress for my friend, Nicolette.

But those things require thought, and I didn’t feel like thinking, so I figured, I could just repaint this door really quickly and feel accomplished.

Ha. I should know that no project goes quickly.

It all started because Grounder the terrible dog is super afraid of thunder.  I’ve left him outside in the dogs’ fenced-in yard, thinking it’d be nice out, only to have it rain, making him go crazy. Twice now, he’s escaped the fenced-yard, come to the kitchen door, and in a desperate attempt to get inside, pull the screen off our screen door. (Don’t feel bad for him, it was hardly raining or thundering either time!)

This is what it looked like the first time:

That was last May. I replaced the screen with pet-tough screening.  But he did it again this May. Maybe it’s something about May.

So I bought the new screen (again) and was getting ready to fix it when I realized now would be a great time to paint, before the new screen go installed.

Our house is a bland beige color, which I can’t wait to change, but that is definitely not a priority project. All the trim is forest green, which I also can’t wait to change, and that is on this summer’s to-do list. My plan is to paint all the forest green window and door trim white.

But I thought the doors could be a fun color!

Normally, I would agonize over this decision. I had been thinking of various shades of light blue and teal. I was thinking what would look good with the house and our future updates to it…but then we were watching “The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe” and Amy closed her bright blue front door, and bam! I decided I wanted TARDIS colored doors.

Let’s just skip to the after pictures, shall we? This door is definitely bright blue (like Amy’s front door if you go check out that episode) and maybe the TARDIS looks like more of a navy color most of the time, but I don’t care. I love this blue door and I’m calling it TARDIS blue.

I’m so happy that everything is one color now, no more two-toned doors, and that the forest green has been exchanged for white. Of course, now more than ever, I can’t wait till we can change our siding…to a pretty dark gray, maybe?

And actually, for now, I am going to bask in these lovely after photos and I will wait till tomorrow to tell you the harrowing details of this project, including why you shouldn’t paint your exterior doors on 95 degree days.

:)

Things I Love Thursday: More Blue Stuff!

Last week, after I posted about blue kitchen stuff, my awesome friend, Janis, alerted me to this amazing blue koi fish teapot that she saw at Cost Plus World Market, a store I’ve never been to, but apparently need to visit ASAP.

I want one of these in every room of my house. I want to just carry this around with me! So cute.

Here’s another angle:

Love.

So, of course, I spent more time on Cost Plus World Market’s website, and found these lovely blue things:

Great milk bottle with blue writing:

Fun blue ramekins (at a great price by the way! and they also have soufflé dishes!):

And fun, fancy, blue knobs:

Have fun shopping!

Things I Love Thursday: Blue Kitchen Accessories

My favorite color is blue. My friends and family know that I will buy things just because they are blue, and not for any other reason. :) I know this will be a theme on my blog. :)

Here’s some blue stuff in my kitchen:

Blue canisters, blue pitchers, blue bowls, blue plates, blue pots, blue platters: you name it, if I see it, I want to buy it. :)

Blue kitchen accessories aren’t always easy to find, however. Red, white, and black dominate the kitchen accessories scene. So when I see blue kitchen things, I snatch them up!

So, imagine my surprise when I saw an entire Joss & Main sale, dedicated to blue kitchen things! I’m only sorry I didn’t see it and post about it sooner!

I love this blue fish jug! I love blue and I love fish!!

But, it’s super similar to my bird pitcher (on the shelves pictured above!) that I got from Anthropologie a while back, and I do have a similar (mulit-colored) fish jug on the opposite shelf…so I guess I do have a little self control when it comes to buying blue things…

I also love this blue frying pan wall clock:

There’s a good chance that this blue serveware is going to be on its way to my house:

And I’m currently debating whether I have room to store this cool blue chip and dip set:

 

Since the Joss and Main event is ending soon, here’s some other blue stuff I love from Anthropologie:

I have a sort of sickness for latte bowls. You can see some in my cabinets above, and I have some more all blue ones stashed in another cabinet.

I’ve got my daily jewelry in this Anthro egg crate:

I don’t set sticks of butter out, but I want to just to use this butter dish:

 

Of course, one day I’d love to find the countertop space (or innovative storage solution) to start making cakes, cookies, and doughs with a blue KitchenAid stand mixer.

 

I love blue!