If you build it, fall will come?

Remember this scene from Field of Dreams? Maybe if I decorate my house for fall, fall will come. Yes?

I mean…get it together, September. You have 17 days until it’s actually autumn, officially, and it is going to be 90 degrees today. That is not okay.

So in an effort to bring on the fall, I did a little bit of homemaking. I baked some bread. I lit some candles. I made a playlist. You get the idea.

Aaaaand the blogging dry spell continues. I’m still figuring out how to balance my schedule with my home life and the blog. So thanks for bearing with me.

I think I’m going to go turn up the air conditioning and put on a sweater. Summer, I cease to acknowledge you. I answer only to autumn.

love, elizabeth

Office Makeover

If you’ve missed me on the internet, this is one of the things that has kept me away. I’ve been working in the office for days and have finally surfaced for air (and pictures)! This was a makeover on a serious budget so I tried to make the most cost-effective purchases I could and use almost exclusively things I already had. That’s my mom’s trunk from her days in the Navy. It’s full of pictures and scrapbooks now and I’ve repurposed it as a coffee table.

Here is one of the set of two matching glass lamps I found thrifting. They’re so beautiful and were a legitimate bargain at just $6.99 each. Kyle found shades at a big box store and I love the coppery warmth they add to the room.

I decided to brave the clearance paint aisle at a certain large store that sells things for a very low price and discovered a heatherish-gray color and a pinkish-tan for just $4.86 a pint. Kyle sanded down my grandmother’s old desk and I repainted it. I took some sand paper to the edges to make look a little more worn…I can’t decide it that was a good move or not but the color is a great improvement overall.

Oh, and yeah…hi, I’m Elizabeth and I’m a big ol’ copy cat. I no-apologies, straight-up stole this from Jenni over at Story of My Life. I justify it by saying simply that I have in my possession pictures from our childhood together that she may or may not want made public. Just kidding. ….or am I? No, I’m totally joking. I’m not. I am. No, not really. …..

I seriously love what she did to the wall in their master bedroom and will go ahead and admit that this is like one of those off-brand knock-off versions. The real thing is much, much better.

I used a combination of frames from my closet, my favorite thrift store, and the Dollar Tree. The prints are mostly clippings or postcards or photographs I’d saved, along with a couple prints from CAPow! Along the top left, you can see what my row of handsome daguerreotype boyfriends collected from flea markets and thrift stores. 

One of my favorite things I framed was a necktie-tying tutorial I had clipped out of Reader’s Digest years ago and stuck in a box. I smiled when I re-discovered it in a box of memorabilia.

I rescued the little loveseat from my neighbor Melissa who was going to throw it out when she moved. It has a couple muddy stains from where her dogs ran over it on a rainy day but other than that, it’s in great shape.

The wall-hanging is a bamboo shade that’s too small to fit any of our windows. Anyone who rents knows that leases don’t always allow you to paint a room so it’s great when I can find other ways to bring color and texture to the walls.

What do you think? And what summer project has kept you busy?

love, elizabeth

Knick-Knack Paddy Whack

I can’t remember the last time we bought furniture. Pretty much everything in our apartment (with the exception of our couch and armchair) is secondhand. I’m a big proponent of dumpster-diving and also of having friends with great taste. So when our friends Andy and Chelsea agreed to trade our antique croquet set for this adorable shelf…this happened.

Originally, it was made to hold CDs but since the blistering dawn of the iPod, our albums have mostly been relegated to a storage closet. So instead I decided to fill it with all the little curios I have hoarded for the past seven years.

1. Brass alarm clock that belonged to my mother in high school.

2. Beach Grass candle from Bath & Body Works. (You’d think they were paying me to talk about them this much.)

3. Crooked blue vase from Rainbow’s End, the local thrift store where Kyle and I went to college.

4. Wind-up toy bird from my parents’ house.

5. Painted owl I found in a box that had belonged to my mother as a teenager.

6. Miniature working slot machine (and pencil sharpener) that Kyle found in high school.

7. Hand-blown glass piano and bench from Silverton, Colorado.

8. Painted wooden cat wearing a dress. I found her in a box of things headed for a garage sale and saved her.

9. Russian nesting dolls from my mom.

10. and 15. Ceramic salt and pepper bowls from Paulova. Sarah gave them to me for my birthday last year.

11. Red elephant from Emily. Elephants with their trunks pointing up are good luck.

12. Myrtle Beach snow globe from the Gay Dolphin Gift Cove.

13. Beatles trading cards passed down from my Aunt Joanne.

14. Painted floral vase from Beth.

16. Wooden trolley car from our trip to San Francisco.

17. A jar of pens. Yes.

18. Medicine balls from my parents.

19. An elephant from Kyle.

20. Hand-painted dish from South Korea.

21. Clay pot my mother made in school, circa 1962.

22. Sea shell from somewhere in the Carolinas.

23. The rubber chicken my friend Em and her mom hung from the rearview mirror of our car on our wedding day.

24. A final elephant.

How do you display your favorite knick-knacks? Are you a knick-knacks kind of person?

love, elizabeth

Spring Cleaning

I don’t know about you but it’s like a drug to me. A really spiffy, shiny, well-organized drug. With a great floral print.

Kyle and I try to save condiment jars, especially anything that’s an unusual shape and size. We have a drawer full of recycled jars. They make great vases and organizers!

My new favorite spring smell…the Poppy Sunshine candle from Bath & Body Works.

Over the kitchen sink, the bottle in the middle is an antique passed down to me from my mother. The darker green candlesticks are thrifted and the lighter green candlesticks are made out of old recycled Coca-Cola bottles.

The refrigerator, freshly scrubbed and organized. I tried to make us look healthier by putting vegetables in plain sight. But you can see the salted butter in this picture. We’re not fooling anyone. Looking at a picture of my refrigerator is a good reminder of all the things I have and take for granted. Even the menu plan reminds me that we have more than a huge portion of the world’s population. Wow.

Lucky bamboo shoots…I have no idea how they’re still alive because I keep forgetting to water them.

I decided to pack away most of our knick-knacks for the warmer months…but I left this guy out…he’s full of Carolina sand and driftwood and old wine corks and other things.

I finally got around to making my own magnetic make-up board. I take zero credit for this idea. You’ve probably seen it all over Pinterest. Here’s an example and another one. It’s definitely made it easier to keep my make-up off the bathroom sink.

What about you? Tell me about your spring cleaning projects!

love, elizabeth

Elizabeth Gets Christmas-y

Thanksgiving weekend, Kyle and I decorated the tree. Oh, let’s be honest. I decorated and Kyle admired (and did the heavy lifting bits). Decorating for Christmas is kind of on my top five list of things to do. Thought I’d share a few of my favorite snapshots…

I’ll have more in the weeks to come. I’m excited to peek around all of your blogs and hear more about your holiday plans! Anyone else been decorating?

love, elizabeth

DIY: Junk Mail Christmas Tree

When Christmas rolls around and the malls are extra full of extra shiny, pretty things, it’s easy for me to get wrapped up in a desire to buy and to have. So I’m always pleasantly refreshed to discover a free way to create Christmas magic at home! I’m a huge fan of recycled crafts and this one caught my eye.

The Junk Mail Christmas Tree…

It was pretty time consuming but I think the finished result was totally worth it and it didn’t cost me a cent! Bonus: I used up a huge stack of junk mail flyers for the coming Black Friday sales. Fitting, I think.

In progress…

The finished product…

You can find the instructions to make your own by visiting here.

What about you? Anyone have a fun recycled Christmas project they’re trying out?

love, elizabeth

Haunted Pinecones, etc.

This weekend was definitely a fall-ish one for us here in Columbus. We’ve received some sad news from home and Kyle will be flying back to Colorado next week so we thought we’d soak up as much of the autumn as we could.

We carved pumpkins with some neighbors. They’re two-faced. Uh, the pumpkins. Not the neighbors.

Some of our centerpieces.

I decided to hang twinkle lights in the living room to bring a touch of light and warmth into the room at night. They make me happy. I have seasonal affective disorder and I deal with some mood swings in the fall and winter months. Warm lighting helps!

Cupcakes from scratch.

And last but not least…a story. I spotted these scented holiday pinecones in the Giant Eagle this afternoon and was just putting them in my basket when I heard an ominous voice from behind me…

“You’re going to regret that.”

I turn around to see a little old man staring at me.

“Ex-excuse me?” I asked.

“My wife bought those. I made her throw them away.”

“Because…?”

I waited for him to ominously explain how the pinecones were poisonous or caused rashes or were haunted by forest ghosts or something. But apparently, the gentleman found their scent completely overpowering and determined that they were “stinking up the whole house.”

I smiled politely and left as quickly as I could WITH my pinecones. Drat. I was really hoping for some forest ghosts.

 

How was YOUR weekend?

love, elizabeth

Office Re-Do

Well, all I have to say is, FINALLY. To be honest, I have been in a major blogger’s funk for the last few days. Or maybe just a general funk. I feel like I’ve been stuck in the middle of my office for centuries. But at last, it is DONE. I’m sure I’ll find plenty of things to change later but I’m excited to have a clean, neat space to study and work in for the fall!

I can’t even begin to describe to you the blood, sweat, tears, and threats of banishment to the couch that went into hanging these shelves. If there was any project that has ever PROVED how not perfect our communication skills are, well…this was it. I think, mostly, Kyle has learned how impatient and demanding I am (ie. ‘those shelves are NOT straight…is the level not working?’) and I have learned…how impatient and demanding I am. But our marriage survived the hanging of these shelves and that might be called a small miracle. Thank you, Kyle, for loving me enough to hang them. Again. And again. And again. (Oh, yeah…and those two pictures are my awesome CAPow! prints from the giveaway over at Story of My Life…and I love them like they’re my children.)

My accidental collection of antique thimbles.

My accidental collection of buttons.

Just have to point out that the Dominique Appia print, Between the Gasps of Memory, hanging over my desk was given to me by Sarah in the 9th grade and it’s still my favorite.

Re-purposing is one of my favorite decorating tools. The envelope organizer is actually an old shoe polish box. You can see the slots where the shoe was hung to shine.

I found this sweet old guy languishing in a thrift store a couple weeks ago for $8.98. Someone left their DVR remote in his cushions but he’s still in great shape.This was supposed to be my recliner but Madigan has claimed it. She really likes to eat her breakfast here or sit and judge me for my lack of motivation. Either one.

Kyle and I have a big map of the United States on the wall and we’ve been trying to keep track of all the places we’ve visited together.

Some of my favorite bulletin board artwork.

And this is my favorite picture of Kyle of all time. I took it in Steamboat Springs in the summer of 2005. The summer we fell in love. Can you see it in his eyes? I can.

 

So…I feel like I’ve been not-blogging for forever (or two days, whatever). What have I missed? What are YOU doing this week?

love, elizabeth