rough floor plan

I thought you might be curious about the floor plan...

keep in mind this is very rough and just for the purposes of the blog

sanded floors!

I'll be moving in to this house shortly and out of my parents. It's a 1921 bungalow with lots of charm. 

At about 900 square feet, it's the right amount of space for just me. I will have to share the basement with my dad (he's putting his office down there!) but I did'nt expect to be using the basement much anyways. 

I'm excited for things to proceed further and for me to actually move in and decorate! A tour will most definitely be in order once I have my things all set up. I have so many ideas!

Anyways, the first steps before I can move in are some minor improvements. 

My dad just had the floors redone, and they turned out gorgeous!

The big green machine is the zambonee like floor sander!

The sanded floors. This shot is from the front door, in the living room. 

You can see all the way back to the two bedrooms & that hint of red is the kitchen!

Testing the stain color. You can really see the difference between the raw wood and the color in these photos.

Stained and sealed! These photos are taken from the basement steps, as we can't step on the floors or open any doors just yet. The polyurethane still needs time to set up. 

The red paint is in the kitchen. The toe trim for the baseboards still need to go on, and that color will be touched up, along with some touch up paint on walls throughout the house.

Other than that, we still need to install appliances before I can move in. 

Furniture can't touch those floors for at least another week though!

MORGAN! Don't read this! If you want to read this, DON'T, it's a SURPRISE!

Have you heard of lux addiction? 

They make these super intensely jeweled cell phone cases. Which are sort of tacky fabulous... I mean, Ariel on a glittery phone or a HUGE rhinestone hello kitty screams tack-tasm.

But with a price tag of almost $80, are not the cheapest fad to partake in. You should go check them out though, they're kind of amazing...

My bestie Morgan has a birthday coming up (on Halloween!) and I had been thinking about what to get her for awhile. I decided to jewel out an ipod case for her, since she doesn't have a smart phone yet and she embraces tackyness to the fullest. 

I thought it seemed like a straight forward enough craft- glue a bunch of gems to a case.

This is what I started with. I was shocked with how much plastic gems cost! 

The majority of these are from the scrapbook section, because I had more choice in colors and sizes there.

I went with a clear/silver, pink and green theme, since Morgan is fairly preppy.

The case is from T.J.Maxx. It's very important that the case be hard and not silicone to get the gems to stick and stay on. That case, as you see, is not very girly. Just wait. 

The whole spread. Clockwise from top left, rhinestone brads, pink flower stones, pink snowflake ornaments (which I didn't end up using), rhinestones on sticky back made to go on flip flops, sticky backed stones for scrapbooks, hard ipod case, box of various size/shape green gems from the scrapbook section, stick on scrapbook gems, palm tree and flamingo glitter buttons (backs snipped off with an xacto!) 

If you want to use sticker backed gems, just use a finger or an xacto blade to pop them off the sticky sheet. You want to use your gem adhesive and not the sticker glue to hold the stones down.

 These big round gems were actually brads from the scrapbook section. 

I popped the brad backing off with an xacto blade.

 I ripped this rhinestone Christmas ornament apart for the big stones.

Part done jeweling the ipod case. 

I used Aleens Jewel-it, which sets to a gel so the stones have some give when they set, and won't just snap right off.

Not gonna lie, bedazzling was tedious. This probably took me 3+ hours in total.

I had a broken phone case and extra rhinestones, so I bejeweled my phone case as well. 

It's silly, super tacky, and really huge now, but I kind of like it!

 Finished ipod case, slider bottom attached.

 See, the bottom just pops on and off...

 Rhinestone bedecked front.

 Another of the back of the ipod case. 

Some advice if you want to try this, fill in little tiny holes later with more tiny tiny stones after the main bejeweled part is dry. That will make it a little 3-D and more professional and covered totally.

Now to my phone case.

Look how crazy this is! I have a glitter flamingo on my phone! 

HUGE GEMS! 

 Even the top is covered up.

 This is still kind of silly to use in public.

 Both together. It looks like a pair of grammas in the 90's!

So I hope Morgan likes her baller ipod case, and I hope I have enough courage to let people actually see me using mine in public!

mod sheets and printmaking progress

I found the most amazing mod vintage sheet today. I will not be cutting this beauty up.

In other news, I applied to an artist residency program so I can get back into my own studio and print again... Graduating from MICA really left me high and dry as far as having a shop to print at goes, so be prepared to see progress and many more prints soon!

I miss printmaking

I miss doing this everyday in my studio... intaglio prints from my commencement show in May 2010

estate sale decor

I recently just pulled a bunch of photos off my phone's camera, and thought I would share with you. 

I attend a lot of estate sales. A LOT. 

My dad is retired and works from home, and really enjoys looking at houses, so he likes to go to estate sales and poke around and sometimes buy some old tools. He's my built in estate sale buddy when I'm in KC.

I typically buy vintage home wares for my etsy (shop update soon, I promise!) or accessories for myself.

Bue sometimes I find absolutely weird/amazing decor. Here are just a few snaps of some things that people actually lived with, in their homes, and had no idea I was snooping during their estate sales.

Super 70's wallpaper. I should take more photos of this. Practically every house around here has some thing super vintage and borderline tacky papering their walls. This one was of note because A) I sort of liked the crazy moire pattern and stripes and B) it was iridescent! It shimmered!

 At another sale. I found this cute little built in basement entertaining cabana. They sunk the fridge into the wood paneling! This house even had faux window boxes on the inside in the rest of the basement. I thought the awning was cute, despite the fact that the rest of the basement was unfinished, and was poorly suited to entertaining.

This is from the same sale as the photos below. This dog was about 3 feet tall, incredibly creepy, and was marked for bids starting at $200! Apparently the lady who lived in this house kept it by the fireplace in lieu of real pets in the house...

Last but not least, this enormous mirrored tub Vegas style bath. This is from the same house with the stuffed dog. The tub was entirely Italian marble, the faucet was shaped like a bird and plated in actual gold. Believe me, I asked the people running the sale all about the bathroom after I took these photos. The previous homeowners completed this look with mini statutes of Michelangelo's David and floor to ceiling mirrors. Next to the tub was a bump out with an enclosed shower and a hardwood sauna. Yes, you read that correctly, they also had a sauna built in.

From the second photo, you can see the matching marble vanity. This was totally over the top for a bathroom in my humble opinion, but I guess people want what people want. 

Living in the lap of luxury in Prairie Village, Kansas. I wonder what the realtor would describe this bathroom as?

strawberry bling

Aren't these strawberry earrings adorable?

I picked them up yesterday at the thrift store while I was out, at a whopping $3!

They're avon, and exactly like this pair for sale from Vintage55 on etsy

I was actually out yesterday in search of waterproof material to make Colin a bike seat cover. He wanted something orange, so I went to practically every fabric store in the city to find something. I got vinyl at Joann's that looks just like a basketball! It's so strange. While I was there, perusing the vinyl in home dec, I noticed these SUPER awesome key patterned fabrics!

They were only $6.99 a yard! Hello throw pillows!

svpply

Have you heard about svpply yet?

It's a pretty great retail bookmarking/wishlist building sort of site. More wishful than practical, svpply has no price point, but is surprisingly well edited.

You can find my page here if you're interested in oogling the pretties I've had my eyes on recently. These are a few screen shots of svpply page...