September 28, 2009

Simply Mondays

I was home sick again today, but there is still plenty to smile about, like:

Having a back-up plan. Our dinner got messed up (we had a mishap concerning raw salmon instead of smoked salmon that turned our tuna salad into an inedible heap), so my darling husband grabbed a meal we'd planned for later in the week and threw it together tonight. Ahh.. Pasta Puttanesca, what a tasty dish! {Side note- though differing stories have arisen, this is commonly believed to be a dish created by Italian whores to eat quickly between customers. Tasty, quick and... slutty? Whatever works!}

Watching Pepsi try to figure out why the broom was taking away all her carefully placed hairs.


Putting up the first piece of art. Yes, we've lived here for nearly 2.5 months and we are just getting to it. So sue me. {and this piece of art looked HUGE in our apartment- we need to get a frame or something because it is dwarfed on this massive wall!!}

And finding a few more gorgeous flowers along our street before summer {actually} ends here in Central Nowhere.



Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

*All photos by me

Personal Goals: By the Letter

I now have a pretty camera (its 9 years old, but its new to me!), and it is... frightening. There are so many buttons and bells and whistles that I could start my own brass orchestra with the bloody thing, and that makes it quite disconcerting to use stepping up from a point-and-shoot camera.

So for the first couple of days it sat on my desk. I stared at it. It stared back. I think it won the contest. And I realized that such treatment of a nice camera simply won't do. I've read a bunch of things on the interwebz and recently pestered various members of the IL family with questions about using 'The Beast' {affectionately, TB}, and I've reached a decision.

Goals must be set with this camera or I'll never get it! I'm like this with things- if I just go with the flow, I never end up learning anything- it just isn't my style. If I really want to do a project or learn a skill, I have to set weekly/monthly {some kind of timeline} goals to reach on a regular basis. I can make a list that way, and I L.O.V.E. crossing things off of lists {please tell me I'm not the only one!}, so its much more likely that I'll actually follow the plan.

With that in mind, I have created a new plan for myself: Photography by the Letter. Each week I will wander around and use my imagination and my lens to capture a new letter (in order!) in a creative yet easily recognizable manner. This was inspired by The Art of Whimsy, and it seemed like a fantastic way to get myself out and taking pictures! Today I spent about 40 minutes wandering down our street, and while I'm not entirely satisfied with my 'A' yet, I still have all week to find 'the one'. Bear with me, you might have to use your imagination on some of these! What do you think of attempt #1?

Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world.- Blaise Pascal

*photo by me

Promises, promises...

So Mr. Pony has promised to become Mr. Wood-working Pony in the near future. But why? Largely because we have a taste for this {expensive} champagne

with a budget for this {mid-priced} beer (which Mr. P does actually enjoy when he isn't brewing his own libations).

Not that we are talking about him making wooden champagne. Yuck. Actually, we are talking about bookshelves, in an odd, tangential manner. I’ve been drooling over these bookshelves from Crate & Barrel for a while now.


To be specific, this is the Bungalow bookcase, and I think that 2 of these would look fantastic here


in lieu of the 2 crappy leaning bookcases and the matched-to-each-other (and only each other) DVD shelves. Ahh... pending beautiousness.

And then we looked at the price tag {gulp} of $599 each and ran away frantically. Thankfully, Mr. Pony volunteered his own (and his father's) wood-working craftiness to attempt a DIY knock-off of this bookcase for a fraction of the cost using particle board, veneer and DIY-awesomeness to make things pretty and functional all at once.

We are in the planning stages right now- I was handed paper, pencil and a measuring tape and told to design it, which I'm in the process of doing (between running off to look at other pretty things and blogging, of course), so I'll keep you informed on our DIY bookshelf progress.

Of course, once these are done, I'll have to buy more books to fill them up completely. What a delicious task!

Books may well be the only true magic. - Alice Hoffman

September 27, 2009

Giveaway Alerts!!

giveaway 002 copy

Jannypie is celebrating her 2nd blogiversary in true blogger style with a fantastic Halloween themed giveaway. Head on over- she has lots of chances to enter and the deadline is floating (when she gets 500 followers, she picks the winner), so who knows how long you'll have to enter! Good luck!



Carrie over at Making Lemonade also has a couple of fantastic giveaways going on right now (one ends tonight, so move fast!). She has a lot of fun ways that you can get extra entries to her giveaways, so take a look and see if you can win some swag!

September 25, 2009

No-Sew Halloween Table Cloth

Friday morning I wasn't feeling so fantastic- there has been a cough/sneeze/blech bug going around the office, and I fell victim. That said, staying home sick doesn't mean I needed to be totally useless. We started the day with this in our entryway {yuck}


By 10 pm, visitors to our home {not that we are cool enough to have people over late yet} were {would have been} greeted with this!

Which was inspired by this!

Of course, BHG didn't give me any sort of direction on it, simply saying

"This no-sew tablecloth couldn't be easier to make. Cut scaredy-cat shapes from
black felt and simply attach them to a large piece of gold felt using fusible web."

That part in red? Yes, that is the part I don't agree with {at all}. I went the fusible web route because I haven't taken the plunge into sewing machine maven-hood, but it was NOT a wham-bam-thank you ma'am kinda project. At all.

Oh yes, it took planning. Which I finally realized about 1 hour into the project. Oops.

So this is what I started with. A whole bunch of mess. Sweetness. The following is a run-down{ish} of how I got from Point A blah to Point B Hallow-awesomeness.

What You Need:
-Enough black (or whatever color) felt to completely cover both sides of your table, with enough extra on the ends to completely cover both sides.
-Accent color (orange in my case). Size varies with how much you want to do.
-Iron & ironing board.
-Traceable designs to draw on the accent fabric.
-Sharp scissors- felt will NOT cut well with dull scissors {not that I tried or anything}.
-Black & silver sharpies (for tracing designs and drawing guide lines).
-Fusible web (I got the by-the-yard Wonder Under stuff they sell at Jo Ann and it worked very well)

What You Do:
1. Measure the item to be covered. Make sure that you have enough fabric that it can go all the way to the ground on both sides and so you have enough that it will overlap on the sides. My table was 55" long and 16" wide by 27" high. I purchased 2 yards of black felt (72" felt) and had a 2 yard square piece.

2. Lay the piece of black felt over the table so that the front side of the felt just touches the ground and covers the table feet completely, as shown. Center the fabric so there is an even overhang on each side. You should have plenty of extra on each end- you need this to cover the sides, and excess can be cut off later.


3. Secure your fabric to one side with tape and on the other side, get started! I simply used scotch tape to fold the fabric as I wanted it and hold it in place. Using a silver sharpie, I made lines on the 'hidden' side of the fabric so they wouldn't show in the finished product. I started on the fold that would be the first secured down. When I got to the part where I was ironing the pieces together, I matched up these lines (approximately) and was able to put things together easily and without confusion.

4. Plug in your iron and set it according to the directions on the fusible web package. I ended up going to the wool setting for mine because the silk setting wasn't doing anything, but start with package directions, please thanks.

5. Carefully remove your fabric from the table and take to your now-hot iron. Remove the tape, but pay close attention to how everything goes together, or you may spend 10 minutes trying to figure it all out again {cough}, and pull out the fusible web!

6. Cut pieces of fusible web and put them on the fabric with the rough side down (again, read the directions). Iron this down, then move to the next area that needs to be secured down. Again, keep in mind how it all goes together, and if need be, before ironing something down, take it back to your piece of furniture and reapply- you only get one chance to iron stuff! TIP: Cut big pieces to use- it cuts down on time wasted in peeling off lots of little bits of paper, and it makes for a more secure bond.



7. Iron until the first side is done, then refit the fabric to your table, making sure it fits well, and repeat the process for the other side.

8. For my piece, my next step was to measure a piece to go across the bottom. In my case, it was 72" because I went from the middle of the left side, across the bottom, to the middle of the right side. I cut a 3" tall and 72" long strip of orange fabric, and then ironed fusible web to the back of the entire length of the strip. Then I ironed the strip to the bottom of the black felt.

9. Next, take a large section of your accent fabric and put fusible web onto the whole area. Yes, the entire section. This will make the cutting and adhering of your designs much easier, promise! {You'll note that I did this a bit backwards- you get to benefit from my mistake. I drew on the fabric, then put on the fusible web (on the other side) and had to be MUCH more careful about how I cut to avoid getting sharpie lines in my designs. Don't do this- you might hate yourself a tiny bit if you do.}

10. Once the web is applied to your fabric, trace your designs onto the paper side of the web with a sharpie. I recommend getting them as close together as possible- this will reduce waste of both your fabric and of the fusible web.



11. Surprise! Now you cut out the shapes you just drew *gasp*.



12. Final step, I promise! Once everything is all cut out, put the table-cloth back on your table and then use scotch tape to put everything on the table-cloth. This helps you to visualize how things will look on there more accurately. Tape the designs on fairly well, carefully take the cloth to your ironing board, and get to ironing until each tiny little felt monster has been secured.

13. Ok, the real last step. Put your lovely no-sew masterpiece on your table and enjoy!

*Phew* Of course, what took me several hours on my sick day could end up taking only a couple of hours for someone who {doesn't wander off every 10 minutes to look at other things} has an idea of how to actually complete the project. I hope this inspires you or helps you create an awesome no-sew project for your own home!

*If you find a way this tutorial could be more clear, please let me know. I'd love some input on this!*

Check other fantastic decor ideas out on the DIY Show-Off!


Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple. - Charles Mingus

*all photos by me



September 22, 2009

Happy Autumn!!!

Today is the autumnal equinox, and I couldn't be happier {except if I lived in an area that actually exhibited seasons. *le sigh*}

Time to stock up on hot chocolate, fuzzy blankets and very thick books to last me through til spring. Huzzah!

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. - George Eliot

September 21, 2009

Simply Monday

Today's smiles included:

Not having to do all the dishes-

Early Halloween decorations (not completed yet)-


And thinking about our hand-held kitten {about 2 years ago- she now weighs 14lbs. Not so hand-sized}.


Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein

*photos by me

September 17, 2009

Down Day

Have you ever had a down day? Everywhere you look, people are finding ways to rain on your parade. And then it rains on you when you bike home.

Yup, I've been there {am there right now}. My recipe is to spend a night being completely worthless, have some chocolate, and endeavor to wake up in the morning with a brighter outlook. Bad days are bad enough when you experience them once- there is no point in letting them become bad weeks! Wish me luck in keeping a positive outlook tomorrow!

May the saddest day of your future be no worse than the happiest day of your past. - Irish Blessing

*photo by me

September 16, 2009

Guess what happens soon!!!!

from BH&G
If you guessed Halloween, you would be correct! I'm thrilled. I can't wait. I'm just this side of giddy! I've got a lot of projects that, with the impending spook-dom of the season looming near, have been moved to the forefront of the Pony Family To-Do list {Mr. Pony does not necessarily agree, but then again, he has no sense of ghoulish style}. With all these fantastic inspirations, now I just need to decide which project to tackle first!

from Sunset

from BH&G

Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite,
All are on their rounds tonight;
In the wan moon's silver ray,
Thrives their helter-skelter play.
-Joel Benton

September 14, 2009

Simply Mondays

Simple joys are:

Pistachios by the handful.


Interesting architecture within a short walk of home.

Watching Mr. Pony and Copper pony get along quite swimmingly (or trottingly, as it were).


I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex. - Oscar Wilde
*photos by me

September 13, 2009

Weekends are:

Torrents of rain, followed by a perfect sky.
Followed by sprouts of amusing men (wait for it... you'll laugh later).


Bouts of home decorating.


Followed by a delicious dinner.


And finished by savoring one's accomplishments.


It was a good weekend.

Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless. - Bill Watterson

*all photos by me

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