K.I.S.S.

My motto during this decorating season is: "keep it simple, Sugar!"

Days ago, I spied a DIY 5 minute tinsel garland wreath and I thought, jeepers creepers! I could do that. So I moseyed myself down to my local thrift store one chilly night and found my essential props: an extra large embroidery hoop and a lengthy string of tinsel.

Carefully wrap the fragile metallic garland around the entire hoop, add a little pom pom* for extra cuteness, and whoomp! there it is.

Easy peasy right?! But it gets better...total cost? $3.98. And I have an extra loop of tinsel for future use. Say whaaaaat?!

Doesn't it just speak, wreath out and touch me? (I'm a sucker for puns. But who isn't really?)

[ *Instead of using wax paper as suggested, I made my pom with good old tissue paper. And it hasn't lost its puffiness yet. ]

Seating For Mew

Now that the cornucopias and turkey hands are safely packed away for another year, the "xmas" marked boxes can officially come out to play! Oh my goooodness. I have been dying to decorate for Christmas since the afternoon of November 11th. That was the day I came home from work and found a pair of sporty seats chillin' in our living room.

Perhaps I should have mentioned the fact that these are car seats. CAR SEATS! Chris replaced his S2K stock seats with a duo of red leather bombshells, leaving these two bad larry's stationed inside.

Uncle Kitty welcomed the newcomers.

As delightful as they were to look at on a daily basis (sarcasm), come black friday, the seats left the room. So instead of suffering barbaric-black-friday-checkout-lines, I was a mexican jumping bean, decorating away whilst covered in glittery goodness and head bopping to the tunes of Sufjan Stevens.

Yes. Much better. 

Stay tuned...more decorating goodies to come!

Neglected Nacho

Whenever I eat nachos, there is always that one funky looking tortilla chip I ignore and push around the woozy cheese mountain until it's the only one left on my plate...and even then, I won't eat it. Well that's exactly what I feel best describes our master bedroom in terms of design. Meet our neglected nacho.

eh. Nothing to write home about.

Chris and I spent the majority of our "tool time" hustling and bustling the main living quarters, but when it came to our chamber, we were completely out of design fuel.

Our bedroom isn't very big to begin with and I doubt I could ever fit a regular dresser in there. Thus, it leaves me no choice but to work with what Mr. Lusk built;  jam every article of clothing in the closet and improvise with the limited space we have.

Instead of hiding my everyday jewelry in a box, they are hung at eye level on a criss cross shaped wall shelf. Ten times out of ten, I pick a fun piece to wear off the shelf. 

And since every inch of floor space in the closet is stuffed to the gills, my homeless shoes are neatly stacked on wine racks.

But nine times out of ten, I have an OWL of a good time.

-d

Lackety Lack, Dont Talk Back

[Not sure if this constitutes as an Ikea hacker project- considering it didn't involve the use of any power tools, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it does.]

As I was gearing up for the baby soirée, I realized my seating to tabletop ratio was lopsided to the point where I would find empty water bottles buried in between the couch cushions. Ok...not really, but it was getting close to that point.

Now and then we would use our 5 year old Ikea lack side tables as a temporary fix during movie nights, etc. but the ubiquitous cubed table stuck out like that guy who just got fired from Jet Blue at an employee of the month convention. To no one's surprise, paint called out to me as the perfect...and easy solution.

After a few minutes of online research, it was loud and clear that the secret to painting the lack series was to use primer. No sweat. This was going to be an easy breezy cover girl...until I noticed that the leftover can of primer stored in our garage was probably as old as the table. So, what the hay; I skipped the first, and most important, step and began to paint my primer sorrows away. Worst case scenario, I'd be out of a ten dollar table that I would have eventually tossed to the curb anyway.

Fast forward 2-3 coats of paint and approx 3 days of drying and there you are!

The painted tables alone were just alll riiight...that is until I went a bit further.

A little too predictable for our sake, but that's just how we roll nowadays. 

Gotta use up that box of  floppy disk somehow.

Floral Arrangements

As we all swoon over the latest issue of Lonny, I can't help but to blame the online magazine for germinating granny-loving floral condition.

Case in point...

I'm gushing over the paver design below despite the fact that I would like to go all Super Mario Bros on it and blast some flower power. 

Sorry Chris...but I've been stung by the flowery design bee. :)

psst. don't think I wasn't going to mention page 167! one day Oscar's room...one day. 

It Takes A Village...

Honest to blog, seems like 2010 was the year to get knocked up. I personally didn't get that memo (sigh of relief); but many friends of mine did, including one of my best friends. I happily offered, well...more like insisted, to host an all girls baby shower at my humble abode...and this past weekend was her pink-free zone shindig.

I've always wanted to buy those cute Martha Stewart pom poms, but apparently Martha favors expensive tissue and whatnot, therefore I DIY'd my way through Martha's voluminous poms and saved myself a few bucks. The first couple of pom poms I made exhibited signs of the bad-first-pancake theory. Luckily this video rescued me with my puffy problems.

Bouquets of DIY pom pom flowers and wheat-grass filled flower-pots were sprinkled throughout the table.

Most of the mouth watering desserts came from one of the BEST bakeries the City of Angels has to offer; The Village Bakery and Cafe.

Ok, so I may be a tad bit biased here, seeing that the owners of the joint are family (literally related to my in-laws), but no lie, their food is to die for!  

One of these days I'll expand my horizons and sample more offerings from their menu. Offerings such as the Thanksgiving on a Bun sandwich. But for now I just can't part ways with their breakfast special. Bacon wins every time.

[Atwater Special]

And even though the party is over, there's no shame in keeping the festivities alive in our home all week long.

Look At This Stuff, Isn't It Neat?

I'll admit, I'm an Adler-aholic. More like an ogler-Adler-aholic (my entry to Webster's Dictionary new word contest...if it ever existed). But who isn't, right? When perusing his site, I instantly turn into Ariel from the Little Mermaid. I mean, look at this stuff:

mrs. godfrey chair

garland wallpaper

jere rain drops mirror 

havana table lamp

whale pitcher 

(i want this thingamabob, badly!)

Is it too early to renew my vows and create a new wedding registry? 

Oh and holla at cha' girl if you know the entire words to 'Part Of Your World.' A hand raise would be fine, too. 

Shabby Geek

You know what they say, one man's trash is another man's treasure. That was the case when we came across this box 2 years ago.

It's a floppy disk rave! Isn't it fabulous? Until today, the diskette's had been trapped in the closet (no correlation to R. Kelly). 

We are in the midst of developing a few google sketchup ideas for these now obsolete, tile-like, storage devices. Until then. 

(Not So) Good Vibrations

I'm not gonna lie, I'm shaking in my boots. We West-coasters have had quite the earth stir these past few weeks and I am not a fan. I'm a weenie when it comes to earthquakes...and thunder...and roller coasters. My heart races, my eyes scan the room for any structural damage, I dart for Chris...and then the cat. I'm hypervigilant for the next few hours until I either fall asleep or get distracted by another task.

Today's earthquake felt like a waterbed; moving to and fro. Luckily there was no damage. But that wasn't the case a few weeks ago when a 4.4 magnitude hit at 4:04am (coincidence!?). We woke up to the sound of glass breaking. There I was lying in bed thinking of all the possible items that may have fallen.

Such as the countless number of vintage soda bottles.

Or this 'old-timey-sports' crew of Kessler whisky filled figurines. 

A pair of 1984 political party decanter memorabilia filled with kentucky straight bourbon whisky. 

They make great bookends, no?

Or perhaps one of the many Jesse LeDoux framed art prints (which had yet to be hung) scattered throughout our home.

Turns out, those lil asian porcelain figurines were the only catastrophe (pictured in the lower right corner of the above photo).

Thank goodness neither of them were filled with any sort of hard alcohol. We don't drink, but our decorations sure do. 

Dear QVC,

It's been thirty-six days (and counting) since I placed my 'hello, lover' (a la Carrie Bradshaw) online order and have yet to hear so much as an electronic peep from you. It's torture I say. Torture to fathom that these little darlings have yet to nestle in our home.

Genevieve Gorder Three Owl Collection Vase

Ante up, boo.

xoxo, 

dolores

And now I turn to you, my trustee bloggers. Have any one of you had to endure through a long and lengthly waitlist via QVC? Did my boo deliver?  

En Route

I am convinced I'm in the process of developing a hunchback...probably because I've been ogling goodies for Oscar's room.

wall Art

valorbis

maptote

scandiphone

polli pendant

subway map dress

I gotta look the part too, right?

I guess 1 out of 6 isn't too bad. Guess which one is in transit to our house?

Today's Motto

::via Kitty Genius::

True that.

Versatility

About a month ago I was at Kohl's perusing the clearance bath section for some tidbits and I found a light green ceramic trashcan dressed in a honeycomb design at 40% off the retail price. It was love at first sight, but I thought twice about making the purchase. I mean did I really need to replace my current trash bin? Of course not, so I let it ago. Until last week...

I saw the same honeycomb bin but this time at 80% off...zoink! Of course I bought it...along with the matching toothbrush holder and soap dispenser.

But I had other plans for them.

You see, I'm a knitter (though I only knit scarfs) and I have leftover balls of yarn scattered everywhere. So, I've been on the hunt for a cute basket to pile my spun wools. Problem?

Solved!

Next I thought the soap dispenser and toothbrush holder would make darling vases.

Pop out the dispenser, add some water and whala! A set of multifaceted goodies.

Have you ever re-invented a product's intended purpose?