Lonny Mag: featuring my sister!!!!

If you haven't heard of LonnyMag, you are in for a treat!!! It's like my birthday every time a new issue is published on their website! And this month is especially sweet since my sister Elizabeth is featured. Her quote is on page 49!  The article is about a lovely Condo in Georgia she worked on as an Interior designer at Bunny Williams.  I'm so proud of her!

On another Note: Lonny Mag is awesome in the direct links it offers on almost every product that inhabit their lovely photographs! Simply roll your mouse over a couch, a vase and poof the link appears- making it a great resource for your own inspiration boards and projects as well as a look into how Magazines can evolve and stay current in our fast paced media overload society.

Enjoy this fab Magazine and congrats to my Sis!

Reuniting and decorating with artwork...

My mother and sister drove up this weekend with more of my stuff!

They brought us another table (so now I have a larger work space in my studio) and a dresser for the baby to be, and this huge print I bought from a Penn grad student back in '07. I love it! As a printmaker I can totally appreciate the work that went into such a large etching. Inking it alone would be intense!  Also I love how the subject matter reminds me of a Beirut song, I can almost hear the inhabitants playing their instruments. (click on images to view them larger!)

Now the apartment is feeling more complete with this print in its place! On Sunday, after it was hung, I was finally able to arrange a little vignette on top of this cabinet. (again click image to view larger) I included two of my three taxidermy birds, a large glass jug that I bought at Terrain and filled with old wooden spools of colorful thread. I sprinkled in a few frames with favorite photographs, added a more "modern" element with the white glass hand, and included the paper diorama I made for the husband for our first anniversary. This little area is definitely one of my favorite spaces in our place. I love having fun keepsakes mixed with art books, knitting books, novels and photo albums. Note: a fun organization tip by my mother of course- is the folded fabric on 4 shelves. She folded them so nicely.... and they look great hanging out as I prepare to make them into pillows, etc for my etsy shop!

creamy cucumber Salad- by the Barefoot Contessa

As I mentioned this last week- we made an awesome salad from the Barefoot Contessa's Bake to Basics cookbook. It was so tasty I wanted to share.  This salad is the perfect summer recipe, one that I am sure to bring to our knit night potlucks!

The recipe serves 8, so in the future we might half the portions in order to not have too many leftovers since although the salad is tasty it tends to get a little more watery as the week goes on! ; )

You will need:

4 hothouse cucumbers, thinly sliced (if not hothouse- then they will need to be peeled to rid them of their waxy skin)
2 small red onions, thinly sliced in half rounds
Kosher Salt
4 cups (32 oz) plain whole-milk yogurt
1 cup (8 oz) sour cream
2 Tablespoons Champagne vinegar, or white wine vinegar
1/2 cup minced fresh dill
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground pepper

Mix the cucumbers, re onions and 1/ 1/2 tablespoons of salt in a bowl. Pour this into a colander and suspend it over a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours, or over night. NOTE this is very important- since cucumbers hold a lot of water and if you don't do this you will have a very soupy salad!

Pour the yogurt into sieve lined with paper towel and suspend it over another bowl. Wrap the bowl and sieve in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 4 hours, or over night. Once both bowl have sat for the allotted time- discard the collected water. Then roll the cucumbers into a paper towel, or dish cloth and press them lightly in order to remove any excess moisture. Then Put the cucumbers and yogurt into a large bowl with the sour cream, vinegar, dill 2 teaspoons of salt, and the pepper. Toss well and refrigerate for a few hours. Then before you serve- sprinkle the salad with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. Serve chilled!

Funky Street Art by Aakash Nihalani

Cool Street art Video! Check it out here.  I love the idea but most of all I love and appreciate his ability to tape with such precision and to tare the tape so cleanly and cut so neatly.... it's the little things! Enjoy and happy Friday!

Organization Station- finding a system that fits your BRAIN!

Last Month's Issue of Real Simple magazine was all about organization- naturally!  And the magazine offered a quiz to help you determine what type of organization best fits your lifestyle and personality- ie left side, or right side of the brain....  My result was not surprising- I'm the type of person who likes it visible, where I can see it. Seriously if boxes are stacked on each other I am lazy enough to not lift them to get to the other contents... for example: my jewelry boxes! Hence this blog post. The Above picture- is the before shot of my hot mess of a dresser with all of my jewelry. Check out my older jewelry post where I made the board to hang my necklaces.

SO- after realizing more about my organizational mind set I concluded something with drawers would really fit my organization style.  I started looking on etsy for industrial drawers and I found a few good ones- here's one and another. Ultimately I put this search to my mom and her basement full of treasures and she found this old nuts and bolts storage chest of my father's from our barn's tack shop back in the day. I cleaned it out- washing each drawer in our dishwasher and then prepped it for my new jewelry display/storage.

The Final Result!!! I was able to get all of my jewelry into this vintage drawer case- giving me way more surface space on my dresser! I also eliminated some of the dishes and plates I had laying out displaying and holding jewelry.  IN addition I was able to include all of my head scarfs and headbands on top of the white cake stand in the left corner- a bit of a hot mess, but hey it's there and no longer homeless!  Of course this glory will be short lived- as this will ultimately be the baby's dresser and thus my jewelry will be moved to my new and much taller dresser- so the height might be interesting!  BUT until then- ie this weekend when the dresser arrives- I've been enjoying easier access to my jewelry. So far each day I have worn something new that I had forgotten about!  This new system is especially helpful as I've been given a lot of jewelry recently- from my mom and inherited from my grandmother.

Good luck with your own organization systems! Share tips in the comments if so inspired.  And PS- I have a few other organization posts on the horizon so stay tuned! PPS- I will be redoing my old jewelry boxes to sell in my grayday shop.

The 2nd Anniversary- Cotton, the fabric of our lives

Well here it is- our second anniversary and it's the year of cotton.... and I'm at a lose. Usually I am so great at gift giving, if I do say so myself.... but this year with $$$ the way it is, mentally I just couldn't go there so I put it off. PLUS last year we said we would buy ourselves new cotton sheets for our 2nd- and with our new King Bed in April we bought 2 sets! Sooooooo..... wait what's my excuse? and we have badass vintage tablecloths that I used to decorate the tables at our wedding and later in the summer at our big party.... so that idea is taken.    Last year was paper, which was fun- I was given a sketch book and pens and I made a cool diorama for Cam using a pic of us from our wedding day see our paper gifts here.... and check out Last year's blog post with more pics from our wedding day. Later in the summer I bought Cam a cool photograph of a bee keeper (something he wants to do) from a student at Salt. The photograph is framed and hangs in our bedroom.

In the mean time while I mull this over- here are some ideas for COTTON I have found through searching online: linens, towels, cotton hammock, furniture, rugs and carpets- hmmm this is actually on our nesting to do list...

anywho, I'll let you know what we come up with, but ultimately the important thing is having a nice meal together and traveling down memory lane and taking time to be mushy and all that stuff with a netflix movie in the mix and a walk with little dog.

*Update! we bought some nice new COTTON sheets this summer for our anniversary!

Our New Camera!

We finally scrimped enough money together to buy ourselves a replacement camera (after I slipped on the ice back in January breaking our little power shot).  I took our New Canon Rebel T1i to the shore for Memorial Day weekend and had fun taking a few shots here and there. Here are two of my favorites.  I'm so excited to have this new upgrade in our lives. It will make my etsy shops more crisp and colorful! Plus perfect for documenting our new baby!  One  thing to keep an eye out for- in my grayday etsy shop I am going to start offering reasonable photographs for sale- reproductions of old vintage slides from my grandparent's travels from the 50's and on ward. They are very cool! Can't wait to get started on that!

Nearing 5 months and starting to plan plan plan

Well I thought I would check in with my blog and share some helpful links and tidbits to how we are going about this whole birthing thing.  First- a shout out to our midwives! We are working with Open Circle Midwifery Services.  We are so excited to have the opportunity to give birth at home. We have loved the home appointments and laid back conversations! check out our midwives website here. To support our home birth we are also going to take classes at Birth Roots. We will take both pre natal and post natal classes and it's nice to know there is a venue for a community of women to come together and share their experiences and advice.

Other links:
The Business of Being Born trailer. This movie solidified our decision to have a home birth.
Mothering- website and magazine- a great resource for new moms- from cloth diapers to all the other nitty gritty stuff that comes with being a Mom. Warning- can be pretty crunchy! ; )
Bring Birth Home- is a great resource to learn more about the option of home birth and to read inspiring birth stories.
Week by week- preganacy calendar: We have had fun checking in each week to see what's going on with the baby, it helps the time go by a little faster!

Well that's about it for now, hope you have fun checking out some of these sites if interested.