Mad About Monday

I love the fabulous quilts and home goods by Roberta Freymann! So bright and cheerful:)

Stay tuned for more Thanksgiving pics!

A Marshmallow Filled Thanksgiving.

You won't see me adding a lot of recipes to this blog. I am not a good cook and most of the time I hate anything I make. Some exceptions to this are my whole wheat blueberry/banana pancakes and also my tater-tot casserole. I trust myself with those. This "festive" time of year is hard for me because I am required to make things for people.

I made my typical green bean casserole (actually I read the directions to Josh while he made it!). I was also asked to bring cranberry goo to Thanksgiving dinner #2 and since I couldn't find cans of that nastiness I made the cranberry and marshmallow salad I saw here. It was tedious but easy. I added cinnamon instead of extra sugar but to be honest, I should have added sugar.

Happy, beautiful little cranberries.

The finished salad:) There is still about a gallon left because there were two other marshmallow salads that night! We all had the same idea I suppose.

More Thanksgiving pics soon! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.

In Case You Were Wondering...

That would be the perfect Christmas gift for me (or the dog lover in your life;)

Check it and others like it out at Ballard Designs

Jumping the Gun

Glue gun, that is. I am quite excited about my next craft project. I have a thing for wreaths. I haven't finished the pinecone wreath that I said I was going to do a month or so ago but a friend showed me this:

Eddie Ross Ornament Wreath Tutorial
So she and I and a few others will be getting together next Tuesday to make said ornament wreath. I might even make two and give one away. I also plan to finish my pine cone wreath too! I want my ornament wreath to be inspired by the awesome, not too Christmas-y decor in the image below (thanks, Amanda!).

One Kings

Mad About Monday.

Crazy fabulous inspiration for your table this Thursday...

Eddie Ross

Perfectly: Chalkworthy

I set out this morning to complete one of my many outstanding home projects. I think I even mentioned to you all the week before last that I would be showing pictures of this last week. Whoops. To help myself procrastinate less I sometimes say I will do something on here, assuming that all of "blogland" will punish me if I do not complete it. No one put me in a corner or yelled at me but there was that little voice in my head saying "but you told them you would finish it!" So, thank you blog friends, for inadvertantly helping me do this!

This is my find. $60 bucks at Southern Crossing Antiques in Riverside. Possibly a little more than I imagined I would spend but it was exactly the shape I wanted and looked like it would make an easy transition into becoming a chalkboard. What is it, you say?..I have no idea but I find it less than appealing for its supposed purpose as a piece of art.

The paint had a bit of a texture to it so I sanded it down first. I choose red for the frame because this will hang in my kitchen where there are already several red accents.

I spray painted the frame first, let it dry, then applied spray laquer over it. I used a small paint brush around the edges for the chalkboard paint and then used the little roller above for the rest.

Caution: spray painting is addictive. Once you start be careful not to start painting everything around you. I found this tray (like $4 from Micheals) in our shed and figure it will look cute with a scrap of my leftover "monkey fabric" in the middle.

The finished product while it dried...such an easy project!

Now if I only had chalk...

Ooooo...shiny...

Myself and my new red things.

Dramatization of when I realized how much paint I had on my hands. grr.

Artsit of the Week

Awhile back I posted the above picture of our dining room. If you peer past the hydrangeas you will see there is a painting back there. It was done on an old school door that was cut down, and the metal push plate is still there. I absolutely adore that painting for its uniqueness and for the beautiful shades of blue, green and purple in it. Its a happy painting. I would say that about all of the work by Drew R. Alexander. We commissioned him to do several paintings of Biblical stories for our church and he rocked our socks off with very modern interpretations of stories like Esther. I wish I had pictures to share but maybe I will do a "part two" next week.

Penguins!!

If you live in town you have probably seen his work(above, along with several others) before featured at The Brick.

By the way, if you are looking for something to do this weekend in Jacksonville stop by the Riverside Arts Market. My friend Anna will be there sellin' it up! Her pottery kicks-a if you don't mind me saying...

With only 6 hours of sleep under my belt over the past two days (project in History of Interiors) I don't know if I will make it out of bed early enough to go tomorrow but I really want to!

Filled To The Brim.

I'll skip to the moral of this story rather than bore you with the fine details. The moral is that when I am weak, someone else is stronger. That someone wants me to grow, rather than stay the same. He wants me to rely on him, rather than myself. He is with me "in the empty spaces" as another blogger so poignantly put it. He takes a blank canvas...

Marie Claire Maison

...and turns it into something full of color, light and life.

Urban Grace

Perfectly: 18th Century

all images via 1st Dibs

Oh how I would love to sit in a room filled with these lovely pieces while sipping on some hot tea and listening to a piano being played...a girl can dream, right?

Mad About Monday

Still diggin' "gatherings" of things. Especially these:
Hi Tree

Sister.

There she is! Sister and I love ballet flats and skinny jeans.

We are trying to morph into twins even though we are 4 yrs apart, are different heights, have different skin tones, and different hair.

My sister is a talented hair stylist but I have never mentioned her other passion here on PT. She loves to make jewelry and has her own Etsy shop, Geminivision.

Those are my favorites:) Go check out her shop sometime!

1 Fish, 2 Fish...

Took some shots of a catfish in a tank and though they turned out extremely blurry I liked something about them. I decided to mess around in Photoshop and well, here's what I came up with. Oh, and watch out for the blue guy at the end; I don't know what he is but he has teeth...

Artist of the Week

Happy Friday the 13th everyone! What an interesting week. The renovations at work have my desk in a rather precarious position right now and I have felt uncomfortably-comfortable (if that makes any sense). I am directly in front of the elevators so I have had to deal with the sounds and...smells... that come from them. Two words: grease. trap. I am also a bit closed off from the rest of the office though so it has made me feel kinda sorta like I have my own office;)

With that said, I was brainstorming over something new for the blog and after featuring Gretchen Wagoner last week I decided to search for other artists I enjoy and try to feature them on Fridays here at PT.

To kick this thing off I would like to introduce you to Laura Trevey, a talented watercolor painter from Richmond, VA. All of you know that I am a sucker for blue & white so I narrowed down what I wanted to show you to these three favorites:

"Blue & White China"

"Tea Time"

"China Tea Cup"

Wouldn't they be lovely in a kitchen or dining room?! Her work takes me to a happy place...there are lobsters, landscapes of the Caribbean, and even orchids. Take a peak and maybe it will take you to a happy place too;) Visit her Etsy shop, Bright, Bold, & Beautiful.

A Gathering of Sorts.

I love a good gathering of friends. Also plates, vintage cameras (couldn't find an example...booo), sconces, fake animal head mounts, pictures, baskets, you name it!

Anthro store decor.

Stylish sconces, Bonnie Tsang

Leafy goodness, Arhaus

Mix & match, Apartment Therapy

Kelly Wearstler magic.

Wearstler wannabe or the other way around? Stephen Falke via Atelier