Things I Would Like And Why

Here are a couple of items that I would like to procure:

Kick Plate: I didn't even know what these were until recently. Our front door sticks and because of that it takes a swift kick to the bottom left of the door to open it. After a year of living in our place there is a noticeable indentation in the wood, oops. Here is beautiful push plate that I found which I think would work equally well horizontally as a kick plate.

Globe: Not too ornate or big. I loved as a kid spinning the globe my folks had, stopping it's rotation with my finger and declaring I will visit Australia, the Maldives, Yugoslavia...

A massage: This one should be obvious and no picture required.

Fall & Food

Fall means that it is cool enough to turn on my oven again and in the past week I have baked two apple pies (why just one when you always make someone happy by giving one away) scones, croissants, I also baked sweet potatoes, a chicken casserole and roasted potatoes. I have made soup twice now and tea every evening. Incidentally M. really appreciates the influence that Autumn has on me.

As for my apple pies, I was inspired by a strawberry rhubarb crisp I made this summer that used hazelnuts in the crumb topping. For the pies I made them dutch style with a crumb topping and added a couple drops of vanilla and semi-finely chopped pecans. It made for a very subtle but nice change to my traditional apple pie, I will definitely make this a keeper.

Art that I can't get out of my mind

Yellena James, I originally found out about her work  randomly on ETSY, and then later saw one of her prints available on 20x200.  Her work is so whimsical, and I lover her color palette I wish sometimes that I could make art like hers but alas it is not my thing and I will appreciate hers all the more. I would love to own this and just maybe I will.

Myriad

I also love these two prints of hers.

Spurt

Shiver

One more person who creates in what think of as a similar vein is Leela Ford. Here is a beautiful gauche painting of hers.

Purple

The Frye Carson Oxford Fairies Have Arrived

I am an avid consigner of clothes, shoes, purses ect. A new store opened this last year in town Twist, cute name. I brought them some items back in August and last week went in to see if I had sold anything. Of course I can not walk by a pair of nice shoes without stopping so before I got to the front counter I was trying on a pair of Frye Carson Oxfords which look a lot like the oxfords I had posted about in September, remember this . The only thing is, the Frye's are better, and black they were more expensive which is why I didn't have them in my Fall Wardrobe Essentials posting. At Twist they were mis-marked as a 7, which I am not but I tried them on anyway and was more than pleasantly surprised that they fit like a glove. They are now mine. I had sold all of my items on consignment and made more than the cost of the shoes. I love the heel and they are breaking in nicely. I swear whoever sold them had hardly even worn them.

picture courtesy of Vamp Shoes

Bathroom Revamp

Dynasty Celadon

This weekend M. and I decided to each take on revamping one of the bathrooms in the house. He aptly chose the small master bath and I took the hall bath that also doubles as our laundry room. Months ago I had painted the room Pensive Sky by Behr, and the whole room came out looking baby blue not the subtle grey that I had wanted. This time I opted for Dynasty Celdon by Behr, a subtle green with a hint of grey and blue. I love the new color. M. tried something close to 7 different shades of off white and brown before deciding he didn't like the idea of painting a bathroom brown, oh well, and on a whim bought a gallon of Off White also by Behr, yes that is the name of the color. Well the master came out looking an awful lot like Pensive Sky so he'll be repainting it.

We had to remove the mirrors that had been GLUED to the walls, the master bath mirror came off in a nice 3 pieces. the hall bath mirror had so much glue attaching it to the wall that we had to literally chisle it off the wall in about a million pieces and shards, NOT FUN. Also not fun was realizing that much of the wall as either damaged or just plain removed in the process. While M. painted his easy small bathroom I took a picture of the mess and went to the local hardware/paint store, showed the nice old man working there the wall and left with a container of jointing compound and a spackle knife. I have now fixed the wall and feel very proud of myself for matching the texturing pretty closely and tonight will finish with my last coat of paint. Yay. This was way more that a weekend job.

I should still have about $250 to play around with for finishing off the bathroom. On my list and a few of these item may have to be birthday presents are:
Installing a tabletop over the washer and dryer
Replacing the mirror with one that does not glue to the wall, Ikea should do the trick
New hardware, I love rejuvination.com especially the Chandler porcelain collection
It would also be great to get a new sink and I have been eyeing one below from Overstock.com
Maybe in a different post I'll tell about how ugly the bathroom was to begin with but for now I'll leave with these pleasant images.

Ticor Vessel Sink

Urban Outfitters wall hook
I have a set of these I bought for $4.00 each

MacArthur Genius Award Winner Matthew Carter

Congratulations to font creator Mathew Carter who is responsible for Cochin, Sophia, Snell and more. He was awarded a MacArthur Genius award last week. 

Here is a link to a great video interview with him, enjoy.

Cords & Boots: Essentials

For the past two years every Fall I buy a new pair of Gap skinny 1969 cords. They're great, and I manage to wear through them every year. This year I will again be getting a new pair in the charcoal color. I know, I love grey and I have just about worn the color out. Maybe I'll be brave enough to get the bright tomato red cords too. 

Gap cords, Jeffrey Campbell boots

And on a frustrating puppy note, Penny adorable as she is tasted the sweet luxury of leather last week, much to M's and my dismay. First she found his iTouch, ate the leather case and in the process damaged the antenna. The next day she went into my closet and found, of course my favorite, most supple and expensive boots; which are not something that I can just find again on EBAY. Goodbye Hispanitas, studded, witchy, ankle boots that I have loved, loved, loved. I am seriously considering finding someone who can make them into booties for me, since Penny only ate the top of them off.  

So in lieu of wearing my favorite ankle boots this season I am hoping to get the Jeffrey Campbell East Village ankle boots, they have a low heal which I love and are the same warm brown as my poor Hispanitas. Although nothing can replace my chewed up boots these should fill the same niche in my wardrobe and I will from now on keep all of my shoes above puppy level. 

I am hoping that these will magically turn into birthday presents...hmmm.