Luggage Stacking

 Hello to anyone out there still checking my blog!

I have been so out of the blogging loop the past few months.  I have really been missing reading my favorite blogs everyday, but I completely immersed myself in school and family and there wasn't really time for much else...which I was rewarded for by getting a 4.0!

I am so excited about my straight A's.  It was my goal all along since this really was my easy term.  Once fall starts I will be in high gear until I graduate next June, then I will be applying to medical school.  OMG I have a year ahead of me with finishing up my degree and studying for the MCATs.  I know I can do it though, it will just be a lot of work.  I also have to continue some volunteer work and job shadow in there somewhere too.  Oh and we have a Disneyland trip planned in September.  We are going to be busy!

But, this is my one week off of school before summer term starts so you know I have been changing things around the house!  I moved my grocery sign into the living room and stacked my luggage.  It really was just random but it is one of my favorite things going on right now.  

Last fall I helped French Hen Debbie get her booth ready for the Christmas Open House and she gave me the brown suitcase as a thank you.  It is a really pretty orange satin inside so I can't wait to have fun with it this fall.  The turquoise luggage was left over in my mom's booth after her sale when she moved out, so I snagged it up and just waited for a fun spot to put it.

I also did a fun project in the dining room the other night.  I have really been wanting open shelves on the wall above my old chippy desk and I finally made it happen without buying a single thing.  I love when projects turn out like that : )  I will try to share pictures of that soon as well as the farmhouse dining table Tim and I built on Mother's Day out of my old barn wood stack.  

Now I am off to catch up on some "Smash" episodes I missed out on the past couple months.  I hope to be back soon!

xoxo

{Brittany}

The Bronson Pinchot Project

Hello : )

My husband was sweet and skilled enough to stumble upon my new top favorite show on demand last night.  It is called The Bronson Pinchot Project.  He is famous for his many acting roles, but has been collecting antiques and salvaged building materials for years and is now renovating 19th century houses in Hartford, PA.  

Below he is sitting in front of a Greek Revival that he is renovating.  He uses all salvaged materials, and leaves them as is!  He uses the term "crusty" to describe the chipping paint so that right there makes him my bff.  He pretty much despises anything new, and even goes as far as to hide kitchen appliances behind architectural work so that the kitchens look authentic to their era.

Are you not just completely smitten by his work?  I absolutely love it all.  His show plays on the DIY network and I also found it on demand.  The only problem now is that you will stay up all night watching every single episode.  He has me itching to go buy an old farmhouse : )

Have a lovely week!

{Brittany}

Naturally dyed eggs

Can you believe Easter is almost here!  I have been seeing these naturally dyed eggs everywhere over the past few months.  They can be colored using fruit and vegetable juices, spices and teas.  To me they are so much more beautiful than the more traditional dyed eggs because the colors are lighter.  I highly doubt that I will have time to try these out since school starts on Monday (yes I will finally be a backpack toting twenty something college student!), so I thought I would share links to a couple tutorials.

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Aren't they so gorgeous, and you can use foods and spices that you have around the house, plus you are not using those pesky dye packets.  Lauren did a fun post all about them over at Our Hiding Place.  Click here to see it.

Enjoy your weekend!  The weather here is rainy and windy so it might be a stay inside and snuggle kind of weekend for us.  Thanks for reading.

{Brittany}

A day of randomness

Happy snow day #2!  It was so much fun to enjoy two snowy days in a row.  My kiddos had so much fun playing outside.  Days like these make me so happy that they have such great snow gear: )

I smiled to myself this morning as I opened up the dishwasher and saw this sweet sight.  The entire top shelf was filled with mugs from yesterday's hot chocolates.  My sister in law and her four girls came over and spent the day with us.  It involved much bundling in snow bibs, cleaning melted snow off of the floor, and sipping cocoa.  And repeat, several times.  Days like that I will remember forever.

(pretty sure I am the only freak out there that can come up with a story based solely on a picture of a dishwasher rack but whatevs :)

Today I finally got around to trying out a homemade air freshener that I pinned on Pinterest. I was dying to try it but I kept forgetting to buy lemons at the grocery store.  I braved the inches of snow in my husband's slippers (sorry they are all wet tonight love!) and grabbed myself some rosemary from the back yard, added a sliced lemon, two teaspoons of vanilla and simmered it on the stove all day.  I had really high hopes for this concoction but I am sad to report that it let me down.  The kitchen smelled a bit like rosemary but other than that I couldn't smell anything.  (My little boy just told his daddy that mommy cooked melons today and made the house smell like raw eggs.  Need I say more?)

One good thing came from all of the trees that were knocked down by the snow.  Awesome for me, not so awesome for the poor people who lost their beautiful pink trees.  As soon as I saw them all laying in the road last night I knew I had to make some of them mine.  A special someone brought a truckload home today for me.  Wasn't that so sweet?  

I have been seeing these big glass jars everywhere in the past weeks and I am so excited that I actually own one!  This one belonged to my husband's grandpa and it has always been a change receptacle but I am changing that for now.  Not sure if Tim is super excited about that but he can have it back as soon as I am sick of it ;)

I love how the branches fill up that corner and the fact that they are pink is just icing on the cake.

Here is a close up of the top of the jar.  It is that gorgeous aqua blue that I love so much.

 

So that pretty much sums up my snow days.  I did leave out however, doing loads of puked, peed, and pooped laundry.  I thought I would spare you...it has been a regular bodily function factory over here this week :  )

Tomorrow I am officially moving out of my space at the antique mall.  I am feeling a little bit sad about it.  It has been a fun little side project but I am not sure I can keep up with such a big space while I am in school.  (Which by the way starts in a week and a half.)  I have started biting my fingernails again.  Apparently I am nervous about it.  I will try to post whenever I do anything exciting or fun around the house if I can though.  Have a great weekend...thanks for reading!

{Brittany}

Inspired by ticking

I had the great pleasure to walk around and look at Pottery Barn last weekend.  It is always so inspiring to shop there.  I absolutely love the mix of new and old they display.  There were so many things that I fell in love with, but I really felt drawn to this vintage ticking stripe shower curtain.

I left there with my mind whirling.  When I get inspired, I just have to do something about it.  I decided to dig through my fabric and I found this blue ticking that I haven't really known what to do with.

I am not really sure why, but I came up with this pillow.  I wanted to make a pillow case to put in my room but I felt like it needed a little something more so I added the ties to it.

I decided to just keep my room the color it is for a while.  There are so many other places in my house that I should focus my attention on.  I just grabbed from here and there and came up with something that is ok for now.

It really isn't my favorite but it has been nice enjoying a semi-decorated (read-not piled with laundry) room so I am good with it.

Besides that, I have been exercising again.  I decided to face my fear of the treadmill and just get on it and see how far I could go.  I started out just running for five minutes and have since worked up to 2 1/2 miles.  I always want to quit at about minute 4, but I make myself do it and I cannot even explain how much better I have been feeling.  It makes me feel so much healthier physically, but it also makes me smile because I am accomplishing a goal that I have set for myself : )

What have you been inspired by lately?  Do you have any little goals set for yourself?

Sneak peek at a photo shoot

I have been MIA these past couple weeks.  I have been spending much of my free time getting things ready to start school next term.  I am officially registered in four classes.  I haven't been in college for six years!  Where the heck did the time go and why did I wait so long to go back and finish?  I have been agonizing over these questions for the past few weeks after a bit of a frustrating appointment with my academic advisor.  I left that meeting questioning everything that I thought I knew I wanted to do with the rest of my scholastic life.  Talk about a change of plans.  Although it didn't go as I expected, I am confident that I am now on the right path, and I am excited to get myself prepared for nursing school : ) 

That being said, I am very sad to announce that I am moving out of my space at the antique mall.  Everything is on sale, so if there is anything you have been wanting now is the time to go get it.  I will miss it so so  much, but I know that I won't be able to handle being a full time student, mommy and my sewing and furniture projects.  Some people can manage it all, I am not one of those people.

In other news, one of my sisters is getting married this summer and I have the privelage to be helping plan, decorate and do wedding flowers for a shabby chic wedding.  Picture blue canning jars, burlap, pink and white flowers, old galvanized pails...you are loving it aren't you?  Me too!!!

I took some pictures on Sunday for them to use on their save the date cards and I am excited to share them on my blog but at this point my sister hasn't even seen them all and probably wouldn't like me posting them here so I am just going to share one.

So sweet aaah : ) 

Thank you to the very talented and sweet and amazing friend of mine Emily of Emylyn Photography for spending your morning editing the pictures for me.  You are such a wonderful friend and I love you!

Have a lovely week!

{Brittany}

Vintage Roost Valentine Open House

I might be weird but one of my favorite things to see out in blog land is tours through antique malls, flea markets and vintage shows, so I thought I would share my trip to The Vintage Roost right here in our own North Albany.

I am embarrassed to admit this, but before today I had never been to any of The Vintage Roost shows.  I know Debbie, one of the owners, from mingling around at the Antique Mall.  It is just crazy that I have never made it out there, being the vintage lover that I am.

The walk up to the shop is so gorgeous.

(Please excuse the pics, I realized after I left that my camera was on a wacky setting)

After a minute or so of walking... you arrive at the sweetest little shop.

Do you see the heart boxwood wreaths on the door?  Last year I saw on their flier that they would be selling these at their vday show so I vowed to make it out and buy one.  You know...because what I really need is another wreath in my life : )  I never did go, but ended up buying one from their booth after they brought them later.  An entire year later and my wreath is still hanging (it has been moved about a dozen times though)

Here is my busy little shopping partner.  This really was our first big girl outing together.  I normally only take her with me on essential trips since she is pretty high maintenance but she really was a good girl today.  Thanks go out to Heidi for helping me wrangle her while were junking today!

I am in love with this look.  I love all of the white, mercury glass and lavender.  Mercury glass is on my list of wants: )

These polka dots are adorbs!

One of these great little sweets bags came home with me today.  I have always called my husband sweets, he is even programmed into my phone that way.  Don't tell him but I am going to fill it up for him with treats for V-Day.  

I got a kick out of this-the white wicker sofa table in this picture was for sale when my mom and I had our shop open.  I never knew where it ended up, but when I saw it here it made me smile.  I love to see how in this business things always come full circle.

They had some goodies outside too...

I loved this old fishing creel.

and all of the ticking everywhere.  I have a ton of ticking fabric in my stash but I never love mine.  Seeing what they do with theirs inspires me!

Then it was back to reality and we had to go!

I hope you enjoyed my little tour through The Vintage Roost.  They will be open again tomorrow.  If you have never been to one of their shows you should definitely try to make it.

<3 <3 <3

{Brittany}