quick and easy headboard change

over the weekend i pulled out my stash of domino magazines.  i love looking through them every now and then just to see what i can find that i haven’t noticed before.  i find that as time goes by i notice different details in the articles and pictures.  sometimes it’s a light fixture; other times it’s a particular color. 

this time i noticed a great way to make an easy change to a headboard.  domino did a article in their june/july ‘08 issue about stephen elrod, vice president of design for lee jofa, and his seaside cottage.  the “new to me” element in the home was the layering of throws on top of headboards in two of the bedrooms.

although i’m not crazy about the fabrics he used i do love the idea.

i thought i’d throw out some ideas of how i would pair the two.

for an upholstered look i would pair this thomas paul print slipcovered headboard with a gray chunky tassel throw from west elm.

for a seagrass look similar to the headboard in the second photo i would pair this pier 1 headboard and a suzani overlay from wisteria.

and for a darker option i like the pier one chocolate seagrass headboard with the ws home zebra stripe throw.

another great and inexpensive way to achieve this look would be to purchase a fabric remnant at your local fabric store.  once you hem the edges or use stich witchery then you could just drape it over your headboard. 

hope you all had a great long weekend.  i sure did!

LiveJournal Tags: domino,ws home,headboard,west elm,stephen elrod,thomas paul,suzani,wisteria

Link Love #9!

For this link party, I had over 100 links, thank you so much for your participation! I went and visited all the links but I could not leave comments to everyone of you, I am sorry!

There is something really exciting happening at Tea Rose Home, over the next several months, but I can't share the details with you yet... because of them I have been swamped with many things and deadlines (because of my procedure and recovery, I couldn't do much for a week!) I had less computer time than usual.

I chose several creations to spotlight for today's link love.

Take a look at this beautiful Butterfly Lamp. Isn't this gorgeous? Very delicate, yet very colorful and fun, I just love to look at it.


I found another craft blogger who creats beautiful things! Princy n Paris shares how to make this sweet apron for a little girl on her blog. I love the details she added.


Happiness is 5ive shared picture of her entryway she finished. I love how she used the things she already had and made the entryway such a warm and inviting space.


Kristabell Burgeoning made an amazingly cute Toddler Cardigan. I made something similar to this when my first child was born, but her's are way better than mine.


House of Smith shared her Hall Way Sign. It turned out so cute! While I was visiting her blog, I saw other parts of her house, looks like she is one talented decorater too!


Adventures in Dress Making shared this clever tutorial. Using her collection of vintage handkerchiefs and accesorized plain tank. So creative!

And...I have a special category this time...I know Tea Rose Home is more geared towards, feminine, romantic, and ruffly stuff... BUT, there are other parts of me; fun loving jokester and a mother raising two rowdy boys.

I couldn't help but to post these two links that made me smile.

I named the category "Got Boys?"

You need to check this out, this is one cute t-shirt, don't you agree?


Monster Tissue Holder. My boys wouldn't care for my tissue holder, but I know they will definately LOVE this one.


Thank you sharing your creations and talents everyone!

A Day at the Market

I hope you all are enjoying this wonderful holiday weekend - we sure are!  I just wanted to share some pictures from our trip to our local farmer's market.

Check out these hanging baskets - aren't they GORGEOUS!  I would love to have one, but we don't have anywhere to hang something like that.  So if you can't take one home, you might as well stop and smell the pretty flowers.

During this time of year there is very little produce available at our market.  It's mostly plants, herbs, cheese, honey, bread and wine.  Asparagus is in season right now, but that's about it.  In a couple months the market will transform into more of a vegetable and fruit market.

Here's Miss Savannah taking a stroll through the central square - she is quite the little independent 2-year old these days.

It was gorgeous weather outside and Savannah was loving it.  She is wearing a dress I made for her from the "Sienna" dress pattern by Lil Blue Boo.  The dress is made entirely from recycled knit shirts and only cost $1.00!

Matilda was having fun too - this is her "I'm so happy, I might explode face".  I made her a coordinating dress also!

The girls have been getting along great - I feel very blessed that Savannah has yet to show any jealousy towards her baby sister.  I'm sure there will be ups and downs, but I really hope that they will grow up to be good friends!  It just melts my heart when Savannah puts her arm around Matilda and says "best friend" - so sweet!

On our way home from the farmer's market we stopped at one of my favorite antique shops and here's some of the treasure I found:

A couple of vintage embroidered pillowcases (which will be made into girls pillowcase dresses) and a bunch of really beautiful vintage handkerchiefs.  I've got some projects in mind for the hankies so there may be another tutorial using these in the near future.

Anyway, I just wanted to share what we've been up to this weekend.  

What have you all been up to?  

Anyone doing anything fun?

SUNDAY POETRY: "OCTOPUS FLOATING"

Octopus, Victor Hugo. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

OCTOPUS FLOATING

by Bill Knott 

Octopus floating

in earth’s ink-ore core

whose arms extend

up here as trees

may your branches squirt

their black across

my pages please

UPDATE: Not long after I posted this poem I heard from Bill Knott with a heads-up that all his books of poetry can be downloaded free via his blog. Awesome. Thanks, Bill.

THE SECRET OF BUOYANCY

 

Wonderfully interesting news out of science this week about the buoyancy control of the travelling octopuses known as argonauts, or paper nautiluses. Aristotle himself wondered about their talents—and no one since then has  deciphered just how these little bobbers move through the water column... Until now. Here's the abstract of the findings from a new paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B:

Argonauts (Cephalopoda: Argonautidae) are a group of rarely encountered open-ocean pelagic octopuses with benthic ancestry. Female argonauts inhabit a brittle ‘paper nautilus’ shell, the role of which has puzzled naturalists for millennia. The primary role attributed to the shell has been as a receptacle for egg deposition and brooding. Our observations of wild argonauts have revealed that the thin calcareous shell also functions as a hydrostatic structure, employed by the female argonaut to precisely control buoyancy at varying depths. Female argonauts use the shell to ‘gulp’ a measured volume of air at the sea surface, seal off the captured gas using flanged arms and forcefully dive to a depth where the compressed gas buoyancy counteracts body weight. This process allows the female argonaut to attain neutral buoyancy at depth and potentially adjust buoyancy to counter the increased (and significant) weight of eggs during reproductive periods. Evolution of this air-capture strategy enables this negatively buoyant octopus to survive free of the sea floor. This major shift in life mode from benthic to pelagic shows strong evolutionary parallels with the origins of all cephalopods, which attained gas-mediated buoyancy via the closed-chambered shells of the true nautiluses and their relatives. 

Illustration from Discover.

I wrote about my own encounter with an argonaut during a magical morning in the lagoon surrounding the island of Mo'orea in French Polynesia. From The Fragile Edge, an excerpt:

From afar, she looks like one of those ubiquitous pieces of oceangoing flotsam washed from shore or ship and plying the ocean with indestructible endurance. I paddle towards her, bent on litter collection, only to discover that she is not a styrofoam cup or a plastic sandal but a living creature roaming inside her own home—an argonaut, or paper nautilus, probably of the species Argonauta argo. She is a member of a genus of octopus that long ago abandoned life on the seafloor in favor of roaming the open seas. Unlike her namesake, the chambered nautilus, her delicately coiled shell is not an external skeleton that she is attached to as we are to our fingernails, but a mobile home that she can come and go from like a hermit crab.

Illustration from here.

I have never seen an argonaut alive in the sea before, and with fumbling hands I don mask, snorkel, and fins and slip over the side, dragging the va’a canoe by the float so as not to lose it. She is a timid creature and this may be the only opportunity that ever comes my way to see her in the wild. The thought going through my mind as I waft my fins is that I must approach as softly as a ripple.

It doesn’t matter though. She is engaged in one of those acts of violence that nearly preclude thoughts of personal safety. She is half out her shell, pulsing in bright red and yellow, the colors literally tumbling through her like reflections from flashing police lights. Her colors are so strong they bleed beneath the skin of her paper-thin shell, bruising it. She is administering the coup de grâce to a pteropod, a sea butterfly. Her eight arms are flared open, an umbrella turned inside-out, exposing the parrotlike beak. The pteropod is flapping its transparent wings in hopes of escape but the argonaut is reeling it in on the sucker disks of her arms, biting it, then tucking it under her bell, and rolling herself back into her translucent shell, where the flames of her hunting colors soften to pink.

Quietly now, her big eyes innocently wide, she floats a foot below the surface, arms wrapped over her head, the tips of them tucked daintily into her shell, leaving most of her sucker discs exposed. She observes me from a safe distance, one orange eye watching as she feints towards shore, the other watching as she tacks towards her home in the open sea.

Lithograph of Argonauta nodosa, The Tuberculated Argonaut, or Paper-Nautilus, Argonauta oryzata; Artist: Arthur Bartholomew (1870s). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Summer Fabric Rag Wreath Tutorial

I have had my spring wreath on the door since, well, the beginning of spring.  I kind of felt like it was time for something new.  I wanted to create a summer wreath for our front door that would be fun and cute, but would break the budget.  So here's what I came up with.......

Summer Fabric Rag Wreath Tutorial

Supplies:

1 wreath form (whatever size you like)

Scraps of fabric (10-12" long)

1 piece ribbon or other material for hanging

Scissors

Directions:

This is a medium sized wreath that I bought from the dollar store, so it was only $1.00 (woohoo!!)

Pull out your scrap bin to find the fabric for your wreath.  This is my "Nicey Jane" scrap bin (I like my scraps to be arranged by fabric line).  I LOVE Heather Bailey's "Nicey Jane".........it just exudes summer!

Cut your fabric scraps into 10"-12" long strips for a medium wreath.  The length will depend on the size wreath you have chosen.  Use all different widths - I had some very skinny pieces and some pretty wide ones.  I like the variety of the different widths.

Now the fun part - just tie each strip on the wreath and tie it into a knot.  Push them very close to one another.  Do this until your entire wreath is covered in fabric strips.

This is what the front of the wreath will look like when it is complete.  Fluff all of the strips and make sure none of them got caught in the knots of the others.  Give the wreath, what I like to call a "haircut" if you feel the strips are too long.  Cut it down until the look is to your liking.

Here's what the back of the wreath will look like - which I think looks pretty also.

Now you will need ribbon or twill tape (which is what I used) to make the hanger for the wreath.

Cut whatever length you need depending on your door......mine was only 10" long.  Loop the ribbon around the wreath and tie a knot.  The knot will not be seen by all of the scraps on the wreath.  Place the knot down on the wreath.

Hang your new, fun summer fabric rag wreath on your front door.  Doesn't it look happy?

This is not the best picture, but you get the idea.  So I hope you will use your leftover scraps of fabric to make a summer rag wreath.  This really is one of the easiest projects I've ever done - no sewing, no gluing - just a little time.  This is also a great project to have the kids take part in too!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Time to Celebrate ~ A Year Later~

About this time a year ago, just before school ended, my oldest boy came home with an award saying this: (you can read about this post here).

Yes, all my kids are very active with high energy, the award was perfect for him, and it made me laugh.


He received a new award for this year. He took his energy and focused on one thing. Please celebrate this with us. He was awarded for...


This cracks me up! Way to go buddy, I love you!

my happy place

i’m in my happy place right now…

 meg ryan’s martha’s vinyard home in elle decor

that place is listening to my brandi carlisle station on pandora and looking at lovely magazines{unfortunately i’m not doing all of this at martha’s vinyard}.

 meg ryan’s martha’s vinyard home in elle decor

hope you can go to your happy place sometime over the long weekend.

 meg ryan’s martha’s vinyard home in elle decor

enjoy your memorial day weekend!

LiveJournal Tags: elle decor,meg ryan,martha's vinyard