My first pillow

Why oh why have I never made a pillow cover before? No problem. I have a ton of Amy Butler and Joel Dewberry decorator fabric that I ordered not realizing it was decorator weight. I am exciiiiited to use some of it. And change some Summer colors to something warmer and heavier. These are too easy and fun, I have a feeling this is only the beginning. By the way, the three I made today are envelope style, based on a pattern in Amy Karol's book Simple Sewing.

Decorating

I've been inspired by a friends blog to post more decorating pictures.
Chandalier. Stock. Hated it when we moved in, it was covered with fake dusty grapevines. Ewwwwww. But new black shades help a little. And the Mardi Gras beads we put up for the Crawfish Boil help too... the might stay up. But I'm dying to take the whole chandalier down, chain and all, and spraypaint it red!
Throw up a few plates from Anthropology, and a lovely little etagere, and you've got yourself a corner. Still working on getting the basketry right. The trick is to stock the shelves with non-breakable, baby friendly and pretty all in one. So baskets filled with table linens and napkins it is. For now. It's coming along.
And here's the newest decor in the dining room. The artist on either side of the miror is Martin Laborde. He's based in New Orleans and the character he paints is Bodo. He's been my favorite since 1996. Well, and of course the Blue Dog has a special place in my heart too. On the sideboard is a terrarium made for me by my wonderful husband (with a Dunny in it), a New Orleans snowglobe and some party blowers in a hurricane glass.

Moving on to the library. How I love symmetry!! This miror was my Grandparents, though my Grandma has no memory of it. My Dad rescued it from their house in the Catskills! It's a good score. I made the curtains. The pattern is old architecture! Hopefully within the next few weekends we'll make some cornices.
And this is my beloved bookshelf, flanked on either side by Jazz Fest posters. The Professor chair little leather table (from West Elm) is great comfy nook for blogging.

And also in the library, my favorite antique bench, and more Jazz Fest posters. Hopefully this is where a piano will go someday!

And because I like him so much, here's our terracotta warrior in the foyer.

What I've been up to

Nap times have gotten shorter in the past few weeks, so I'm just not getting as much time to play as I was. Booo. But here's a zig zag quilt I started based on Anna Maria Horner's design but with Amy Butler fabric. I love the blue and orangey-pink. And the Missoni-esque design.

I also made this super cute peachy pinnie. I am kind of obsessed with rick-rack. It's going on everything. As you can see on the rest of my wall of unfinished business.
And here's a little house project Ray and I put together. Fleur de lis makes me happy. But it's probably time to cool it! I love my house, but it's not old and I love the character of old houses. This makes me love our house a little more.

New painted project

Our upstairs hallway! Always wanted to try this, think it turned out pretty well.

Painting Projects

I wanted to make the baby girl's room something she could grow into, not overly cutesy. I attribute my love of the fleur de lis to two things: I spent a few years living in the wonderful Frenchy city of New Orleans, and my Parisian Grandmother. Two things that I hope might be as much a part of her life as they are mine. I used a very faint pink and added the fleur-de-lis border. When Margot's crib arrived with stars on the headboard, I decided to integrate the stars into the room design too.


I first saw painted on bookshelves in an Anthropologie catalog a few years ago and knew I had to have some. Here they are in my first room devoted to crafting! There aren't any windows in the room (like a Las Vegas Casino, I could stay up all night in there) so I kept the color sunny, but wanted the shelves to look like a shadow, so I used gray. I ended up recycling the color in the laundry room... and the fleur-de-lis stamp I used in Margot's room!

There's nothing like a new house and a new baby coming to inspire creativity. I just around from craft to craft and love to hunt around at Borders to find a book to inspire me. The ghostly trees in our front hallway (project finished daaays before Margot was born) was actually a stencil by Lena Corwin. Though we love the way it turned out, now that I've done more stenciling and printing, I wish I'd redesigned it a little to make it my own.

I love the way this looks when the sun is going down and is coming through the front door.


Ooooooohhhhh...ahhhhhhhhhhh.

I wanted to be very precise with the stamp placement in the laundry room, and this is turning out well so far. It's not finished yet. But the $1.99 investment in the stamp was a good one. I love this way this stamp looks, painted lightly so it looks antiqued.