NumberNineteen

Give Her $11 & Look What She Can Do

Yard sale season has begun!  At 8am this past Saturday, I was out the door, with Hope in tow, looking for some goodies.  We headed straight for a neighborhood yard sale that I had seen advertised.  Just look at what I got:

The two books are travel guides to Florence & Venice, dated 1924.  And, the covers match my family room!  Bonus!  I'm going to paint the base of the photo holder another color (black?  red?  what do you think?) & put old postcards in it.  Or, old photos.  Or...ideas anyone???

The paper dolls include a set of male & female dancers, along with both costumes & day clothes.  They are dated 1955.  I'm going to try to sell them on ebay, though some of the clothes were cut out. 

I'm just loving this guy.  Isn't it adorable??  And, it was $2!!  I know!!  Its in banged up shape & all, but what were they thinking?  Of course, I grabbed it & wouldn't let go as soon as I heard the price.  Its now sitting on the dresser in our kitchen.

So, all of that cost $6 total.  Already, it was a good day.  BUT, this was the grandaddy of the bargains:

It was $5!! If you are my husband, you think that $5 is too much.  He said, quote, "It looks like every ugly 1970s bed that I remember".  However, he is lacking in imagination. It is *just* what I want for the guest room.  Imagine this--painted matte black, with the rosy walls and the black & cream toile bedding.  Won't it be stunning? 

Weekend Away

I'm so excited to tell you all about our weekend get away that I nearly posted on Wednesday, the day after my last post.  But, posting two days in a row might be too much of a shock for my readers (are there any still out there???  I think that most have given up on me....), so I held back for a few days.

We stayed in Fredericksburg, which is just about 30 minutes from our house.  Its a wonderful town with a college, lots of gee-oorr-geous stores, and restaurants.  It also has an adorable downtown neighborhood that I've nudged Glenn about moving to, but its just a bit too, too far from DC for us.  For the weekend, it was perfect--a great place to get away from it all, but practically no travel involved.

We stayed at a beautiful inn, the Kenmore Inn, pictured above.  I selected it for not just its looks, but -- get this -- there is a pub ONSITE.  Yes, indeed, we could have our drinky-poos & just stroll on upstairs.  Love it.  Here is a photo of our room:

This is the beautiful garden that was just under our window.  This photo doesn't do it justice.  Look at how beautiful the flowering trees were:

We spent Saturday strolling around town.

Yum.  You should have smelled the brownies baking in there. I, of course, couldn't leave without a dish of "Death by Chocolate", which contained those same brownies.  Had to check out if they tasted as good as they smelled, doncha know.

This drug store still has a soda fountain!! 

This store!!  Oh my gosh, I could have spent hours & hundreds of dollars in there.  Vera Bradley, Crabtree & Evelyn & April Cornell heaven.  In addition to so many other goodies.  Here is a peak inside.  If you click on the photo, you can see all of the delicious displays close up:

Glenn walked in & immediately said "Uh, honey, I'm going to wait for you outside" My response: "Too Froo-froo for you?" Him: "YES"

There was also a  to. die. for.  clothing store called Monkees that was more than a wee bit out of my price range.  But, I had fun looking & figuring out mentally how I could copy the looks when I went to TJ Maxx :)

After shopping, we spent a few hours on the patio of a restaurant, reading.  Anyone read The Glass Castle ? DO.  I read the entire thing that evening.  After that, browsing in a used bookstore & then dinner at the Inn's restaurant.  Really, just perfect.  It was so wonderful to spend time with Glenn & just be a couple.

Of course, the next day, we returned home & the sweetest thing in the world was to have Hopie shout out "Mommy! Mommy!" the moment that I walked in the door.  Life is good.

 

So, whatcha been up to?

I know, we've got to stop meeting up like this...only once every two weeks!  I've had this post in my head for two weeks & even took the photos, but then it took me two weeks to get the pics off of my camera.  Now, I have enough photos & ideas for two posts, so I'll be back here in the next couple days as well. 

So, what have I been up to?  Work mostly.  But, there's been more too.  My parents were down here again. Hope has started calling the guest room "Nana & Grandpa's Room".  If they are down here again in the next month, I'm going to throw in the towel &  tell them to start leaving a set of pjs & clean undies.  :) Seriously, they were here for several reasons, the most exciting one being that Glenn & I went away for a weekend alone.  Imagine that.  More on that in the next post.   

Also, I'm making the most of my weekends by doing less in the way of errands & more in the way of fun.  For instance, I recorded the activities of a recent rainy Sunday....

What's the best thing to do on a rainy Sunday?  Bake cookies of course!  Peanut Butter this time.  Yum. 

I made plenty...go ahead & have one!

After that (Hope took a long nap), I started on this SUPER CUTE project from Amy of Inspire Company .  She has resumed her online "magazine" recently & this is one of the ideas in the first issue...check it out .  As soon as I saw it, I knew that I needed to translate that onto kid's birthday cards....here are the results:

Amy's are waaaay cuter, but these will do!  I also made a pink set for the girls.  I try to make a bunch of simple kids birthday cards to have on hand because a) we are constantly being invited to kid birthday parties b) I always (always) forget to buy a card & c) cannot stomach spending $3 on a card for a 3 year old who won't even notice it & it will get thrown out anyway.

I also spent hours catching up on my blog reading & emailing.  It was so fun to see what everyone has been up to & get really inspired by all of the great ideas that I saw.  You people blow me away! 

I'm really excited to tell you about our little get-away, so I'll be posting again very soon!

Quick Tutorial for Covered Lampshades

I've been asked to give directions on how to cover a lampshade, so I thought that'd I'd share.  It's actually so quick & easy that you'll be looking for more lampshades to cover :)

-I make a pattern by placing a large piece of paper (paper grocery bag, whatever) over the shade & tracing it

-I cut out the fabric using the pattern

-I use regular white glue that I've watered down a bit & paint it on the shade.  You'll want to paint on just a small section & then smooth the fabric over that section.  Then, paint on more glue in the next section & smooth the fabric over that & so forth. I usually start near the seam in the shade & work from there, smoothing the fabric over one section, top to bottom of the shade & then going the entire way around the shade.

-I put the trim on with a glue gun, along the edges of the shade.

It actually goes very quickly.  I've done this on numerous shades & I've loved everyone of them!

Another, photo filled post is soon to come!