artist crush...

my coworker recently introduced me to the work of painter paul balmer. i'd beg, borrow & steal to have one of his large cityscape paintings for my walls...


his landscapes are pretty lovely too, very loose & fluid...


he's pretty easy on the eyes too, i think i'd like to have one of him as well...

thank you sister...

thank you sister for introducing me to lulu's fashion lounge, the super inexpensive clothing site i'm now completely freakin' obsessed with...i just bought this dress (a potential dress to wear to one of the many weddings we're attending this spring/summer/fall)...and now i have to go hide my credit cards, again....

mother/daughter antiquing...

sunday mom and i took a little day trip together, which is a rarity these days because my mom is so super busy, all of the time. my parents recently bought a house on the westport river and are renovating it (they're using my company as their general contractor but i am NOT working on this project for obvious reasons- conflict of interest to say the least), so we stopped by to see the progress on the house....

this is a photo my boss took from the river back in november 2009

we stopped at partners village store & kitchen for sandwiches (BEST egg salad sandwich i've ever had by the way) before driving down to new bedford, ma to scope out some antique shops she had heard about. i have to admit i was skeptical. new bedford used to be considered 'the whaling city' in the nineteenth century because it was one of the most important whaling ports at the time. however, it's taken a sharp decline in the past couple of decades and it sort of a rough neighborhood now. but i was pleasantly surprised at the city's charm; despite tough times much of the area has maintained its charm.

we visited 3 antique shops in total, all MASSIVE facilities in old mills/factory spaces which took a while to get through. the first one we went to was by far the best, in fact, it might be one of the best antique malls i've been to ever. acushnet river antiques company was a a wonderful building full of so much variety of furniture, light fixtures, decorative accents, & architectural elements and all a excellent prices! seriously, you can spend hours in here. mom & i will definitely be coming back, and often. we bought a few fun things... my major purchase was this allsteel barrister bookcase in army green. i am in love with it! i'm thinking of storing a few quilts i've collected from antique shows in the lower 1/3 and then maybe some of my white bowl collection in the upper 2/3's, but still tbd...


i also picked up these two tin molds in a fish pattern. i think i might try to find several more and hang them on the wall like a school of fish, don't you think that would be a super fun idea?...


the second store we visited was sort of junkie, i won't name names, but it kind of wasn't worth our time.

the third one, new bedford antiques at the cove, was the largest of the 3. it definitely had more than the first place but you'd have to do more intense sifting through (some of it was plain ole' junk), but it's definitely worth a visit...check out their photo gallery, they show a lot of their good stuff in those pictures. in the way back of the store was a lot of great furniture that wasn't too expensive, and with a little bit of elbow grease, paint and some new fabrics could be made into very cool pieces i think. someday, when i have a bigger house i'll definitely be checking it out again to furnish my new digs with.

designer names...

i have to admit, i was super skeptical about bravo's new show, 9 by design. i don't know why i was so adamant about not wanting to like it at first, maybe because i feel inherent anger towards those designers who didn't have to waste their life away in design school for six years like me! but now that i've seen a few episodes, seen their method, gotten a glimpse of their personalities i'm definitely drawn in by it and lovin' it. what do i love most about the show? their 7 kids names! seriously cool & different names...

Wolfgang, 12- boy
twins Tallulah and Bellamy, 10- girls
Breaker, 8- boy
another set of twins Five and Holleder, 4- boys
and Major, 14 months- boy

heaven= chocolate milk...

go to whole foods and buy cocoa metro chocolate milk, you will thank me later...


p.s.- i think it is only in boston right now, so if you REALLY are DYING to have some i will ship it to you, that's how good it is.

bedroom re-do progress update...

the bedroom makeover has commenced. it started by painting the walls with a flat coat of benjamin moore baltic gray (1467), i love it. because my room has 14 foot ceilings with an 8 foot window light floods in, so I could get away with using this dark color (fyi, it looks seriously nothing like this horrible khaki-computerized-color, pull your color deck out and look at it for yourself, it's much darker & grayish/bluer than how it's showing on the screen)...


bought the nate berkus welted headboard from hsn in pewter. i liked this one because it's simple and it'll be easy to make a slipcover for once i decide to redo the bedroom again, and again, and again...


of course then i needed some new (budget) bedding to go with the headboard. so i went to target and picked up the home pebble quilt & sham in dark gray...


i stopped by my all time favorite fabric store over the weekend too, zimman's, to browse for (discounted) pillow fabric to coordinate with my revamped bedroom. i nearly fell over when i saw this thomas paul print for duralee, a black & white dragonfly pattern. i decided to make my larger decorative pillows out of this fabric...


these are how the finished ones all turned out, not horrible right?...


currently i have pink floral sheets that were my mother's long long ago (like before i was born) on the bed. they are probably the softest sheets i will ever own, after years of having worn-in from being slept on...but i decided it was time to change them to these lattice print sheets from Nate Berkus's hsn collection. i chose the pale gray color naturally...
a few months ago i bought a pair of these lamps from homegoods for either end of the long dresser (the square shades on them are from target). sorry for the crappy photos, they're from my blackberry...


and this one for my nightstand (you can see the actual wall color much better in these photos)...


the only thing left to do is strip my dark wood dressers & night stands, have them painted black, and put some new hardware on them...need to save up for that though. we use this wonderful place, minuteman furniture stripping & restoration in somerville at work, so i'm going to take the pieces of furniture there to have it done rather than do it myself, they have VERY fair prices & do wonderful work. can't wait!

i love new spaces, don't you? what i love even more if figuring out how to do them on a tight budget (story of my life!).

add godmother to my resume...

yesterday i officially became a godmother to reese, the first born daughter of my best friend. i'm very excited about it, and take it very seriously. it is such a special honor and links me to them and their family in a way that i can't describe...


i was just at their house the weekend before last and she was still crawling...now she's standing on her own and taking steps...actually, she's practically sprinting. it's amazing how quickly they change, how quickly the grow up...


because it's a godmothers unofficial duty to spoil their godchild, i had a special cross made for reese. i wanted to give her something to remind her of her commitment to God as she grew older, but also a piece of jewelry that is cool and not your traditional religious item. i found mary of koboldt designs on her etsy shop and commissioned a custom cross with reese's birthstone, an emerald, to be made along with her name & birth date to be engraved on the back side. mary kept me informed of her progress throughout the entire process, she was excellent, i highly recommend her for any of your custom jewelry requests...


i couldn't be happier with the final product, i hope reese will love it someday too...

wedding crush...

now this is a wedding i wish i had been invited to. i'm envious of every little detail! style me pretty never fails to impress...

wicked summer...

i kid you not...the guidos & guidettes are coming to boston. yup, mtv's jersey shore is doing a boston spinoff, wicked summer, casting calls are happening now. it's happening in cape cod apparently, as read here. i wonder if i'll know anyone on the show! hahaha. wicked awesome!

oh baby...

one page i keep coming back to in the april/may issue of lonny magazine is this one from tlc"s trading spaces designer laura day of a babies room, i can't get enough of it. i think i might have to borrow this idea someday...