2011 DC Design House

After almost completely convincing myself that I wouldn't make it in the Washington DC Design House, (I tend to do that when it gets down to the wire & I get really nervous) I got a call today from one of the Design House Committee members letting me know I'd been accepted.  I was kind of in shock and just so insanely happy when I listened to her voicemail.
I can't even express how truly honored & grateful I am to be able to participate in the Design House.  Here's a photo from the DC Design House facbooke page of the outside of the 2011 home:

The DC Design House benefites The Childrens National Medical Center which is "the largest non-governmental provider of pediatric care in the District of Columbia and treats all patients regardless of their families' ability to pay. Each year Children's provides more than $50 million in uncompensated care.   As a nonprofit hospital, Children's National relies on the generous support of individuals, corporations, and foundations to meet the health needs of children..."

I'll keep you posted as the date nears, but it's set to run April 9th - May8th.

The address is 3134 Ellicott St, NW

 Do you remember this succulent that had me all excited a while back?

It was growing in the garden room of the design house. 

It completely embodies the feeling I'm after for the space I have (an upstair bedroom/ sitting room) and I just love how fresh and luminous it is.  I'll definitely keep you posted on everything and if you're in the area, hopefully you'll be able to make it to see for yourself!  I'm teaming up with some amazing people including local artist John Matthew Moore. 

I'm thrilled & honored to be joining a super-talented group of designers for this year's Design House: 

James Rill (Rill Architects), Liz Levin, Patrick Sutton, Erin Paige Pitts, Nadia Subaran (Aidan Design), Whitney Stewart, Gary Lovejoy, Nancy Colbert, Camille Saum, Denise Willard, Barbara Franceski, Samantha Friedman, Jason Hodges, Cindy McClure, David Mitchell and Iantha Carley

A huge congratulations to the other designers selected and cheers to the 2011 House!

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Macro Party

I am happy to join Tracy fro her Macro Party today at her blog Tracy's Trinkets and Treasures.  I have been photographing everything for this blog in close-up mode with a tripod pretty much since I started it; but, lately I have gotten a inexpensive macro lens and now I use it as much as I can.

I like the way the images blur out and focus in on the subject with a macro lens.  Here is one of my favorite color of roses.  It has always reminded me of seashells.  I just love this delicate shade of pink.

Message in a Bottle

 

Brocante Style

I am short on words and much more visual.  The pictures always matter the most to me. I will also link to:

Pink Saturday at How Sweet the Sound 
Go and visit Tracy and Beverly.

Housekeeping

{new cubbies in my office studio...  "studio" sounds so much better, doesn't it?}

Just enjoying the last spec of the loooong snow-filled weekend before bed. Last week was such a nutty week that I totally forgot to post that I was a guest blogger/ designer over at Room Remix! PK's going a great series on paint with some of my favorite blog friends so check it out if you have a minute:

ROOM REMIX PAINT SERIES

Many of you asked about the driftwood hanging above the cubbies.  My dad found it 20 or so years ago while fishing in Georgia.  It's a cypress tree root.  There used to be bass mounted on it but he gave it to me  so they're gone :)  It used to be in the shape of a star but a piece of it fell off over the years.  He's wants me to reattach it but then I wouldn't have room for my cubbies!

Also, you might have noticed a few changes around here. My blog's been getting a few tweaks including a some new buttons on the sidebar. I haven't linked everything up yet but as soon as I do, I'll be sure to give you a little tour.

Is anyone going to the design bloggers' conference in LA? I'm all signed up so let me know if you're in!

And... I find out tomorrow yes or no for the design house. Am so nervous and can't wait for the pit in my stomach to leave. ( it has to go away whether we get it or not, right?? ;). I might be in need of virtual hugs so I'll keep you posted. Finger crossed.



If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Heart Pincushion

I have been wanting to use this fabric for awhile and I decided to make heart pincushions with it.  It is a little challenging because of the stripe.

On my first attempt I cut the stripe vertical; but, no matter how straight you cut the heart out, the stripe was never centered.

So, I put it away for a few weeks and thought it over and then I saw somewhere a heart cut out at a diagonal.  This solves the problem of the stripe.

Now, the stripe looks good anywhere it is laid out on the heart shape and it sews up nicely.   Little heart pincushions are such a sweet treat for a Valentine with out any calories.  I will have three available in my Etsy shop.  

I will link this to:

Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch  

Masterpiece Monday at Boogieboard Cottage 

Make It For Monday  at Cottage Instincts

Market Yourself Monday at Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Amaze Me Monday at Dittle Dattle

Making the World Cuter at making the World Cuter 

Market Monday at Etsy Cottage Style

Made By You  at Skip to my Lou 
Tute {Yourself} Tuesday at Little Eme
Market Monday at Etsy Cottage Style
Handmade Monday  at Olga's Home & Garden Blog

Sigh.....textures...

I have to totally credit Kat at Low Tide High Style for the tips on where to find these textures.  I have been looking of textures for awhile now and these work wonderfully.  The texture is anything you can scan and superimpose to the photo of your choice to get this effect.  The French postcard was from Sophie G*'s Flicker Photostream.

Kat's post on textures is at the link above.  She made her photos in Photoshop.  I used Picasa.  Picasa is a free download.  Once you download and edit your desired photo here are your next steps:

• Hit the tab create a collage
• Choose picture collage
• Go to settings
• Where it says picture pile choose multiple exposure
• pick the two photos you want by choosing get clips
• if you have photos on the layout you don't want just hit reset 
• and select all and then remove what you don't want as a group or you can remove each one individually by clicking on that photo on the layout and hitting remove
• When you get two images superimposed you hit create collage and you will have your texturized image

The vintage lace texture can be found at this link and was created by Kat at Low Tide High Style.  

Kim Klassen provided this texture today and has a video on how to do textures.  This texture was called Nature's Beauty and she has it free here.  Kim also sells many textures and has a gallery of images.  Check with the place you find textures and make sure you are free to create with them and what limits may apply to their use.

This was from Sophie G's photostream texture 011.

Lizzie_Anne's Flicker Photostream is where this texture came from.  It was called green background.
Textures are my new favorite photography edit.  Lovin' these!
I will join Laurie for My Favorite Things at her site Bargain Hunting and Chatting with Laurie.  Go and visit her for lots of fun.

Pink Love

I had been trying to mix hot pink and black all week and I just never found the combo that I wanted and then by accident, I laid some dishes aside and got a great combo of pink and black.  The dishes were stacked up to put away and I placed the little pink rose Limoges bread and butter on top of them.  I was surprised by the arrangement because the patterns worked.

My next pink is the cutest little hat Shannon over at Cozy Home Scenes made.  Thank

you Shannon!  I love it.:)  Shannon also has these cute hats for sale on her sidebar, check them out.

Happy Pink Saturday!

I will link to Pink Saturday at How Sweet the Sound, go and visit Beverly. 

My Office & a Snow Day

We've been snowed in today with no electricity and I'm really glad we kept our wood-burning stove:

The power went out last night & we sleep in a pretty cool house so we didn't really notice it until this morning.  We got a fire going in the wood-burning stove and it toasted up our entire lower level, where the family-room-combination-office is.  We had breakfast (cereal with MILK! ;) at my work table and got all cozy by the fire.  I took the pic above with my cell phone & thought I could beat the power outage and post from my ipad but I couldn't figure out how to get the pic up from the ipad!  ah vell.

We took the kids out in the snow & Justin (above, 1) loooved it.   He was watching a snowball fight between Daddy & Christian:

{Yes, that's a snowball pelted at my 3 year-old's head.  My husband's a bit like Dumb & Dumber in the snow.  He hit me with one and it was seriously like a baseball...  I guess it makes us tough??? }

Anyway, onto the office.  I've been needing more storage and we have the room for it so on a whim we decided to go for these shelves (from Target) last night.  (We've beein toying with the idea of built-ins but want to keep the room open for alternate arrangements)  Dave made it home just before things got really crazy around here snow-traffic-wise. I'm thrilled with the results:

I haven't really organized it yet and I still have some empty cubbies.    Much of my gear is in our laundry room & Dave's work-out room so I'm going to bring out only the most-used items. 

(empty cubby hiding behind Schumacher bag ;)

I put my ink pads & stamps in this old hammered ice bucket and I know I'm just begging for little Justin to come explore.  (He loves to carry things with handles.) 

I've never really shown you what all is in my office so I thought I'd share some peeks.  Inside this little closet (which is next to the new cubby shelves) I keep some of my smaller fabric samples in color-coded clear plastic bins.  I prefer to pull my fabric swatches from their books unless it's a book of solids like linens or velvets:

{The printer & a bunch of other junk also lives in here.}

Larger fabric samples go in the hallway (most of them are Schumacher in case anyone spies anything they have to have in the pic;)  and are grommeted and attached with shower rings to curtain rods we hung: 

looooove my pretties...

...And just to keep it real, here's the view I never show:

I'm working on this spot.  I want to add more shelving up to the top and turn the whole area into the spot for my active client boxes, which store swatches & samples for each invidual client.  Completed job boxes go in a less-accessible area.  And that poor thing hanging on the wall is one big mess.  For now it houses all of the miscellaneous pads & notebooks I've accumulated so that I remember to use them...  but there's definitely a better way to use this space.   I'm getting there ;)

..Okay, and because I like to end positively, here's one last look at my new cubbies:

{Do you spy our candle collection??  Leftover from the power outage}

This little addition gave us some much-needed breathing room and I just love that feeling. 

I think I'll leave a couple cubbies empty for quick "mess stashes.." 

And I'm going to go now because I'm doing more organizing.  ahhhhh so happy.

 

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Brocante Style

French flea market (brocante) style is very appealing.  I haven't ever been to France but, I have stared at these images for so long on blogs and in magazines I decided it was time to try the look.

I was timid about this French style.  It has a reverence about it.  I am sure it is all the religious artifacts used when styling this look.  It seems to be popular for a reason.  The beauty of the images; religious artifacts and white, seem to bring comfort.  The radiance of this style draws you in for a moment of peace.

I just used things I owned to copy the look of French brocante, nothing is authentic.
garden statuary: already owned
china: is English by Creative-Tops

I will link this to:

Tablescape Thursday  at Between Naps on the Porch
Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home
Feathered Nest Friday at My French Country Cottage
My Favorite Things at Bargain Hunting and Chatting with Laurie 

Go and visit these lovely blogs.