Do you know what time it is?????

That's right.... still celebrating the Bday! Ok so yes it's been more than a week, but hey it's not like a month long party. Though I like that idea too. What are you doing?

YES it is...

Aren't you glad?! Me too.
* Tonight is the huge Kids Halloween party at school. But we also have a little Pre-party at a friends house for us parents..so we can make it thru the next 2 hrs of craziness. And it is, trust me.
* This weekend there is a Nor-Easter coming...if you can even believe that. I woke up and heard the news guy talking about it, and thought I was still dreaming. Snow before Halloween..weird. And I'm so not ready for that mess yet.
* Sat night, my little one is supposed to have a sleepover at her Aunty's house. Hopefully weather permitting. She wants to see their decorations.... they go all out, but scary. So she only wants to see it in the Day...no joke, she means it.
* Sometime this weekend- Momma has got to spend her Bday cash!!! That's right, guilt free shopping. That's the best kind. I have to remind myself to not buy home goods. I can't help it.

Enjoy!!!!

Pumpkin LOVE!

I spotted this photo on Gabrielle's site, ofcourse the place to find all good things.

And I had to bookmark it. I love the idea of painting pumpkins vibrant fun colors...so great!!!Note to self...must do this next year!

Window Monsters...

I have never decorated for Halloween. Not sure why, just never really got into it. Of course, with an 8 year old who has opinions and a voice of her own now. I have to hear 'why don't we do this'...or 'we need to put something up..come on MOM'! So I sort of gave in...and we tried some of these WINDOW MONSTERS!!! I used a combination of black construction paper and the black contact paper..which I recommend, since it sticks and its removable.

I love how you can see them from the inside during the daylight.. and then at night when you close the shade and have the light on, everyone can see them OUTSIDE.

I think I found my new way to decorate for Halloween!!!

Monday Miscellany

Tea cup makes a beautiful Chalk holder..
Planter makes a great Pencil holder. Don't you think?

Hello Fall!

I suppose I have to give in and say goodbye to summer! Especially when your wearing boots and a scarf, you can't stay in denial for too long. We made a quick stop to pick up a couple pumpkins and get a little face painting and balloon animals. Geez my pumpkin was really expensive..wth!

But you have to have at least one to carve, right?

Happy Friday!

Happy happy Friday! Yes, the weekend is here!!! So happy.

• Tonight is Taco night! Easy...yes all of a sudden my 8 yrs old REQUESTED tacos, this has never happened. She always complained when I made them. I think some TV show influenced her. Weird right?
• Saturday, trip to NYC for In-laws 60th wedding Anniversary. I know, 60 yrs married..wowser! We are heading to see a Broadway show and then for dinner. Yum.
• Sunday will involve a whole lot of nothing. Well maybe a visit to see my family if I don't get too lazy. ; ) My little girl wants to see her Aunty, really bad.

So, what's on your schedule? Oh there's also a block party Saturday night that we might stop by and meet some new neighbors. Fun.

After the weekend...

(above: messing around with Adobe elements, trying to turn a photo into a sketch... still needs work...hmmm)

Hope your extended weekend was awesome and relaxing. We had a 5th bday party to go to. It was great for the kids AND the adults, which is most important. ; ) have to keep the adults entertained or keep our cups filled. I'm joking, ....mostly.

I also picked up a thrifty find...that I will show you later.

J.CREW... back to the chalkboard

so relaxing and fun...I could do this all night long.

J.CREW...old favorites

Some of my favorite J.Crew bags...classic, beautiful and useful!

Currently Loving..........

It's a new week....

My Kitchen: 'Making it Livable'

I mentioned that I made some quick and really inexpensive changes to my kitchen that I wanted to share. This is by no means a makeover. But I like to call it 'MAKING IT LIVABLE'. My before kitchen was not so livable to me... yes I am strictly talking about aesthetics..but hey that's important too. I just couldn't stand looking at it. And we are not going to be able to remodel any time soon. So these small changes were just making my kitchen livable to me!!!!!

(Before from NJMLS)
Things to notice in the BEFORE shots:
*** FAUX laminate wood cabinets.... they don't look anything close to real, trust me
** Flower Stained glass panels at the end cabinets..(yikes)
** Country border around ceiling..(le sigh*)
** Country switch plates
** Notice NO backsplash....(WTH)
** Ugly ceiling fan (oh no)
** Hospital- like blinds on sliding doors...($%^*&)
OMG!!

(we took out the wall you see below on right, between dining and kitchen to open it up)

When we moved in...I should mention the only thing we did... which was kinda big was knock out this wall between dining room and kitchen to open it up!!! Then I painted the kitchen a neutral color and REMOVED the country border. And it stayed that way for over a year. (also note, husband didn't want me to paint the cabinets)....

So now here we are today..

I made 5 small changes-
1. Black Faux leather contact paper for Backsplash
2. Cork board to cover stained glass
3. Black switch plates to replace country ones
4. More Black Contact paper on Upper cabinets
5. Curtains to replace, hospital blinds

I had some Black Faux leather contact paper lying around and one Sunday I thought about covering that backwall where the Backsplash was....just to have some contrast with that SEA of BEIGE. So I tried it since the paper is completely removable, And I really liked it!!!! Loved it actually. Cost: a roll is $6.74.

Next I needed to cover those Stained Glass Panels ASAP...there were only 2...so I thought CORK would be great and they could be used to pin notes,pictures or grocery list, etc (probably not the one near the stove, but the other end, YES) . I just bought that 4 pack of cork squares and cut them to size...(cost around $6.99 on sale).

Next I added the black contact paper to the upper cabinets only.... just to see.. And I liked the results. Already it just feels more modern and less 60ish.

Next to go were those Hospital blinds....pretty ugly. And they were missing half of them. I thought why not curtains? ...for now I reused the same track and just replaced the slats with curtains I already had. LOVE IT!!!! (cost = zero)

The last little thing I did was replace all those Country outlet plates with black ones..they are under 1 each... I had no idea they were so cheap. ($3.00)

That's it! For me it makes a big difference and will help hold me over a little bit longer. There are a few things I still want to do, such as paint the Hardware on the cabinets. Get rid of ceiling fan.
and maybe DIY some kind of island from our of old kitchen table.

But for under $25 bucks, I'm pretty happy until then!

OK this last one is not part of update, but I had to share my Missoni serving tray!

Cheers

Thursday ..almost Friday!

Hey peeps... Thursday night, looking through my old pics.. see above in inspiration folder from RUE. Love everything in this photo...bold curtains against old brick wall, woodbeams, chandelier....really just all.
* watching Whitney right now..first time. I think I like her.
* DVR'ing Greys anatomy
* loving my new job so far. (or am I loving my non-commute!!!) I know it's only been a week, but crossing my fingers
* looking forward to the weekend
* oh, my boss and I have the same Bday, weird right?
* I'll show you what I did to make my kitchen livable.. for real cheap. quick fixes are the best.
(because it is uuuugggly )
* also obsessed with turning my old kitchen table into an Island... googling like crazy
* Picked up the new Design*Sponge at Home... with the spare change in my car. Not kidding, I had alot of coins in that car..lol
* Need to do a separate post about my trip to Target and their Missoni Debut. Crazy people I tell ya!
* I should not have had that Dunking Donuts coffee at 5:30pm...because I will be up all night!!!!

Good News!

Hi guys.. I've been enjoying the final days of summer. After my last post, we scurried away for several days to relax. And the other Big news for me to share is that my last day of work was September 9th!!!! Awesome.

I'm awaiting a start date for my new job. I'm very excited!! Though I wish I could report it is finally in a creative field, its not. BUT this position will allow for much more of a Work/Life balance than I've ever had. It will also allow me to be able to bring my daughter to and from school...which we love!!! So I certainly wont be missing the 3hr a day commute for sure. What a relief!!!

I will miss my lunchtime views.........nothing beats this view of the city. I took this Thurs before I left. It was after days and days of rain... and the sky was just amazing.

I had this week off...which felt strange and wonderful at the same time!!! Now back to catching up on my favorite blogs this afternoon. And off to a 50th bday celebration tonight! Hope you have some fun planned this weekend as well!

So there you are!

Hello Friends...
I miss blogging. I do. I suppose I lost my blogging Mojo for a bit. I'm sure you can relate to that if you've been blogging for any extended period of time. You just get in a rut. Life gets in the way. You get caught up in all the camparisons w other blogs. And lose the vision for why you started in the first place. You lose sight of the original intention. Lose your steam. I think its happened for all these reasons and more. Has it happened to you?

When I first started blogging...I was working in a corporate job, gray walls, tedious, uninspiring...zombie like and blogging was a whole new creative outlet, there were others who enjoyed the same creative things , decorating homes, blogging, fashion , especially handmade and re-creating something new from something old..it was where my people were! And I was so happy to have that little space in my world away from the gray cubicle walls I worked in and found a bit of inspiration and a place to share. And you could share in an instant and get feedback in a moment. I loved it.
So maybe it's time to get back to what it was meant to be.
* a fun creative outlet to share things I've made and found
* beautiful, inspiring spaces
* to bookmark inspiring photos
* home projects
* connect with other creative souls
* carefree, non competitive
* a place to share, period

Sounds right to me! Back to the basics of everything I loved about blogging to begin with.

In an attempt to get back to blogging I wanted to add a little something beautiful to the office space. Do you remember seeing the 'Paper Scrap Light' on Design*Sponge?? The original was made by Gabrielle Guy. It's a must see for sure. I fell in love with the simplicity of using paper scraps and those inexpensive paper lanterns to create such a whimsical and funky looking light. LOVE!

So I created my own little mini versions using white tissue paper. You may notice that with tissue paper the ends seem to curl up a bit. Totally unexpected...but still love it!!! I don't have real lights inside yet. But will add them soon. Don't you love projects that are super cheap but look so beautiful~!

Happy Rainy weekend my friends..............see you in a few days!

It was a Stripey Rainy day!

I had to share the latest addition to my stripey collection. I'm loving this jacket. I picked up this lil beauty for 10 bucks from Sears on clearance. I know, right!!! It's a size medium (I wear large) which means if I dare wash and dry it I will have to say goodbye to it for sure. But I had to have it. It cheered me up on this rainy day... and my lil umbrella helped too. Though it's a tiny bit on the flimsy side. Yeah, one little breeze and it's inside out. It's OK umbrella, I will keep you anyway, You're a cutie!

Happy Friday you guys!!!

And you know what Thursday is...right?

It's time for a winner for the 'Sex and the City' Giveaway!!!

And it's Shelly from 'Nama Halacy's Comfy Cottage'!!!!!! Congrats... email me and I'll ship out your package this weekend!!!! Now I must get ready to watch Grey's Anatomy the music event.....I can't wait.

A girl and her shoes