allsorts

Work in progress... the room upstairs

Amid the recent periods of crazed activity, the redo of the room upstairs has been quietly progressing. Katy left home a gazillion years ago so I decided it was well past time for a major fluff. And instead of painting the walls some vivid color as I usually do, I decided to paint them white. All white, white trim, white ceiling. Super white. Radical. It's a real experiment, to see how I decorate without wall color as a starting point!

So... this is my lovely yellow cabinet.  I snagged it for a song in the as-is room at Ikea. It had been assembled wrong and the shelves won't go any lower, but who cares? My Ikea-hacked illuminated wreath looks happy perched atop and some miscellaneous linens and quilts are snuggled within.

That's the little bathroom. It was already yellow so I plan on leaving it since it looks nice with the cabinet. Those shelves under the window are (guess what) another as-is score at Ikea. $23 and change, I swear. The windows in this room are small, high and oddly placed, so the space below is awkward. A lick of paint and some of my children's books and it will be perfect!  And now to my favorite part...

The new daybed! Now I know it will shock you but it came from... Ikea! Yes, I confess I am a fan. It is the tromsnes daybed and it now comes in blue. Too cute for words. For now I've just grabbed pillows from other parts of the house and piled them on, but it will need its own collection of cushions eventually. And now you can see how weird the windows are. Way out to the sides and up high. At least they look out onto lovely leafy branches and get plenty of sun. In fact I need some way to block that sun out in the afternoon, plus some privacy would be nice. Still mulling over options.

And looking around to the right...

Another blank white wall. The chair... yes, Ikea. Sheesh I swear I'm not on their payroll. But how could I pass up owning a piece of furniture named Jennylund? The tall shelf cabinet thingie was in my dining room before being replaced by my Welsh dresser. It will get some paint, too, once I decide on a color. And in a wonderful bit of synchronicity, the dollhouse fits perfectly on the bottom shelf! I won't show the fourth wall, its too boring for words... there's a long table holding a big mirror and my iMac, which doubles as a TV. Snore.

And that's the room-in-progress which we haven't yet figured out what to call. Guest room? Nest room? I'm full of ideas for stuff to put on the walls, tons o' projects and I'm pretty geeked about it. I'll keep you posted about my progress!

Cheers,

Jenny

Blue Monday

Ahhhhh... blue. Not my mood, the color!

With our afternoon temperatures reaching 104° I can't help but crave lovely cool things, like these shade-loving hydrangea blossoms in the deepest coolest blues I've ever seen. These lured me in at Central Market and insisted on coming home with me (along with some phloxy friends). Our soil here is so alkaline that even if I could successfully grow them in the Texas heat, they would be pink instead of this amazing shade of ultramarine.

I had a hunch they would look great in the enamel pitcher I got last week at (where else) Ikea. The pitchers are wonderfully made, come in three sizes and look absolutely fantastic everywhere I put them.

The sun even cooperated so I could snap some pics in this corner of the dining room. Gosh, look at all the other things from Ikea in that photo!

And I've finally decided to get serious about learning how to take better images with my camera. I think that my frustration with camera issues is the main reason I haven't been blogging as much as I used to. I have ideas for posts all the time, but don't follow through because I don't like the photos. So I'm very happy to be finally addressing that.

Hope you have a truly wonderful week!

Cheers,

Jenny

My creative space - a peek into my drawers

Well, not my drawers, just one drawer, the shallow one in my fabric buffet (I have taken a shine to calling it that). Sorry about the blah photo, I'm not sure what the problem is, but I can't take a photo worth beans lately.  Well, you get the general idea.  The drawer is just deep enough for my art bin o' floss and a pink plastic divided thingie that once held my grandmother's costume jewelry and now holds sewing whatnots.

On top are some fq's that I picked up a couple of weeks ago at the Dallas quilt show, and Romsdol, an adorable folkster doll I snagged from the weewonderfuls etsy shop!  She's such a charmer!

So, that's my Creative Space peek for this week!  See more creative spaces here.

Cheers!

Jenny

My creative space

This is for Kirsty's My Creative Space Wednesday... at long last, some new photos of my studio! They are not great photos mind you, the light in here is very uncooperative in the afternoons. It blasts into the two westerly windows so I usually have to close the shutters by 3:00 or so. But, today the room is as clean and the most organized it has ever been, so I thought I should document it.

My favorite part is the Liatorp buffet from Ikea that stores my fabric and tons of other supplies, and quite stylishly. Before, I had ugly white shelving. Boy was I glad to see that go! Someday I hope to replace the Scandia pine shelving and desks, too. I can't even bring my self to show you a photo of that wall. Yuck.

Ugh, I didn't realize how bad these photos are until now.  I need a better lens for my camera, and maybe learning how to use it wouldn't hurt!

The three red frames hold fantastic papercut prints from Elsa Mora, and Ro brought me the lanterns from Singapore. Right now the floor has horrible old berber carpet on it, but that will change as soon as I figure out what I want to replace it with. The worktable is a huge old map desk. I covered the top with oilcloth and painted the base. I keep tons more stuff in Ikea boxes that fit perfectly underneath. I have three of those blue buckets that I use for trash and recycling. My felt is organized by color in the white stacking bins to the right of the worktable.

So that's it! My creative space!

Cheers,

Jenny

White linens

Last weekend I pulled out some boxes of vintage baby things and saw that some had not been cleaned properly before storage. So I hand washed them and gave them a good long soak in Vintage Soak (sorry, but I bought mine a while ago and I can't give you a current source). That stuff is amazing. It will bring the most stubborn of yellowed linen back to a nice snowy white. I confess I didn't do the soaking in this washbasin, but it makes for a much more attractive photo than the plastic tubs I really used. ;o)

After soaking I laid them out on toweling to dry and now they are nice and bright and crispy. There are a lot of sweet dresses, little suits and even a child-sized dutch apron and cap. I have a bit of ironing to do!

But I'm one of those crazy people who like to iron, especially such sweet things as these.

Cheers,

Jenny

Morning light

We were up early this morning. The light was so pretty on the bedside table.

Cheers,

Jenny

On my desk... cherry blossoms

Whoosh! How did a week go by since my last post? Oh well, here is what is on my desk today. On my computer desktop actually... I found this glorious image in the wallpapers group on flickr. This is a cropped version, you have to go see the original... it is breathtaking!

Happy spring!

Jenny

On my desk... pretties

Hi gang! (uh oh, she's gone all chirpy on us again)

It's great to have Claire back to blogging, I missed her postings while she took a nice long sabbatical. Now she's joining Kirsty in a simple and easy meme: on my desk Wednesdays. Since I love to play along, I picked up my camera and captured this pretty scene at the end of my desk... my (fake) peony and a dandy new oilcloth bag I picked up here on a shopping jaunt last week. I admit to mildly cheating, since a deep clean of the studio happened this weekend, so normally that end of the desk would be nothing more than a dangerously leaning tower of papers and whatnot. But fear not, it's only a matter of time before another one builds up. Relentless.

I especially liked the idea of this meme (definition here) because it is so simple and easy. I have a tendency to get all perfectionist about posts, and end up letting embarrassingly long gaps develop between them. And that's not really the point of blogging, is it? It should be for enjoyment, to reach out and connect with kindred souls, share a chuckle or a fun photo. Anyone else find themselves struggling with this? I'm guessing more than a few.

Let's make this a cheery day, whadaya say?

Jenny

Wallpaper for walls, not your computer

Searching google images for illustration reference, I just now found a really cute blog totally by accident: London Mummy. She led me to the Sandberg web site where I've been ogling their wallpaper and fabric designs. I wish I could find this sort of thing in my neck of the woods. I'm off to a family birthday gathering in a sec so I only have time to post some quick eye candy pics. Enjoy!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Cheers,

Jenny

Can't have too many blue and white dishes

Hmmm... the trend seems to be that I start each post with a thank you. So, thank you... again, for letting me whine and vent and be a grouchy old grouch. Only one further Bad Thing happened after the last post, my MIL took another tumble, cut open her head and spent the day in the ER getting her scalp stapled (yes, I shudder every time I think of that, too). She's on the mend, and we've made her promise not to fall any more.

So now the sun is shining here, both inside and out! One nice thing adding to the sunshine... last weekend I snagged a set of blue and white dishes at my neighbors garage sale...

She called me over and showed me this little pile, wondering if it was my pattern. Before I even knew how many she had I told her I'd buy them all. Turned out she had a pristine service for eight, cream and sugar, serving bowl and platter, in a pattern called Finlandia. Yes, I was one happy gumball, because these go perfectly with my other blue and white dishes (which now fill my cupboard quite nicely).

My first set of dishes in this theme was a similar pattern for which I can supply no name, made by Schonwald of Germany, I think I have service for six or so. Next up was Mason's Denmark, the dishes we bought and used when we lived in London, as well as back here in the US. I have a LOT of this but many pieces have been chipped along the way. These as well as the Finlandia are loosely based on the classic Royal Copenhagen pattern, of which I have only a few pieces, as it is scary expensive stuff. Here they all are, nicely posing for their photo:

I love that my dishes are variations on a theme, like a large cobbled together family, all similar but unique in their own right. Whether they're stoneware or fine porcelain, or maybe a little chipped around the edges, they are part of the family.

And isn't it a wonderful thing when they all play nicely together?

Have a happy Mother's Day!

Cheers,

Jenny