sewing 101

I am slowly but surely teaching myself how to sew. I picked up a great 70's Singer machine, but I have no idea how to thread it for now....so hand stiching it is. Luckily I can't sit still without having a project at night, so it's been keeping me busy. I scored a lot of Amy Butler scraps on ebay and have been making little purses. I also got this great berry pattern material from Tonic Living and made a huge new pillow for our bedroom! And my latest endeavor is making the cushions for our wicker outdoor set for our screened in back porch. So far I only have two pillows made for that.....one of which is currently living on this fabulous chair (one of a pair that Christina and I got from a curbside goldmine!)

I'm running out of rooms to make pillows for!

home sweet home

Kris and I took an extra long weekend trip home to visit my family in Jersey this week. It was a great trip, lots of family time, delicious food and fun.

One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to my mom's new rowhouse in her town of Lambertville, NJ. It's a wonderful, eclectic little village on the Delaware River and once again my mom has turned yet another space into a masterpiece. Here are some pictures from her urban garden that she put together. She had a tiny space, but with the potted plants, sculpted bonsais and raised vegatable beds (she practices biodynamic gardening) she has really out done herself! She does a really great job of mixing the flowers, veggies and herbs all together and layering them so there is a little bit of everything in each bed. And we even got to enjoy a delicious lunch of salad and pesto from her garden and Jersey corn!

etsy shop

On friday our new etsy shop, Flamingo Artifacts, was choosen for the Friday Vintage Finds! It was an article about Danish Modern housewares, which happen to be my favorite kind which made it very exciting to get choosen! The bad thing about etsy for me is it just makes me see even more stuff that I want, there were some great other things choosen as well.

http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/spotlight/article/etsy-finds-vintage-danish-modern/2350/

So with this new exposure, we needed to update the shop! We'll be adding these guys in tonight

i wasn't feeling terribly ambitious on saturday. L and i were just hanging out around the house, i was trying to lay out in the back yard but the sun wasn't really being cooperative. we were checking out my exciting new basement configuration, when L started to examine the collection of odd ceramic vases and figurines that were left from the previous owner. Looking at one of them, L said, "this would be fun to spray paint" - and this is the result.

the wire basket is something i had picked up at a thrift store with the intention of painting. i had seen one in yellow in Dwell and i wanted one. I didn't have yellow spray paint on hand though. Maybe next weekend.

Weekend getaway!

In between refinishing hardwood floors and stressing over which new appliances to buy, Kris and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary. We got married at beautiful Tuckahoe Plantation in Richmond in June 2006. So, as a surprise getaway, Kris planned a night away. We had been wanting to explore the Eastern Shore, so we left Richmond really early on sat morning and headed east!

Our first stop was Cape Charles.....very quaint little town, nice downtown shops and water views. We stopped for an ice coffee and looked around for a bit....but had to get on the road and head to our first stop, Chatham Vineyards.

The vineyard was off the main road a few miles, but it was a beautiful drive to Franktown. We had a tasting, bought a bottle and headed to our next destination....Onancock. Kris got us the "Maine" room since he knows I miss the north! The Inn was great, nice old house, the people were wonderful, and I was very pleased with his choice. We settled in and took a walk around the town, it has a really nice little downtown core, even a little stop at a thrift store to get some shopping in.

After we explored Onancock we decided to take a drive to Chincoteague Island and see if we could see the wild ponies that inhabit the island. This was a really fun looking vacation spot and a beautiful drive through the island to the Assateague State Park and beaches. We will definitely come back here one day! The beaches looked nice, and there seemed to be lots to do, antique shops, restaurants, an old theatre, cafes and of course a vacation staple....putt putt!

Then we headed to our final destination for the tour of the Eastern Shore, a wine festival at Bloxom Winery.

The festival was a great idea for our evening. There was a fun band playing, we tried a few wines, we packed a picnic and enjoyed our favorite anniversary treat, strawberries and blue cheese while relaxing in our new camping chairs!

stairway to heaven

When we moved into our house last year we were thrilled to have a basement, but the means to get there were a bit scary. We had a small door off the front hall next to the kitchen that lead to a very narrow wooden open stair and on the other side of it (that's right you had to step over the stair) was our "pantry". So Kris and I started demolition of these dangerous stairs in hopes of some new, safer more stylish ones. After I drew up my plan for the best way to reconfigure the stair, we needed the help of some professionals. Our friends Ryan and Bert of New Earth spent a few days at our house. First was to demo the rest of the pantry area and remove the floor boards (which we saved to relay as part of the extended kitchen project) and open up the space under the existing first floor stair, for the head room of the new basement stair.

After the guys did all the demo (which they saved as much to re use as could be) the new stair construction began. After Bert and Ryan would leave for the day, Kris and I would demo the next stage of the project, so this was when we made the opening for the new stair next to the existing one. We removed the lath and plaster and the guys cut our the studs and headed off the opening the next day. They completed construction of the stairs on the third day working at the house. And they were beautiful!In between the guys completing the stairs and me painting and finishing them, Kris' father came for a visit and helped us (built for us) a new stud wall along the left side of the stair. Now we have a new wall that gave 5 more feet to the kitchen and encloses the basement stairs. Then I painted the risers a glossy taupe (for cleaning) and stained the treads to match the existing hardwood floors.

progression of garden

I am very lucky to have a mother of many talents, one of which is biodynamic gardening. I am also lucky to have a husband with a horticulture degree and muscles....together the three of us have done some fun stuff in the garden this year!

Kris and I had decided this past winter that we wanted to tear out some of the stuff that was in the backyard when we bought the house. Last fall we did an entire remodel of the yard, broke up extra concrete and removed it, and tore up brick paths that lead to no where. Then we tilled in the grass, releveled the yard to drain properly and re seeded the small amount of grass that we had. We built up our beds on both sides of our skinny long city yard and used the bricks we had to create edges on the beds. We also wanted to build a raised vegetable garden to keep the dogs away and also have it been a boundry to the patio and a nice feature in the yard.

Once we finished all that, my mom came down from NJ in March and sowed seeds with me that I nurtured until she came back in May and we planted. We went to SB Cox, our local salvage yard, and bought 7 terracotta chimney inserts and used them to bring a little height to the gardens. We planted tomatoes in them that have climbed higher than our fences with beans growing in between them.