candy corn nails

I didn't decorate the apartment so instead I decorated my Nails!

Of course after I spent Saturday afternoon painting them, I ate some Candy Corn at the party we went to Saturday night and realized Orange is supposed to be in the MIDDLE!!! Oh Darn!

I love having festive fingers, I'm already planning my Thanksgiving nails . . . 

spooky spooky spooky!

Two Red Beenies

$7.00

Two Red Flannel Shirts

$41.00

A Scrap of Black Felt and a Pipe Cleaner

$0.00

Being comfortable and looking great on Halloween . . . 

Priceless!!

(or $48.27, if you're one of those literal people)

Happy Halloween Everybody!

lacquer me up!

One of the jobs The Man just finished working on at the shop had to be finished in lacquer.  The shop he works at doesn't normally use lacquer (there are plenty of other finishes that will make a surface beautiful, and lacquer is not the best thing for you).  You might be thinking, "Hey, Lazybones, why do I care?"  Well friend, I'll tell you.  I went to visit the shop, and I saw the table tops all lacquered up, and boy-howdy I'm I excited to paint my chairs now!

I see a lot of people use spray lacquer to refinish their own furniture and it looks great (especially when it's glossy) but oh my word, lacquer sprayed from a spray gun instead of a can is Amazing.  I asked The Man to give me some schoolin' on the high volume low pressure gun (or HVLP Gun for those of us enrolled in The Morning Man University), so he gave me a little lesson.  The great thing about any spray gun is that you aren't limited to what comes in a spray can, you can use any liquid from polyurethane to orange juice.  Which also means that you can use a better quality lacquer then may be available in a can.  Other reasons to use a spray gun is for the economy of it and the control of the spray. There are three tips on the HVLP Gun, one in the middle that shoots out your liquid, and two to the sides that push out air.  All of the tips are adjustable, you can change the air flow and the amount of finish coming out of the gun, as well as the direction and size of the spray.  All these, in addition to being able to change the concentration of the lacquer, are way too many variables for little ol' me, but The Man loves it (so, he'll be the one spraying the chairs).  I also mentioned economy before.  When you use a spray can there is so much pressure pushing out the lacquer, paint, or what-have-you, that a lot of it bounces off your desired surface and is lost, but the finish comes out at a lower pressure in a HVLP gun so more of the liquid stays on your surface.  It's placed as opposed to thrown or as Professor Morning Man put it a spray gun has about a 90% transfer ratio compared to about a 50% with a spray can.  Which means if you use a gun you'll get more out of the same amount of finish than if you use a can.

Here is one of the tables The Man sprayed (sorry for the blurry iphone photo).  Look at the reflection of the vent behind it, ANd This is a satin finish!!!!

I'm pumped about finishing these chairs now, lacquer doesn't yellow, it has a clearer, harder finish and has more depth, it's going to be beautiful!  And it'll be glossy glossy Glossy!


OK, OK, so I got a little wordy this time, I promise, next post will have a lot more pictures!!
Thanks for listening reading!

hey punkin

Well, I didn't get a trip to the pumpkin patch, buuuuut I did get a pumpkin!  A friend of ours came over yesterday to carve some pumpkins, which I haven't done in forever, and let me tell you, I've missed it!  Carving pumpkins is so much fun and takes a lot less time then I remember it taking as a kid.

The boys took the unconventional route and went right to cutting out eyes and mouths before hallowing our their pumpkins. I did it the way I was taught. Step one: cut the top, Step two: scrape out all the guts, Step three: make it Scary!!  We bought a five dollar carving kit, which The Man proceeded to break almost every piece of.  Tiny pumpkin knives are meant for little kid strength, not the brute force of a grown man!  The gut scooper was the only tool to survive, it was also the tool that upset The Man the most (it was so tiny he had to stick his hand straight into the mush, "Eww!")

So inbetween watching Sunday Sports we created these masterpieces!!!:

Oooooo, Spooky

We had some fun with them after they were finished:

Pretty Scary Huh?!

p.s. Booo to the Rangers wining last night, but damn that little boy with the pube-stache sure can pitch.

silly siri

The iPhone 4S isn't even officially out yet and there is already a website for the crazy responses Siri has for your questions and requests. Shit That Siri Says is going to be a fun site to frequent, here are some of the posts they already have:

I think this one might be my favorite so far:

Hahaha, Siri is a nerd! 

It probably took me longer to get the 2001 reference then Siri.

So will you be buying the new iPhone 4S or holding out until the 5 is released? I'm too poor for either, but Siri almost makes me want to save up!

say it with pie

While on my weekly morning blog jog today I came across Pippi Konstanski's Flickr pippijewelry.  She makes jewelry but that's not what caught my attention . . . Look at these PIES!!:

Pie In The Sky

Plenty Of Pie To Go Around

You Are The Apple Of My Pie

Two Pies Are Better Than One

Swimming In The Deep Blue Pie

Aren't they hilarious, I love playing with my food!

a little cush for your tush

So, I was trying to wait until I had better photos, and the job was totally done but I'm too excited! I want to share now!  I've been a pretty bad blogger lately, mostly because I had the work week from hell about three weeks in a row, but also because I had been working on an upholstery project that I was keeping from you.

I got a gig upholstering some window seats for a new salon opening here in Chicago. These are iPhone photos taken right after installation but I just can't wait another second to share them with you . . .

I didn't make the pillows, just the seats (for now *wink*wink*), but I'm so happy with them, they're so smooth! Since she didn't want a seam running along the front edge the little nubs took some finessing, but after I MacGyver-ed my way through the first one, they were a cinch!

sunday funday

This past Sunday The Man had his first day off in almost a month.  It was a beautiful day and we had planned on going to a pumpkin patch but we woke up and realized that the Chicago Marathon was going on, so getting most places was going to be quite a hassle.  Instead we opted to go antiquing!! Unfortunately some of our favorite spots we're a little to close to the Marathon Course, but we were still able to make a few stops.

First up: Architectural Artifacts!

Now this isn't the kind of place to find some fun trinkets to take home, unless you think trinkets are $1,000 chandeliers and $2,500 mantels.  But it is a fun place to check out.  

You can easily spend a few hours walking around their 80,000 square feet of antique objects.  They have everything from a single door knob to six huge corinthian columns.  If you have lots of money and want some really cool old stuff in your house, this is the place to go.  If you have some time and want to explore a giant showroom of really cool old stuff, then this is still the place to go!

This is an enormous copper pot filled with wooden letterpress letters!

Hey Mom! Look at this! You want an awesome old wardrobe trunk? It's only $895!

They also use the atrium connecting the two buildings for events, like weddings. They clear out this area, and you can also use . . . 

The courtyard, it makes a beautiful ceremony space.

If I had $2,400 laying around, this would come home with me, as well as this lamp . . . 

Just a measly $1,800!  I think it's beautiful though.

After we were finished realizing how empty our pockets were we went over to a place with everyday folk prices and items.

Next Up: Hoard Antiques!

We love this place, we found it about a year ago. It's a small antique shop in Lincoln Square, run by a really friendly guy who knows his stuff.

They've got a little bit of everything here, it's a fun place to rummage around, and it's completely affordable.

What a cute pitcher with matching glasses!

And my favorite part of Hoard Antiques:

Layla!! She's the sweetest and most mellow pup I know.  If she's not taking a nap then you'll catch her following her man around the shop.  At this point I caught her doing the former. :) 

We didn't make all our usual stops, but that doesn't mean I walked away empty handed. 

 I bought myself a crazy fish necklace!

 At first it just looks like an elaborate gold fish, but then . . .

It Opens!!!!

After Hoard we went home to make Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches! YUM!

How was your Sunday? Do anything fun??

people let me tell you 'bout my best friend

Today is my Best-Friend-In-The-Whole-Wide-World-Since-I-Was-Born-Like-Seriously-She's-Like-A-Sister-To-Me 's Birthday.

 Happy Birthday Kalie-Balie.

I LOVE YOU!!

decision time . . . soon.

Alright so I haven't made much progress since the last time I mentioned the chairs but I have narrowed down my options.  After I picked out all those fabrics The Man and I talked about the chairs themselves, their history and what I'm doing to change them.  He made a good point, keeping the chairs white and only focusing on fabrics I like isn't the way to go.  I don't want people looking at the chairs and thinking, "oh hey, look at the fabric on those chairs," I want people to say, "oh wow, look at those chairs!"

So, no more taking the "easy" way out and sticking with white paint just because I don't want to make any other decisions.  I'm going all in, and here are the options I've picked out:

I've narrowed it down to 3 fabrics, each with 2 paint options

Option 1

Kimono by Premier Prints with
Citrus Zest or
Flaming Yellow

















Option 2

Kilburn in green by Lewis & Sheron Textiles with

Sunkissed Peach or

Youthful Coral

Option 3

Kilburn in navy by Lewis & Sheron Textiles with 

Lipstick or 

Youthful Coral

So, the good and the bad, lay it on me.  What do you think?  Any preferences? Any "oh hellllllll no"s?

I'm going to mull it over for a bit. . . 

 . . . and hopefully a bit won't take me a month, like last time.

a rainbow of colanders

I saw this photo of a bunch of colanders a few months ago:

They're so beautiful and bright.  My perfect color palette, and I wanted them all. But when would you ever need 6 colanders? I could see having 2 tops, but I only have one sink so it's not like I could even use more than 1 at a time.  I mean how much pasta could a girl make to excuse buying 6?!?!

Then, when The Man and I were in Portland, we were waiting for a table for brunch and I peeked in a shop window and saw this:

How cool is that?!?

It works so well for the kitchen supply/cooking classes shop that it was hanging in.  Unfortunately the shop was closed for the day (which is why I took this picture through the window), but this could absolutely be a DIY project.  Maybe one day when The Man and I have a big beautiful kitchen with vaulted ceilings he'll let me hang a colorful colander chandelier.

But until then, I have this photo.