happy halloween!

Happy Halloween Y'all!!

So The Man and I were pretty lame this year.  No costumes, no pumpkin carving, no maize maze,

and to all that I mutter a sad little "boo."

Since we went completely under-board with decoration and celebration I decided to double up on the nail art.

First set - Frankensteins and Pumpkin Faces

Second set (and my personal fav) - Skulls!

SPOOOKY!!

I hope you all had a scary and sugar-filled night!!

flocky flocky

Want to see my nails?! I know you do!
I recently purchased this nail kit from Sephora:

It's called ciaté and it's a velvet manicure.  I wanted to try it out for the wedding in September but it did not work at all.  It just looked like my nails were strangely dirty.  So last week I decided to give it another go and it turned out really cool:

In the kit they give you nail polish, a bottle of "crushed velvet powder" (so basically flocking) and a little brush.  The directions tell you to paint one coat let it dry and then, one nail at a time, paint another coat and sprinkle on the velvet.  That's what I tried the first time when I got the dirty mange look, so the second time instead of sprinkling it I poured a bunch out into the plastic tray they give you and smashed my wet-nail-polished-finger straight into the velvet so it was totally covered.  

The powder comes out of the bottle so slow that your nail dries to quickly for it to stick, and you need a little pressure so the powder really gets in the polish, so the smashing method works really well.

The flocked nail look was fun for a while but it starts to feel weird after a bit, like when you run your fingers through your hair, or when you eat french fries like a slob and get ketchup all over your finger tips (licking ketchup off velvet just feels unnatural).  So try it out for an event . . . but maybe take it off before you start cooking :)

maria's bride kit

Hello readers! That is, if there's anyone left still reading after a month and a half without any posts.  I am finally able to get pictures off my camera, and there are tons of things I can't wait to show you.  So here is a post I started writing a few months ago, before our friends' wedding.  Now their honeymoon has come and gone so I changed the tense, added the pictures and here you go! ...

I'm at that age, where everyone I know is suddenly getting engaged.  There are many weddings on the horizon, but there is one in particular The Man and I are were looking forward to (don't worry daddy, I'm not talking about ours!).  Ours friends Maria and Daily got married on September 9th and a few months ago her bridesmaids threw her a bachelorette party.

As for the party itself I'll just say, we had a good time, and leave it at that.  What I'm really here to tell you about is what I gave as a bachelorette gift.

 (bride kit from Oh Happy Day!)

I saw this DIY bride kit on Oh Happy Day! and thought it was a wonderful gift. She made a sweet box and included lotion, mints, bobby pins, nail polish, and other practical helpful bits and bobs. I loved the idea but wanted to make a tad more personal, so I kept the color scheme and added a few details:

I didn't have tattoo paper or a fancy color printer, so I used the old stand-by transfer method from grade school: I printed out the designs I wanted to use, scribbled all over the back of the paper with a pencil so that graphite was covering the paper, then placed my image on the box where I wanted it (drawing side up) and drew back over the lines of the image so when I lifted the paper my drawing was on the box in graphite. Easy-peasy-mac-and-cheesy!

Then I took a regular blue pen from work and filled in the lines on the box by hand. The box itself is from JoAnn's (the same one used in the Oh Happy Day! tutorial), and I just grabbed some cheap-o acrylic paint to paint it blue.

My favorite part of the kit was what I put inside.  I wanted it to be a little practical but also personal and funny, so I started thinking of various wedding traditions and superstitions, like "cold-feet" and shoving cake in each others faces.  I got together a few trinkets and printed little clues for each one on simple gift tags.
This is what I came up with:

 Once I got everything wrapped they barely fit in the box, but with a little smushing it closed right up!

This project was so much fun to do, I highly suggest it for a lovely bride-to-be in your life.  I recently found out my best friend in the whole wide world is engaged and I can't wait to think up some fun personal treats for her bride kit!

p.s. Fun Story: The clue for the condoms (though obvious) was my favorite.  When Maria and Daily got engaged, Andrew (aka The Man) and I were waiting with bated breath to hear the news.  We knew it was going to happen because Daily had called us the day before to ask if we could tell Maria that the party we invited her to was cancelled because it was getting in the way of his proposal plans.  The Man was pacing the whole day, one of his best friends was getting engaged, he couldn't handle it!  When the call finally came later that night one of the first things The Man said to Maria was "You're not allowed to have any babies for at least 2 years!"  This was of course after "congratulations" and "I'm so happy for you" but it was hilarious, the engagement was too much change for him and so he made Maria promise "no babies for 2 years." She's kept her promise so far . . . just one year to go :)!

checkin' out the neighborhood {scout and brimfield}

Ok, that wasn't very nice of me, but I didn't want to overwhelm you with so much house-goods awesomeness all at once, so I thought I'd spread it out a little.

Alright, back to what I was saying yesterday:

We left The White Attic (drooling in check) and headed one door down to Scout:

Scout has a lot of furniture and large pieces, like this cool row of lockers in the window.

These dining chairs were pretty sweet, you can't tell from this photo but the fabric was dark green vinyl (and if I remember correctly they  also had a bit of sparkle)


Our last stop for the day was Brimfield:

This place was really fun, and if you like plaid and tartan fabrics then this is the place for you.

They have kitchen items, lighting, home accessories, furniture, and taxidermy.  They also reupholster furniture, and many of the pieces are of course done up in more plaid.

Brimfield is pretty large compared to it's next door neighbors, there were many little rooms shooting off from the main area. I didn't even realize until I was looking up the website to get a link that there is a downstairs! So, next time there will be even more to check out.

I totally want this for when my office/studio is set up . . . when ever that might be.

And my favorite part of this store:

Blankets! Blankets! Blankets! The Man wouldn't even let me think about blankets right now since it's been so darn hot outside, but I'll be back . . . oh yes, I'll be back.

checkin' out the neighborhood {white attic}

We've been living in our new apartment for about six weeks now.  We're learning it creeks and squeaks, and loving every bit of it.  But I must say, my favorite part of our new place is it's spiffy location.

Our apartment is in Lincoln Square, close to Andersonville, and right across the street from a beautiful park with huge willow trees and baseball diamonds. There are so many shops and restaurants, cute corners and sweet spots to sit and relax, and slowly but surely we're checking out every nook and cranny.  So the other week we set out to Andersonville to check out some fun shops.

I wanted to go to Clark St. in Andersonville because I had heard of this place called Scout, and, as it turns out, Scout is perfectly sandwiched by two other great shops!

The first one we stopped in was The White Attic:

 The White Attic finds vintage furniture from the early 1900's and mid-century and refinishes it in fresh contemporary colors and stains.  Every piece in this store was gorgeous, and I wanted to take all of it home.

 This dresser/credenza was The Morning Man's fav.

 There were so many great pieces but my favorite part of the store had to be the lamp bar.

 They had 16 or more base styles to choose from and from there you "build" your lamp.  They have various glaze options for the base and fabric options for the shade, so you can put together your perfect lamp.  The prices range from $245-325, which is a bit much for me right now, but I'm saving up, because these are beautiful!!

After we were done drooling over everything at White Attic, we walked one door down to Scout:
  . . .
And I'll tell you about that tomorrow!

home and garden junkie

I am an HGTV addict.

It's one of the only reasons I have cable, and probably one of the main reasons I never get around to blogging :).

There are so many great shows.  I am completely in love with Genevieve Gorder. Sabrina Soto's show High/Low Project is super fun to watch (especially when The Man gets all fussy about how cheap the "High" furniture is).  Scott McGillivray from Income Property has made me want to be a landlord, and now one of the newer kids on the block has also got me hooked. 

Meg Caswell was last years HGTV Design Star winner, and her show, Meg's Great Rooms, is based here in Chicago.  It's so much fun to watch, because she's always going to new places around town that I've never heard of. 
A while back I saw an episode where she goes to Nadeau.

Nadeau is a furniture store.  But instead of mass-produced or "assembly required" pieces they house a variety of furniture pieces found around the world and brought back to the good ol' US of A.  Their store in Chicago is right by Architectural Artifacts and we decided to check it out a few weekends ago.

I saw a lot of secretaries that I loved, 

and everything is very decently priced.

There were even some printing blocks that I almost snatched up, but since it was right before the move The Man and I weren't really in a buying mood.

The Morning Man is pretty determined to make all the furniture we need for our new pad, but now that we're a little more settled I think we'll head back to Nadeau soon.

I'll also keep watching Meg's Great Rooms for more Chicago shopping advise!!!

painting yettie's

So the other day The Man and I were walkin' around Target, buying some basics when I passed this:

(picture taken from Target website)

 They definitely didn't have paint-by-numbers like this when I was a kid.

Apparently unicorns and landscape scenes have been taken over by Yettie's.
Kids crafts have gone hipster . . . and I love it!


Also the downtown Target opens Sunday! Now I can go look at laundry baskets and table lamps on my lunch break. Whooopie!!!

old news and guerrilla trucks

There were so many things that happened over my month of radio silence, and even though it may be old news I still want to tell you all about them.

You may have already heard of the Guerrilla Truck Show, you may have gone to the Guerrilla Truck Show, but in case you have no idea what I mean when I say Guerrilla Truck Show, this post is for you.

Tuesday June 12th (yeah, that long ago) we drove down to the west loop to check out a furniture show. A friend of the shop was in Object Society's 4th Annual Exhibition and low and behold that very same night was the one-night-only art and furniture exhibition titled the Guerrilla Truck Show.

The Object Society show was really wonderful.  The work was beautiful and there were many peices I would love to own.

 (This chair rocked my world  . . badum-bum-tsh)

This dresser was my favorite

This peice was rearangable - the colored rectangles ontop could pop-out and be reconfigured into different patterns - very cool.

This beautiful sloped bench was made by Micheal Koehler (that previously mentioned "friend of the shop") and unfortunately this is the only peice I know the maker of.  I wish I had been better at collecting cards, so if you know who made any of these pieces please let me know.

And of course The Man crawled around on his hands and knees inspecting every inch of every peice.

We have an unspoken understanding, The Man and I.

I don't get embarrased when he crawls on the floor scrutinizing other peoples furniture, and he doesn't get embarrased when I sing out-loud to the muzak in the grocery store.  It's a very nice arrangment.

We weren't planning on going anywhere but home after Object Society but the rows of moving trucks had us curious:

It turns out The Guerrilla Truck Show is pretty cool.  The artists involved rent a moving truck and turn it into a temporary gallery.  Like any art show, there was some junk, but there were also some really unique and interesting pieces.

One of the first trucks we came across was New Breed's.  Their pieces are gorgeous!

It was too packed in there to get a really good picture of my favorite piece, so I took this image from their website:

So AWESOME! Don't you think?

There were so many trucks, and soooo many people

There was even a SAIC truck, and The Man ran into one of his favorite furniture teachers

Sorry for all the terrible photos, it was so crowded, once you finally had a shot without a ton of people in it you had to take it, focusing be damned!

It was a great surprise night out, especially at the end of the night when I got to talk to this lady I always see with her 3 Norwich Terriers!!!! 3!! She even let me know the name of her favorite breeder :)

That's all for now
More soon!
I swear!!