Halloween, minus the orange...

As I said in my last post, I was feeling way too orange with our Halloween decor and felt I needed to mellow it out a little. We just renovated the house and changed all of the wall colors more neutral and figured I would try something new and do the same with our Halloween decorating... This is our entry table before.... And this is it now...

Several of the pumpkins I painted black ended up here (see previous post).

In the dining room, I used more of the painted pumpkins and a great old candelabra I found in Maine a few years ago, perfect for Halloween...

Here is our family room mantle before...

And here it is now...

I actually have had the old barn door sitting in our basement for about a year just waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it. It was a "freebie" when we bought the barn wood we used when we renovated our basement.

Using the wood gives a warmth to an otherwise all black set-up...

I found this great wooden tray at a yard sale this summer and felt it was a great opportunity to work with the warm wood tones again and balance them with the white baby pumpkins and the galvanized metal of the watering can.

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Pumpkins, Spiders and Mice, Oh My!

So I brought out all the Halloween bins last weekend and realized that I had a whole lot of orange and a house that it now soft blues, greens and browns. What's a girl to do? Break out a whole lot of spray paint of course. This is where I started... Actually, back up... ...this is after we dumped everything out on the lawn so all the mice could run away after much screaming on my part. I really wish I would have been in the right mind to take a picture then. It literally looked like Halloween had thrown up all over my yard and driveway. I had to take all of the bins that we had brought into the house and bring them back out to dump them out as well. Fun, fun, fun! Unfortunately, there was a particular grapevine wreath that I left hanging in the mudroom. I believe he was the nest of the other problem... The next day my youngest daughter came and told me to come and get a paper towel because there was a really big spider. I nonchalantly got a paper towel, no big deal right? It took a minute or two to find it because the spider had moved, I almost walked away! Then she found it, holy #$%$%$%%, excuse my french! I must admit, my husband was out of town, and I am really not a big wimp and I am always aware of trying to set the right example for my girls, but my big girl pants were dirty after the mouse incident. I actually had to call my neighbor across the street! I am not sure what he was expecting, but it did make me feel better when he looked at it and said "Oh... I have never seen something like that in someone's house before"!

Anyway, I digress... here is one of the sparkly pumpkins with tape on the stem. In the end, I ended up lighting spraying the stems and leaves on the black ones anyway. I actually like the way the sparkly stayed a little and there is a little hint of orange under each of them even after painting.

Here is a white one being worked on. Here is the whole group completed. Look for my next post to see how I used them for my Halloween decorating!

Yard sale find, a love for Chalk Ink and an amazing PB deal!

So I had been trying to find a place /way to put great and timely quotes for my kids to see daily. You know, kind of another way and reminder to get messages across to kids. I found this great frame for $2 (woo hoo!) and I had a piece of MDF cut to fit in the frame. I originally painted with chalkboard spray paint. I am not sure if it just wasn't a high enough quality of MDF or if it is because I was impatient and did not prime it, but it came out too rough. Luckily, I had some chalkboard contact paper and voila! A few days after it was put together, my dear friend was visiting with her kids. Her oldest is an amazing artist, so I had her do whatever inspired her. She used the amazing new Chalk Ink. The colors blend together so beautifully and the chalk dust does not go all over the place. You just have to use a spray cleaner to wipe it off when you want to change it.

So for the whole summer, we dreamt about Summer Lovein! It is place on the wall that transitions between our kitchen and family room. That beautiful iron and glass table is the Pottery Barn Tanner table and bench. The table retails for $399 and the stool for $189. I have been wanting this table FOREVER but was unwilling to pay that price plus shipping and then two stools (as it is featured in the catalog).

At the end of June I went to an estate sale. Actually, I dragged my sister and children out of the house before 8 am on their first day off of school (I know, mean mother!). Imagine my excitement when I walked in and found this table and stool. I really wanted two, but who am I to complain? I paid $150 for both pieces, no delivery, just the appreciation I payed to the homeowner who spent a really long time tying it on my roof after discovering it would not fit in the back of my car!

So now, since "Summer Lovein" is long over, I knew I had to change it but I was intimidated bu the artwork that was already done. But I finally got the courage together and changed it.

As you can see, I also changed up the accessories on and under it and I think it works much better than my original attempt.

Aside from the fact that the photograph is quite crooked and I really need to work on my penmanship, I am fairly happy with how it came out. The ability to blend the colors while they are still wet gives a lot of opportunity to work with it.

I guess I will have to be "inspirational" the next time around...

Gettin' Back To It!

So, I have been away for a bit, not that there are many of you following at this point (thanks to my dear sister for being my first and currently only follower!)...

Regardless, someday there will be more followers and we will all be able to look back at this post and laugh....

So I have been away for a series of reasons, but what I am most excited about is that I have a graphic designer at Etsy working on a new logo and blog layout for me. Hopefully I will have some great new stuff to show you soon!

So what did I do with all of nature's bounty I collected a few weeks ago? Full size tomatoes work great for making a sauce or canning, but it can be challenging to figure out what to do with a ton of cherry tomatoes. I found a recipe last year for slow roasting them in the oven and then freezing them and they really turned out yummy.

First, I cut all of the cherry tomatoes in half and mixed them with a generous amount of garlic, olive oil and fresh basil. I let them sit for a bit and then put them in all of the stoneware baking dishes I have. Then they looked like this...

Last time I did this I actually roasted them overnight. Two problems with that - now I have oven that really works and I didn't want to not watch them and two, it is kind of pain first thing in the morning to get them packaged and cleaned up while trying to get through the morning craziness of getting the kids to school.

This time I slow roasted them throughout the day, for about 4 hours at 250 degrees. I timed it so that they were finished right about dinner time so we are able to enjoy some that night and I was only cleaning up the kitchen and dishes one time.

This is how they look when they came out of the oven....

And here is a close-up of all their carmelized yumminess.

So what do you do with them now? I ended up with about 5 batches this time and 5 batches the second time. I used my vacuum seal thingy majig and sealed them and put them in the freezer. Now they can be used to put over pasta, with chicken, on pizza, to make bruschetta, whatever you can think of. I also did this with some red peppers.

I also used the sunflowers for an arraignment in an blue enamelware coffee pot. For filler, I actually used basil that had started to flower.

Too bad this is not scratch and sniff because it really smells yum...

Hope you are having a great day!

This where I belong...

I stopped today at a yard sale and had some great finds. It was at the same place I stopped at a few years ago and was so excited to go back. I was on such a high when I pulled away I had to laugh at myself. Yesterday when I hit a few sales with the kiddos in tow, my 8 year old declared to me that she really liked things that are " really rusty". I tried not to cry.... I have been digging through all the blogs of my fellow bloggers and find myself often laughing out loud. Nothing is clearer to me, doing THIS, whatever THIS is, is exactly what I want to be doing. Pictures coming soon of some of the great finds, just thought I would share my blog bliss....

A Day in the City to See Nate!

Yesterday, my mom, my sister and my friend Jackie and I went to see the Nate Berkus show. It is filmed at the CBS studio in NYC, but it is being syndicated so in our area it is being broadcast on NBC. Unfortunately, they had some "technical difficulties" and we had to wait in line, in the heat, for a REALLY long time. Then we waited inside for a REALLY long time. However, the "warm up" lady, Dena Blizzard (she is on facebook, really funny, and said she will friend anyone but her husband) was so great along with the rest of the staff trying to make it tolerable for all of us. Below is the picture of the awning out front and the head of the tall guy who was first in line. Below is a picture of the really funny lady who was part of the second group in line (we were third, which meant we waited a long time, but then got in quicker). Funny because where you are in line makes no difference to where you sit and these ladies ended up sitting right in front of us in the studio. I did not take any picture inside the studio which I realize in hindsight makes me a total chicken and proves that I am a total rule follower. The set was very simple and classic with some great vintage and industrial type pieces thrown in. They had great sconces which I would guess would have to be from Restoration Hardware. I do not yet know when the show will air, actually we were part of taping for two shows. It should be posted on the website soon. I am not sure that I really want to see myself on camera. You spend so much time getting all spiffed up but I suspect it will be quite torturous to see yourself on camera, kind of like when you hear your voice on a recording. The "free" tickets were not so free by the time we all bought new outfits, drove to the city, paid for parking and then went to dinner with some very yummy wine. We went to a great restaurant recommended to us by someone on the staff called Puttanesca on the corner of 9th and 56th. Very nice atmosphere (great blend of vintage and fancy). Again, should have taken a picture, still learning.... I am however very pleased how easy it was to download the pictures I took with my new phone. There is a micro SD card in my phone that you slide into a regular sized SD card that can be put right into the computer to download. Now that I know that I have no excuses for the future to take lots of pictures. I also "paid" for my "free" tickets this morning when I woke up and could not move my foot because my calf was so cramped up. Then I realized the reason for that is that I walked around the city in heels when I am usually a flip flop girl! Here is my crew waiting in line, right before we all started to get really cranky and hot. You would not have wanted to see a picture of that!

Thanks ladies, it was really a fun day!

First Day of School, Thursday Yard Sale and the Garden's Bounty

So I haven't been back here since January 24th.... I guess I was still trying to figure out if this is something I really wanted to do. I spent the last few days really being inspired by all the incredible blogs that are out there and they gave me the kick in the pants I truly needed. I realize that the blog is far from pretty at this point, I will have to ramp up my education on managing a blog.

Today has already been such a great day it seemed that this would be the best day to start committing to my blog...

First, it was the first day of school for my girls. M is starting 5th grade (ugh) and E is starting 3rd (ugh, ugh).

With them off to school, (sniff, sniff) I read the paper and found that of all things there was a "vintage" yard sale, on a Thursday!!! That never happens. I ventured over and found some great treasures for a great deal. I spoke with the couple for a bit and got her story. Her father was a collector of "everything but the kitchen sink". The rest of her family thinks it is all junk so she is slowly going through it but keeps getting side tracked by memories. They have been hit hard by the economy so they are only down to one car making it difficult to move all the stuff back to their house. I am going to check back in with them on Saturday, but I also gave her my name and number and asked her to call me when she had more stuff in. The best part is she is about 2 miles away! Here some pictures of the items I was able to get this time, all for $26!

There are three great crates, an oval picture frame, two bottles and some porcelain and wood door knobs. Two of the crates are local which I think makes them even more interesting. Maybe this will hold me over since I am unable to go to Brimfield this fall, but I will probably still be tortured that whole weekend knowing I am not there...

The knobs really are a great find.

There was also a street sign from Brooklyn. She only wanted a dollar for it which actually made me feel bad, then I got over it.

After returning from the sale I headed out to garden to gather as much as I could since we are expected to get some rain and the heat is finally suppose to break. Unfortunately, that has not happened yet so I pretty much melted out there. Our garden was greatly neglected this year so I almost feel I don't deserve all that she gave me today. I will accept her gifts and make promises to her for next year that I will hopefully be able to keep.

Tomorrow is an exciting day as well, I am actually going to see a taping of the new Nake Berkus show debuting on CBS later this month. Hopefully his show is successful. I am not sure what the format will be, but hopefully it will be about decorating! I will let you know...