Some things are just meant to be...

I saw this glass dispenser at Marshalls about a month ago. I had it in my cart and when I got to the check stand I changed my mind. It was $49.99 and I decided I shouldn't be spending that much money. Someone else must have bought it because the next time I went in, it was gone. Of course, later I regretted not buying it. I went back into Marshalls last week (I'm addicted to that place) and saw they had a new one in. The best part....it was $10 less than before....only $39.99! I figured it was just meant to be! Now the bad part. I brought it home and washed it and as I was tilting it in the sink I hit the pedestal on the tile and a piece broke off! You can see it in the photo below. I just have the piece sitting there, I still need to glue it together. Anyone know a good glue to use on glass?

Saturday was a great day for lemonade. It was so hot, in the 90s. Way too hot for me! I hope you all had a great weekend.

Did you hear the great new about Victoria Magazine? If not, go over to visit Carol at Raised in Cotton, (one of my new favorite blogs) to hear some great news!

Inspiration Friday - Backyard houses

In keeping with the theme of last week, here are some more little backyard houses. Someday I would love to have a little place in my backyard that I could decorate. I don't care if it's a play house, garden house, conservatory, a pool house, a studio or just a potting shed. Just a place to decorate with things I love. First I need to get a home that has a backyard big enough! Hmmm...Maybe I should start looking for a husband or maybe just buy more lotto tickets???

Herbs

When my son was younger we lived in a house on 3 acres. It was great because we had enough room for a big vegetable garden. My son who was 10 years old at the time became interested in growing herbs. He's always been the type of kid (and still is) that becomes very passionate about what he's interested in at the moment. He would spend his own money buying books on herbs and he learned many of their medicinal uses (lavendar for headaches, etc). Because of his passion I became interested in herbs also. Before this, I wouldn't have been able to tell one herb from another. My daughter never grew her own herbs but she does know a lot. One day she and I were sitting in the backyard. I think she was 11 at the time. She commented on how good the basil smelled. I was shocked that she knew what basil was. We played a little game where I picked some different herbs we had growing and then I blindfolded her and she smelled the herb and tried to guess what it was. She got all of them correct except one (thyme). I never taught her this but she was always in the kitchen with me while I was cooking so she must have just picked this up on her own. I was truly amazed.

I have a very small patio area now so I grow my herbs in pots. A strawberry pot with the pockets works great. I have chives in the top of mine and Italian parsley, oregano, thyme in the pockets. I also have a rosemary wreath. I have other pots with basil and mint.

My favorite herbs are rosemary and basil. Here is a great recipe for Rosemary Focaccia http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/106275 I bake mine in a stoneware pan (Pampered Chef Large Bar Pan) It is so good!

Do you have a favorite herb?

Don't laugh

Last night was our last night of cake decorating classes and we had to decorate a whole cake. In my mind I thought my cake would turn out perfectly...but it didn't! The side of the cake started collapsing. My daughter's cake did the same thing and so did 2 other of our classmates. I'm bringing it to work today....a cake for me, from me, for Admin's Day. I anxious to try another cake now. I'm sad that the class is over, we had so much fun. They are having an intermediate class in the fall so I think I'll sign up for that.
To all the Administrative Professionals out there, I hope you have a great day!

I ♥ Garage Sales!

After seeing some of the things other bloggers have found at Garage/Yard Sales, I decided to give it another chance. I've had some bad experiences in the past. It seems that I only found garage sales with trash, things that I would have thrown out. You know, dirty pots and pans that have been burned so badly that they are unusable, damaged tupperware, mismatched cheap glassware, dirty toys, etc. I went out first thing Saturday morning and headed towards the town of Los Gatos (location, location, location) because you have to go where the money is. I found only one garage sale there, probably because a storm was coming in later that day. I bought a necklace for $2. I only brought $10 with me to start. I drove around and couldn't find any more yard sales in that town so I headed for the Willow Glen area of San Jose. As I was headed that direction I saw a yard sale on a busy street. I spotted this glass terrarium as I was sitting at the stoplight. Remember I only have $8 left. I figured since it was now 10:00 am and this was still here that it was probably a lot of money. I asked the man how much and he said to make him an offer. I hate that. I told him to tell me how much he wanted. He said $5.00...I said "Sold"! I love it. I bought some maiden hair ferns for in it (I still need to get some little terra cotta pots for them so ignore the green plastic ones.) I'm thinking about painting it white. What do you think? I found some magazine clippings of painted ones which are shown below. I think the color it is now, rust (real rust not faux) is too dark for my home. Should I paint it white?

Meet Gail McCormack

For me, the best part of having a blog is all the wonderful people I have met because of it. Awhile back I was on Flickr looking through people's photographs. I came across a photo of beautiful painting. The person that posted it said that it was painted by Gail McCormack from Australia and to do a Google search to find her. I did find her website and I loved her paintings so I put a link to her website on my blog. Through the wonders of sitemeter she could see some of her web traffic was coming through my blog. Last week I received the sweetest email from her.

Gail and her husband, Tony live in Australia. The have two children, Todd 24 and Ellie 21 and a beautiful Aussie Bulldog called Guss and a cat called Bella . They sell at craft markets, supply retail outlets, eBay and their own website. Gail and Tony work as a team, he creates wonderful furniture and also works on all their prints.

I'm in love with her paintings and I thought a lot of you would love to see their lovely work. You can see more on their website http://www.gailmccormack.com/index.php

Inspiration Friday-A backyard party

Click on photo to enlarge

As I was going through my large stacks of old magazines, I realized that I have been saving these longer than I thought. In my stash of magazines are issues from 1995! Twelve years old! I bought them when my daughter was 2 and now she's 14! As I look through the pages of these older magazines, I realize that a lot has changed as far a decorating then vs. now. The decor back then was really floral. Layers upon layers of different floral fabrics. Large florals! Floral wallpaper! Everything was floral! I love flowers but as I look at these old magazines they do not appeal to me at all anymore. It was just too much. The Romantic Homes issue of March 1997 is one of my favorites though. I remember when it came out, I was so impressed. As I was looking at it last night I was still impressed. I loved this backyard party photo and it still really appeals to me now, 10 years later. I love these tables and the little house in the background is so adorable. There is also the cutest baby's nursery in this issue too. I will post pictures of that next Friday.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Words around my home.

Last Friday, Cottage Bethy asked what words are hanging around our homes and then I saw that Suzie Q of Rabbit Run Cottage did a post of all her cute signs. So here are the words hanging around my house.

This is in my entry way.In my kitchen...

Also, in my kitchen. My dad made this one. The little tea pot is cut out of wood so it's raised a little bit which you can't tell from this picture. (sorry it's so blurry)
My dad also made this sign. It was in my daughter's room until last weekend when she declared she no longer wants a surfer girl room and just wants to put up posters (I'm not happy about this). I hung it in my bathroom just to take this picture.

My dad made this for my son when he was 10 years old (he's 20 now). My son used to have his own herb garden. The sign is falling apart but I want to save it forever. It just reminds me so much of that cute 10 year old boy. (I also have a HUGE box of his Legos that I can't seem part with).

My dad also made this one and I've had it in my garden for many years which is why it looks so dirty.

Another one by my dear dad, hanging in my kitchen

And yes, another one my dad made for me.

And he made this one too. Can you tell my dad spoils me?

Another one from dad... Don't ask me why he put the apostrophe so low, but spelling and grammar are not one of his strengths. I never told him this was wrong and I still hang it in my patio area.
It makes me smile.

My dad made this one.... It says Fancy Baking Our Specialty (he spelled this one correctly, it's just hard to read in the photo.)

A cute little blue and white plate that my mom gave me years ago.

And last but not least, another one from my dad and one of my favorites. He's sold many of these over the years at the flea market. This hangs in my dining room doorway that leads into my kitchen.

Thrift store shopping and Susan Branch!

Last Saturday I wandered over to the Goodwill by my house, and when I say "by my house" I mean it. It's probably only a 1/4 of a mile away. There was a beautiful antique secretary desk there but it was sold. Out of curiosity, I looked but couldn't find a price tag on it. I would have loved to be the one that got that. I did find this cute ceramic basket dish for $7.99. I picked it up but wasn't sure if I wanted it or not. I've learned that if I'm not sure, I should always pick it up and then decide as I walk around because if I go back to get it, it will be gone. As I was walking through the store with it, three ladies came up to me and said how beautiful it was. I knew then, that I wanted it.

Also, if you haven't been over to Cherry's at Tales from Pixie Wood, go on over. She got to interview Susan Branch! Susan Branch found her blog and sent her an email, you have to scroll down to read that post first...it's called "Yeh, It happens like this...IN THE MOVIES." Susan agreed to do an interview and Cherry asked her readers to submit questions. I LOVE Susan Branch so of course I submitted a question. I can't tell you how excited I was to see that she answered it!!!! Here is what I asked:
I've been a fan since Heart of the Home first came out. I went to Martha's Vineyard in 1987 for the first time and just like her, I'm a California girl that fell in love with the Vineyard. I wish I could just move there like she did the first time she visited. I would love to know how she got the nerve to move across the country to a small island and about the transition of living there vs. living in California.

The most amazing part is that Susan said she visited everyone's blog that submitted a question! Isn't she amazing!

Saratoga, California

Silicon Valley sounds like such a harsh place but it actually has some cute, little, quaint towns. Saratoga is one of those and I feel lucky to live just on the outskirts of it. I have the benefits of living close but not the high rent...actually, I don't think there are many rental places in Saratoga but the houses are more expensive. I grew up in Saratoga when I was little before we moved to San Jose. I remembered that there were cute little houses behind the church I attended. I found this cute neighborhood because my best friend and I used to cut Sunday School when we were in Jr. High and roam around the town for an hour and then make sure we were back in time before her parents came out of their service ....can you believe that! My daughter and I took a drive through these streets the first Saturday in April on our way home from the flea market. During our drive we stopped and took pictures from inside the car. Here are some of the homes we saw (these look so much cuter in person than they do in these pictures).

This house below is on the main road, Saratoga Ave. I'm not sure if this is an old house or if it's new and meant to look old. Lucky for us their gates were open so we just pulled up. See the french doors on the left side...I was so afraid someone was going come out of there and ask why we are taking pictures of their house!

This house was really nice but hard to take a picture of because of all the trees. It has a huge front porch.

There are a lot of quaint little areas in Silicon Valley so I'm going to try to get out and take some pictures to share with you in the future.

Inspiration Friday - Outdoor spaces

Since Spring is here I thought I would share some inspirational outdoor spaces.

(I noticed on some of my posts the pictures are getting cut off on the right side. It's fine on my work computer but at home I use Mozilla Firefox as my web browser and I think that may be the difference. If this happens to you, can you please let me know.)

I was getting my little patio looking pretty nice and then my landlord said she was putting in a new fence but first she had to get the trees trimmed. They came out this week and stomped all over my impatiens that I just planted. I can only imagine how bad my plants are going to look once they rip out the old fence and put in the new one. When I moved in 3 years ago, I planted a creeping fig vine that was just getting to the point where it was covering the fence. It was so beautiful! My plan was to gently pull it off the old fence and reattach it so it could climb the new one. The tree trimmers ripped the whole plant off the fence and cut it down to the ground! I guess I'll have to wait another 3 years now to get it back to where it was.

Last night my daughter and I went to our first cake decorating class. There are 4 classes, each 2 hours long. In our last class we will have to decorate a cake by our self. I'm so excited! If my final cake turns out, I'll post some pics.

One more thing, I put pictures of my bedroom on HGTV's Rate My Space. Click here if you would like to rate my bedroom. Please be honest with your ratings though. Don't just give me 5 stars because you know me! I have to say that I am totally shocked with how well it's doing. I have 4 stars out of 5 and I've only told 2 people I know about it so these votes are from strangers. The comments have been really good. I only have one sort of negative comment but when I looked at that person's room I can see why they wouldn't like mine. They said it had too much clutter but they are absolute minimalists. I've heard that people can leave really hurtful comments on this site so I was a little worried about posting the pictures but I'm glad I did.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

We have a winner....

The winner of the button heart is Becca of Bluebird and Roses. Please send me an email (cindy95131@yahoo.com) with your address.

Flea Market Finds

Last Saturday was the monthly DeAnza Flea Market in Cupertino, CA. My parents have been vendors there for over 20 years. My mom's health has kept her from going for the last year and now at 80 years old my dad has decided to no longer sell there. I went last last Saturday with only $25 spending money on me. I bought this beautiful linen and lace tablecloth for $20! It's in almost perfect condition. I love it! Now I need to find an old dining room set to redo since my bedroom is done (almost).

The Bedroom Makeover!

Finally I have photos of my bedroom makeover to share. First of all, it's not completely finished. I'll point out everything that needs to be done as I go through the pictures....

The wall color is showing up brighter and darker blue than it really is. I painted it this color a couple years ago and I think I'm going to go a little lighter sometime soon. My parents bought this bedroom set for my sister in the 1960s. When I moved out of their house in 1979 I took it with me and it's been my bedroom set since then. It was in horrible shape but I couldn't afford to get a new one so I decided to paint it. This is something I have wanted to do for years.

These are the mirrored closet doors. The lace panels don't match...I'm still on the hunt for 4 nice panels (2 for the closet and 2 for the window) at a good price.

I was surprised when I stripped the mirror and found out it wasn't really wood, it's molded plastic with a woodgrain imprint in it. I added the rose appliques.

This shelf was made by my dad. I still need to decorate it better. For now I just threw some things up there but everything is the same height so it looks messy. The little white slip was mine, it's a size 2T. The little white Stride-Rite shoes belonged to my kids. My son painted the picture on canvas of the grapes when he was around 9 years old.

The queen size headboard I found for free on Craigslist. I added the cherub and rose swags. I wish I had the lady's email address who I got the bed from, I would love to show her what I did. You can't see it in the before shot but it had initials carved into the wood.

I still need to make the lampshade covers and paint one of the lamp bases. I still haven't taken my sewing machine to the shop because I just know it's going to cost me at least $100 to fix it.

I fell in love with this quilt which I bought from Summer's Cottage. She has beautiful things. I also have her link on my sidebar. Sometimes I go to her Ebay store just to window shop...pure beauty!

This is the sign I ordered that I'm patiently waiting for. I first saw it on Flickr and then saw she had a website and it was for sale. It was a $100, which was out of my budget. I loved it so much that I kept going back to her website to see if anyone bought it. When I saw she reduced the price to $50 (which was still out of my budget), something came over me and next thing I know, I'm on Paypal buying it! I sure hope I get it soon! It's been about a month since I ordered it.

In Celebration of My 100th Post - A Giveaway!

This is my 100th post and like many others before me, I would like to give something away to celebrate. I've chosen this heart button wreath I made from some of my own button collection. Please leave a comment if you would like to be part of the drawing. Everyone is welcome! Lurkers, this is your chance to come out and leave a message. I get over 200 visitors a day, so I know you are out there and I would love to meet you (in a cyberspace sort of way)! I will draw a name this Thursday, April 12th.

Tomorrow I will post photos of my bedroom...finally!

Also I've been give a very prestigious blog award from dear Betty Jo of Digi Scribbles. The thinking blogger award. Thank you so much Betty Jo! To be included with the other blogs you have chosen really does make this award feel prestigious to me!

Update: I also received this award from Lallee of Lallee's Cottage. Thank you Lallee!

I think if you blog regularly you should get this award. My mind is always thinking about this blog, more than it should be in fact. At times I wake up in the morning and it's the first thing I think about. As I drive to work, I'm writing posts in my head, sometimes it feels like my life has become my blog, and my blog has become my life. I never thought that it would be such a big part of my life, but it is.

Now I need to chose 5 bloggers to pass this on to. And the award goes to.....

Andrea from Under a Blue Moon. As soon as I read that she was from Northern California and she had a dog named Beau...I knew we already had two things in common. But more than that, she has great style. A refined elegance is what comes through to me as I read her blog, both in her writing and her photos.

Ashley from The Draper House. Another great blog. Ashely's personality shines through in her writing. She is someone I would love to hang out with...I just know it from reading her blog. Her children, well they are just the most angelic looking kids I think I've ever seen (besides my own of course).

Savy City Farmer. Another great blogger who I admire. Her furniture refinishing is unbelievable. She is another blogger who's great personality comes through.

Meg from My Little Cottage. I love reading Meg's posts, from her beautiful MacKenzie-Childs' pieces, her curly hair, her beautiful sons and especially her letter to Oprah.

Manuela at The Feathered Nest. Manuela's blog is fairly new but I can tell already that it's going to be a favorite of mine. I love her style.

Happy Easter

A Happy Easter wish to all my blogging friends.

Inspiration Friday & A Potluck

Potluck:

Shabby in the City has invited everyone to a potluck. We were supposed to bring something to eat from our region. I didn't have time to make some great California cuisine so I just made some ginger scones. The recipe can be found here. I used a heart-shaped cutter instead of a round one.

Inspiration Friday:

When I was in high school and dating my now ex-husband, I remember telling him that I would never marry a man that didn't want to live by the beach. Here I am, 46 years old and I still haven't lived near the beach. When I say "near" I mean walking distance. I live about a 35 minute drive from Santa Cruz so I guess that's not too bad. Sometimes when the fog rolls in from the coast to my area the seagulls come along with it and I pretend I'm living right near the water....I'm such a dreamer! I love sound of seagulls! I've always wanted a beach house and if I had one I would love it to look like this. These pictures were taken from Better Homes and Gardens Decorating Magazine -Summer 2005.

For more Inspiration Friday photos go check out Vintage Pretties blog. She found something great that I didnt' know aboug.

More Buttons!

I'm beginning to think I have a serious addiction. First it was dishes and now it's buttons. I went to the thrift store on my lunch hour yesterday. I was just about to walk out empty-handed when I looked at the area with hanging bags of sewing notions. Usually there isn't much of anything there...old cheap lace (not the good stuff), cheap, ugly ribbon, etc. I squealed out loud when I saw a bag of old buttons, and then I found another, and another. Four little bags of old buttons for 69 cents each! I was happy!

Birdcage Makeover

Remember this birdcage I bought at a thrift store back in January? It was a little too bright green for me so I painted the whole thing white but I still didn't like it. I put some green and blue Rub N Buff on it and I like it better now. I also bought a metal planter which I painted the same colors and put it under the birdcage upside down so it looks like it has a pedestal. I like it much better now.

I put it in my bedroom. The mirror behind it was brown and now it's white. If you look through the mirror you see more mirrors on the other side. I'm working on that now...they are mirrored closet doors and I hate them. I just bought some lace curtain panels on Ebay to cover them up so my room doesn't look like a crazy fun house with mirrors everywhere. When I roll out of bed every morning I see myself in those closet doors....I HATE THAT!

Making a pillow from a vintage towel

I bought this vintage towel at a flea market years and years ago. It's been sitting with many other vintage linens and lace in my hall closet. I finally decided to make it into an envelope style pillow last weekend. It's just folded in thirds, a seam up the sides on the bottom half and a button closure. I then made a pillow insert to go inside (this is when my sewing machine decided to die and spit thread up through the bobbin.) I have it sitting in a wicker chair in my bedroom. I've been putting off posting pictures of the bedroom because I'm waiting for something I ordered online but I'm afraid now that I've been ripped off. It's only been 3 weeks since I ordered it but I've left the person 4 email messages (2 at each email address I have for her) and I haven't received a response yet. All I asked is when she expects to ship it. I ordered it from her website, not through Ebay but I did pay $50 through Paypal so I think I have some protection through them. Maybe I'm just being really impatient (which I tend to be). It seems years ago you would wait 6-12 weeks for delivery on something but now everything I order seems to come within 2 weeks at the most. The thing is, I REALLY want this thing I ordered. I LOVE it. If it doesn't come by this weekend I will take pictures of my bedroom without it...I promise.

Lamp makeover

This weekend I attempted to make my lampshade cover. I wasn't sure if I would be able to do it so I just used fabric from an old slipcover that was worn out to make the prototype. I decided not to make the button down front on this one but I will on the next ones I make. I went to the fabric store and bought some white cotton fabric yesterday for those. Just my luck, my sewing machine is acting up and I think I'll have to take it in for service so the white covers may have to wait awhile. I bought these two lamps at the thrift store last week for $15/pair and I bought the lampshades at Target. I painted the brass base white and antiqued it. When I make the white slipcovers for these I'm going to make the bottom ruffle a little bit shorter.

As you can tell, the camera has been found. It's amazing that when I told my daughter if she didn't find the camera that she would be grounded during spring break, it suddenly was a priority for her.

Speaking of my daughter, I fear that I have raised a food snob. I love to cook (and eat good food) so I make almost everything from scratch. Awhile ago my daughter came home from a friend's house and said with the most disgusting look on her face "MOM, have you ever heard of Hamburger Helper? Agh it soooo disgusting!" I always thought that was cute and kinda funny but now it's getting out of hand. I picked her up from another friend's house and they came out eating french bread. As my daughter got in the car she handed the bread to her friend and said it was horrible because it has margarine not butter. Her friend's reply was "What's the difference?" Then yesterday she came home and told me her friend's mom had made scallop potatoes from a BOX! When the mom saw that Lauren didn't like them she asked why and I can't believe she said this..."My mom makes it with real potatoes and cheese!" Then my comedic daughter told me the box said "Au Gratin Potatoes" and it should have said "All Rotten Potatoes" The two things I love the most about my daughter's personality is that she speaks her mind and she has a great sense of humor but I don't want her to offend people. I talked to her about this but I think it went in those 14 year old ears and out the other side....very frustrating.