pixiegenné

the most wonderful time of the year

as jen and i walked toward the church rummage sale, she noticed that my usual casual gait had been replaced by a head-down, determined stride. i'm a bit of a freak when it comes to yard sales. driving by one without stopping physically pains me. the church sale was good. crazy and crowded and chock-full-of-portland-bloggers (ok - now i'm laughing 'cause i just popped over to amanda's to find that she's blogging about the same sale). so, yeah, what she said.

i got that super cute enamel pot there and a super cute vintage glass and a couple of good books for chopping up. a good start to the season. and big-trash-pick-up in portland is only a few weeks away. you can imagine how excited i get about that.

i'm in major production mode lately, too...gearing up for renegade. i was a bit under the weather this weekend so i spent most of it on the couch, watching movies and making pincushions...

rainy monday. off to work and lots of errands. hope you have a great day!

couch potatoes are yummy

i haven't made pincushions in a while and i'm thinking i'd like to have some for renegade so i'm trying to get back into a pincushion-making-groove. this one i made yesterday.

today i feel like i'm coming down with something so i'm not going into work. instead, i just rented a few movies and am planning on planting myself on the couch, watching movies and making pincushions. i know that's not everyone's idea of fun, but i'm pretty psyched (in a subdued, got a little fever kind of way).

still thinking a lot about paint colors and prettifying my house in other ways, too. feeling very inspired while bopping around flickr lately...

that's all i got today. hope your weekend is fantabulous.

show and tell

looky, looky! i got me some new lamps at sal's yesterday. love the shape. now i just need to find some good lamp shades. any ideas? i saw some cool drum shades at anthropologie that won't load so i can't link, but it matters not, for they are way out of my price range.

also, i made a very small update to my etsy shop. i've been feeling like quite a slacker in that department lately. i'm going to try and update at least once a month. we'll see how that goes.

p.s. thanks so much for all the very helpful paint advice. my head is swimming.

oh, hi! say...while i've got you here...

maybe you could help me out with some paint color advice? here's a couple crazy things...a)i went to the paint store the other day and browsed hundreds and hundreds of colors and thought most of them sucked (or, at least, were not what i had in my head) 2)the paint chips i did bring home i instantly realized were all wrong c)i'm thinking of repainting my kitchen cabinets in two shades of the same color. is that a really bad idea? 4)i'm basing my new color scheme on recently thrifted dishes. is that whack?

any advice is very welcome! is there some website that helps you pick colors? are there designer colors out there way better than the ones at my local paint stores? i'm notoriously fickle about paint colors so i want to be super sure of the colors before i go nuts.

now i'll shut up about that.

hey! have you noticed that jen is a freakin' rock star crafter/artist/blogger these days?! i'm so proud to say i knew her when. i won't gush about her anymore because she is probably going to punch me in the arm as it is...

hope you are having a great week!

favorite walk

when john and i first started looking for a house, we both agreed we'd like to find a bungalow or dutch colonial with a fireplace and a decent backyard (which was a pretty tall order in our price range). we did find a dutch colonial with no fireplace but lots of ugly wallpaper, sound-tiled ceilings, black painted moldings, creepy deadbolts on bedroom doors, and a postage-stamp backyard strewn with broken liquor bottles and make-shift bongs across the street from a big cemetery. the house kind of creeped me out but john helped me see the potential. i think the conversation went something like this..
me: "this house creeps me out. no way are we buying this house"
john: "oh, we're buying this house."

anyway, i think we've purged the house of its creepy mojo and i now really love living next to the cemetery. great for walking, biking, sledding, feeding ducks, catching frogs, etc.

yoko and i have been taking some long walks there lately, soaking up the good weather.

i love this symbol. so many pretty images there - makes me want to learn to do fancy things with my camera. or get a camera that does fancy things. who knows? maybe my camera can do fancy things and i just don't know it. that's how little i know.

p.s!!! did you see designsponge today?! yay, jen!

diving in

wow. nothing like a couple months of crappy weather to make you feel so grateful for the sun you could cry. it was pretty near impossible to be in a bad mood this weekend. the windows were all open wide, the flannel sheets were finally replaced w/cotton, the kids spent hours on their bikes + scooters, we hit the beach (crazy jane + her crazy best pal ellie went in the water. brrrrr). and i got to go on a real date w/john + jen + hubby and we ate yummy food and went to see blades of glory. and i missed half of it because i was laughing so hard.

so now i'm feeling all rejuvenated and ready to dive into some new projects. i'm off to the paint store - i'm contemplating new colors for just about every room in the house. then i'm off to the plant store to contemplate our yard. our sad, pathetic yard. i'm really bad at the whole gardening thing. but today i feel like trying so i better get to it before the feeling passes...

happy monday, everyone! 

comic relief

more pails. i've been diving into my collection of 70s cartoon books lately, as you can see. out of all of those, i think i liked hong kong fooey the best. you know the cartoons i really liked? the ones with songs where you could sing along by following the bouncing ball. remember those? were those old caspers or something else? they're probably showing them somewhere on cable and i'm missing out.

here's some favorite flickr from this week...
kool man
richard scarry on my thrifted shelf 
fenway gardens
somewhere in kansas
no electricity = interesting shadows

i'm hoping my kids get better soon because i'd like to a) salvage what's left of this vacation and do something fun with them this weekend and  2) go on a date with john and see blades of glory. i'm in the mood to laugh my ass off.

hope you have a great weekend!

and i say, it's allright

so it's been a bad week.
locally
and nationally
and internationally

but today the sun is out for the first time in a loooooooong time. so even though our april break has been full of storms and outages and bad news and now cancelled travel plans due to sick kids, i am feeling happy and grateful for the sunshine (and the fact that those four big-ass pine trees in my back yard are still standing).

plus, being stuck at home all week has proved very productive in the crafting department...

 

i think he was on to something

one of the good things about not having power is that you are blissfully unaware of really crappy news for a few extra hours. after getting caught up on that horrible stuff, i stopped by some of my favorite blogs, including amanda's, where i saw her link to this video, which totally made me cry.

have i mentioned here how much i loved fred rogers? john makes fun of me because i'm usually such a cynical agnostic, but i can't think of any famous person i admire more. really, i don't know where i was going with this. and i swear i'm not trying to be poignant (a word, i think, that should only ever be used in sarcasm). but i think fred rogers was a fucking genius.

q & a

you know what really makes you appreciate electricity?
not having electricity.

how long?
24 hours.

any "low moments of the soul"?
c'mon, it was only 24 hours.
ok, yes. around 4pm. in the parking lot at chuck e. cheese.

what's so bad about chuck e. cheese?
basically everything.

everything?
ok. everything but skee-ball.

did you do any crafting?
sure.

did you miss your computer?
yes. there should be a patch or something.