Born In The Wrong Decade

When Rick and I went up to Hearst Castle I got the same tingle in my spine I always get when the tour bus starts playing the 30's and 40's tunes. Though the Castle is full of very old art, it was alive and busy during this time period until Hearst grew ill in 1947 and was unable to live there anymore. BTW do you know that Hearst asked his Southern California doctor to consider coming to Hearst to be his personal physician so that he could live where he wanted to the most before he died? Hearst offered the doctor the DEED to Casa Grande (the large "cottage" in front of the castle) for his whole family to live there. The doctor turned him down and I'm sure the descendants have been chewing on that decision ever since!:)
Anyway, being up there always reminds me how much I absolutely love that time period.
If I could order my time period I get to live in or recreate it somehow without looking odd to my neighbors I would:
Wear darling house dresses accented with the most delicate and domestic aprons:



Working in a kitchen much like these:



I would have listened all day at home working or cooking or setting the dinner table to this:

GO HERE (also the new background to The Happy Homebody)

It is absolutely my favorite, never tire of it, kind of music. Of course, my treadmill choices are much more up to date. You can't really sweat to this music, but you can sure love life to it.

I would go out on dates to do this with my husband (and we do plan to learn this someday though perhaps a more mellow version! BTW this is from a great movie called "Swing Kids" and you may recognize if you look closely the current Batman actor in is early days:)

Or out to dinner dressed like this:

As you may imagine..the costumes on "Kit Kittridge" thrilled me:
But I would also love to deck my children out in full Dick and Jane as well:
My sweetie's job would put him dashingly in this: (though he would hate it because he ALWAYS loves shorts instead)
Truly it was a hard time in history. The great depression was on going and families were learning to make due. I remember my grandma telling me that my great grandmother could take anything and make a meal and almost every meal included homemade biscuits or cornbread. They ate lots when the eating was good, and less when it was not. There were no ways to just come up with credit for something. They became resourceful. Out of their resourcefulness women learned to be true artists. Artists of the home. Making beauty from simplicity and taking great pride in their work. It shows in the beauty of even the simple aprons and the little dresses made from flour sack calico. The music of the time is full of feeling and a deep desire to pull the good out of life and hold on to it. To have a penny in your pocket and a skip in your step as you went about getting by loving those you loved and making life good for each other.
It is a charming time, and an inspiration to me in many ways.

Soon I hope to share my own making due charm of a window covering made from my own thrifted vintage aprons and a walk through a very old personal cookbook collection that was an amazing walk through another woman's life in another time. Coming soon.....:)
We seem to have lost that which was charming in the rush to that which is newer and better and in the end, really does not work as well or last as long. In our wares, our schedules, and even our relationships. Maybe the times to come with teach us to slow down and make life charming again.

A Step Back, Take It Down a Knotch.....And There it is!

I was glad I posted the previous blog. It put the elements together and let me stew on them. The bed spreads were not working with the bold walls. Yet, the girls loved them so I needed to make them work. The lamps were driving me nuts even though I knew this meant a trip to walmart and that lovely questions "how many items do you have?" followed by the pause for pink stickers to be slammed on my purchases only to get to wait for the lady behind the return desk to pry them off (can you feel the love here?:*). I hate to say I got an inspiration from TV, but I did. When I walk on the treadmill (few and far between right now) I watch Heroes on Netflix online. I just love the decor for Claire Bennett's room. There are some cute ideas on there if you pay attention. My favorite thing though are the acrylic clear ball lamps on her dresser. I started with that, and I'm coming back to it. The brass is to grown up and serious. So, this is similar to what I'm going for, but watch Heroes and pay attention to Claire's room if you want to see the lamps. (I'm only in season one...I don't know if it's in later on).
I'm probably not going with the shade style....though the aqua polka dot is cute!


So.....let's take this turn.... French Provincial meets Shabby Chick....



Same Furniture,



Same Painting,

same bedding, and with these colors:

The site only lets you color a few pillows on the bed, and those represent the bedding in the previous post. The decision has been made to do one color. I just could not get happy with two. I think I'll leave the border anyway if it works...we'll see.

I like that the little yellow flowers are in this picture because the third element will be the splashes of yellow, possibly some orange, and magenta pink. Thus returning to the tones in the Pier one pillow fabric in a few posts ago.

What I found was, that if you make the walls your focal point, you have to cater to it with your accessories. If you make them more subtle, you can have pops of color added and it won't over whelm. I think the furniture will look real good against the blue walls.

I like this scheme because it also leaves room for the color pops of everyday girlie things. Thier stuffed animals, books, baskets, stereo...all have their own splash of color and against a screaming wall, it just does not work. It would work on an adult room if the adult was not a clutter bug at all and only had those things out that cordinated with the scheme. That is just not possible with a 7 and 10 year old set of chicks. :)

For the windows, I plan (and Karen, you may get even more homesick now...sorry) to pull out the white sheer curtians that were in the room when we moved in, and add some cheap shaby chick valance with it's own little statement over that.

So it's almost time to paint shop!

Decorating The Girls Room Has Taken A Unexpected Twist

The girls and I went browsing bedding isles to get ideas about colors. I showed them the colors I liked from the fabric and they liked it, but they came up with some shocking turns. At first I was against it....then, I thought it could work. It all started when they saw this deep aqua blue satin bedding at walmart. I would NEVER have been drawn to it... but they were. So, here is where we are heading.

Think French Provincial Princess.

French Provincial furniture passed down from my mom, to me, to them.

Think Focal Renoir Painting "Two Sisters" which I grabbed a few years ago for a buck.

Think painting above French Provincial dresser with two brass lamps found on clearance, one on each side.

Think of wall colors like this sample picture (only w/ all the trim on the top) :

Remember this is just a similar visualizer. I'm just looking at the colors. They wall looks like this right now:
So, the yellow would be on the top, and the blue/green on the bottom. I'm not completely sold on this combo. I am also considering some other combos:

This is one.


The bright blue pillow and throw represent the presence of what the girls found that threw us into this twist....Satin blue bedding from Walmart.

Which now that I'm looking, is lighter than the blue I picked for the pillow and throw in the visualizer picture.

So, were still tossing around ideas. I loved the suggestions you guys had! We won't be painting the furniture though except for the loft bed (lilo will be on a loft which is just the top part of a bunk, and Princess will be on just a Hollywood frame coming out vertically from under the loft above her) which I am painting the antique white of the dressers and may do some brass stencil work on somewhere.

I know the French Provincial Princess theme is a little gody, but It might just work.

Thoughts?

I Found My Inspiration...Now What?

I've been debating on what to color the girls room. We have to do it because the old paint is very worn. I think the white part of their room is actually just primer because when I tried to remove crayon from the wall, the paint started to come off!

It has been white on top and light purple on the bottom with middle trim around the middle. I've wanted to go more bold because the room is big and can afford a darker color.

I was waiting for Rick to finish at the doctor (he dropped me off at Target shopping center) and ended up walking through Pier one where I saw this pillow pattern for some of their wicker furniture. I loved the color combos in it, it's just want I'm looking for.

So, from here I need to pic two colors. A darker for the bottom and a lighter for the top. Both girls are leaning to liking blues and greens right now and Lilo does not like pink. So, I'm thinking right now of pulling the yellow/orange and the aqua blue in it. Any thoughts or ideas?
(I think you can click to enlarge)
I also have this cute picture set of them when they were little that uses Gerber daisies...so that is another mental theme. Bold, but beautiful.

An Empty Basket Can Be A Mom's Best Friend

I'm a highly random person. It's something I don't like about myself. However, this is the personality God gave me so I trust He's usin' it mightily! When I go into a messy room I can feel the panic rise. Where do I start? AHHH! So, in my desperation I have found one simple method that, when I use it, is a life saver. I keep a big empty basket.

Now, you could use a laundry basket, but I don't have a spare one, and they don't look as attractive sitting in a spot in my living room. This basket has one mission in it's life, to gather the insanity and make it sortable.

So, practically speaking, here is how it works. You walk into the living room. The floor is covered with toys, paper, markers, videos, video cases, socks, (use your imagination)... You gather EVERYTHING from the table and furniture tops, as well as the floor and you throw it all in this basket (half eater pb&j not recommended:*). IMMEDIATELY you are encouraged by a sense of clarity. You proceed to dust or vacuum, or even just leave it as is and then, you address the basket. Take out all things that belong in a "mommy and daddy" part of the house. These are your things, kitchen things, your books and papers....etc. Then, bring the kids in and have them sort the remaining things out and take them in to PUT THEM AWAY. I tell them don't set it down till it's in the place it lives. You may also want to have smaller empty baskets where they carry off their items themselves from the findings of the big basket.

This method is highly effective in any room in the house. It clears the surfaces immediately so they can be cleaned if they need to. It gives you a quick feeling that you will get somewhere here!

Another benefit is the interruption factor. Life is always interrupting you. If you have everything in a basket, and that is as far as you get, you will feel better still. You may need to sort the basket later, or the next day (watch out for continual basket ignoring!:), but what you won't do is return to that room after the interruption and say "oh, fooie, I'll just get taken away again so I might as well not start."

Try it, let me know what you think.

OH, and Walmart has big laundry baskets in the craft department for $3. These are my favs. You could get the kids their own at the dollar store or on a Easter clearance. Just make sure they stay empty!