For the love of succulents

Ever since I included them in several of my wedding details, I've found that I adore succulents. It made my day this morning when I saw on the Fresh Dirt blog (of Sunset magazine) that there are plenty of gardeners out there who are truly passionate about them, too! They included some amazing photos, which reminds me that I need to get back to some of my plant projects just as soon as I'm done organizing my office/studio.

The blue, gray, and green tones of these succulents, combined with a container reminiscent of a big shell with gray sand and a few sea shells evoke a seascape.

And I love this one from Big Red Sun via Fresh Dirt. They call these "metros," and this one includes sea shells, seed pods, dried moss, and other natural objects and is assembled in a shallow steel container like a collage and then hung on the wall. The moss absorbs water, and the designer of this piece, Patrick Marston, says they only need a gentle spritz of water once a week. Lovely.

And how fun is this? Matt Maggio redesigned the cactus and succulent garden at Sherman Gardens in Corona del Mar, California. Among his designs he used these succulents to "paint" along a path. Via Fresh Dirt.

Tivoli Home glass jars

I have a weird fascination with glass jars. Maybe that's why I just bought 5 glass canisters at the local thrift shop for my organization project... But I am simply in love with these glass jars from Tivoli Home that I just spotted on Remodelista. Love them!!

Storage cubbies

I have been seeking inspiration for my organization project, and I love the use of boxes either stacked on the floor or hung on the wall. I especially love the vintage crates in the office.



Row 1: Wood crates from Cottage Living, metal shelving from CS Post and Co. via The Lettered Cottage, and wood cubes from Sunset
Row 2: Galvanized metal tins hung on wall from Sunset and two uses of vintage wood crates hung on the wall from Remodelista

Raised garden bed

I can feel spring inching closer every day, which has me thinking again about my garden. I plan to build some new raised beds this year, and I just came across some DIY instructions on Sunset that are perfect.

Living hygge

My morning blog journey took me to a place called Picnics Under the Moon. It's a new blog, started by Christiana and Aimee from Ferm Living's Clever Spaces Blog. The blog is for daily posts about living hygge and discovering joy in the smallest moments. I love that idea! For those of you asking (like I did) what is hygge (pronounced hoo-ga), it is "a Danish word that goes to the heart of living well. Hygge is anything — and everything — that creates warmth, brings joy, or gives life meaning. In a word, hygge is coziness. In a few more words, it is a rainy day on the couch buried in blankets, laughter with friends, or a cup that fits perfectly in your hands. Personal yet universal, hygge can be found in the smallest of moments when we remember to look."

Hygge is definitely a concept I'm trying to achieve in my own life right now, so I'll be checking in on this blog frequently!

Bulletin board

One thing I really need in my office is a bulletin board/message center, but I don't want just any plain old cork board. Nope, I want something like this stunning fabric covered bulletin board with an antiqued wood frame from Cox and Cox. Love it.

Mission: Organization

Remember how I mentioned that my words for 2009 are "embark" and "simplify"? Well, today begins my two-week odyssey, the end result of which will hopefully be a simplified and more organized life.

I love this photo I just saw from Ferm Living on Remodelista; it seems to sum up everything I hope to accomplish: clean, organized, simple, fresh.

Have a happy Monday!

Color week: Indigo and violet

Happy Friday! Today's board features indigo and violet.

Row 1: Clematis vase by Ariella Chezar via Brides, fruit platter from Matthew Mead, winter sky, Katazome paper from Paper Source, penstemon from Sunset
Row 2: Lady in indigo, grape hyacinth boutonniere by Ariella Chezar via Brides, boutonnieres from Martha Stewart Weddings, soap from Toast
Row 3: Lavender sachet place card by davidstarkdesign.com via Brides, car from Cox and Cox, cake favors from Martha Stewart Weddings, colored bottles with flower from The Simpler Things via Snippet and Ink
Row 4: Morning glory, rose and succulent centerpieces from Martha Stewart Weddings, pail of blueberries from Brides, cupcakes

Color week: Blue

"Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true." Lyman Fank Baum



Row 1: Blue martini glasses by Leonardo via Brides, blue vases from Once Wed, decorated jar with candle from Country Living, Raffles Resort Canouan Island in the Grenadines via Brides
Row 2: Wedding décor from Once Wed, blueberry martini from Martha Stewart Weddings, blue cup from Cox and Cox
Row 3: Candle with sea glass from Matthew Mead, wrapped favors and hydrangea wreath from Martha Stewart Weddings, table setting from Brides, fabric wrapped favor from Martha Stewart Weddings
Row 4: Favor bag from Martha Stewart Weddings, Glass bottles from Mothology, hurricane vase from Brides, blue parrot drink from Martha Stewart Weddings, DIY tin can vases from Matthew Mead

Color week: Green

The color green is the focus of today's board. I love the green glass bottles and the echeverias surrounding the water feature with orange and purple flowers.




Row 1: Herb centerpieces/table names via Snippet & Ink, glass jars from West Elm, potted seedling favors from Martha Stewart Weddings
Row 2: Echeverias from Sunset, yarn from Little Acorn, fern-wrapped candle from Matthew Mead, vegetable garden from Sunset
Row 3: Garden waste recycling bag from Cox and Cox, succulent centerpiece by Kathy Hoffman Flowers, Napa via The Knot, coaster from Papercrave, mason jars with candles from Martha Stewart Weddings
Row 4: Vase with juniper sprigs and berries by Mi Mi Design Wedding Planning, Minneapolis via The Knot, paper mum from Papercrave, olive tree centerpiece by David Stark via Brides, potted herb favors from Brides

Color week: Orange and yellow

The second board of color week features orange and yellow. I just love the orange wall on that house.

Row 1: Jam jar favors, pineapple mango rum drinks, and clementine place card from Martha Stewart, orange liqueur from Little Acorn, marigold garland by Liz Meitu of Chicago via Knot.com

Row 2: Flowers in mason jars via Snippet & Ink, honey jar favors by Bruce Fiegel Apiary via Knot.com, wrapping paper from Papercrave, apricot name card from Martha Stewart Weddings

Row 3: Tissue pompoms from Martha Stewart Weddings, orange house, yellow books and ribbon and flower and succulent bouquet from Martha Stewart Weddings

Row 4: Heart-shaped soap from Cox and Cox, flowers in mason jars via Snippet & Ink, orange favor box and ticket style invitation from Knot.com

Row 5: Pergola with hanging mason jars with candles from Martha Stewart, orange dahlia centerpiece centerpieces by Eye Design Floral via Knot.com, rose in vase by Ideal Design Events via Knot.com, and flower and succulent decorations from Martha Stewart Weddings

Color week: Red

My recent purchase of ink for my letterpress has me thinking a lot about colors these days. I thought it would be fun to put together color boards each day this week, starting with red today.



Row 1: Moss and berry terrarium by Matthew Mead; Katazome Red Chrysanthemum paper by Paper Source; a red currant crumble
Row 2: Red pouch by Lullaballou; a red dahlia
Row 3: DIY paint tin packaging by Matthew Mead; yarn by Jirbydesigns; skirt from made with love by hanna; red grape votive by Seasons of Cannon Falls via Brides.com
Row 4: Votive candles via Brides.com; cranberry photo by me; glycerin soap from Toast; favor boxes from Martha Stewart

Sadie Bug

I've kept quiet about her for long enough, this little creature that makes me smile. She is not shy—far from it, in fact—but for some reason she always seems to duck and dodge the camera lens. But today I managed to get a good photo of her.

So, this is The Bug. Sadie Bug is her proper name, and I'll use just Sadie when I'm being formal (or yelling at her to get her butt back in the house). But, on most occasions, she's The Bug. Sometimes, she's The Bad Bug. And when she's at my parents' house and is around her sister, Lucy, she's quite often The Thug Bug. But I love her.

Embark and simplify

One of the things I love about my "real" job as a medical/technical editor is that sometimes I get involved with a really complex project. I love doing research for my work (it's like a big puzzle to me) and following different paths to see where they go; and there's something about my brain that loves making connections between the varied things I find on those paths. For editing, this comes in handy because it allows me to notice subtle inconsistencies in a document and I can point this out to the authors. Sometimes it's an easy fix, and sometimes its the first pull on a thread that unravels the whole sweater. But I digress...

In my "i-wish-it-was-my-real" job, which now includes this fledgling blog, I also find myself following different paths on my walks through the blog world, taking every fork in the road and discovering some really fun things along the way. Things I'd probably never see or find otherwise. This morning I discovered (via the blog rich inner life) a concept that you choose just one word to inspire your whole year. That piqued my curiosity, so I followed the link to the list of words to consider for 2009. And there it was, er, there they were: my two words for 2009—embark and simplify.

I wanted to pick just one word to focus on, but these two words really sum up the year that I have in front of me. I chose simplify for obvious reasons. My daily life has been taken over by clutter, and my passion for doing things to the nth-degree (my friends don't call me "supersize" for nuthin') means that my life can sometimes get a little crazy. Part of my clutter problem is due to the fact that we've been in the process of a major remodel on our house for over a year now, and we currently have next to zero storage space. The kitchen is done and two bedrooms are partially done, but otherwise we live in a state of constant construction; we're doing the bulk of the work ourselves (my husband and I are pretty handy that way), so projects are done as we have time/money for them. Between a wedding last July, our work schedules, and having all of our resources poured into our new 30x50 workshop (and future barn), little has been left at the end of the day for the house. 2009 is going to change all of that.

And that's where my friend "embark" comes in.

This is the year where I will start on so many new things: finishing the house, starting on some landscaping, getting my letterpress studio really up and running, and perhaps some other big life events.

Last weekend we started a project to finish the built-in shelving units in my office/studio/guest room. It's still sitting in the middle of the living room now, but it will hopefully go into its new home tonight. Next week is going to be busy for me with "real" work, and after that my husband leaves for 2 weeks in Australia for work (dirty rat). I'm planning on spending the two weeks he's gone to start the work on these two little words, and I hope to keep up the momentum.

So, here is an overview of tasks for each of my words. I'm writing this here so the world is my witness. I hate failing (especially when people know what I'm up to), so this should be incentive to get all of this done in 2009. Gulp.

Simplify:
1. Organize my office/studio; a place for everything, and everything in its place
2. Organize my piles of magazines, clippings, and internet links; record here the things I want to keep, and get rid of everything else
3. Organize and clean out the workshop (half of which is currently filled with boxes of stuff that we can't unpack yet) and hold the mother of all yard sales this spring
4. Simplify the consumable objects in my life—I really don't need 12 different hand lotions or 9 kinds of salad dressing or lipstick in 15 colors (um, I never even wear lipstick)

Embark:
on the house:
1. Tile the floor in the two bedrooms
2. Suck it up and tear down the existing bathroom to expand it (i.e., embark upon possibly weeks without our one and only bathroom!)
3. Convert the garage to our master suite
4. Landscape the backyard and two side yards
5. Fence our property so I can (finally) move my horse up here
6. Tile the rest of the house
7. Paint
8. Take care of all the other details that need to be done

on my studio:
1. Create at least 6 new notecards and 3 new sets of wedding stationery
2. Keep this blog going with a goal of at least 4 posts a week (probably a lofty goal considering the house projects, but I will try my best!)

on my life:
1. Wear dresses and jewelry more (I saw this on another blogger's list of resolutions and liked it. My husband will love it)
2. Take more time to see the sights around me via hiking/camping/biking/rafting with my husband

And now I shall begin.

Coraline

I was just catching up on some of my favorite blogs, when over at How About Orange I saw a post about Coraline, a new stop-motion feature shot in stereoscopic 3D, in theatres February 6, 2009.

The movie set is made entirely of tiny handmade items! Go here to see the clip about knitting miniature sweaters. And after that totally "wows" you, watch the movie's trailer. Stunning! I can't imagine the number of handwork masters involved in this project.

Letterpress practice

After a couple months off to deal with other things, I finally got around to ordering a set of rubber-base inks for my letterpress, which I find so much easier to work with than the oil-base inks I was using. I've been slowly trying out the new colors to get a feel for how each color prints on the paper I use. I also purchased the expanded package of colors, so now I can mix every ink color imaginable. My ink world knows no limits!

I'm having some fun with some ornamental blocks and new metal type I recently acquired. I am still learning the process, and it is a lot of trial and error, but I think I'm slowly improving.

Kris's Color Stripes

I have been busy with an organizing project of massive proportions, and that, combined with some recent printing projects, has really cut into my time on the internet. But my late morning walk through the blog world today yielded a fabulous find in the way of Kris’s Color Stripes. Located in Italy, she finds amazing photos and then creates color palettes for them. Given my love of succulents, this one really grabbed my attention.

Be sure to check out her blog for all of the other amazing photos and color palettes.

Kris also creates fabulous notebooks and other items that are for sale in her etsy shop. I came across this neat find on her blog—she created favor boxes for a friend’s wedding.

She has been generous enough to share her template with the world, so go here to download it.

For the love of Mothology

I am in love with Mothology, a new-to-me store I just found on my morning walk around the blogs (via Remodelista, via decor8, via simple song).

These heavy canvas bags are what originally caught my eye. I’m finally in the process of organizing my office/studio—which has languished in various states of disrepair while we’ve worked on other remodeling projects—and these bags look like a great way to hold bulky items. I especially like the handles. I could also use some of the bushel baskets and metal bins to store my ever-growing collection of things.

I’ve been on the lookout for a lightweight apron to wear while I’m printing, and I love this one. But I’d probably cry if I got ink all over it. And these goodies made from hand blown blue milk glass certainly appeal to my fascination with glass vases and bottles.

Reclaimed wood

This weekend my husband and I worked on building a shelving unit for a space in my office. The story and photos of that will be posted once the project is finished (hopefully this week!).

But the work got me thinking about how much I want to have my husband teach me the finer points of woodworking. I lived in Baltimore for six years and spent the majority of that time completely rehabbing a 1920 brick rowhouse. In that process, I removed several old wood rafters and beams. The wood is simply stunning. I used two pieces to make new handrails for the stairs of that house, but I loaded up the rest of the wood in a U-haul and brought it with me when I moved. I’ve always had plans to use the wood to build something, preferably an old farmer’s style table—one that is very simple, rustic, long, and narrow. For now the wood sits in a pile in our workshop, but the project this weekend has sent me on a new search for inspiring uses of reclaimed wood.

Here are some of my favorite items.


Top row: An old workbench that would be great as a kitchen island, and a flat file that I would love to have for all of my Japanese papers! Both from here.
Middle row: a rock elm trestle table, a heavy pine harvest table with legs, and a lovely farm table. Bottom row: Another neat workbench made of wood, metal and granite that would make a great kitchen island; a great use for an old beam as an outdoor bench; and another table with a really interesting trestle.

For the love of Ebelskivers

Several months ago I spied an Ebelskiver pan—a specially-designed pan for making Danish filled pancakes—in the Williams-Sonoma’s catalog. Then I had the good fortune to taste several variations made by my mother-in-law with cinnamon-apple, lingonberry jam, and cinnamon-sugar fillings. Lucky me, I got a pan of my own for Christmas this year. So far I’ve only had time to make them once—I used a raspberry filling designed for pastries. It was probably a bit sweeter and richer than I would have liked, but it sure didn’t stop me from inhaling them. On the day that I made them, we were leaving for a 10-hour drive back home after visiting my parents, so I took the leftovers with us. When we reached the 7th hour of the drive, I discovered that they make a great snack even when they're cool (although my husband can't vouch for this because I ate all of them...).

Mixing the batter and making the pancakes is a fairly involved process (especially for folks used to just mixing a pancake mix with water and an egg), and it took me a few rounds to master the art of flipping the pancakes over using two wooden skewers, but I think the results were well worth it. I’m anxious to try making them again, and I’ve been searching for some good variations to try.

The Williams-Sonoma website has several recipes. This one for the cinnamon bun ebelskivers makes my mouth water, and they look so good I can almost smell them through the computer monitor.


The lemon mascarpone ones also look like little pieces of joy and happiness.

And I’m tucking away this nifty recipe for pecan pumpkin filled ebelskivers—made with cream cheese and pecan pumpkin butter—for next fall.

When the weather is nicer than the snow we’re getting today, we do a lot of hiking. I was thinking that these would make a great snack to take along because they’re a great finger food once they’ve cooled. The pancake itself isn’t really sweet, so I think they would be great stuffed with cheese and/or lunchmeat, and I also saw a suggestion for sweetened cream cheese with dried fruits and nuts. A few of these along the way, and we should have enough energy to go an extra mile or two on our hikes!

Wishing for a xeric garden

It may be January, but my husband and I are planning some pretty huge landscaping projects for this spring. Actually, I’m the one doing the planning—my poor husband has no idea what I have in store for him!

We live in western Colorado, and although we have access to plenty of irrigation water, I want a xeric garden—one that will need very little or no extra water once it’s established. My favorite source for everything green and leafy is the amazing High Country Gardens in New Mexico. The company is in Santa Fe, with several retail outlets in Albuquerque. And, luckily enough for everyone living outside of New Mexico, they also offer their plants for sale through their catalog and website.

One of the things I love most about High Country Gardens is that they offer preplanned gardens that completely take the guesswork out of choosing appropriate plants. For my project this spring, I’m planning on two large areas of flowers in the backyard and another strip of flowers along a pathway on the side of the house that gets a lot of afternoon sun. For these areas I’m going to get their (from top to bottom) cold-hardy Mediterranean garden, their August afternoons perennial garden, and the inferno strip garden. The photos of the gardens look so amazingly gorgeous, it’s going to be hard to wait a few months to order them!

And I love to have hummingbirds and butterflies in my space, so if I can also manage to prepare that patch of dirt in our front yard, I’ll get their natural nectar and hummingbird heaven samplers, too. My thumb is turning green just thinking about it.

For the love of Paper Source

Several years ago I was in Boston for a meeting. I had a few hours on my own one morning so I wandered through the area around my hotel. When what to my wondering eye should appear? A Paper Source store! I saw their beautifully decorated store window and before I knew it I had spent about 2 hours in the store—gazing at rubber stamps, fondling their satin ribbon, drooling over their Japanese paper. I. Was. In. Love. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Paper Source near me these days, so I get my fix by visiting their website—and visiting often. My heart skips a beat when I get an email from them saying that they’re having a sale. And it really went silly when I saw a recent email announcing that more than 500 of their delicious goodies are half off! It's a good thing that virtual shopping carts don’t have a limit to what you put in them. :)

Here are some of my favorites goodies from the Paper Source website:

I’m planning on getting some of these favor boxes to try out a few ideas I have with my letterpress.

Right now this paper really makes me want to sit on a beach in the Caribbean and sip a drink decorated with a tiny umbrella!

And I’m thinking of getting some of this paper to make an album for a friend’s baby.