Summer polish.

Happy first day of Summer!!! I hope everyone takes some time to enjoy this time of year!

While summer is not my most favorite season - I prefer fall and winter - I'm glad it's hear because it means longer days, June gloom (a fun little weather phenomenon in Southern CA), and Friday's off at work! Win - win- win. 

If you know me, you know that I love nail polish and easily paint by nails 3 to 4 times a week. And I love it. Really, I do.

And specifically, I love Essie. It's by far my favorite brand and their huge variety of colors is one of the primary reasons! They release a new line of colors every season and although I lean heavily toward fall like, neutral colors most of the time, the summer months are a perfect time to brighten things up!

Here's their latest Summer 2012 collection...

At Target the other day, I finally picked up my first polish of the collection - it's called Off the Shoulder and it's fantastic!

It's described as a "bold, hot pink" but with just enough boldness as to not be over the top (at least for this 32 year old.) It's such a fun, cheerful color...how can you not love it? 

My other Essie favorites are Merino Cool...a gorgeous mulberry like color.

 And Sew Psyched...a soft sage pewter like shade.

I get quite a few compliments when I wear these two shades so I wear them a lot! What about you?? Do you have a favorite brand or color? And by the way, this isn't a sponsored post - Essie has no idea who I am or just how much love them :-)

Long Beach Antique Market.

On Sunday morning a few friends and I braved the cold temps and wind to explore the Long Beach Antique Market! And by cold, I mean 50's - which is practically freezing by Southern California standards! The rain and cold kept a lot of vendors away, but it was still a great turn out!

There was definitely an eclectic blend of merchandise...see for yourself!

There were crates.

Vintage scales like this one that my friend Jill snapped up for $16! She passed on the sleeping doll.

Mannequins arms, anyone??

If arms aren't really your style, how about heads?

There were faux tree stumps, too! These had some sort of plywood top...but they looked good!

This ornate mirror was beautiful!!

More vintage crates.

 

This barn door was only $1000 and they deliver :-)

One booth was full of cute vintage fans.

And there was a unusually high amount of taxidermy related items.

I don't think a can spray paint would work on this guy, so I went home without him :-(

Overall, it was a super fun morning and for my first visit - I was not disappointed! I definitely plan on going back! Oh and admission is only $5 and it's every 3rd Sunday of the month - rain or shine! So if you're in the area, you should check it out!

Suitcase Table #2.

I've had this vintage suitcase and table legs lying around for at least the last year! After I moved, the suitcase was stored high above my closet but my recent closet makeover project has forced me into action! So I pulled it down and got to work! This is such an easy project and I just love how it turned out!! Thankfully, I had a spot in mind for this little guy - right between my two vintage cane chairs.

  This is the second suitcase table I've made and this one was just as easy as the first! I started with a suitcase, table legs, and some mounting plates! The suitcase was salvaged from my grandparent's garage, the legs came from Habitat for Humanity Re-Store (for $1 each!) and the plates I bought from Lowe's for about $1.50 each.  They are also available on Amazon if you don't want to trek through a home improvement store!

It's really an incredibly easy project! Some tutorials say to place a piece of particle board inside the suitcase for the screws to drill into...but I skipped that step and just drilled directly into the suitcase and it's just fine :-)

I love it!!

I also love the total cost of the project - only ten bucks!! 

And if you're interested, you're looking at my next two projects! I adore these two cane chairs that were gifted to me and I think I'm finally ready to paint and reupholster them! A rainy weekend forecast just might help me finally get this project marked off my list!

Until next time...

*I'm linked up to House of Hepworth's, Fingerprints on the Fridge, and Saved by Suzy*

The Greystone.

Saturday afternoon I spent the day celebrating my friend Jenny's birthday pretending to be a real housewife of Beverly Hills. We lunched at Villa Blanca, grabbed dessert at Crumbs Bake Shop and then drove over to the Greystone Mansion.

Picture from 1928.

Prior to Saturday, I had never even heard of the Greystone Mansion. Wikipedia describes it as a Tudor-style 46,000 square foot home with 55 rooms sitting on 16 acres of land. And no, that's not a typo, it's actually 46,000 SQUARE FEET!! Holy moly, it's huge! I could fit my place in there 108 times over. Crazy!

Once we meandered our way from the parking lot, through stone walkways, and lots of steps (my Fitbit counted 12 flights total) we found our way to the main house! It's just beautiful and has such amazing architectural details!

I'd take this view in a heartbeat!

The former pool and it's wonderfully arched pavilion...

Here's what it looked like back in the day...

A beautiful fountain...

 via CocoCozy.

And gorgeous staircases...

via CocoCozy.

This estate has been used in a ton of movies (like Witches of Eastwick and The Holiday!) and has a fascinating story behind it, too! The mansion belonged to oil tycoon Edward Doheny and was gifted to his son, Edward "Ned" Doheny, Jr., and his family in 1928. But after living there for only four months, Ned was murdered by his secretary, Hugh Plunkett. The story goes that Plunkett was angry over not receiving a raise and suffered a "nervous disorder" (not a good combination!) Either way he killed his boss and then himself! Kind of creepy, but fascinating!

Anyhow, I had a wonderful day exploring a part of Southern California that's just 30 minutes away! I should really do that more often!

Tree trunk update.

Remember my tree trunk??? I acquired him back in April hoping to turn him into an indoor side table. Well, I let him dry outside for a couple of months and he even got a nice convenient dose of termite poison when we had the house tented last month!

I ended up drilling in some casters and gave him a new home on the front porch!

As you can see I left the bark on...for now. I might remove it someday but that task is far down on my list of things to do! This was a relatively easy project...the casters gave me some issues at first but those were resolved and now I'm left with a great end result!

Total cost: $3 for casters from the Habitat Restore

Record clock.

I've been meaning to blog about one of my latest creations for some time now but work has been crazy busy (and let's face it...that's where most of my blogging happens!) Things are finally slowing down so here we go!It's no secret that my grandfather loved music - he had a room in his home affectionately refered to as the "Music Room" so we have been left with hundreds upon hundreds of records. So I was estatic when I stumbled upon the idea of turning a record into a clock and decided upon "This is Artie Shaw" for my first go around! After a bit of research, I was off to Michael's in search of a clock kit. They have these cute little things that come with everything you need...the number, the hands, the battery pack, etc. I had my doubts that it would actually work...but it did! So in case any of you want to make your own...let me walk you through how I did it! I first cleaned the record to make sure it was free from dust and then sprayed a light coat of clear satin spray paint to seal it. I read on another site that this step was optional but I recommend it. Here's before the spray paint...

And here's after...

It gives it a nice smooth finish that hides imperfections in the record. The clock kit came in a brass finish so I just spray painted the pieces in heirloom white to get the look I was after.
 The numbers already have adhesive on the back so I just stuck those on and pushed the battery back through the hole in the center of the record.

Then came the fun part...actually putting the clock together! The directions are on the clock kit so it was super simple!

I put in a battery and had my clock!! It took about 25 minutes from start to finish and let me just say I love it!!

I decided to give this to my mom as a Christmas present and since she doesn't read my blog...I'm in the clear so nobody tell her! The fun part is that you can turn almost anything into a clock with these kits...plates, books, tire wheels! Trust me when I say my mind is spinning with ideas!

"Kind of like Scrabble" coasters.

I recently spotted a bag of (what I thought were) Scrabble tiles at the thrift store. I was so excited to spot such a great find it didn't even click that they weren't actual Scrabble tiles until I got them home! Instead they were general lettered tiles from some other word game....still a great find at just $2.99!

I started googling ideas for what to do them and stumbled upon....wait for it...coasters! I might as well confess now that most of the things I do are not completely original ideas. I google. A lot. "Ways to use...." is becoming my most googled phrase. It's a great way to see what others are doing and why reinvent the wheel, right? So back to this, I sorted the tiles out by letter and realized I had a ton of o's but only like 4 c's so I had to make due with what I had.

I ended up doing a personalized set for someone (who shall remain nameless and will receive something similar at Christmas) and then a more general set like this one...

I already have a great set of coasters that I purchased in New Orleans and since I don't need to start a coaster collection I decided to sell this batch on Etsy.

I've been selling a few things on Etsy since July and while this deviates from my normal product which are little owl skewers and picks like these that I made for Linda's baby shower...

I'm looking forward to expanding what I offer and even hope to put up some suitcase tables soon! So stay tuned.

She's crafty.

I've never really thought of myself as crafty. Sure, I've made a wreath or two but other than that I'm pretty limited in my creations. But I guess that's changing...I've recently been making things right and left and figured I'd share them with you!!

A few weeks ago I was thinking about something to hang above the mantle and found an adorable ruffled felt rosette wreath while browing craft sites. The old me would have tried to buy it, but instead, I set out to make it myself! And believe it or not, it was surprisingly easy!

I began with a trip to Michael's for a foam wreath, about 25 pieces of white felt, and push pins.

Then I used a can of corn to trace circles in the felt and then cut them all out - this was the most time consuming portion of the project!

Then I took a felt circle, folded it half and then in half again to create the rosette.
Then the fun part began - I just started pinning the rosettes into the foam wreath! There was no real pattern to follow - just kept alternating how I stuck them in.

And before I knew it (actually 3 hours later!) I had a lovely, handmade ruffly felt rosette wreath!

This wasn't exactly the finished product...but it was very close. I added some additional rosettes to the interior and refluffed certain parts but you get the idea! I absolutely love it!