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Human

I’m only human, as much as everyone else is. I feel like I need to say that for some reason.

I don’t want people to get the impression that I’m this one sided-person who only cares about what color my curtains are or how my green beans are tasting this evening. In a world that is so crazy and with so much going on, do I only care about myself and my home decor? Of course not. I’m a human with thoughts and opinions and cares and struggles just like everyone else. My life isn’t perfect and it isn’t always easy. Who’s is? I know about all the craziness in this world. But what can I do about it? Dwell on it and let it make me crazy and angry? What would be the point in that? I won’t get into my thoughts and opinions on the world or politics. But I will say this, with all the negativity and sadness that the world can cause when you start to investigate it farther, I can’t help but retreat into the things that I love and that matter most to me. God, family, and things that center around the home. This is my escape. Especially since I’m in college and my classes force me to see the world closer, to investigate its politics, and evaluate our meanings in life. It is only natural that I use this blog as my outlet to value beauty and nature and talk about cooking, art, and decorating. It is my way of staying positive and happy in an otherwise stressful world.

There are still a great many lovely and wonderful things in this world of ours. This is my place to do my best to focus on those and remember the wonderful things that God has blessed me with. I hope you can all find a way to do the same.

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20 Before Twenty, 2 weeks Left!

I’m turning 20 in two weeks! How am I doing on my 20 Before Twenty list? Let’s see:

(and these are in no particular order either)

1. get engagement photos taken –we just finished this! I haven’t posted the pictures yet, but you can see a sneak peek here or the practice ones here.
2. officially set the date for the wedding –we’ve had this date set in our minds since the beginning, so why don’t we just commit to it already! Okay—-May 26, 2012!!!! 🙂
3. try cooking new things with new ingredients (I think we might pick at least 1 new recipe a week) –we’ve done really well with this one I think! This semester we really have expanded our cooking repertoire!
4. write a substantial poem –well I might be kind-of cheating on this one. I didn’t really write a “substantial” poem per say, but I have written several smaller ones and I signed up for a poetry class for next semester, so I’d say that counts enough. 🙂
5. launch Drew & I’s combined design business (We’ve been working on it and I’m excited about it!) –YAY! This one has been done for a while! 🙂 Read about it here.
6. finish the stuff I need to do for my mom’s bow business –this one is pretty much done. I’ve re-designed her site, store, business cards, product tags, and made a custom order form. I just need to order the print products. She also needs a few more pics for the online store.
7. officially decide on a location for the wedding & reception –Well…this is as official as it is going to be at this point. We know where the wedding is going to be and we have a place reserved for the reception, but it is still far enough away that it could change.
8. go bridal shopping and try on my first wedding dress! –Blair and I did this in Nashville over my spring break! YAY! I can’t wait to go again and show my mom and Kelsey and Jill!
9. sew something on my new sewing machine I got for Christmas (I have several projects I want to do) –well……honestly, I haven’t done this at all. I haven’t had time. 🙁 I have several projects I want to do for the new house but I have to wait until we get all moved in and that is after I turn 20. I also already packed it up to move it out of my dorm room. But we’ll see. I might just have to unpack it again. 🙂 Although I did sew this recently, just not with my new sewing machine. 🙂
10. Have a Corks N Canvas date night with Drew (more about that here) –This one we decided to veto. Or at least hold off on until a later date. At least the official Corks N Canvas one that is. It is expensive to go and we would rather go with a group of people. I am in a painting class right now and have been painting more than enough lately. I even got Drew to work on a little painting too! I would say that has to count for now. 🙂
11. write another creative non-fiction short story –Well, I didn’t write an official story to count for this one, but I blog about non-fiction stories that happen in my life on a daily basis here, so I think that counts.
12. get a job for this summer –I started babysitting for Drew’s landlord’s baby girl a few weeks ago. I also plan on getting another job (as some kind of design intern) this summer, but for now, I do have a job. (PLUS I mean we have our own business, so I had a job before too. I have been doing a lot more design work lately.)
13. start a bible study that Drew & I do together –I bought Drew a new Bible and an engaged couples Bible study book for Valentine’s day and we’ve started it together! We should have been done with it by now, but at least we’ve started it.
14. Make a budget/spending plan for Drew & I –We are doing pretty well at not spending over the amount we have allotted for that week/month and we’ve been saving a lot more. 🙂
15. Continue my healthier-self diet & start going on more walks –we’ve slacked a little lately on the carbs and cookies, but overall this semester we have eaten much healthier. We both drink only water most of the time, use almost all fresh vegetables and meat and have been spending more time out and about. Babysitting Lucia has been good for this because I take her on walks in the afternoons! 🙂
16. work on decorating Drew’s apartment so it feels more “homey” –We’ve been working on this one too! It is coming together! Soon it will be “our” apartment and not just Drew’s so in the new house, this will automatically be much better because I have a lot of “homey” decor. 🙂 Just recently we bought a couch, which definitely works for this one by itself!
17. finish my 50 hours of community service for my scholarship that I need this semester –ummm…this one still needs some work. Or a lot of work.
18. make my creative portfolio of all my art and design work –I’ve already made a list of all my design work that I’ve done recently and I plan on creating the design and print portfolios on our website soon! Just as soon as I get done with my final exams!
19. get my first apartment –DONE! DONE! DONE!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!! I can’t wait until we move in on May 15th! See our new house here.
20. work on the design for my wedding invitations and other various wedding planning –Ahh, well I have some some sample designs for the wedding invitations and I’ve looked into printing and envelopes and papers and all that jazz. I just can’t decide for sure on what I want them to look like. I have done other various wedding planning though. I obviously have a lot left to do. 🙂

Not too shabby. Most of them are completed. At least to my standards. Which luckily are the only ones that count in this project. What do I have left? Just sewing, community service, portfolio and wedding planning. Not bad. 🙂

I’ve got two weeks left to get it done!! Wish me luck! 🙂

P.S. I just noticed that I used “we” on pretty much all the descriptions on these. HAHA! I love how it started out as my project, but Drew automatically gets roped into everything I do. 🙂 I don’t think he minds though. Most of them applied to him anyway from the beginning. 🙂

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Pictures in the Park

Today has been a ridiculously busy day. We had about a thousand errands to run and have been rushing around non-stop. It was very productive though. Mainly because we got one thing done that we’ve been needing to do for months. We took our engagement pictures! How lovely and exhausting at the same time! Today was a beautiful day and we knew that we were going to be too busy to do it for about another month if we didn’t do it today, so we finally gave in and got them done! (Plus I think that watching the Royal Wedding this morning got me in the lets-get-wedding-planning mood!) I hinted around about them before, here and here.

I still have lots of editing to do. Lots of sun spots and people and cars to remove and lighting and coloring to edit. So it might be a while before I have them ready to show. Mainly because for the next several days, I am going to be doing nothing but studying for final exams. But I will leave you with this one little sneak peak:

I was somewhat irritated during the whole thing because there were a bunch of rude people in the park that saw us taking pictures and refused to move and get out of the shot. I wanted to push them in the creek. It made me so mad. It takes a lot of work to get all the stuff together for these pictures. But anyway, when I look through them and see at least a few that captured the moment perfectly, it makes it all worth it. 🙂

I hope to share the rest with you soon!

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Paris Prints

I’m so excited!!! Remember my post about Rose Windows from last week? Remember how I was talking about the rose window illustration print that I wanted, but that Little Brown Pen’s shop didn’t list it? I had sent them an e-mail about it, but never heard anything back. However, I saw today on one of the blogs that I read, that Little Brown Pen was having a sale through all of April on all their prints and illustrations. So I visited their blog to get the coupon code. (They are offering 20% off through May 1st!) I saw underneath the coupon code that it applied to not only their Etsy shop, but their website as well!! I didn’t know that they had a website, so I hadn’t even thought to check it before! Sure enough, I found the illustration of the rose window on there! It is available in yellow, gray, charcoal, and brown! PLUS they offer free shipping in the US! I ended up getting this one:

So excited!! Not only did I find the print I wanted, but I got free shipping and 20% off!!!  You should definitely check out their prints and illustrations. They are all of scenes around Paris and are so pretty! I talked about more of them in this post a while ago. Get their coupon code at their blog, here.

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31 Cent Scoops of Ice Cream!

It has been super hot in Drew’s apartment the last few evenings, so to get a little break from the heat, Drew suggested we go have some ice cream. We decided to go to the Baskin Robbins that is just a few blocks away. To our surprise when we arrived, we learned that it was 31 cent scoop night! Awesome! I got two scoops in a sugar cone, one Butter Pecan and the other Creole Cream Cheese (my two favorites!) and Drew got two scoops in a cup, one Butter Pecan and one Icing on the Cake! How fitting! (although he said it wasn’t as good as the name suggested) Our total for a sugar cone and 4 scoops of ice cream: $1.36. What a perfect little outing!

Completely disregard the fact that this is in no way a flattering picture of myself. It was like 10:00 at night and I hadn’t felt that great all day. Plus I have no trace of make-up on. But whatever, there are bigger things to worry about and Drew looks cute. (although he really needs a haircut!)

You should definitely look into seeing if your local Baskin Robbins has a 31 cent night! It was pretty tasty and it is to honor America’s firefighters. More info on it here.

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Lime and White Gingham Decor

I know, I know, it is after Easter and I’m still going on and on about my Easter tablecloth. As if I hadn’t already talked about it too much in this post. But it just makes me so happy! Every time I glance into the kitchen or walk past it (which is a lot when you are in a studio apartment) I get a big smile across my face. Beyond cheesy, I know. But it is just so bright and cheery, I can’t help myself. It was most definitely worth the grueling hunt for the perfect Easter tablecloth and the $12.99 we paid for it. And in fact, I just so happen to be sitting at the table with said tablecloth on it as I write this post. 🙂

So imagine how delighted I was looking through the current issue of 100 Ideas, Flea Market Style, a Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publication that I picked up when we were in Lowe’s last week and I saw several occurrences of lime and white gingham just like my tablecloth! (I’m a sucker for Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications, they are totally amazing and have so many great ideas! I figured this issue would be great since we were just flea market shopping for furniture for the new house!) Anyway, here are some pictures from the magazine of said lime and white gingham and other lime/chartreuse colored rooms:

Of course, I photographed it on the tablecloth, where else?

Love the green color with the camel colored burlap tablecloth and the honey colored wood! 🙂

See, lime and white gingham covered chair!

Just a few pages later, a different house had lime and white gingham pillows! I LOVE that coffee table! That is what I want for our living room in front of our new couch! Love the color of the wood and the simple design!

The rest of these pictures don’t have gingham, but they are other patterns of lime and white:

I absolutely LOVE that French style couch and chair!! So pretty! I love the green glass/ceramic bottles on the table too.

Lime and White Mattelasse and Shams!

Love the almost rose window pattern on these pillows! 🙂

I would also like to wish Trang, over at The Aquamarine Magnolia, a wonderfully delightful 21st birthday today! 🙂

 

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Happy Easter!

I hope everyone is having a fabulous Easter! Church, dinner, families, whatever your Easter entails. Drew and I went to church this morning and came home and cooked a fabulous lunch! We’ve spent the rest of the day relaxing and working on schoolwork. It has been a nice day though. Here are some snapshots of our lunch:

Beef Roast with Celery, Carrots and Fresh Green Beans, Fresh Corn on the Cob, Homemade Gravy, Twice Baked Potatoes and Rolls! YUMMY! 🙂

I wanted to make a homemade chocolate cake for dessert, but I knew that the two of us wouldn’t be able to eat an entire cake. I figured I’d wait to make that until we are home sometime with more people to help devour it. We already had a ton of food leftover from lunch. So we went to the Kupcake Factory instead and had gourmet cupcakes for dessert:

Double Chocolate and Banana Nut Cupcakes 🙂

Rejoice in the Lord! 🙂

 

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Bathroom Vanity DIY

Have you ever needed to wax your eyebrows but the only mirror in the entire house was in the bathroom? Said bathroom being only big enough for one human being, let alone a table or other flat surface to set the wax machine on. Well if you’ve ever been in this situation and have been yearning for a solution to this problem, I have it for you.

All you’ll need is a cookie sheet, some aluminum foil, clear packing tape and a few paper towels.

First– line the cookie sheet with aluminum foil.

Second– place the cookie sheet so that it sits directly on top of the sink, with the lip of the cookie sheet behind the faucets.

Third– use packing tape to secure the cookie sheet to the sink top, so that there are no wax machine slipping/tipping related accidents.

Fourth– fold a couple paper towels so that they sit below the faucets and absorb any random droplets of water that may drip to avoid getting water on any electrical appliances such as wax machine.

Fifth– Set wax machine on newly made table top and plug it in. I think you know what to do from here.

Good thing about this whole set up is that it is easily dis-mountable and the objects can again part and go their separate ways.

In case you didn’t follow the written directions, I’ve created a visual so you can get a better sense of how to create your very own wax machine stand. Just do as shown:

*By choosing to engage in this stated venture, you do hereby take full responsibility for the repercussions regarding the stability of your structure and all other wax related encounters that may occur from said venture. Icing on the Cake cannot be held responsible for any related accidents nor do we advocate this method as being foul fool proof.*

Happy Waxing!

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Much Ado over an Easter Tablecloth

When I realized that Drew and I were going to be making/spending Easter lunch/dinner by ourselves in New Orleans this year, my mind immediately starting racing to think of how I could make it special and at least a little different than every other lunch/dinner that we eat here. Thinking of big family meals for holidays at my house, I instantly remembered how we always change the tablecloth/plates/flowers and everything on the dining room table to something very springy and Eastery. The current tablecloth that Drew and I have is a neutral camel color that screams everyday or Thanksgiving before it says Easter. I knew we would need something different. Little did I know how hard of a task that would be.

On Thursday after I got out of class, we had to run some errands and stopped by Target. I found a tablecloth I really, really liked there, but they only had it in a long rectangle and not a round one. 🙁 We then went to Bed, Bath and Beyond to continue our search, where we only found more bland Thanksgiving color tablecloths. We also tried Sears home store. They didn’t have any tablecloths at all. 🙁 We were tired by then and decided to continue our search later.

Yesterday we were back on the search again. We tried T.J. Maxx, but all I found were table runners. We tried World Market, but they only had long rectangle ones. I also tried Pier One, but again they only had table runners and rectangular tablecloths! What is it with these people! Does no one carry ROUND tablecloths! I know we are not the only people in the entire New Orleans area that has a round table! I was quite frustrated. Plus, even if we had a rectangular table, not a one of the tablecloths we had seen were anywhere near springy/Eastery. Apparently everyone has their seasons mixed up around here. Or they don’t care to decorate their tables with an Easter appropriate table-scape.

Finally we decided to look at Macy’s. It wasn’t that I doubted that they would have tablecloths earlier on in our search, but Macy’s is farther away and I figured that they would be more expensive there. By then I was hungry, exhausted and ready to go home. We looked in the tablecloth section, saw they actually had tablecloths and round ones at that, (although really only 2 that could pass for Springy and they were really more on the Summery side) saw that they were on sale from $49 to $24, grabbed the one we liked better, checked out and got out of there.

This is what we ended up with:

But the story doesn’t stop here. We got home and put it on the table. It was bright and said Easter more than our current one did, but I still wasn’t crazy about it. It looked fine in the package, but in person, there was too much of a  harsh black/white contrast for a pastel colored holiday and a lot of blues that we don’t otherwise have in our kitchen color scheme. It also said VERA in black in random places all over it. I thought that was tacky. Overall, it was just too busy. We lived with it until today to see what we thought about it later, but I still didn’t overly love it. It isn’t that it was horrible or anything, but it was just one of those impulse purchases of something you don’t really have to have and you aren’t overly pleased with. I thought about it and decided that for the $27 we ended up spending on it, there were other things I would rather have than this tablecloth, even if that meant that we had our plain old boring tablecloth for Easter dinner.

I really couldn’t get the Target tablecloth out of my head. It was a lime green and white check, which actually reminded me of one of my favorite Easter dresses as a kid. It was one that Mamaw bought on one of the years that my mom didn’t make our Easter dresses and it was lime green and white checked with little flowers and ladybugs all over it. Looking back, it probably wasn’t the classiest for Easter, but I loved it and wore it to church all the time. I wish I had a picture of it here so I could show you.

I thought about it all morning, packed up the first one, and decided that even though Target only had a long one in the lime green check, I could cut it into a round shape and sew up the edges. I was determined. I convinced Drew to go tablecloth shopping again, mainly only because if we got the Target one that was $12 and took the $27 one back, we would save some money as well. 🙂

I was nervous all the way to Target. I just knew they would all be gone. I bolted in the front door and down the aisle. I was almost there. I could see them! You can imagine my utter delightment when this is what I saw:

Did you read that closely? That says 70″ ROUND TABLECLOTH!!!!!!!! Not only did they have the one I wanted, but I wasn’t going to have to cut it up and sew it either!!! I danced and spun around and jumped up and down all the way through the store and to the check-out. (Drew can verify that) I was so ecstatic! I love when you find things that you are looking for and they are perfect and they aren’t breaking the bank. $12.99 for a tablecloth is not bad. Plus, the check-out lady randomly gave me a $5 Target gift card. Plus it is actually something I would like to have on the table for more days than one, unlike the first one we brought home. I love that it is pretty, but also simple. I don’t have to worry as much about it clashing with anything else I would want to decorate the table with.

In addition to all that, I just think it is perfect that we went on this search to find a tablecloth for Easter and this one reminds me of one of my childhood Easter dresses! It doesn’t get better than that!

And if any of you New Orleanians out there have already started your hunt for a Thanksgiving tablecloth, there are quite a few options out there, even though it is only April.

 

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The Earth and Packing Up

I hope you all did your best to celebrate Earth Day yesterday (and Good Friday). We didn’t do anything earthy, but it was a productive day. Drew was off work and school because of Good Friday/Spring Break for most schools and Easter Weekend break for his school. We had a nice lunch together (Well sort-of, La Madeleine’s forgot to make our sandwiches and we waited for 30 minutes for them and then they admitted they forgot about them and we just ended up with them to go because I needed to work on stuff at school, but that was another 15 minutes for them to cook and box them up–it was somewhat irritating.) I went to school and worked on my final painting project for a bit and then spent the majority of the day working on packing up my dorm room.

As I stated in a previous post, it is only Drew and I moving things, so we are trying to do it a little at a time since I live on the second story of a building with no elevator and I have a lot of stuff to move in one day. Now that school is out, except for finals, I know what school stuff I need for the next two weeks, and the majority of everything else I will be okay with being boxed up for a couple weeks. It is amazing how quickly a room that looks like this:

can go to looking like this:

I’m happy though that we got some stuff moved out. It feels good to know that at least a little more than half of it is out and that is closer to being one less thing I have to worry about. Many of you know about my obsession with glass bottles. Well to show you an insight into this, I snapped this picture as I was getting ready to wrap up all my pretty little glass into bubble wrap:

Quite a few for just one room, huh? I think they are so pretty though. 🙂

Thinking back on Earth Day, I wish we would have done more for it. I wish there was more we could do for the environment than we do. I wish everyone did more for the environment. God created an amazingly wonderful place on Earth for us and we haven’t even yet been able to understand all its wonderful capabilities. The grandeur of it fascinates me. It makes me incredibly angry when people act careless and do all kinds of things that help to destroy it. How stupid can people be? Hello, we have to live here! Our children have to live here! By adding to the destruction of the Earth, it only hurts ourselves  and our future and gets rid of more and more of the beauty that we get to see of it. I can’t believe that people think that they have the power and authority to make everyone else’s lives worse, both physically and aesthetically.

I won’t rant on about it forever, and there are many people that do as much as they can for the earth. I will admit, your options for helping the earth are so limited when you live in a big city. At home in the country, we can grow our own food in our garden, plant as many trees as we like, throw all our food scraps outside or to the chickens or put them in the compost pile, conserve and reduce, and take care of our little piece of the world. In the city I can’t do hardly any of that, except for try to conserve and reduce as much waste as possible and recycle all our plastic/paper/glass. We did get a special bin for recycling from the trash company (they just started a recycling program in New Orleans) and we make sure to put every single piece of plastic that passes through our hands in there. We aren’t as good about paper, but at least paper is decomposable. Glass I usually keep, but if not, it goes to Tulane for the glassblowing students. I encourage you all to try your best to do the same in your area.

On a lighter note, Happy Easter Weekend everyone! I have been so wrapped up in getting everything finished for school that I completely forgot that Easter was this weekend until a couple days ago. It is weird and kind-of sad that we aren’t going to be home with our families this year (it is the first Easter I haven’t been at home for Easter) and brings up lots of good memories of me and the girls dressed up in our Easter dresses and Easter baskets and church and Easter dinner. I know I can’t re-create being at home, but hopefully we can have a nice Easter dinner to focus on making ourselves. Plus, that isn’t the reason for the season anyway.

Happy Easter!

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