our bedroom, part 1

OK, here is the first series of pictures from the "lost Cookie files."
Thanks so much to everyone for all your sweet comments on my good fortune!!

A few pics from the new Master Bedroom re-do...

Only half of the room is done, so we are going to just call this "part 1" of the tour..



Hanging lamps: Ikea, side table from sweet neighbors

Some of our bedding, up close & personal -
mixture of thrifted finds and sale items. I have about 3 quilts and a dozen pillowcases that I mix & match and switch around all year long.
This was my mood this day...


My nook, oh how I love thee...
My only rule for this space - "no boys allowed!"


dressing table: Salvation Army, Chantilly Powder: from my Maw

b&w postcards collected since High School and the first time Tracy & I watched the movie Singles many moons ago
... so happy to see them out for viewing again.
Held on the wall with pearlized straight pins


Mirror from those great neighbors of ours, wall lamps from Ikea Kids. Couldn't resist the sweet dancing frogs!

Our new paint color is Rainwashed from Sherwin-Williams. I picked up a gallon 3/4 full @ our Habitat for Humanity ReStore center. Now I need to go to buy some more so we can finish the rest of the room...

* A note about the curtains:
The curtains where designed by me and made by my mother. There are a combined 5 fabrics on each panel. This layered panel has become my trademark with curtains - my clients houses are full of them! I have plans for a large layered roman shade for the kitchen, but even as I type this I can feel my mother tearing out her hair. She is a good woman to put up with -and go along with - all my crazy ideas!

grab your milk, cause I have Cookies!

My house was featured today on Cookie Magazine's Blog "Nesting!"

When I first got the email asking me if I would like to show my house off to their readers I just about fell out of my chair. Me? They wanted me? And yes I did squeal, just like a little girl! I am so not cool at all.

I have been a fan of Cookie since it first came out a few years ago, and just recently discovered their blog, so imagine my delight and shock when they asked me to come out and play with them! What fun!!

I took a ton of pictures of my house and of course they weren't able to use all of them, so I will be showing them off to all of you soon - especially the ones of the bedroom and my new little "dressing nook" area that I am in-love with completely.

I know it is not very ladylike to brag but I just couldn't help myself, I hope you will understand...

Here is a link to the article if you want to go check it out ...

Family A' Faire

Here is a peek at one of the projects I have been working on for our master bedroom re-do.
The ceiling is low in this room, but our bed is tall, so the space in between is narrow. I wanted something colorful, but not overpowering, something personal but inexpensive, something just right for that space.


Being inpatient and having about $1 to spend on the project, I made this family portrait, decoupaging it all on the back of a cabinet door, using papers from banner making, scalloped circles cut in half, die cuts for the large birds (my Sweet Man and I ) and this pattern from Martha for the small birds (Miles & Wylie.)


I have titled it Family A'Faire and it makes me smile every time I walk in to our room!

(ps - did you notice the new wall color??? more bedroom pics coming soon, still have a few things to finish up!)

making music, moving furniture

This is our across-the-street neighbors house, my other dream house.
Seriously, I am just waiting for them to get done remodeling & updating it and then when they are ready to downsize, and we have won the lottery, we will just have to move our stuff across the street, no fuss, no muss. It could happen right?
They are great neighbors and are a lot of fun. They are our parents age and the boys love to go over and bother Mr. W, especially Miles, who feels that Mr. W lives across the street just for him.

We also love them because when they get ready to get rid of their cool old stuff they call us. Like this piano. This is the newest addition to our living room, a very cool, very nice, very vintage piano, courtesy of Mrs. W lasted re-design project.
We are very excited to have a piano again, and if you know how to play even just Chopsticks and you come to our house, we will expect a tune from you, so be prepared!

Of course when you move a new large piece of furniture into a room, it can create some problems, like "where do we put everything now?"


Here is what we have ended up with for now. This was the easiest solution but I do not promise that it is the last one. In this photo the living room looks just a tad over-stuffed. In person it does not feel quite that full, at least not to me.... But we shall see. Need to have a party and see how everyone fits... I may switch the TV and the piano? Just a thought, and one that I am sure would make my Sweet Man groan.

Here is another, much smaller addition to the living room, the new bolster pillow that I made using a vintage table runner. This was a quick experiment and I need to go back and fix it in a few spots to make it sturdier, but I love how it turned out over all!

The best way to do housework

is listening to a book

I have discovered downloadable books and I think I am in heaven!



First it started with me checking out a Playaway Book called Blessed are the Cheesemakers
which I listen to while I cleaned the house the past week getting ready for the birthday party and put some of the things back right that had gotten moved around while we work on our bedroom...
Having a good story to listen too made the work so much more enjoyable and I felt like I was finally catching up on my fiction "reading" (my "want to read" list is always so much longer than my actual "get to read" list you see...)


Well once I finished Blessed are the Cheesemakers (which I would absolutely recommend - very cute book and not too fluffy, but not super serious and heavy either. I think it's title fits it perfectly in tone!) I found that I needed something else to listen to quickly (still more cleaning to be done) and I found that I liked listening while I walked the dog and glittered banners as well.
Distressed that I wasn't going to have time to get to the library soon enough, I remembered that our library can come to us - by way of the internet and that there were tons of books available for download (free!) on the library's website, which is where I found my next book
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which was an wonderful, delightful and engaging book. Highly recommend this one for sure!!
My sweet man rustled up an old MP3 player of his for me to download the book too and now I can take with me anywhere I need to go, instead of only being able to listen in my studio.


Now that I have finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (wow that is a long title!) I am on to Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, and more cleaning and glittering. I will let you know what I think of this one when it is finished - unless you have read and can tell me what you thought of it...

Also, when I get done with this book, what should I read (listen to) next?? What has been your favorite read this summer?

time to ROCK!

Word to the wise - if you are going to name your soon Miles Simon Cash for Miles Davis, Paul Simon and Johnny Cash, the time is going to come, when he is going to want to ROCK!

And for us, that time has arrived.


Miles had his 5th birthday party this past weekend and it was a blast.
The theme was completely picked out by him, as were all the activities:

Like jamming on his Daddoe's guitars. Isn't his Daddoe so sweet to let those boys play on real guitars? Those boys can rock! We let them turn the amps up and play to their hearts content - it was pretty cute.

All Rock-n-Roller's need serious rock costumes as well, so we had a craft time and made some "rockin' visors" and "rollin' wrist bands."


Thanks to the clearance section at Hobby Lobby, and my paper scraps this craft cost all of $6.50 in total for 5 boys.


Miles wanted to be able to sit at the bar and drink Root Beers (his fav drink) while waiting on their personal pizza's to cook, so I dressed up our little bitty bar best I could and set out some popcorn for them to munch on while they waited...

Rockin' Noise Makers and Backstage Passes for each guest as they arrived...


Party favors included a compilation CD, Rock Show Tickets, pixie sticks and some seriously cool rock-n-roll stickers.


Homemade cupcakes with blue pixie dust "stars" where a big yummy hit.



This was one of those last minute projects where I just used what I had on hand.
I used the pixie sticks for the star coloring and for the template I just used my star punch on a heavy piece of card stock and then went to town dusting the top of each little cake.

The stars weren't all perfect (would have had to have smoother icing for that) but it was fun to try them and no one seemed to mind either way...

Miles seemed to love them and that is what matters most!

I can't believe my baby is 5. Look at that smiles. That kid can light up a room when he wants too!




The party was great fun, and now most of the guitars have been put back in Daddoe's office, but I have a feeling the rockin' has just begun....

crafting gals

The past few days I have been relaxing and renewing at my grandmother's house at a mini-version of our yearly "Gallivanting Gal's" get-together.
This year there were only 4 of us, and I was the lone rep from my generation. But it was actually nice and low key, and it was nice to be able to visit with my Mom and my Aunt in ways that I don't normally, when the gathering is a little bigger.
That said, I still missed my sisters dearly and hope that some day we can all Gallivant together again!


We all try to contribute to the festivities so that no one person is left doing all the work and having none of the fun, this year my assignment (shockingly!) was to provide a craft activity, one that was "back-to-school" themed.
I decided it would be a fun & easy (and frugal) craft to do a "clipboard clip art" project, like the one I did a while back (see above.)

So I set the table with 1 clipboard per Gal (only 97cents) and placed all the tools (glue, stamps, cutters, glitter etc.) down the middle of the table.

Next, on the buffet table, I laid all the bits and baubles and pieces of ephemera I had gathered


It was fun to bring out all my goodies, some which I haven't been able to use yet and so was happy to share!

my supplies also included a good stack of happy papers of course!

Here is my mother's finished board - hers tells the story of 3 gallivanting gals & their life as friends...

here is mine - it was inspired by an old photo I had of 2 little girls have a tea party in a secret garden & by my obsession with village Fetes!

Here are 3 of us Gal's showing off our finished projects! My Aunt (in the middle) got hers packed away before I could get an individual shot of it, but it was very Auntie Te and very romantic! Just like her love of old movies...

We had a great time together and I am so glad I took the time out to be with my Gal's.

Time to get back to "real life" now!

hankie time

Don't know what to do with all those cute hankies and grandma's weird old burlap lampshade?
Combine them of course!! Attach the hankies with pearlized straight pins and voila! Instant cute!

(by the way, thanks for stopping by - you really do light up the place!)

Chair Re-Do La La

Check out my lastest article @ Vintage Indie and see this chair transformation in detail!

r & r

I am off for a few days of R & R with some of my favorite gals. I am hoping that this time of relaxation will be a bit of "preventive medicine" before the flurry of birthday parties, new job and new school and new routine all hit next week...

I have devised a little scheme to keep posting even while I am away, and you will want to check back because tomorrow there will be a link to my new post at Vintage Indie!

Today, though if you have the chance, you should go check out the blog Pretty Good - she is the master of "words on pictures" and I am only wadding in the shallow end of the creative pool that she rules!

I will be back live and in person on Thursday!
Till then, ta ta!

w.i.p.

we are making progress on our room. every day a little more, and a little more...
it makes me happy every time I walk into the room and see all the happy changes...
I promise to post more pictures once it is done up a little bit more..

This coming week is going to be a busy one, so I might be scarce around these parts.
I am speaking at our church on Sunday, going away for a few days to retreat and renew with some of my family, then it is back to town to sort through the list of school supplies & uniforms, followed by Miles' 5th birthday party next weekend and then school starts a week from Monday! Also somewhere in there I have to write my first week of lesson plans and get my hair done, oh my!

And, yes the school I am going to work for is a "year round" school which means that they have a shorter summer, but many more breaks during the rest of the year. But as long as we are all on the same schedule that is just fine with me!

Oh, and I am teaching "home ec lite" to 6th graders - nutrition, cooking, etc. There won't be much sewing or that sort of thing, but I am planning to throw in some party planning activities, journal making and a few field trips to keep it interesting!

whats that shiny stripey dotted thing over there?

So I was working on this really deep and profound post about why tomorrow is my last day at the library (tears) and why I have a new job starting in 1.5 weeks at my kids new school (happy dance) and the book (despite my natural aversion to most self-help books) that helped me reach the hard decision to leave the library and seek work that was more my-family friendly...

yeah, I was working on that post, when something bright and stripey and polka-dotted caught my eye over at Apartment Therapy LA and suddenly I found myself dumping that post for this one ...



but can you blame me? Just look at this caravan!

I really think this belongs to me don't you?
You can find these and lots of other yummy photos over in the gallery of Not Chintz


Also, if I had that caravan this is the book I would be reading in it every summer.
This is my favorite "summer read" of the season so far and if you haven't read it you should! I think I finished it in record time.
Much thanks to Relyn for recommending it!!

(Oh, but if you do have some decisions to make - big or small - and you are finding it hard to prioritize and boil things down to what is really important, I really do suggest this book - it is simple but very life-changing at the same time!)

winners and such

Here is a little last minute 4th of July "mobile" I made on my grandmothers screened porch.

Just bits of newspaper stars, bakers twine and star punch-oust all glued & tied together


I loved watching it blow in the breeze. A simple decoration, one that doesn't make a huge impact on camera, but one that was fun to create and share nonetheless.
Sometimes just creating something is the fun part, regardless of how perfect or earth shattering it is (or isn't!)

Speaking of sharing - I used my favorite Number Generator's (Sweet Man, Wylie & Miles) to pick the winners of the Belated Birthday Giveaway and now I get to share them!

They are

Cathy of Cathymac's Holiday Hamlet
MommaX3 of Joy, Love and Whimsy
and
Shara of Monkeybox

Congrats gals!!

Shoot me an email @ jerusalemgreer (at) gmail (dot) com to tell me which prize you would like most!!

Thanks to everyone who left a comment and got the word out - it has been lots of fun and I really appreciate all the magazine love you sent my way!!

OK, I am off to recoup from my mini-vacation. My house and my brain feel like a bomb went off in them and I need to get re-orientated to "real life" again!