Autumn at Terrain

I stopped by Terrain at Styer's yesterday. For those of you not familiar with Terrain, it's part of the Anthropologie brand. It's the first store of its kind by the style maven, and it's right here in Chester County Pennsylvania! I feel pretty lucky to have it so close by. For all you Anthro fanatics who live across the country (or across the world) here's a peak into what the shop is looking like now that Autumn is here.

Terrain is made up of a collection of buildings converted from rugged old barns. Or are they greenhouses? Yes, I was definitely in at least one greenhouse. I think. As I'm writing this, I'm realizing, although I've been there numerous times, I don't really know for sure if the greenhouses are actual greenhouse or just more barns with big windows. The place is sort of overwhelming because there is so much to look at and everything is so lovely. Be they barns or greenhouse, they each house a varied collection of plants, garden supplies, housewares, books - even a skin care line. The spaces are bright and airy, and I find myself relaxed and invigorated (with all the ideas I'm inspired by) at the same time.

The first thing that struck me was this grid of metal troughs (funnels? cake decorating tips?). Can't you just imagine flowers cascading over the edge of each one? It would create a spectacular wall of color.  Even without flowers it still looks super cool - creating a modern, edgy effect.

They have a lot of plants and shrubs on sale right now in prep for the changing season (always looking ahead to the next great thing.). I really love this Variegated False Holly. I'm not exactly sure why it's called "False" but assume it has something to do with the fact it's not technically a holly. Whatever the reason, it's lovely to look at. Very striking.

Then I wandered over to the sale corner in one of the green houses where I found this adorable little rabbit planter.

They also had a selection of dried wreaths for sale which made me regret throwing out all those lovely dried cones from my Echinacea a couple weeks ago. Next year I think I'll try to make a wreath with them (along with some other dried flowers and herbs).

I'm a big fan of succulents, so I was really drawn to this planter made out of, what looks like,  concrete with aggregate mixed in.

Eventually, I ended up in the main building that houses all the books, furniture, and decor-related items as well as the skin care line and, if you wander far enough, the cafe. There I found these adorable little velvet pumpkins. The stems are real, but the pumpkins are made out of soft velvet in a host or gorgeous fall colors. They felt like they were stuffed with buckwheat or something similar. Charming, don't you think?

One of my favorite sections of the main building, is this wall of succulents. I could have bought one of each. It's probably one of the largest succulent selections I've seen.

There was an entire section devoted to canning complete with Weck canning jars and several books to guide you on your quest to preserve all that garden bounty.

I also found these colorful strainers that I thought would really come in handy in the kitchen. They come in a pack of three - each color a different size. Perfect for straining loose tea.

I loved these colorful fall napkins - perfect for Thanksgiving.

And or course, I'm also mesmerized by Terrain's unique selection of natural wreaths. Aren't they gorgeous?

If you have a chance, stop by Terrain at Styer's. It's a lovely place to spend an hour or two...in any season!

At Home: Simple Things

So often, I find the things that make me the happiest are often the simplest. Like this little corner of my kitchen that houses a collection of tea bag holders and mini salt and pepper shakers from my grandmother, a framed print from a friend, and an Ikea silverware holder repurposed as a planter (with rabbit, of course!).

It's Party Time

Two weeks ago, while chatting over lunch at a local cafe, my friend Suzi and I decided to throw a party. We thought the following weekend would be a good time, so we quickly set up a Facebook invite and got to work inviting our local friends. Unfortunately, we forgot our selected weekend also happened to be Father's Day weekend. As the week progressed and more and more people told us they couldn't make it, we started to have second thoughts. In the end, we figured it would be fun to plan regardless of the number of attendees so we just jumped right in and went for it. We settled on a Pizza and Prosecco party theme. I got the idea from this article that I read in Bon Appetite magazine about a year ago and have wanted to try ever since.  We didn't make any of the appetizers or the fancy toppings but we did have a nice selection of fresh veggies, herbs and pepperoni. The pizzas were delicious and it was lots of fun decorating Suzi's front porch.

This is what the front porch looked like before we got our hands on it:

And here's what it looked like after:

We found these adorable REKO glasses at Ikea. At $1.49/6 pack, you can't beat the price. It's cheaper than plastic! We loved that they can be reused over and over again.

Suzi made this delicious punch. I love the floating berries.

We decided to try to keep the decorating budget under $20, so all the flowers are from my garden. The votives below are covered with hostas (also from my garden) using this tutorial from Martha Stewart's website.

The "vases" below are actually tin cans spray painted white.

In the end, since there only ended up being four of us at the party, we viewed it as a sort of "dry run." It turned out great and was a lovely evening hanging out on the front porch with friends.

At Home: The Etsy prints are finally up!

You may remember the master bedroom used to look like this:

And then it looked like this:

And then this:

Well now it looks like this:

Yes, I finally decided what to hang above our bed.

I bought these adorable prints from a shop on Etsy called Bee Things. It's run by a husband and wife team and is filled with the hippest collection of animal and bird prints reminiscent of Charley Harper. I first fell in love with the terns, but then I saw the cute little owl hovering over the snowy barn. And then I saw shipping was free on the second item, and that sealed the deal.

When my two prints finally arrived, I pulled them out of their paper mailer and admired them for a while and then carefully slipped them back into their safe little cardboard home. I repeated this process every so often for quite a while until finally deciding it was time to order some frames. After carefully weighing my options (you must know by now, I'm a VERY slow decorator.), I decided I wanted a silver metal frame with no mat. I always choose to mat artwork, so this was a major departure for me. But I really liked the way they looked in just a frame in the sample photos on the Etsy site and decided there was enough negative space around them to go the sans mat route. So I sent away for a selection of silver frame samples from Graphik Dimensions, my favorite frame supply shop. Then I took some more time deciding on which silver frame looked the best. I finally selected a simple, slightly frosted version. I think they "terned" out great. Wow. Did I just type that?

What the heck is ixxi?

I discovered ixxi this weekend. And let me tell you, I'm hooked. "What's ixxi?" you ask. Only the coolest photo mosaic collage thing-a-ma-jig ever! Okay, maybe I should let them tell you. According to their website:

ixxi is a modular connecting system. With x's and i's you can make your own photo enlargement or photo collage in any format possible.

How cool is that? I'll tell you. It's very cool!

And if mosaics aren't really your thing, no problem. You can make a collage out of lots of small photos if you rather. Like this one:

Or one big photo. Like this one:

The possibilities are really endless. So pop on over to their website and check 'em out. You can find all the photo collaging goodness here.

At Home: It's curtains for you!

I was planning on making curtains for our bedroom but ended up at Ikea again. Sound familiar? Perhaps you're reminded of the duvet cover that I was going to make but ended up buying at Ikea. It seems like Ikea is zapping my sewing creativity. In reality, it's probably helping me to actually complete this bedroom. Knowing my tendency towards perfection which leads to procrastination, I don't think I'd ever get this room done if it WEREN'T for Ikea.

I ended up choosing the RITVA curtain panels in a lovely charcoal grey. I only bought one pair because I'm cheap I wanted to hang them on the outer side of each window so they would flank the bed. At first I hung them on the two separate curtain rods, but they looked ridiculous (sorry I forgot to take pictures.), so I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to go back and buy a second set. But then I found a bunch of curtain rods in the attic - score! I was able to take two rods and push them together to create one really long curtain rod. It made all the difference because it framed the entire wall and made the windows look like part of a larger picture, if you will.

I hung those little decorative cones (also from Ikea) to add some visual interest and to cover the connection point of the two curtain rods (clever, huh?). I'm not completely sold on them, but for now I like them well enough. I'm wondering if it would help if I put some flowers or herbs in them. What do you all think?

Next up, I need to figure out the artwork above the bed (notice I removed the Matisse print?). More on that soon.

At Home: the couch!

Well, as you may have guessed, the couch arrived months ago. I know it was pretty annoying of me to build up all that excitement around it and then not show you pictures right after it arrived. Well, I hope you agree it was worth the wait. Before I reveal her in all her glory, here's one more reminder of what the old couch looked like...

Hey, where'd you go? Oh there you are - hiding behind your computer chair. I know. I know. She was a monster. At the time, this over-sized sectional seemed like a good idea. We ordered it from a local furniture store about five years ago. Each piece was sold separately, so we were able to choose whatever configuration we wanted as well as fabric color. You may have noticed she's got TWO chaises. This is because my hubby, in all his kindness, was convinced we needed two in order to guarantee that all our guests were comfy when they came over. The one part of that equation he forgot to consider is that we don't have people over that often, so most of the couch never got used. Gotta love the guy for his thoughtfulness though. About a year ago, we started to realized how overwhelming this piece of furniture was becoming and decided it was time for a change. I mentioned in this post that we sold the sectional to a lovely couple, which made me so happy to know it went to a good home. After all, it was the most comfortable couch in the world and had served us well, even if it had been too big for the space.

Now it was time to start the hunt for a replacement...enter this beauty...

Isn't she fabulous in all her mid-century beauty? We couldn't be happier about our choice. What do you think? I'd love to hear your comments.

At Home: master bedroom update

One of the biggest hurdles I face when it comes to my work is a constant, sometimes crippling, quest for perfectionism. "I'll post pictures of my bedroom when it's finished and perfect." "Before I upload this new item, maybe I should change the name of my Etsy shop to something better." And the list goes on. I can't tell you how many times I've wasted months of my creative energy stuck in "perfect."

The other day it occurred to me, one of my favorite blogs, Young House Love, never waits to post updates of their home. In fact, that's what makes their blog so great. They take us along for the journey. And isn't the journey the whole point? So I'm going to start embracing the journey and try not to get caught up in making everything perfect before I share it with you.

To begin with, I'm going to share some photos of our bedroom. If you recall, it used to look like this:

Ouch! Some serious adjustments need to be made here! I had already painted the bedroom the purply grey (Behr Manhattan Mist) a while back. Well, mostly painted...check out the area above each window - stellar! It's actually hard to see from the photos, but trust me, it was left unpainted for about four and a half years and it looked terrible. I didn't want to spend more money on paint, so I decided to keep the bedroom the same color and just give it a second coat (or a first coat if we're talking about the area above the windows). It's amazing how a fresh, clean coat of paint can make a world of difference. I then repainted the window trim and baseboards with a fresh coat of white. Things were finally starting to look good around here!

Once I finished the painting, I needed to re-address the duvet cover dilemma. For months, I had been looking online and at Joann's for fabric to make a cover myself, but I just couldn't find anything I liked. And the fabric I did like wasn't even close to within my budget. I also started to realize I was making things harder then they needed to be, as usual. When was I really going to make the time to sew this duvet cover? I mean my sewing table is practically buried by fabric and clothing that needs repair. So I finally relented and bought a lovely cover from Ikea for about $50 (including two pillow shams).

With the duvet cover dilemma resolved, I turned my sights to curtains. Yes Mom, I said curtains. Yes, those things you've been trying to get me to hang throughout my house since the day we moved in. Needless-to-say, I'm not a huge fan of curtains, but I decided our bedroom could use some softening (something curtains would do nicely). The previous home owners had kindly left all the curtain rods with the house, because they assumed I was a normal person and hung curtains. Instead, I took most of them down and stored them in the attic. But I left the rods in the master bedroom because I liked them and had plans to use them one day.

However, there was one thing about those curtain rods I didn't like: their placement. From the year I spent working in the Decor department at Home Depot, I knew they needed to be hung several inches beyond the window trim, but these were hung directly on the trim and they looked terrible. It's been annoying me since day one. So I started measuring and drilling. I should mention that at this point in the story I've already told you I painted the trim around the windows, and I want to assure you I'm not a total idiot. I didn't paint AROUND the curtain rods. I took the rods down, spackled and painted. So in actuality, the rods are not hanging on the trim at this point in the story, but I wasn't talking about curtain rods and curtains three paragraphs back, so it didn't make sense to bring it up then. :)

Once I finished hanging the curtain rod brackets, I grabbed one of the old curtain rods and placed it over the window. At which point I realized it wasn't long enough to bridge the gap between both brackets! Crap! And I was doing so well, too! I should qualify the statement above. Technically, they ARE long enough, but as you'll see in the photo below, they dip down in the center because they're about a half an inch shy of completely separating. Trying to hang curtains on them would most certainly result in catastrophic failure. Not to be deterred, I decided to use the old finials (decorative ends of the curtain rod) but to replace the rod itself with a longer wooden dowel.

Now you may be asking yourself, "Why doesn't she just move the brackets?" Well, I thought about that, but the thing is, even if the rods had fit width-wise, they still needed to be replaced with a solid rod (or dowel) because the rod itself was made out of two metal tubes, one smaller than the other. The connection where one half of the rod slips into the other larger half of the rod will show, and we can't have that! So I went to Lowe's (the horror! Remember I said I used to work at Home Depot?) and bought a couple dowels. When I got home I realized they were also too short. I have now done what I should have done from day one - MEASURED! Pesky math! Unfortunately, I haven't taken the time to buy longer dowels yet. For now, the old ones are just hanging there (by a thread) until I can replace them with my dowel version, so this is where we stand. I promise to update you all when I make more progress, but for now this is what the bedroom looks like:

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Product Details:
• duvet cover: Ikea
• framed print over bed: Henri Matisse. You can find it here.