Friday's Letters

Today I'm combining a Friday's Letters post with another because well, I just wanna- so there! ;)

Dear Blog, I have been so uninspired lately that I have been ignoring you. No matter what I do I can't seem to get inspired and I hate to just post stuff just to post it, so that I have something posted for that day. Seems so beside the point of having a blog, having to torture myself to do posts or come up with material just to fill space on a daily basis. SO, I am slowly regenerating myself and will eventually return to you full force...

Dear Cameron, you are almost 9 months old and I just can't believe how fast you've grown, how much you change and grow every day right before my eyes and how much I enjoy watching you do it all. You're hilarious and it's freaky how much like me and your dad you are. Genes and the proliferation of them are such a weird thing!

Dear Boo Kitty, I loved you like a child before I had Cameron and I still love you but if you pee or poop in the living room one more time I'm really going to lose it!

Dear shoe and bag closet, Ha! I conquered you! Hopefully that will inspire me to keep going and organize the other closets in the house, eventually moving on to getting other more major projects done. For now I will flaunt you as my one victory so far during this lazy summer of mine....

And now... here's my post on the shoe/bag closet organization...

So I've been in a full funk for the last few weeks. Not sure what it is, probably just the mid-summer blues but whatever it is I just can't seem to get it in gear. In an attempt to get myself kick started again I decided to take on some organizational projects that I've been putting off since we moved in almost a year ago.

First up was getting all of my shoes and bags out of the Shoes Under bags that they've been stored in for the last few years and organizing them in one of the guest bedroom closets. The closet we have in our master bedroom is kind of small compared to the size of the room. Luckily, we have two extra bedrooms with big empty closets!

A side note about Shoes Under- they SUCK! I bought them when we lived in an apartment thinking they were perfect since they'd just easily slide in and out from under the bed. Well, like I said they suck. The compartments aren't sewn to the bottom of the bag so everything pretty much just ends up bunched together at the bottom of the bag. And the bottom and sides of the bag have no structure at all, it's all fabric so the bag is floppy so when you push or pull the handle the bag just collapses and doesn't move. I'm such a sucker for those darn As Seen On TV products! Hope that Yonanas machine I just ordered is as cool as it seemed on the commercial.

Ha! Just kidding... how completely ridiculous is that thing!

Here's my finished high heel and bag closet. My flats, flip flops, sneakers and boots are in my Master bedroom closet. I used skirt/pant hangers to hang the bags. I saw on Pinterest that someone else used S hooks which is a brilliant idea but I have no idea where to get some. I've looked around as I've been out and about and haven't seen anything even close to an S hook. Besides, I like to use what I have if possible and I had a stack of skirt hangers just hanging around looking for a job!

Weekend Update: Life's a party!

I'm linking up with Sami's Shenanigans for the Weekend Update!




There's been a lot of celebrating going on around here lately. Two weeks ago we celebrated my birthday, Saturday was Cameron's 8 Month birthday and yesterday was Father's Day!

For his 7 month birthday I let Cam pick out his cake. This month I decided to make a sort of mini cake out of cupcakes fashioned into the number 8.

Saturday we headed out to Put-in-Bay, one of three small islands located just off the shore from Sandusky, Ohio on Lake Erie. It's such a perfect day trip for those in the Cleveland area. "Day" trip is key here because at night the place (I hear) turns into the mid-west version of the Jersey Shore!

We got on the ferry at Port Clinton and took the 15 minute ride over to the island at 10 am. It was Cam's first ferry ride!

Downtown is lined with lots of touristy shops and bars/restaurants.We had lunch at the Boat House and then stopped at a shop where we picked up the cutest little Captains hat for Cameron.

 We stopped by Perry's Cave and bought a bag of dirt that we then took over to the miners sluice to pan for semi-precious stones. It was a lot of fun even though it was obvious that the semi-precious stones were just pre-mixed into a bunch of gravelly dirt. That didn't seem to ruin the fun for anyone though, there were a lot of very excited kids sluicing away. Soooo cute to see how excited they'd get when the gems and crystals would appear from the dirt, such a great activity for kids!

 

Here's the loot we panned out for Cameron.

Rose quartz, crystal, amethyst, peridot, sodalite, garnet, pyrite, obsidian are just some of the gems in our booty. The finders card also had ruby, sapphire and emerald on there but alas I don't think we have any of those in our little cache.

For Father's Day Cameron got Dada his much longed for bird feeder. (I think Cam's going to say Dada before he says Mama. He says Da, da, da, da all day long. Sigh. Oh well, hopefully Mama will be his 2nd word?) The previous owners of our house had a bird feeder right in the same spot in the back yard. I was glad when we moved in to see that they had taken it with them, Dave however was disappointed.

Since then he's been talking about getting one only to have me shoot down the idea. I've just never been a big bird person and thought that the feeder's location in the middle of the yard was too random. I also thought that kids, when running around back there, would accidentally plow into it. I finally changed my mind when I realized that we don't exactly have six kids running around back there all the time. Heck, we don't even have one that crawls yet! And because it really isn't that much in the way, there's still plenty of room for little ones to run wild.

And finally, here's a pic from my birthday featuring me in the Birthday Hat sitting on my gift- the Indonesian  Bench that I've been wanting from Cost Plus World Market! Love it so much and the pillows I purchased from Festive Home Decor on Etsy are so perfect on it. Now we're searching for complimenting chairs and a coffee table.

Current Crush

Today I'm linking up with Framed Frosting for my Current Crush, a post where I showcase what I'm currently "crushing" on.

Right now I'm so into... BURLAP!  It's really inexpensive material that can be used in so many different ways plus it fits into that whole industrial/rustic look that I love and is really popular right now!

Here's my DIY version of the burlap pillow which I silkscreened and sewed myself. Read the post for that here.

Mom hair?

So I got my hair hacked off yesterday. I didn't plan on getting it this short- just thought I was cutting it to my usual point right above my shoulders but for some reason when I sat down in the chair I told her to cut it to my chin! I haven't had my hair this short in many, many years.

It's gonna take a little getting used to! I woke up this morning and was like "Whoa!".  I have ALOT of hair and it's very THICK so I looked like Carrot Top. I have to use a lot of product to keep this sucker slicked down! Anyhoo... my friend Paige says I look like I'm 12 years old which is a compliment at my age but I was thinking that I totally look old, that I just gave myself the "mom 'do". Ugh.

Homegirl

Such a super cute logo/sign and love the big colorful SALE sign

We have a bit of a local celebrity in our little town. Her name is Gina Bishop and she's known for re-purposing salvaged items into decorative pieces. She first garnered attention through her blog Homegirl, as well as her extremely popular barn sales where she sells her re-purposed and salvaged items. It has been her appearances on the Nate Berkus Show though that have really skyrocketed her into local celebrity and decorator guru status. In October she appeared on the show with her sister where she competed in a room makeover challenge. Since the show she  has also made a series of how-to videos for MSN and appeared with HGTV star Eric Stromer as the winner in GMC's Let's Trade Secrets Challenge.

I first learned about Gina through our local town newspaper where she was featured in an article. After Googling her I learned about an upcoming barn sale and then realized that she lived right around the corner from me! Last weekend she had another one of her famous sales. This one had to be the biggest and busiest one yet. The very first night the line of shoppers spilled down a good portion of her driveway. We went to check it out on Saturday after the fervor had subsided and were pleased to find that there were a lot of great things left. 

I really love her style which is similar to mine but just a touch more country. Like Gina, I love to find old, run down, out of date items and repaint or re-purpose them for my house. Most of the time when I see something at one of her barn sales I usually think "I can make that!" There's just something about having a piece of furniture or a decorative item that not everyone else has, a piece that you found in an out of the way random thrift shop or industrial yard. And of course there's the satisfaction of having given it a new look and new found life.  It's such a compliment when someone asks where you purchased a piece or when they say that it looks just like something they saw at one of the major home stores.

Anyways, back to Gina.... all I have left to say is You Go Homegirl! Love your style, love to shop your barn sales and I LOVE that you live in the same little town that I do.