Have You Ever.........

Have you ever decided on a rooms color and style of decor based on the find of one simple, yet lovely object?

Well I have. After nearly three years of living in my house with an undecorated and very drab little room, I knew it was time to get off my lazy duff and give this space a little make over and make it a bit more "Me" if you know what I mean.

The inspiration for the makeover of this dingy little room came after a trip to Target, back in the day when the Rachel Ashwell Simply Shabby Chic line was still fairly new and when the line sometimes included home decor items and not just the bedding and bath items we see in the stores now days.

Upon entering the aisle which displayed the Simply Shabby Chic home decor items, my eyes instantly feel upon this fabulously gorgeous glass dome covering a bouquet of flowers inside a very pale, robins egg blue vase. Instantly I knew that this same color of blue would turn my drab little room into something more shabby and chic.

Along with that dome was found a beautiful wall clock..........

And a bulletin board.......

Those initial three pieces are what started the transformation of that dingy little room into what is now my home office. A place I love to spend time in and which is now a much more cheerful, pretty and inviting little room.

And just in case you're wondering, YES, my desk usually does look that cluttered most of the times.

Over time, I've added a few more Simply Shabby chic items including a small bookcase that fits perfectly under my window which is now covered in some pretty white curtains instead of those ugly browns one that were hanging on the window when I moved into my house.....

And another Simply Shabby Chic bouquet of roses in a gorgeous pale blue vase along with some of my favorite pink and pale blue antique store finds ....

No matter how gloomy the weather may be outside, here in my pretty little Shabby Chic office, it's always cheerful and pretty. Just the way I like it !!

Hope you are all having a fabulous Halloween weekend. Thanks for stopping by..

See you soon !!

Life Is Boring Sometimes....

Yep, that's right. We all know it. Life can be pretty boring at times and that has been the case for me for a few weeks now. Doesn't leave much to blog about, so I know I haven't been posting very much lately. I honestly don't know how some of you ladies manage to post nearly every day.

This weekend has been another boring one, so to help keep the boredom at bay, I spent an hour or so this afternoon creating another tag to add to my small, but growing collection.

I chose to use another lovely image of a lady for this tag. I don't remember where I found this image. Likely on someones blog, but who's I don't recall. If you recognize it and if it belongs to you or if you know who may have shared it on their blog in the past, please let me know as I would love to acknowledge the owner of this beautiful image and link this post back to that person's blog.

It's such a gray, gloomy and wet day here in Minnesota today which makes for very poor lighting and picture taking so these aren't the best pictures and they don't capture the true colors as nicely as I was hoping they would, but at least you'll get a general idea.

I finished off the bottom edge with some lace trim found at the Goodwill. Of course, no project would be complete without a button or two and some embellished trim.

I just love the little flowers on the embellished trim don't you? I purchased it some time ago, in just the green, but now I'm wanting to go back and buy more in some of my other favorite colors. It so easy to use. Just cut the trim which comes packaged just like ribbon to the size needed for your art project, add a bit of glue to the back side and add it to your project for a bit of dimenson.

I have a feeling that by the time fall and winter are over and spring arrives back in Minnesota, I am going to have quite a huge stash of finished tags in my possesion. They will be fun to give away as little gifts here and there just to let someone know that I'm thinking of them and wanted to add a little spot of sunshine to their day.

More Tag Making Fun....

Hey there girls...

What are you up to this weekend? Are you enjoying some beautiful weather where you live? It's been a beautiful fall weekend here in the Minneapolis are this weekend with loads of sunshine and mild temps. A perfect fall weekend. I'd be one very happy girl if it would stay just like this all winter. Big dreams I know, but I can still dream can't I?

As nice as it is outside, I've been spending most of my time indoors with part of that time working on creating a few more embellished tags. I'm really starting to enjoy my craftiness now that I've gotten started and I hope I can continue creating lots more tags and other things and that I won't find myself getting bored with it.

This weekend, I made two new tags, once again using some beautiful images of clip art that Rhea @ http://sweetnshabbyroses.blogspot.com/ shared on her blog in one of her Clip Art Monday posts.

The images are of two lovely ladies all dressed up in their finery and holding baskets of flowers. Taking my cue from the colors in the images, I found some coordinating scrapbook papers in my stash to use as the background and then added some additional embellishments including vintage ephemera, sheet music, small strings of beads and some flower embellishments.

To coordinate the tags, I used the same papers on both tags, but in a slightly different way. I first cut each piece of the paper using my blank tag as a template, then I cut each piece in half. For one tag, I used the floral patterned paper on the top half and the blue, polka dotted paper on the bottom half. I did the opposite for the other tag.

The tags shown individually..

See how well the floral pattern and colors of the scrapbook paper goes with the images I chose to use? And you can also see a closer view of the beaded trim I used as well...

I promise I won't bore you by showing you every single tag I create. Maybe just one or two here and there. I just happen to be quite proud of how my first few tags have turned out that I needed to show them off and share them here with you.

Thanks to all of you for you kind comments on my first attempts at crafting tags and for your encouragement along the way. It means a great deal to me and I just wanted you to know that.

Wanna See Another Tag ?????

Yep, that's right... I've gone and done it again and made myself another pretty tag.

After having cleared off some of my crafting table last weekend, I was actually able to sit at the table today and let my creative juices flow.

My tag today was created using a lovely image that the kind and generous Rhea @ http://sweetnshabbyroses.blogspot.com/ had shared on her blog some time ago which I had copied and saved in a folder on my computer for use someday in the future.

Once I had chosen the image I was going to use, I looked through my collection of scrapbook and matstack papers and found a piece of coordinating matstack paper from "The Whimsy" collection of papers made by DCNV. These are awesome collections of heavy papers that can be purchased in either the full 12x12 scrapbook size pads or in my case, the smaller matstack size pads that are 4.5 x 6.5 inches in size. The smaller pads I am realizing are just the perfect size for creating tags as less paper is wasted and you end up with less scraps of paper.

A new cutting mat (purchased at Office Depot of all places as I could not find one like I wanted at either Michael's or JoAnne's), some glitter and glue, buttons, flowers and ribbon too ....

And "Voila", the finished tag.....

Just like my first tag, I finished off the bottom edge with some crepe paper and lace trim.

Isn't the matstack paper pretty? I love the colors of blue and green together and they compliment the vintage image so nicely as does the ribbon I used.

Don't look too closely at my uneven lines of glitter. Who knew that trying to add glue in a straight line around the edges of the image would be so difficult, especially when your house starts shaking and vibrating horribly because of the asphalt crews just outside my house who from the sounds and feel of it, must be using a jackhammer to break up the old driveway in the townhouse behind me (see yesterday's post on that project).

Back side of the tag using the small leftover piece of sheet music that I used on my first tag ....

And there my friends is my second completed tag. I'm already getting started on my third tag. I've chosen the image and papers I am going to use for that one, but I am still trying to decide on how I want all of the elements laid out on the tag. I promise I'll share it with you as soon as it's completed.

I would also like to thank Rhea for sharing her wonderful vintage clip art images with us here in blogland. I'll be using more of her images in my other tags, including the next one you'll see.

Not So Pretty.....

Hey there girls.... Happy Thursday!!

I know you probably stopped by today hoping to see something pretty as that is usually what I try and share with you as I know that's what most of us here in blogland like to see, but I'm gonna shake things up a bit today and share a bit of "UGLY" with you instead.

I mentioned in one of my posts last week that I live in a townhouse development and I share a common driveway area with three other homeowners and at the time I mentioned that, I didn't show pictures of the driveway area as it's not a very pretty sight. Well, today, that sight is even worse.

The town home association is having new driveways installed for all of the homeowners as some of the driveways were in extremely bad shape (mine was not so bad..). When I left home this morning to go to work, I had a normal, fairly decent driveway. It was another story when I returned home from work.

This is what my driveway looks like now as you look at the different views from my front steps....

See those cars parked in the street???

That is the new temporary parking spot for all of the homeowners for the next 10 days until we can start parking in our garages again. What a joke that is going to be. Living on a cul-de-sac shaped like a circle and having all the cars parked out there is creating quite the mess and confusion. Thank goodness we have no snow in the forecast as that would create an even bigger mess and an even bigger parking problem.

This section below is what they refer to as the "turnaround" and gives just a bit of extra parking space for visitors... A direct view and just a few short feet from my front steps.

The picture below shows the view looking straight across my driveway and out the big picture window in my living room. Not much to see except for an exact replica of my townhouse. It's definitely not the best of sights but I've gotten used to it. Can you understand better now why I'm not so thrilled with the view?

A close up shot of what it looks like in front of my garage door. It's a bit hard to tell from the photo, but there is now about a six inch drop from the lip of the garage floor to the unpaved driveway which of course means no parking in the garage..

It's pretty UGLY ain't it? And this is just day one of our driveway makeover. Tomorrow they will be back here to level and grade the driveways and then on Monday they will return to put the new blacktop down. Even after they get the new blacktop down, we are restricted from driving on the new driveways and parking in our garages for a full seven days which means I am without a garage for the next ten days.

What a bummer that is going to be. I am so spoiled having a garage to park in at home and covered parking in our office building at work that I haven't had to scrape frost or snow off my car in close to eight years. I think I'll be safe from the snow, but with it being mid October here in Minnesota, frost in the mornings is a definite possibility. Better go hunt down my window scraper in case I need it.

I promise next time you come visit, I'll have something more interesting and definitely a lot prettier to share with you..

Until then, take care and enjoy the rest of your week.

Lazy Weekends....

The weekend is coming to an end my friends and what a lazy weekend it was for me.

I am currently a girl with no fun money to spend as all my money must be used in other ways over the next few weeks with a car insurance payment due, license tabs fee to be paid, money to be set aside for new tires for my car, and the list goes on...

So, instead of visiting my favorite antique shops like I would have loved to, I spent most of the weekend just hanging out at home, doing some of my other favorite things, like using my pretty china to enjoy a nice pot of hot tea...

Glancing through some of my favorite decorating books.....

Which of course might not have been one of the best things to do as it is looking through these books and some of my favorite magazines that makes me want to hit the antique stores and see if I can find items similar to those I am drawn to as I glance through the pages of these books.

And I've been organizing and tiding up my craft table to make it so I can actually use it instead of having to sit on the floor to do my creating. Still a work in progress.

After I tested the waters last weekend and made my first ever embellished tag, I'm anxious to make some more and try a few other things as well, but my craft table had so much stuff covering it, that it was really unusable and was prohibiting me from being able to comfortably sit and do some creating, so I'm hoping now that I've cleaned it up a bit and made some room on it to actually work, that I'll be able to do what I'm wanting to.

Now though, it's time to close the weekend by making myself a bowl of popcorn and settle in to watch Desperate Housewives, one of my favorite shows on TV.

How did you spend your weekend?

A Beautiful Day!!

Hey there Girls...

How is your week going?

We here in Minneapolis are enjoying a week of some pretty fabulous fall weather with sunny , clear blue skies and warm temps in the low 70's. Well, enjoying it as much as I can anyway. I'd prefer it to be about 10 degrees warmer, but realizing what time of the year it is, I'll definitely take what we're getting as I know that in just a matter of weeks, it could all change and I could be seeing snow outside my front door.

Today though, the view is quite lovely, so I grabbed my camera and snapped just a few pictures as I was outside on my driveway grilling up some pork chops for dinner...

These shots are of part of my front/side yard where all the grass and trees are... Oh my... look at that naked tree that's lost all it's leaves already.

And this shot shows the view more to the right of the one of above..

I've mentioned here on my blog before that I live in a townhouse/quad home and I share a rather large common driveway with 3 of my neighbors and that blacktop driveway takes up a big chunk of what most people would consider to be their "front yard" and as that view ain't so pretty, I'm only showing the view of the nicer part of my yard instead.

I am extremely lucky in that my house is situated on a Cul-d-Sac and that my unit is the farthest one in, so I have the fortune of having an extremely large yard that runs right up to a wooded area, where quite frequently during the late fall months and winter, I will see several deer wandering out and about in the yard as I happen to glance out the window. I can never seem to find my camera though when I see them so I always miss capturing them on photo. One of these days I'll get some though.

I'm extremely lucky too that I won't be the one having to rake all those leaves up when they fall from the trees. Part of my association fees includes landscaping services, so all the lawn mowing and leaf removal is done for me. Thank goodness for that!!

Well, time to get a few more things done before I settle in for the night, so I must say goodbye for now.

Enjoy the rest of your week and I'll be back soon...

I Did It.... I Did It !!

It's finally happened girls...

I finally got the courage up to dive into all my crafting goodies and put them to use by creating my first ever embellished tag..

Starting with a large, plain white tag that came in a multi-pack of 10 that I purchased at the craft store..

I then dug into my piles of pretty heavy card stock papers that I've been hoarding forever and some of the paper ephemera (sheet music) that I purchased at Junk Bonanza a few weeks ago...

Some scissors, a glass cutting board, a sharp crafting blade, glue, crepe paper, ribbons, laces, trims , a rubber stamp, ink pad and buttons..

And then VOILA!! Here is my first ever embellished gift tag that I've created....

The backside is far from being perfect, but I have to say, it's not too bad for my first attempt.

And a close up of the detailed embellishments. Notice the lace trim which already had tiny little pearl beads sewn onto the trim. A perfect extra little touch I must say.

It was fun coordinating my papers, trims, buttons and even the crepe paper so I could create a tag using one color as the primary color, in this case, purple and then adding just a bit of cream and greens as well to bring out those colors from the scrapbook paper.

Now that I've taken that first small step into creating some cute artsy things, I can't wait to try some more. I was just so excited today that I had to take pictures almost as soon as I finished my tag and before the glue even fully dried to show off my little piece of art.

I'd love to hear what you think of my first ever tag.

Now it's time to clean up the mess I've made and start getting dinner ready as all this craftiness sure has made me hungry :)

Seriously Lacking....

Ok... We all know that I love my pretty pastels and often refer to myself as being the "Pastel Queen", and it's because of that, I feel a bit out of place at this time of year when all of the fun and cute Halloween decor starts popping up all over blogland.

I even took a look at things around my house and couldn't find much of anything that even remotely comes close to be Halloween related. In fact, I could hardly find anything in the color black except for a few things, that are in no way related to the holiday, but could be a bit scary for a pastel loving girl like me.

The one BIG black thing I do see on a daily basis and without it could not enjoy my time in blogland is my big black "monster" of a computer. This thing can be a bit "scary" at times when it starts making wierd noises and doing wierd things.

I so wish that this "scary" looking monstrosity could magically turn white overnight, or better yet, maybe even a pretty pale pink. Now wouldn't that make it look so much better? It sure would in my eyes.

And then, there is it's companion, the black office chair that I spend way too much time in some days. It's a comfy chair though which is a good thing considering I spend eight hours or more in it some days on the days I work from home. It just needs a bit of a makeover.

Goodness, I just realized looking at the photo that it sure is an old one. Notice that in this picture, I still had my old computer with the big old clunky monitor. Yikes... How many of you save your old blog photos like I do?

Do any of you crafty girls out there sew slipcovers that would fit an office chair like this one? I sure would like something pretty that I could cover it up with and still keep it functional.

And then of course, there's that other black "monster" that resides upstairs in my living room and just so happens to be my second favorite electronic device.....

Oh look..... After a bit of hunting, I found a picture of something black that I actually consider to be pretty if you can believe it. It's my black and floral teacup. Ladies, do you know that this is the very first teacup that I ever purchased in my life? This is not scary at all.

Yep, that's right. The very first. I think I was probably only about 20 years old or so when I bought this and it was just the beginning of my life long obsession with pretty china and all things related to tea.

Well, I know this post included a bit of mindless rambling, but that's how my brain seems to be functioning lately. Scatterbrained is a word that comes to mind.

Anyways, I hope you've all been having a great week and that you have lots of fun plans for the weekend. I myself have none at the moment, besides doing some more blog hopping and checking out all of the real Halloween decor there is to see out there. Might even have to hit the stores this weekend to see if I can scrounge up a bit of real Halloween themed decor.