affordable alternative to art - decorative paper!

for years i've been too cheap or ambitious to buy 'investment art' -- i'd roll into the craft store, buy a huge canvas and pretend that one day i'd paint a masterpiece or get an overwhelming dose of creativity ala David Bromstad from "Color Splash."  hasn't happened recently.


a great alternative for jazzing up your walls or just filling in space where you need a dose of color, decorative papers are cheap, easy to frame (just cut to fit), and beautiful.  plus, you can switch out the paper each season or whenever you get tired of it!  framing decorative paper also gives you a million options for tying colors and/or textures together in a room.


for example, i needed something symmetrical for our bedroom.  enter "Paris" wrapping paper from Papyrus in Old Town.  $5 for the entire sheet, and it filled two large frames and two small with different parts of the same map.  aluminum framing from IKEA.  i've seen similar paper maps for london and new york...


Papyrus and Paper Source are my favorite stores for spotting fun, graphic papers to use for framing.  however, i'm loving vintage wallpaper too.  check out these examples, available now:

Yuzen Pool Gold Waves Fine Paper

25 1/2" x 19" @ Paper Source for $8 per sheet

 

Gold on Purple Mums Fine Paper

20" x 29" @ Paper Source for $4.95

I used the cream and gold version for a backing of our framed wedding invitation, which did not fit in a 5x7 or 8x10 frame.  This would also look gorgeous by itself or in a cluster of other images!

Lokta Gold Crossed Lines on Red Fine Paper

20" x 30" @ Paper Source for $4.95

a fun, modern print with a little glam!

Don't feel like wallpapering a room and need large pops of color?  Consider only pasting up a small piece and outfit it with inexpensive molding painted in your trim color!

love this!

beat the heat: lemon & mint popsicles!

it's too hot in DC not to have some popsicles in the freezer.  try this easy recipe for a refreshing treat! 


purchase an all-natural, slightly sweetened lemonade.  (you can also make your own by squeezing about 10-12 lemons and adding half a cup of simple syrup.  I find the purchased all-natural varieties turn out better.) pour about four cups into your blender.  Add 1-2 cups of chopped fresh mint (at your discretion), 2-3 cups of ice (or as needed), and blend!  pour into popsicle molds and freeze.  (or you can drink the blended concoction, which is also super tasty and refreshing.)


for a pop of color, you can add sliced strawberries to the molds before they go into the freezer. yum!

napa part deux - inspiring photos

here are a few photos from our trip to the santa cruz and napa areas over the 4th of July weekend.  will framing these be my next diy project?


this is my favorite photo from the whole trip. it captures the afternoon light amazingly well. we probably trespassed to get the picture, but it was so magical, we couldn't resist!


another one of my faves.  you'd never know it was 2011...it feels so vintagey with the fog shrouding the Santa Cruz pier and amusement park.  it was actually bright and sunny behind us.


i love these jumbo orange starfish under the Santa Cruz pier.  they seem to be enjoying themselves...


a bunch of fishing (or maybe lifeguarding?) boats lined up on the pier. how could i say 'no' to those colors?


i saw a photo similar to this one on Pinterest and set out on my photo safari.  fortunately, the cable cars were still there glowing in their candy-coated brilliance!



palm tree + roller coaster = awesome.



mama sea lion + baby sea lions = awesomer.  (love the dark teal color of the water...i need to look into a Benjamin Moore match for that one!)



i left my heart (behind that cute secret door) in San Francisco.

how to coax some napa into your garden

so even four days after a long return from the Bay area to Washington, my mind is still drifting in a hammock under the Napa sun in a fabulously outfitted garden.  if you're like me (an East coaster living on West coast time and dreaming of a Bay area climate), then rest assured you too can create your own idyllic garden with just a few cheap plants and materials.


1. for cryin' out loud, get yourself some bougainvillea.  this stuff grows amazingly fast, needs little water, and looks spectacular in small gardens and especially climbing walls and trellises.  I've never actually seen it in the Mid-Atlantic region, but I hear you can use it in planters and bring it inside in the winter.  eye candy.





2. lavender.  this herby, delicious plant does grow in DC and likes sunny spots.  it grows best in clusters, so multiples planted along a garden wall or fence will be intensely gorgeous and aromatic.  it smells even better when you have a glass of Napa-grown JC Cellars shiraz in your hand.





3. citrus. for valentine's day, Andy gave me a lime tree instead of roses.  we kept it inside until late may, and we got one glorious lime to sprout, which is still holding on for dear life. we're not really sure when it will ripen (if ever), but the plants flowers have a wonderfully happy scent and now provide fragrance to our garden, which competes with some climbing petunias.  in napa, we saw citrus trees just about everywhere. are you craving a 'lemon and mint' julep yet?





4. cafe chairs.  see my post from last time.  i found these glorious Pointoux cafe chairs at Bouchon in Yountville.

5. it wouldn't be napa without vegetable and herb gardens.  The French Laundry in Yountville, a famous  and pricey restaurant with a three-month waiting list, is a perfect example.  they even 'grow' their own chickens (complete with feathery feet) in a luxury coop.  you can get the same effect with potted varieties of basil, parsley, and rosemary.

(that's the luxurious coop on the left.)

bistro chairs inspired by Le Tour de France

four years ago, my husband (then brand-new boyfriend) asked me to watch Le Tour de France with him and his roommates.  i was never into cycling before that (other than my ill-fated mountain biking adventures in high school), so i was reluctant to plop down on the couch for three whole weekends to watch the race.  but within minutes of the first stage of Le Tour 2008, i was hooked.  the sport is so strategic and intriguing.  although each cyclist is racing for himself, he's also racing for the team.  since i appear to be on a france kick this week, may i introduce you to the amazingly versatile and colorful french bistro chair, most famously produced by TK Collections and Poitoux.  wouldn't you want to sit in one of these beauties watching Contador or Evans speed by?








TK chairs were featured in last month's House Beautiful.  I really love the above style and the below armless Parisienne style.

TK lets you customize the weave as well as the color.  These chairs would look fantastic on a petite patio or in a casual eat-in kitchen.  Since they are easy to clean, I could also see them around a table in a kids' craft room.



Glacseat also sells the original french Poitoux line of authentic bistro chairs.



Victoria Hagan room



i found this great little knock-off set (minus the ugly table) at Overstock.com for less than one TK Collection chair -- $524.



Decor n More also has some nice options for less than $200 per chair.  one of my faves is this blue patterned number, the Orlando:

diy friday - happy independence day, america!

here's another easy $5 wreath idea.  grab a bag of these yankee doodle dandy flag picks at a party store, and stick them in the straw wreath form you used last week for that fabulous tropical umbrella dealie.





next week i'll be basking in the glow of the pacific sun in a vineyard somewhere in the napa valley.  stay tuned for inspirations from the left coast!

c'est la vie...en beouf!

despite my bad luck with Parisians, i do love the idea of Paris and its architecture.  Over the past few years, i've had my eye on Parisian dormer windows made into mirrors.  for a while, wisteria and anthropologie had something in that genre, but they were too expensive or enormous or just too machine-made looking. (don't get me wrong, wisteria still has an amazing selection of mirrors!)


in seeking the design term for these amazing fenetres, i learned they are called  "Oeil de boeuf" or "eye of the bull"... how wonderfully french does that sound??! 


here's a cute sample of a french dormer window at clayton gray interiors for about $450.


here's a fabulous zinc number from the elemental garden.



(btw, the elemental garden has these amazing french 1930s metal chairs, which would be perfect for a breakfast nook with a rustic wood farm table, non?  je reve!)


ok, back to my eyes of beefs:











 ooh la la la la la la.


are you drooling yet?  if you are, then you know how i reacted when i saw this in TJ Maxx today for way less than a hundred bucks:

sigh. it fit in our dresser nook perfectly. i'll hang it later this week but needed a little help.  some people are scared of discount stores, but these budget-friendly finds keep me on the hunt!