It was a fairly low-key weekend that was spent mostly trying to get over this sinus whatever that I have. I did take a trip to the ole' alma mater which is changed and yet the exact same, I guess it could say the same of me. I'm packing my bags tonight to go to Orlando for work meetings all this week. I am as excited as a pale girl can be to visit Florida! I'm mostly curious to see who will drink too much and get fired by the end of the whole ordeal. I'm not sure how much blogging I will be able to do this week, there is usually a fair amount of schmoozing, I mean networking, involved with these things. I'll quote a friend here and say this: "there is a reason why it's called network and not netplay!"

Weekend Snapshots:

Lewis hanging out on the Bob's porch where he used to hang out as a puppy.






State bird hanging out in the arboretum.

You Tube Friday

Happy Friday!

I think Melanie Fiona is fierce. I give her one "you go girl" and two Jersey Shore fist pumps.

A Big Mesh

"If there was a problem, yo, I'll solve it, check out the hook while my DJ revolves it. Ice Ice..." Sorry, just singing and doing a mini problem solver celebration dance. I finally finished the jewelry holder that I have been trying to complete for about 3 weeks. You see, this was my jewelry organization method before:

My necklaces hung (and tangled) from my dresser mirror and earrings found a home on my lamp shade. Then inspiration struck:

I saw this picture frame with mesh in it and immediately started brainstorming ways to incorporate this into a jewelry organizer for myself. I'm of the opinion that displaying jewelry is great, it reminds you of the pieces that you have and jewelry is just pretty, that's why you bought(or made) it right? If you are one of those who likes to keep your jewelry tucked away then read no further. I wish I had taken a before picture of what I found in a thrift store. It was a rough, unpainted shelf that was missing all of the pegs for it's three peg holes. I sanded it and threw a coat of paint on it as you can see here:

Next, I found some unique hardware at Anthropologie, yes are you seeing a pattern? I love that store, it tickles my fancy. Here I am attaching three new hooks onto the shelf, coffee and power tool both in hand. Lewis tried to get in on the action too!

He couldn't help himself and decided to steal smooches instead of fastidiously watching me drill.

The next step was the hardest. I attempted it myself, fudge slipped out of my mouth a few times and then I enlisted my friend with more patience than I possess to help me out. He has a much steadier hand and cut some wire mesh in the exact dimensions to fit the space between the top of the shelf and the ledge that the hooks rest on (seriously, you missed your calling as a surgeon, thank you!!!)

The wire mesh was purchased at Home Depot and was the aluminum kind that is used for screen doors. I'm going to use the remaining mesh to fix some broken screen on my back door!

I am so happy with the way my jewelry shelf turned out! I added some bowls to hold items that couldn't be hung on the shelf to the top and hung it in my bathroom. It is a great organizational tool AND I can look at my options every morning when I'm getting ready!

Cost: $1.00 for the shelf, $6.00 for the wire mesh, $.50 for sand paper, $8.00 per hook, and the paint I already had. A whopping total of $31.50 plus a little mesh left over.

P.S. A big thank you to the two anonymous book tips, I will be checking them out!

I Have Many Leather Bound Books.

Dear Sinuses,

You stink.

Sincere Hatred,

Evie

I'm having a stuffy-headed tissue party for one in my bed today. What's that, there's a party in your bed and I'm invited? No, Brick (please pardon me if you didn't get the reference.) I have been stuck here all day, and as much as I love me some HGTV, Food Network, and the occasional game show(hello Price is Right), I am sick and SICK of watching TV!!! What I want is a good book, or for the Olympics to come back on, but really a book would be best. Do you have any suggestions for me? Better yet, do you want to lend me one? How about you post your favorite book(s) of all time in the comments sections.

In the meantime, until I get those suggestions coming in (seriously is anyone out there?) I will swoon over these Penguin Classics with redesigned covers sold at Anthropologie.

I would love to buy them all, not only for how sassy they would look on a bookshelf, but for my re-reading pleasure. However, at $20 a pop, I'm thinking a whole stack like you see above will have to wait. Maybe I will just get "Pride and Prejudice," I hear that Jane Austen is good for sinus pressure. Ok...ok...just let a sick woman have her delusions. Once my head clears up I'm going to jump back into some On The Cheap projects, which includes a new way to organize and display your jewelry. I also promise to show the office makeover soon! Time for me to go take some more sudafed and go back to lala land, catch you on the flip side.

Be Shelfish.

Tonight, amongst many other things, I am thankful for Cadbury Mini Eggs. I need to confess that I work for a rival of the company that makes these things, but gosh dang they are like crack in chocolate form. (Side note: mom please don't worry, I don't actually know what the addictive affects of crack are like. Whitney Houston taught me that crack is whack, if only she could have taken her own advice....) I am also thankful that I had ballet class tonight which makes me feel 44% less guilty for eating a quarter of the bag in one sitting.

Now, moving on from my Easter themed, candy shell coated love of the moment, I will share with you one of my recent thrift store finds. This one was something that might have easily been passed by had I not had my eye out for a shelf that I could repaint and put above the sink in my bathroom. Feast your eyes upon this beauty:

This shade of blue is not my favorite. In fact, it is very close to Duke blue which, like Creed songs and couples who wear matching track suits, makes me want to vom. Not three, but FOUR coats of paint later and I came out with something much more pleasing to the eye.

I'm not exactly proficient with a leveler, but it worked out in the end and really opens up my counter space!

Cost: $1.50 at the local thrift store, even though I should have asked them to throw it in gratis for all the other stuff that I purchased! I used some trim paint that I had laying around the house so that part was f.r.e.e!

Mie n Yu

Calling this a good weekend doesn't do my trip away justice! To quote one of my favorite movies, Shag, "I had the most fun!" I don't think I have ever eaten so well in one weekend (aside from when my parents cook for me of course). Not only did my host's house smell like delicious French onion soup the entire time, French crepes, Moroccan fusion, and a surprising El Salvadorian restaurant rounded out the culinary trip around the world. I mean, El Salvador, who knew you had such amazing cuisine? Two words: Fried Plantains. Mmmm... Here are the snapshots from my road trip. Can you guess where I went?

Lewis made dog park friends.

Lady Faye Queen Size, Extra Wide, Ultra, Ultra Sheer pantyhose for only $2.79, yes please! This is right up there with du-rags as my favorite gas station finds.

This was a part of some wall paper where random names were written under silhouettes like "Jane wishes she were taller." Then I stumbled upon the above silhouette...hilarious.

Eastern Market

I am le tired from this trip. Time to watch the inside of my eyelids.

I want to do right but not right now...

It's official. I have gotten out of town, as in way out of town, out of state even. Road trip! North Carolina I will see you on Sunday!

Until then I will share this new favorite song with you(thank you Betsy!) It has David Rawlings, whom I love, partially because he reminds me of Bill from True Blood and partially because he is an amazing talent. He has produced for Ryan Adams and Old Crow Medicine Show. If you are interested in this, another great tune by Gillian Welch is "Annabelle." Hope you enjoy and have a great weekend!

It Sounds So Simple I Just Got to Go...

I'm laughing at myself right now because the first word I wanted to write in this post was "UGH!" I'll spare you my guttural complaints and just say this: When it rains it pours. Sorry Lance, I know we were just discussing how much we both hate cliches but sometimes there are scenarios that can't be explained any other way! Let's all think of something nice and exotic instead. I know that I can't go on a vacation right now, but google can. I'm a shameless googler, chances are I've googled you. Ok not really, but you can find ANYTHING on there. I decided Mexico was exactly the kind of place I wanted to go, sunshine, ocean, cabana boys, copious amounts of tequila...you get the idea. In my daydreaming search I stumbled upon a little something that gave me an idea of how to bring Mexico to North Carolina (no, its not take out from El Rodeo). Otomi fabric. Have you heard of it? I hadn't, but I have fallen instantly in love with it. I'll admit, it's kind of expensive so I'm adding a new category to this blog called Splurge Urge; after all, this blog is called Post-College Working Girl not Post-College Trophy Wife. Otomi fabric is a textile made by the Otomi Indians in Central Mexico. Click here to see an awesome way that Grace from Design*Sponge utilized some Otomi fabric. So far the only place, besides Mexico, that I have seen it sold is on E-bay, but if I find another source(this kinda makes me feel like a high schooler trying to scout out a pot dealer) I will let you know. Here are some pretty examples of the fabric:

I'm off to dinner and then the Carolina ballet with a friend, so excited! It will probably inspire a post on pointe shoes, my first love! Have a great night everyone!

Valence Curtain + Penny for Your Thoughts

Playing trivia at Sammy's tonight has left my brain feeling a bit scattered. At least I hope it was the trivia and not the paint fumes I have been inhaling for the past 24 hours(the office is now fully repainted though!) I have a million and one thoughts swirling in my head, and none of them seem to want to slow down enough for me to express them with any semblance of coherency. Part of me still feels like this past week I have just been on a realllly long vacation and I will return to my old life soon, with souvenirs in tow and lots of stories to share, but then I realize that this vacay is permanent and I didn't even get a tan. Maybe I should take my friend Morgan's advice and actually go on a trip somewhere, despite the fact that if you asked my budget about it he would say that it is absolutely out of the question(yeah, he's a real blast). I did find one way to make my budget happy this week though, and as promised yesterday, I will share it with you!

DIY: Valence curtain

Cost: $12.00 for fabric (I went to Hancock's Fabrics during their President's Day Sale and got some deals!), $2.50 Aleene's No Sew Glue, $3.00 for fringe trim, and I used ribbon that I already had.

Notes: I will openly admit that this may not be the best way to make a valence curtain, in fact I'm sure that there are a lot of other ways to do this better. I made this up as I went, and well, it worked! I can promise that this is easy though, even as easy as folding a piece of paper, so no sewing experience is needed and the result is great!

Also, I have to give a shout out to my new friend Yolanda Sheppard at Hancock's who was an abundant source of know-how and a HUGE help to me! If you don't have the time to make your own valence curtain she does custom window treatments and other assorted decorative accessories and I'm sure they are at a good price! Message me if you would like her e-mail.

Step 1. I used about 3/4 yd. each of fabric and backing. I laid the fabric I was going to use for the curtain pattern side down and used the no-sew fabric glue to attach the backing to the curtain fabric.

Step 2. I used an old valence curtain as a measurement guide for how big to make the new one. Again I used the new sew fabric glue to create the short edges of the curtain by folding the fabric to give it a crisp non-frayed edge. If you don't have an old curtain, just measure the width of the window to estimate what the width of your valence will be.

Step 3. Repeat the above step on the top and bottom on the fabric, folding and using the no-sew glue to secure the hem in place. I used the pattern to make sure that my lines were straight and even. Using a yardstick would also give you the same straight result if you don't have a pattern to rely on.

Step 4. Cut about 15, or more depending on the width of your window, strips of ribbon. I cut my ribbon pieces about 5 in. each. You need the pieces to be long enough so that when you fasten the two ends of it to fabric, whatever slack is left in between is large enough for your curtain rod to go through.

Step 5. I used a lighter to singe the ends of each piece of ribbon so that they wouldn't fray. Then, I attached just the ends of each piece with a hot-glue gun to the top/back of my curtain to create a little tunnel for my curtain rod.

and I evenly spaced the strips of ribbon along the width of the curtain.

Step 6. I added the finishing touches by hot gluing some fringe trim to the front/bottom of the curtain.

So with $15.50 and a little creative curtain-origami crafting I ended up with a custom window treatment for my office. What do you think??

Stay tuned for the rest of "Office Makeover 2k10."

Happy President's Day!

It is a no work Monday! Here are a few snapshots from the weekend which was filled with cake, flowers, basketball with my fellow tar heel friends, and some quirky restaurants. Please don't be alarmed, I did NOT buy the naked lady stained glass window. Who makes something like that? And who do they think would buy it? Maybe if I owned a house of ill-repute and wanted to try and give it a classy feel with some stained glass window....but then again...no. Also, check out the guy who made a Star Wars figurine diorama in his window sill. Ladies, I'm not sure if he is single or not, let's just keep our fingers crossed that he is...

If I can motivate I'm going to paint my office today to start it's grand makeover! Check back here tomorrow to find the really easy, no-sew valence I made for the window over my desk!