Happy New Year!!!

Since we're not doing anything very exciting or glamorous for this New Year's Eve, I thought I'd compile a group of pretties that scream "New Year's Eve" to me...  Tables I'd love to sit at...  Things I'd love to wear...

The perfect black crystal chandelier for New Year's Eve...

Aren't these black and white chinoiserie plates gorgeous??? 

If I had some place to go other than the living room, I'd love to wear this fun cocktail ring (from here)

And how amazing is this wallpapered closet?!!!   (from Houzz)... 

I could see putting on my "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" dress in there...

Seriously I'm in love with that dress.  (And don't have it btw) but there are so many places online you can find who sell a version of it:

...  But in reality I'll be at home in my pjs...

Enjoying one of these with my husband:

Celebrating this:

Happy New Year!!!  Thank you so much for your support & friendship. You've all been so amazing & your comments & emails mean so much to me.  Have fun & be safe tonight!!!!

xoxo,

lauren

ps-  a little heads up on what's to come in our house this next year:  ORGANIZATION!!  We're hitting the closets, laundry room & work spaces, and are on a mission to make them functional and pretty.  Can't wait!!!

dropped the ball on my 100th post

ok, so i seriously dropped the ball on my 100th post.  every since i started getting close to my 100th post i’ve been thinking that i should do something cool for it.  that’s about as far as i got though because today came and this is my 100th post and i don’t have anything cool to do for it.  i can’t believe i’ve already gotten to 100.  sorry that it’s going to be so lame.  hopefully you’ll still keep reading my blog even though i don’t have some cool 100th post giveaway or something. 

i did manage to run into homegoods today.  i hadn’t been in there in a while and thought i’d see what they had.  i typically try to avoid homegoods during the holidays if possible.  it can get pretty crazy in there.  i snapped a few photos of things i liked.  i took all the photos with my crackberry because i didn’t have my camera with me so the quality of some of the photos is a little off.  i was surprised that most of them came out ok though.  maybe the blackberry storm is good for something(i’ve hated it every since i got it).

so the first thing i have to show you is the crazy disco-like balls that they had.  i counted 8 in all.  not sure these will be flying off the shelf or anything but i just had to take a picture of them.  they might actually be cool in a fun kids room or basement. 

they also had this awesome distressed wooden bench.  it was really long but would be such a statement piece.  (cost $499)

there were lamps galore and great ones too.  my favorites were these two different shell lamps that were $79 each.

these ivory gourd lamps were so lovely.  the gray and ivory shades were very light.  my camera shows them darker than they were. (cost $39.99)

these pink and ivory ones would be great in a little girl’s room. (cost $39.99)

they had a couple garden stools for under $100.  i like the turquoise one a lot.

sage ruffle pillow. (cost $12.99)  ruffles are so popular right now.

these white trunks would be great stacked in a corner or even better…make a table out of two of them stacked on top of each other.  i didn’t get the cost on these but i can’t imagine they would be over $60.

i thought these little pouf baskets were adorable.  they looked sort of like moroccan poufs but they were actually baskets.  (cost small $12.99, large $19.99)

i saw this cute chair on my way out.  it’s a great buy for $199.  they had a couple of other ones in different fabrics but this one was my favorite.

so that’s it for my homegoods shopping trip.  if you want to check out any of these items i found them at the perimeter pointe homegoods in dunwoody.  if you’re not local to atlanta i’m sure the homegoods in your area would have most of these items too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

well, i’m signing off until monday so i hope you all have a fun and festive new year’s eve wherever you may be.  i want to wish you all a very, very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!  see you back in 2010!! 

xo,

cristi 

LiveJournal Tags: 100th post,homegoods,bench,lamp,moroccan pouf,disco ball,garden stool,ruffles

Class Schedules

I will try to get some pictures of up coming classes and new schedules by the end of this week or the beginning of next week.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

And I wish everyone a Happy New Year!!!!!!

i’m nominated…

for apartment therapy’s blog awards, the 2009 homies.  the nominations close at 5pm on the 29th so if you like my blog please nominate me again.  you can click here to go to the site.  i’m so thankful for those of you who have already nominated me.  you guys are the best.

the way these awards work is by nominations.  you can nominate as many blogs as you would like.  at the end of the day tomorrow they will take the blogs that have gotten the most nominations and put them on a voting list.  then there will be a week or so of voting.   then the winner will be announced after the first of the year. 

head on over and start nominating your fave blogs…hopefully mine will be included in your list.  you’ll have to sign up for an apartment therapy account before you can nominate any blogs but it’s a painless process.  all you have to do is click here, enter your name and email address and then verify the account by clicking on the link that they send to your email.  it’s very simple and you can opt out of having any other emails sent to you. 

there are tons of blogs that have been nominated that i’ve never heard of, and i’ve really enjoyed looking through their pages.  maybe you’ll find a few new blogs to read too.

happy monday or tuesday…depending on when you read this!

LiveJournal Tags: apartment therapy,the homies 2009

And a few more pics.....

My apron we painted in class...

And my boys....

Taz, Harley and Ryder...

Christmas Eve Pics 12-24-09

The carollers my mom and two sisters

We played dirty Santa at my cousins house we had a great time. And my great niece Kendall watched and shook her head!! LOL!!

Some Christmas Cards I painted......

These are from www.CraftyWave.com

Water Strokes Holiday Cards

They are sooo much fun to paint!

Couple of things I painted.....

bye, bye perimeter z.gallerie

for those of you who live in atlanta if you have time you should run over to the z.gallerie at perimeter mall.  they are closing their doors and are having a huge sale.  last i checked everything was 50% off.  the furniture is pretty picked over but they still have a good bit of accessories.  they also have a large selection of floral stems and art. 

the perimeter z.gallerie was the closest one to me so i’m sad they are closing.  i’ll have to make the drive up to alpharetta or down to atlantic station to go to one now.  i’m not sure why they are closing and i hope that the other atlanta z.galleries don’t follow suit.  i was there over the weekend and snapped a few photos of some of the stock they had left.

miscellaneous accessories…

trellis pillows orig. $39.99

one of my fave chandeliers orig. $369.00

jasper sofa orig. $1,099.00

LiveJournal Tags: z.gallerie,store closing,perimeter mall,atlanta

12/22/09 Irene's house

Me and my sister Sharon went to our friend Irene's house and did some claying!!!!

And we had some great homemade soup!!!

They wouldn't let me take their pictures.......

End-of-Year History On-Line Roundup

Randall Stephens

Trapped in the Midwest because of a snowstorm, I've been catching up on some on-line reading. Choice items I've come across:

"Digitizing Monk," Here and Now, WBUR, December 24, 2009
BOSTON–Father Columba Stewart has made it his mission to digitize precious manuscripts found in some of the most threatened communities around the world, including Lebanon during the 2006 war with Israel, Iraq, and Ethiopia. The project has discovered and preserved chronicles of how the early Christians living in the Middle East perceived the arrival of the Crusaders, as well as the oldest known Ethiopian-language copy of every book in the Bible. >>>

"Digital Scripture," NGM Blog, December 8, 2009
A fourth-century Bible that includes the earliest known complete copy of the New Testament now has a 21st-century address: codexsinaiticus.org. For much of its existence, the sacred text—handwritten on parchment in ancient Greek—resided at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai, from which it takes its name. As with many old manuscripts, it was eventually split up, and some of it was lost. Only 823 of an estimated 1,487 pages survive. >>>

"Google & the Future of Books: An Exchange," New York Review of Books, January 14, 2010,
By Paul N. Courant, Laine Farley, Paula Kaufman, John Leslie King, Theodore Koditschek, Anthony Lewis et al.
To the Editors: In his recent article criticizing the Google settlement ["Google and the New Digital Future," NYR, December 17, 2009], Robert Darnton fails to acknowledge the significant role that libraries have had in the creation of Google Book Search as well as the concrete steps they are taking to address the sorts of concerns he raises. >>>

"800 years on the Cam: Low living and high thinking at Cambridge University, from Henry III to Peter Mandelson," by Peter Linehan, Times Literary Supplement, December 16, 2009
This year the University of Cambridge celebrated its 800th birthday, an anniversary no less secure than any other of thirteenth-century origin, with an “anniversary portrait”, a handsome volume illustrated with the reminiscences of recent and not so recent alumni. >>>

"'War Is Over! If You Want It': John and Yoko, 40 Years Later," The Nation Blog, Jon Wiener, December 27, 2009
"War Is Over! If you want it" – a full page ad in the Sunday New York Times Dec. 27 must have puzzled many readers. The ad marked an anniversary: it was 40 years ago today that John Lennon and Yoko Ono launched their "War Is Over!" campaign, with billboards in New York, London, Hollywood, Toronto, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Athens and Tokyo proclaiming the message in giant black letters on a white field – and in much smaller type at the bottom, "Happy Christmas, John and Yoko." The message was repeated on posters, leaflets, and newspaper ads. >>>

New Baby!

Well our "new baby" BOY finally came!   His name is Justin Alexander and he was born on December 22nd.  

We had a huge snowstorm here last weekend so we took Christian (our 2 yr old) to my parents' house just in case I went into labor. 

On Sunday night I started having regular (but not painful) contractions.  I didn't call the doctor until the next night when they were a couple of minutes apart (STILL not painful) and she told me to go on in to the hospital just in case.  SO we went in & yes I was having contractions but still wasn't at a point where I should stay, so we went home.  The next day (the roads had cleared up finally!)and although I was still having contractions, (going on 40+ hours--- seriously???)   we went to get Christian from my mom's to take him home.  (We'd missed him like crazy and I was giving up on ever going into real labor :)  And of course my water broke.  My first thought was "not the sofa!!!" and ran as fast as I could off of my mom's velvet sofa & off the rug & onto the hardwood. 

We said our goodbyes (again) to Christian and off we went back to the hospital.  They gave me a good ol' dose of pitocin and off we went into the real hard labor.  Justin was born at around 11 that night and it was such a smooth delivery.  He weighed 6 lbs 13 oz and is healthy healthy healthy!! :)

I feel GREAT and really couldn't have had an easier delivery and am so thankful.  I'm SO ready to jump & dance around but am being good & am going to wait until I'm supposed to.  (less than 2 weeks! wahooooo)

We came home from the hospital on Christmas Eve and I could NOT believe how big my little Christian seemed!!!!  He got to meet his brother & so far has been really sweet.  He gives him kisses and checks on him when he cries & generally ignores him most of the time.  :)  We had an awesome Christmas Day with just us & it was so crazy to look around and see that there are now 4 of us.  2 boys.  (Well, really 3 and I'm totally outnumbered.)  WOW. 

So for now, we're hibernating.   (It's pretty much what we like to do when we have a baby. ;)  I'll keep you posted & will try to muster up some design-related posts soon!! :)  Hope you all had a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and thank you all SO much for your kind emails & well-wishes.  It was really fun (and took my mind off things) at the hospital when my blackberry would ding and I'd get a sweet wish from one of you.  :)  I really appreciate it.

Right now we're in that sleep-deprived but lovey-dovey wonderful stage of life after a new baby.  He really is a little angel and we couldn't be happier.  We're so thankful to have such a healthy little boy and are taking each day (no hour!) one at a time...

xoxo,

lauren

my own horse art

i hope that you all had a very merry christmas.  i know i sure did.  it was great to spend time with my family.  i always have such a fun time when we all get together.

i thought that i would share with you the christmas gift that i made for my mom.  i have spoken about my love for horses and horse art before on my blog and my mom also has that same love for for them.  i don’t really know that there is a more beautiful animal than a horse.  i grew up on a farm in alabama and showed horses until i was about 17.  my love of horses started at a very young age and has been with me ever since. 

recently i have seen two horse art pieces in particular that i really liked.  One is from palecek (it’s discontinued now though) and one is from pottery barn.  i’ve pictured them below.  the palecek piece is on the left and the pb piece is on the right.  palecek’s piece retails for about $500 or $600 and the pottery barn piece retails for about $200.

   

i started thinking that i could probably put my minor in art to good use and make some similar art for my mom for her christmas gift.  here is how mine turned out.  i was pretty proud of myself.  and the best part is that it only cost me around $35 for the two of them plus my time to make them.

i also made one for myself.  here is that one.

if anyone is wondering how i did it made these, here is a step-by-step guide.

first, i found an architectural salvage shop and purchased the old wood.   i got one of my neighbors to help me cut the boards down to the size i wanted. 

next, i roughed the pieces of wood up with a sander.  i also sanded the sides and corners to make sure they were smooth and didn’t have any splinters.  after that i stained them a walnut color to make them darker.  the natural wood finish would have been too light.

then, i drew a horse onto poster board and cut it out.  to get a big enough horse i had to tape two poster board pieces together.  once i had it cut out i positioned it on the 3 boards, taped it down on the underside with painters tape and used ivory spray paint to spray the boards.

i sprayed on two coats of spray paint and once it dried i removed the horse silhouette.  then i sanded the piece all over with really fine sandpaper.  i also distressed areas on the horse as well as the wood to give it an aged look.

when i finished sanding the front i added picture hangers to the back of each board.  the finished art was about 30” x 40”.

and that’s how i did it.  the hardest part by far was drawing the horse.  now i really want to experiment with other silhouettes.  maybe i’ll do my dog next.

LiveJournal Tags: horse art,palecek,pottery barn