jaina's thought for the day

peekaboo

Someone's turning one year old soon. And while I'm not ready to share all of the party details yet, I couldn't help but share just a peek of the coolest birthday present ever.

Isn't she sweet!?! I got the pattern from Interweave Store.

I love parties, and I haven't been able to throw a real one since our wedding. Zach's not super into it for his birthdays, and you can't really throw a theme party for yourself (especially when your birthday is Christmas Eve.) I'm just realizing how much fun I'll get to have throwing special parties for Jaina and future kiddos. Major mom perk!

the icing on the lamp

Over a year ago I shared one of my most labor-intensive projects. I took one of those cheapy college lamps with the bowl on top and wrap-wrap-wrapped it in jute (or hemp, maybe?) string. You can read about it here.

 Just say no to bowl lamps.

It took forever, and I was really happy with what it did for the body of the lamp. But in the end I was stuck with a lovingly hand-wrapped lamp.... with a yucky plastic bowl on top.

Well, that. has. been. rectified.

 Laaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

Ka-blaam!!!!

Booyah!!!

Hello!!!!

I found this beautiful Ikat shade online at Target a while ago. Check out how much it looks like this shade I've been oogling on Etsy for forever. (The Etsy shade is no longer available, but it was by a seller named StudioJOTA. I'm pretty sure it was around $70!)

 Crazy, right?

Before I could order it, the site said it was no longer available online, only in stores. I went to go get it, and it wasn't there. So bummed! I would check the lamp section every time we were in Target, and they only had the tan version. (It was pretty, but not with our tan walls.)

Then, one time I cruised through the rest of the home section, and there it was with some stools and picture frames! Yippee! Now all my hard work on that lamp is worth it. It looks pretty snazzy. Now we just need some equally snazzy artwork for above the TV.

At home, snug in the corner. We need as much light as we can get in this cave of a living room!

Featured in Thrifty Decor Chick's Little Thing's Link-Up.  

grown-up furniture and my foray into shelf styling

Finally, the results of Zach's game of Ikea Tetris. Alright, here's what we were dealing with before our new purchase.

yippy skippy

It's been this way since Christmas. Before that, we had the tree in the corner.

Aw, look at the little baby with the MASSIVE bald spot. 
Teehee. Her hair's coming in nicely now.

And before that, the TV was diagonal in the corner which was ergonomically pleasing from a TV watching perspective, but it wasted a ton of space.

I've been scouting out these VITTSJÖ shelves from Ikea.

Can you believe they're only $70?

And gleaning inspiration from the "Pin"osphere. 

Drexel Heritage's Pinacle Etagere, formerly sold by Higdon Furniture

via Ikea

via Centsational Girl

I knew how I wanted to arrange the pair of shelves we purchased, but I didn't want to just throw items up there. The art of shelf styling takes time, thought, a collection of objects from multiple time periods, and, honestly, taste. I study everything that Emily Henderson and Jenny Komenda do.  

 Here's a post that Jenny, of Little Green Notebook wrote on arranging books by both color and genre. 

Those of you who've taken the time to style your books know that this took her a LOT of time and thought. 

The results are really pleasing to my eye.

 I've searched all evening, but I can't find Emily's post where she describes her shelf styling secrets. 

(This image is from her portfolio.)

So, without further stalling, here's what I came up with.

 We're gonna call this "during" since we still need some artwork in the center.

It was fun to come up with all of the vignettes. I tried to be mindful of color, texture and height. There will definitely be some tweaking along the way (some has already happened since this picture), but I'm loving the look so far. Here are some close-ups.

  

Those hatboxes are from Rittenhouse Square in Philly! Pretty cool. 

 All of those little boxes were gifts my Dad brought back from his travels.

Pen and ink by my talented sis, Rebekah. (Check out her prints on Etsy!)

Couldn't resist the succulent under glass. It's terribly impractical, 

since I have to take it out to the kitchen every couple of days to get some sun, but so far I don't mind.

I'm loving this old toolbox for CDs. The other things on that shelf will have to go soon, though. 

Baby girl is getting curious.

Here's the before and after, one more time.

Ah, so much better. and it makes the living room look a lot bigger. Now I get to sit back, watch some Rachel Zoe, and figure out what to put on the wall above the TV. 

Featured on Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday and Decor and the Dog's link party.

"sun, jaina. jaina, the sun."

I introduced my daughter to the sun yesterday. She was so tiny last summer that we were hardly outside at all. And since the cold has lingered so long (for PA) this year, she is just now learning about the outside world.

Laying out in the sun is way more work with a baby. I actually packed a bag to walk three steps.

I mean, we needed snacks!

And reading materials...

We heard a mocking bird, and I was even able to get it to copy me. It was doing this repeated downward slide chirp, and I got it to switch to sliding up. Then I tried a tritone, but that was too advanced for Mr. Mockingbird, I guess. Jaina didn't get it, but was mesmerized by Mama whistling.

Outside is pretty cool! We'll have to become better friends with it.

Check out my girly's new trick! She does this over and over by herself. It's pretty cute.