A Long, Juicy Post with Lots of Photos!

Whew! Finally, things can get back to normal around here. Houseguests are finally gone. Even if it's people you enjoy being with, it's difficult having houseguests, isn't it? Anyway, I had hoped to get to do some art today. I've bought so many new materials in the past week, I've been itching to start using them! However, there's been so much piddly stuff to do that has been neglected this past week, I decided I'd rather wait until I can devote an entire day to art vs. trying to squeeze it in. So, hopefully tomorrow...

First, I'll talk about this week's "corner of my home". This is a closet off our loft that is currently being used as a decorator's warehouse, it seems! We moved into our new house in May 2005, and I am still very much in the process of decorating. If you've looked at photos of the new house or old condo, you see that I like "stuff"! So until there's a place for all the "stuff" in the new house, it has to be warehoused somewhere. Voila! The closet/knick-knack superstore! It's actually kind of nice. As I'm working on decorating, I just go to my closet and look through the selection, and "purchase" the perfect piece for the room! Good thing is, it's all already paid for! However, I must put a limit on myself at some point. I think that if there's anything still left in there come about July, it will go into a garage sale. If I could do without it for a whole year, then it's probably not all that cool. Plus, I'll need to make room for more stuff!
So, I took advantage of my mother-in-law's offer for free babysitting, and did some shopping yesterday sans Riley. I got lots of cool stuff! I found a really neat store that has two floors of shabby chic/antique-y looking things. I got these nests, bird, real quail eggs, and ribbon. I'd had the urns in my designer's closet, but wasn't sure where to put them or what to put in them. The store had the nests displayed in the same kind of urn- what a beautiful idea! And they look really nice displayed on this cabinet with the nude.




When I showed my mother-in-law the nests I had gotten, she said she'd seen a nest on the ground when she took a walk. So she went out again and brought it back. Isn't it gorgeous? It's just the perfect shape, and built so well. I was suprised at how heavy it is! The little bird who made it put a lot of work into it. I hope that she was finished using it when it fell out of the tree... Does anyone know of a good way to clean the nest of bugs, etc. so that I can display it in my house?

So, back to my shopping trip, I also got some vintage-looking flashcards that spell out "Riley" and some vintage-looking knobs (no picture) to make a necklace holder like Pam Garrison's! I'll take a photo when it's done.

Then, at an antique store, I bought these two old school books. The bottom one I like because it has a lot of relevant phrases to use in Riley's book, like "The baby can walk all by himself." And the top one has great little drawings instead of words in some sentences- so cute!
Finally, onto a craft store which I hadn't been to before. I hit the jackpot for fun fabrics! They had a whole table of reproduction 1930'3/40's fabrics, and lots of other ones, too. When I showed Jason the fabric I'd gotten, he said, "You sure like collecting stuff, don't you?" Are you kidding? You've known me eight years, and you're just finding this out? Poor guy- just realizing what he got himself into, I guess! Anyway, I'm loving all these different fabrics so much, I've got to make something like a quilt, just so that I can have samples of all of them to keep (plus they look so pretty all mixed together). Otherwise, I'm not going to want to use them in my art!
Okay, well, I guess that's enough show-n-tell for one day. Hopefully, I'll have some art to show tomorrow!