Brenda Lee says," either be useful or look good"

My house is highly accessorized. My husband says there isn't a horizontal or vertical surface that doesn't have something on it. He was wrong. The basement stairwell was looking sad. It needed some love.

The design genius, William Morris, said over a hundred years ago, "Have nothing in your house which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful". I worship him and live by his motto. His motto covers it all.  You either like the way it looks, or you use it. I love when something is both, like a beautiful crystal bowl.

I have kept some things so long that they have switched teams on me. They used to be useful, but now I just think they are beautiful: take old records, for example.  After the 78,  before the ipod, CD, cassette tape,  & 8 track was the vinyl record: the LP. When I was a kid they were about the price of one itunes download.  We played them on the turn table on our parents' hi fi.

My parents had a hi fi in the livingroom that as I remember was bigger than the sofa. The cabinet was walnut. The speakers were covered in metallic gold fabric. The turn table, radio and LP storage were in the middle. Those were the good old days. We sat around the livingroom and someone was in charge of flipping the vinyl record over to play the other side. We listened to music as well as comedy albums like Bill Cosby and George Carlin. I can't believe my parents let us listen to "the 7 words you can't say on television"

Now-a-days our favorite music has been digitally remastered and is conveniently located on a cloud somewhere. It's magic, really. I don't understand it. So why have so many of us kept our LPs? They are no longer useful. I think we kept them because they are beautiful. I still have my parents' original "Meet the Beatles" and "The Fabulous Johnny Cash".They bring back memories. I remember when my cousin Liisa came to visit from Michigan & bought me Cher's "Half Breed" album. I was in like 4th grade. I still have that album.

Since we believe our albums to be beautiful, we need to have them in our house. Display them proudly. Reminisce about when we got them. Cover a vertical surface in our home, like your basement stairwell.  I did. And when the teenagers head downstairs to shoot pool or play darts, I hear them say, "Woah- this is so cool- Beatles, Fog Hat, Nugent, Styx, Journey, Elvis Costello, Kiss...wait...Who is Brenda Lee?!"

outta my wits

TGIF everyone. I didn't accomplish a heck of alot this week, but I did fulfill one goal of publishing some blog posts. Putting pen to paper (I mean fingers to the keyboard) is a bit intimidating for me, so I am going to call this a successful week. I also got a pedicure and worked out 5 days in a row. Woot! Woot!

I'm not feeling particularly witty today, so I am just sharing a picture of one of my collections and a few things vintage which was the whole idea for this blog in the first place. I wanted to display my jewelry in a way that I could see it all at once so the executive decision each morning is a bit easier. I found this vintage hammered aluminum dessert tray at a local antique mall. The hand is an antique ceramic form that was used in a glove factory. Two vintage pieces repurposed- I'm happy!

How chardonnay can improve your kid's math grade

If you are like me, the older my kids get the harder it is to help them in math. Luckily, when my son bombed a math quiz the teacher offered extra credit to off set some of the lost points. The assignment was something like: "use the mathmatics of  area  to measure something in your house." I'm sure right now you are thinking: "I will do anything to help my kid in math- especially...I mean "even"
if it requires drinking chardonnay"

We have a teen-friendly basement with a snack bar, sauna and game area. My son has friends over frequently to watch hockey, football & baseball on the big tv. They shoot pool, have poker tournaments and play darts. To protect the wall behind the dart board my brother made us a wooden frame. How is this related to the math extra credit, you ask? Well, the dart board frame is covered in  wine corks.

The project my son chose was: how many wine corks did it take to cover our dart board frame. He figured the area of the frame. He figured the area of the circular dartboard and deducted it. He figured the area of a single wine cork. With this information he could calculate how many wine corks were on the backdrop. His teacher was very impressed.

I know I'm stretching here, but had I not kept all those corks we would not have had a cool dart board backdrop which provided the educational experience for my son to earn extra credit.

When my husband asked " How many corks!? How much per bottle?" I answered, "Let's not do the math."

P.S.: I started my blog because I wanted to share my ideas about collecting & upcycling. This dart board backdrop is both!

Macrame is cool again

I was a kid in the 70's. Kids rarely think their own parents are cool, but looking back, my parents were pretty cool. They wore tie dyed leisure suits and suede earth shoes. My mom signed me up for a macrame class one summer. Little did I know she wanted me to learn how to macrame so that I could make her a hanging wine bottle holder for the diningroom. Here is a picture of her in Lake Tahoe circa 1977 sporting a suede jacket, platform boots, big sunglasses and "The Farrah Fawcet."

Macrame is finding it's way back into vintage shops and cool boho decor. Check out my Pinterest board "Anna's Boho Apartment". I had big plans to macrame Anna a shower curtain and window shades. I bought the patterns on Etsy and everything. Sadly, plans have changed and now Anna's Boho Apartment may never happen, but it is still fun to design & dream!

Look what I found yesterday at a resale shop in the quaint little town of Leslie, Michigan.

It was $1

I'm happy! It will be going to Florida with me in December.

 

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I had a good reason to collect license plates

My husband is very proud of our garage. We call it "the garagemahall" We both tend to get a little over excited when it comes to planning an addition, a cottage, a vacation, a dinner party- you name it. We both OCD an idea to death. Sometimes not a good combination, the two of us. There is no one to reign us in and we both run wild.

Our garage addition was no exception. We leveled our tiny detached garage and built an attached one. By the time we were done designing & dreaming, the garage was complete with drywall & heat,  a stainless restaurant sink with a garbage disposal, a ceiling fan, recessed can lights, Gladiator cupboards & workbench, and the crowning glory: a stairway that leads to the basement.

The garage is 2 cars wide and 2 cars deep. This works well because we keep the cars in the front half. We avoid piling stuff in, on and around the cars by putting everything else in the back half.

A half wall separates the stairwell right in front of where I park my car.  Whose idea was it to drywall the half wall?  I have no idea, but drywall is VERY soft. Luckily, I had a small collection of license plates already started.  Before hubby got home I had already started covering the hole  (I mean the half wall) with plates.  He thought it was a great idea.

After that day, he didn't mind thrifting with me because rather than following me around telling me we had enough stuff, he was on a mission to collect enough plates to cover the entire half wall. I think it turned out great!

Here I go!

Welp, I created my blog quite awhile ago and had yet to create a single post. My plan was to collect all my hobbies, ideas and dreams in one place in order to hopefully share them with the world,  just like that pioneer woman. What? It could happen. Maybe. In another life where I am more organized.  Anyhoo, in my first set of posts I am going to share some of my collections. Stay tuned!