This Room

Hello!  I have been obsessing over Miss Bean's room.  I have filled myself to capacity on Pinterest and various online searches.  Can't. Look. Any. More.  I've reached my visual fill and now I just need to get in there and work, but, um, I have to work so it's going slow.

Way back when--moving in.

 The image above is from almost 4 years ago when we were moving in.  The Lady Bean was little then.

The same wall a week ago.

This is that same wall; the space to the right of the window.

Detail of gallery wall.

This is a little bit of wall art DIY.  The empty frame in the previous picture became the home for a happy little salt dough cloud.  I made some ornaments in December (and then I wondered what to do with them).  I put printable paper from Mini Eco in the frame and glued the cloud on the glass.  Boom!  A little bit'a cute.

The new dresser when we first saw it in the store.

Another update since the first picture is a new dresser.  She's 13 and 5'5; I think she could use some grown up furniture.  We replaced the two pieces of children's furniture with one large dresser and I love it, but this finish wasn't going to work.

Our inspiration

The "French Maid" dresser was the inspiration for the new finish on her new dresser.  It's pretty great.

The room in 2015.

This is how the bedroom looks currently.  You can see that it's still very much a work in progress, BUT...  The dresser is done!  Look to the left, that's 5 feet of lovely.  Oh how I love to do finish work.  The decorations hanging from the ceiling are nice, but they need to be taken down.  The Lady doesn't do pink anymore so while I love paper decorations, we are going to move on to something similar, but different.

There are mirrors to paint and more frames to hang, cords to hide, etc. and so on, and so on...

xoxo,

b

Tiny Cakes!

Have you seen these?

This image is all up in my Pinterest.

How can you not see these?  They're all over the pin boards.  I fell in love with tiny cake. Then I looked at the recipe and thought maybe not.  They are pretty and sparkly though so I decided to practice cake decorating on tiny cakes.  Some results were less than fabulous, but...

Made with supplies on hand, yeah, I know, everyone has edible glitter, pompoms, and confetti hanging around.

 It finally worked!  This is not the recipe used on the website however, just a white cake.  I also do not own a mini cheesecake pan like the directions say to use, but I have a set of biscuit cutters.

It took a lot of cake to get this far.

 

Fun Fact: the topper was made from metallic tissue sheets cut into strips and wrapped on a pompom maker. Just add washi tape to finish.

These will definitely be my birthday cake next weekend.  I'm going to use a vegan strawberry cake though and a variation of pourable fondant.  I did print the Celebrate Magazine freebies today and I might use those too.  They're nice, but I might have to do some embossing to add extra sparkle.

So there you go, something as seen on Pinterest actually did turn out.

xoxo,

b

Pin-doing

I'm impressionable or maybe I'm just curious, but I have a tendency to run out and do what I read or see.  Yesterday Apartment Therapy told me that geraniums are easy to grow so when I went on break from work, I bought some (of course I pinned the article first).  Today they are already living in my yard.  Several days ago I was reading Young House Love's 2013 Pinterest Challenge.  They did window boxes so I rushed home and pulled mine out of the garage.  They are up and flowing with flowers now.

How did I choose my honeymoon location?  I read about it on Poppytalk.  How did I choose this year's first anniversary vacation destination?  I saw a photo of an amazing place on Pinterest.  Once I figured out this spot was in the US, it was on.

I've read a lot about people sitting and pinning, getting lost for hours in all that visual candy, but not exactly doing.  That isn't me, obviously.  I can only look at a screen for so long.  I have to be doing.  So my new term is pin-doing (say it all together and make it flow).  Sometimes it isn't exact pin-doing, but adapting something I've seen into something else.  Regardless, I usually pin it for keeping or find it pinned.

Anyway, I've made peace with my addiction, but sometimes I think the internet should just stop showing me things.

This was taken the day I read about window boxes.  Yesterday, the lawn was mowed, the beds were edged, and geraniums found a home.  I'll post the progress next week.

xoxo,

an ever curious b

Doughnut Muffins

A baking urge hit me this weekend.  On Friday night I baked these pockets.They're good, not fabulous, but still good.  I kept getting distracted while making them and my crust didn't stay together.  Maybe you'll have better luck.

Honey wheat raspberry and peanut butter pockets

Yesterday, the Lady Bean wanted to bake.  There's usually a point where she looses interest and this was no different, but she was happy.  This is what she made:

Doughnut Muffins

 They taste like a sugar and cinnamon cake doughnut.  The batch size is small and they're fairly simple to make.

I scanned my pin board for food items that I already had the ingredients to make.  This was the winner.  I substituted coconut milk for the dairy needed.  I had opened the can on Friday night to use it when I made the wheat dough.  I am now a super fan of the coconut milk possibilities.  It seems to work so well.  I can tell that these were good too because they were gone in 12 hours and I only got one.  Next time I'll make minis.

xoxo,

B

Vacation Brain

(Severely lacking photoshop skillz: I haz them.)

It's that magical time, 50 days before my wedding.  It's that time when event related nightmares return, works slows to a creeping pace, and I start to question whether this can be pulled off.  Did I find enough people to set up? (--No, not quite)  Did I reserve enough time? (--Maybe, but it will be very close and would be more likely to get done if there were a few more people) Is anyone going to show up? (I will guarantee a room of 20 people, but what I'm shooting for is about 150) I don't know, but other than my concerns, my brain keeps shifting to vacation land and all the things I might need to make it perfect.  Yes, I know about perfection and how it doesn't exist.  I also know about how the best is the enemy of the good.  I've researched and realized, but I also have my own version of imperfect perfection and it works just as well.

Vacation (honeymoon) will be 25 days after the wedding.  It was delayed because someone, Future Husband, signed up for summer school and our wedding is right in the middle of second session.  Anyway, after a hard reality check we decided that our trip and his grade would both fare better if we waited.

I'm  still fixated on having a travel/ summer/ post-wedding/ Mexican wine country wardrobe.  I also still have no reason other I can and it's fun.  It might make for better pictures?  Added sophistication placed upon me me by others simply by glimpsing my outfit?  The feeling of going on an urban safari?

Anyway, above is a collage of my current vacation needs.  I think I'm coming to the end of my list, but I still have 75 days to go.

Towel

Blanket

Fedora

Sunglasses

Bag

There are a lot of great bags, glasses, and towels, but I just couldn't get comfortable with the prices of the a lot of the beach towels.  Fell free to take a look see at the others here.

xoxo,

vacation-brained-b

Pin Me

I started a Pinterest and it's kind of neat.  Check out my bedroom ideas for my currently neglected basement room (more of a winter project since summer is seasonal here).

The room as it is now:

                                       

 This is what I'm running away from.

And finally, a small peek of the garden progress.  The second bed is built, but not installed.  My poison ivy came back with a vengeance (after 17 days of medication) and the heat index went crazy, scary, unbreathably high.  So, the frame is still sitting there after being built last weekend.  I'm hoping to get this in the ground and full of dirt this weekend.  I'm also participating in a 2 day yard sale though.  I VERY much need the opportunity to get rid of things, but I've never done a yard sale before...EEEkkkkk.  I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed.  The invite to participate was last minute and the week has been crazy busy.

Hug, kiss, squeeze... xoxo...