Coat inspiration.

This is my 101th post! Congratulations to me:)

This afternoon I set about the task of taking apart a coat that my grandma gave me and putting it back together in a much more flattering way. {More pictures and how I did it to come}.

I just saw this photo on {frolic!} and thought I could use it for a bit of inspiration. I love the brown coat with its dramatic sleeves and cinched waist.

The photo was found originally here.

Kendra Smoot-Prop Stylist.

How does one become a prop stylist?
I'll be looking into it.
It just might be the career for me.

Slightly more info about Kendra Smoot here.

Missing home a bit.

It's not that Columbus isn't breathtakingly beautiful, it's just these photos from Alicia Bock. She says:
"I offer you some virtual waves to take a little break on. You can stay and float for awhile. The water's warm."

Thanks Alicia, I think I will.

The bedroom.

Today Rudy and I moved our bed out of what we have been calling the "Sleeping Nook" so that I could paint the little alcove in our bedroom. Moving the bed out of there made us think about not putting it back in...
Imagine a walk-in closet in that space with an ottoman and full length mirror. Awesome. I know, right?

Now our bed is in front of the horribly crumbing fireplace. Our headboard covers the cracking tiles perfectly, and because the thing can't even be used, I don't really feel so badly about covering it up.

All this thinking about bedrooms naturally led me to post some more that I love...

Oh boy, do I love this one. This room is a bit more reserved than I usually go for, but it is just so cool and collected. I think it's the lamps that do it for me, I love them so very much.

Some more stripes :) I especially love the headboard.

I really enjoy this dramatic wallpaper paired with multiple different patterns on the bedspread, lampshade and throw pillows. The crisp whites and matching wood pieces balance out the room well.

Hello drawstring shades, I love your look. Where can I get you?

I will post some pictures of our new bedroom configuration once I actually get it configured. I guess that this is the good thing about not having any furniture*, it makes it really easy to rearrange your room. If only in your head.

*The only bedroom furniture we have is our bed. And our rubbermade boxes acting as drawers, if those count.

All images from House To Home.

Let the Word of God dwell richly in you.

When My Heart Is Overwhelmed from Reality on Vimeo.

I just watched this message and was really affected by it. I hope you will be too.

Stripes on the ceiling.

Looking through the galleries at House To Home, I came upon this children's bedroom with a surprising design feature, stripes on the ceiling! Now that I have decided to do stripes behind our bed, I feel like I'm seeing them everywhere!

Stripes behind the bed.

Some inspiration found via Design*Sponge.

Earlier today I was thinking that stripes in different values of gray would be lovely behind our bed. Tomorrow I will be painting our sleeping nook in the same color as the rest of the bedroom, a warm gray called Tea Stain. I figure that this will be a perfect time to try out something new!

Matte Stephens

'Alfred was obviously underdressed for his induction into the Adventurers Hall of Fame'

Matte Stephens is an artist that I have been following for a couple of years now. I just came across this new one on his blog and I love it.

I think that slowly I am becoming more and more inspired to start painting again. Give it another go! Do things with it that I've never tried before!

Flags in the forest.

Great, now I have to go hang some flags in a forest. Just so I can be as cute as these folks.

Gatsby's 2nd birthday portrait.

Yesterday was Gatsby's 2nd birthday. I figured this was a great excuse to take some portraits of the little guy.
The photo above is my favorite of the batch, but I figured I would share a couple more too! I get a kick out of his ears in the two below. He is always such a character.

Looking forward to...

Wool tights and cardigans. Minus the heels. I am tall enough thank you very much.

JCrew

Playing with food.

Rudy at school+Chelsea home alone all day=

Eventually the green beans got tired of me and tried to sneak away.

A dark bedroom.

Dear bedroom, I love you and your pops of pink. Keep it up.
Love, Chelsea.

From Living Etc.

A picture and poem friday.

your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other; then

laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis.

-e. e. cummings

To read the whole poem, go here.

Picture can be found here.

Leaf portraits.

How sweet and beautiful are these custom leaf portraits?
I love how the veins in the leaf below make a heart shape.

You can find them here.

Two reasons to love tea even more.

Here are two very interesting ideas for tea bag designs. One beautiful and one funny.

This gorgeous origami design can be found here.

The second makes me laugh so much. I love the idea of a political figure taking a good soak in my cup of tea. They can be found here.

A peek at things to come.

I love just about everything about this photo from this month's issue of Martha Stewart Living. Mmm, autumn.

I also love that just a few miles away from our house, we can find a place that looks like this. Bird masks and boots, here I come.

Oh sofa, when will I sit on you?

{The sofa from Macy's that I decided on}

So Rudy and I have been living in our new place for just about eight weeks now with no living room furniture. I repeat, NO LIVING ROOM FURNITURE. My wonderful grandparents offered to buy us a sofa, seeing as we arrived to Columbus sans seating. Because I ordered the sofa in a different color than they had in stock, I was told that I would wait four weeks to get it in. Turns out that seven is the new four. Seven weeks I have been waiting. Someday my sofa will come. Won't it?

Here are some other options I considered:

An Ikea Kramfors Sofa as seen in this lovely home.

{The Kramfors alone}

I also really liked Crate and Barrel's Petrie sofa, but at more than double the price and the same aesthetics, I went for the Corona sofa in Stone.

Gatsby's first day of training.

Our dog Gatsby has a horrible habit of barking and howling anytime we leave the house. This goes on for as long as we are gone. When I was teaching last year, he would yell for the full three hours I was gone every single day. It is a horrible situation, and one that causes me anxiety every time I have to leave him alone, especially because we have very nice neighbors who I would like to keep as friends.

So today I am buckling down and starting a training plan. I will be leaving my house every hour on the hour for five minutes. This will continue everyday until Gatsby has gotten used to me being gone for that amount of time. Then, I'll up the time to ten minutes, etc. This is the perfect time for me to start doing this with him, seeing as I have not found a job yet and Rudy started school again this week. No distractions and no excuses!

Say a little prayer for the both of us. We'll need it:) And if you have any advise or similar stories, please feel free to leave a comment.

An idea.

Note to self:
Learn how to write like this.

Custom calligraphy and lettering from inkwells.

Maybe my favorite living room.

I leave you today with one of my very favorites from Living Etc.

The colors used in the map are some of my all time favorites, especially when they are put together. Love it love it.

Now I'm off to make brownies and watch Pushing Daisies.

An explosion above our bed.

An explosion of fantastic that is!Here is a representation of what I want to go above our bed. I love the pompoms that Martha Stewart has showed me how to make. The paper lamp shades are from Ikea.

Some pompom inspiration from Martha Stewart Weddings. I love the sunset colors.

Our sleeping nook as it is now. I will post some pictures when I actually get the lighting fixture above the bed put together.

The dog park!

{click on the picture for a larger view}

Before Rudy and I moved to Columbus, I searched high and low online for dog parks that I could take little Gatsby to once we got here. Big Walnut Park has been what I expected and more. It is like doggy heaven. There are always dogs running and jumping and swimming and playing. I love it! And it tires Gatsby out like no other.

This is a montage of three pictures to show just a tiny bit of what the park is like. Can you see some of the leaves turning red in the background? I can't wait for fall!

A wonderful weekend.

Rudy, Cody and I had a great weekend exploring Columbus. The boys took a bike ride up to Antrim Park, where Gatsby and I met them. What a beautiful place huh? It is only about five miles away from our house. We are surrounded with beauty. And the weather could not have been any better.

On Thursday we went to see The Books at the Wexner Center of the Arts. It was amazing. They played a cover of Nick Drake's Cello Song. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

Another tempting tub.

I wish it were mine...

Cody's in town!

Rudy's little brother Cody is in town for the weekend, so I'm off to have fun around our new city!

I'll be back to blogging come Monday. See you then:)

A little yellow goes a long way...in the bedroom.

Just some more bedroom inspiration from LivingEtc's extensive galleries.
I love that this formal bed has been lightened up and modernized with some white paint and a dose of yellow. Still very classy, but not taking itself too seriously. Brilliant!

Doesn't this room look like it's in a tree house? Be still my beating heart.