Milk, it does a blogger good

Design-Milk is so close to opening Vitamin D(esign) and I can't wait!

I saw a sneak peek of the site last night and it's gorgeous.I won't ruin the surprise, but I will tell you the site itself
is as beautifully designed as the goods it offers!

Design-Milk also featured these irresistible votive candle holders by jef designs. Jef also makes incredible minimalist pendant lights and fixtures that happen to be a little more expensive than "impulse buy" allows, but these votives run from $15 to $60. Not too shabby!

So many things going on, none of them developed or exciting enough to blog about, well, at least not in my life!
Here are some things that keep me in awe, mouth breathing and drooling all over my keyboard: Everything and anything by Something's Hiding in Here. The coverage of Renegade has quite a few bloggers posting images of their work, and I can't wait to see more on their blog or perhaps an online shop for those of us that didn't make it to see them in person?!? (wishbones to left; I want a pile of them, displayed just like that!)

Green Wellies has the most inspiring garden, the cutest dog and the most serene blog. To add to all the goodness, she also has comfrey to make plant tea out of. I can't find comfrey around here to save my life, but I sure love the thought of one day being able to follow these instructions!

These Ships with Lace pillow cases from Little by Jenny. That blue gets me every time.

And Chocolate Zucchini Cake. Okay, so it's probably not new to you, but it is to me. And it is good. Good as a cupcake, good as a cake. Top it with dark chocolate cream cheese frosting and it is heaven. Deep, rich, elegant heaven. (Okay, so it's not the prettiest cake in the world, but if you could taste it, you would know. Plus the zucchini came straight from the neighbor's garden!)

Living Room seeks quiet, modern vibe

The living room is slowly becoming more livable. Very SLOWLY! So here are 2 shots, and a little background info:
"C" shaped bent-ply table: $12 on Clearance from Target. Reed covered lamp, Thomas O'Brien for Target, purchased from Clearance liquidator Old Time Pottery for $8.00, added a different shade. Bent-ply chairs (2 of them, one is on the other side of the table) $30 each, Crate and Barrel Outlet several years back. Tall end table, eBay, bought 2 for $40. Big ol' honking lampshade tops one of a pair of floor lamps made by Adesso, but purchased used on eBay for $45 (for both!). Couch is currently under a slip cover, but is a Freecyclegoodie. Coffee table is a woven webbing bench from West Elm, I believe it was $19, but it may have been $29. The basket on the Flokati Rug ($99 on sale plus a student discount 5 years ago at Pier 1) is also from Old Time Pottery, was $3.99, and serves as a magazine rack.

The opposite corner of the room:
Shelves for records: Christmas gift from my parents my freshmen year of college (12 years ago??!??). skateboard deck table: $20 for turned wood legs and hardware from Home Depot, the top is a free brick sample from work and I painted it all up real pretty.
Chair, $5 at attic sale plus $20 in Waverly fabric. Pillows were $6 for both from Hong Kong here in Charlotte. Suitcase was $2 and holds videos and DVDs. Lamp was $40 on clearance from The Paper Skyscraper, updated with the original shade from the new Thomas O'Brien lamp. New TV and bookshelves as described several days ago (won't bore you with the details).

That's a lot of info, maybe too much, but do you think I'm getting a little closer to the calm and modern vibe I so badly want? What do you like, what would you change?

New TV??

I don't know how it happened exactly. Last night the mister and I went to the local big box hardware store for a piece of glass and some shelving brackets.
(Let me give you a tip at this point. . .The glass was for a custom frame I ordered. If I had gotten the glass with the frame, both of which were included in a 60% off custom framing sale, the glass would have been $20.00. The glass at the hardware store was $10.00.)
While there, said mister decided it was the day to buy a new TV.
We don't watch TV so much, Grey's Anatomy and Boston Legal are the 2 scheduled weekly events, though we're not devout enough to watch Grey's Anatomy through rerun season, see small rant for several reasons why.
The impulse for the big purchase came at 8:30 PM; Boston Legal comes on at 10 PM.
We bought the items for my small projects, sped down the street to another big box to see what they had to offer in terms of moving up a notch from our 1970s console TV set, which was obviously everything they had to offer.
We found the set, an HDTV ready tube with flat screen and really nicely saturated color. On sale for $550.00 and an out of the box version that had an enticing $150 gift card with purchase. That was our deal, and boy was it pretty. (It still is, don't worry, this isn't a tragedy.)
Then we realized we didn't have anything to put it on, except for aforementioned console set, which wouldn't do justice to our high dollar purchase. Yes, that's cheap for a TV, but a whole lot of money to spend in one place, seeing as how my car blue book value is less than $500.00. Enter Big Box 3, where we looked at all sorts of furniture, keeping several ideas in mind: 1) particle board was out, we wanted something solid enough to not end up in the landfill in 2 years, 2) it needed to function beyond TV stand, so when/if we found a TV stand to fit our style we could use this item elsewhere in the house (i.e. not waste money just for a temporary fix).
It was 9:30 at that point and we still wanted to make it home in time for Boston Legal. (Laugh all you want to, friend, but I need my weekly dose of tongue-in-cheek-liberalese, I can't get it elsewhere around ol' North Carolina.)
We found some bookshelves that seemed sturdy enough, matched C's office furniture perfectly and the box said "ash wood frame, melamine" as the materials. This was our solution! $60!! Woo hoo! We check out and arrive home at 9:57 with enough time to turn on and tune out, only to find out Boston Legal wasn't on last night. So we watched PBS in high def.

Now the shelves are all put together, I am not in the purchasing position for anything since I cut my hours back so much, but I'm dreaming of the perfect blend of a modern and mid-century modern TV stand. Does anyone even make such a thing that isn't MDF and doesn't cost a fortune?

(Credit where credit is due-from top to bottom: Shelving from Target, we got the 2 shelfer, notice the box said wood and melamine, the website says MDF and melamine. The website is correct, although there are a few pieces to the shelves that are actual wood. grrr. TV is from Best Buy, where we got ours. All entertainment units images are from Overstock.com but are actually all made by/for Lazy Boy

pay close attention, we've got a lot to cover here

Holly made a list of affordable etsy prints over on the Domino site. Then Joy pointed out the Botanical Prints also listed on Domino.
With my current interest in drawing flora, this link was a perfect reference point for me. My 2 favorites were Alison Foshee's (left) and Simone Shubuck's (center) drawings. That's mine on the far right, a drawing in gold paint called "Sticks and Stones." Can you see why that link was so exciting to find??


Then, somehow, oh wait, I remember: I googled Simone Shubuck and ended up on Playful Eye. A fun blog with a whole lotta great art. That blog led me to Keep Co., an awesome women owned shop with a conscience for fair manufacturing and animal kindness. Ethics in the business world. Hmmm, novel idea. The hugging tee and the Tobin shoes are my absolute favorites! (Well, maybe tied for faves with just about everything else they offer.)