an operatic moment

David and I started out the weekend with a trip to see/hear 'The Tristan Project' at the Concert Hall. We both enjoyed the performance, I apparently a little more because I could not stop singing.....DAAAAAAAviiiiidt!....for the rest of the evening. Trust me. Carnegie Hall will be calling.

After such a emotionally taxing event, we played it a little cooler the rest of the weekend with some early morning shopping both days, picking up these quirky prints at the Long Beach antique market. They are just waiting for DAAAAAAAviiiiidt!...to be hung.

use on display

use on display
Originally uploaded by m free.

Soon after Dave and I came to an agreement on having some type of open shelving in the kitchen we hit an impasse on what exactly would be on the open shelving. Dave thought it should be less about display and contain more useful items and I preferred it the other way around. What you have here is an attempt at a compromise.

The shelving pictured is to the right of the sink and for the most part contains all the necessary items for our typical breakfast - bowls for cereal, sugar, tea, coffee, the occasional pastry, etc. Breakfast is the meal we routinely eat at home but spend very little time on during the week. The idea is to grab and run..... or sit depending on how many times we (ok I) hit snooze.

trash can dreams

After living with our white plastic Ikea bin (that lost it's lid somewhere between LA and NYC) for 5 long trash filled years, I'm happy to report that we have finally broke down and purchased a new Kitchen trash can. It's a long-lean- stainless trash collecting machine from Simple Human. If you're in the market, I highly recommend it!

hoping for a bumper crop

hoping for a bumper crop
Originally uploaded by m free.

You are looking at my first solo attempt at gardening in the actual ground as this house is the first place we've had with a real yard in which to plant. And yes, I called my Dad to tell him I expected to see a high yield at the end of the summer.

He said starting with corn plants instead of seeds was cheating.
I told him I got down on my hands and knees and put the plant in the soil.
I guess we're even.

craft day: how to

Because someone out there was curious to find out how I put together the collage on shown in the previous post, I decided to show you the details behind the image. You should know that I started with a completely different idea for the outcome but as always I didn't plan ahead and had to adjust the design to cover my tracks.

I started out with a good-on-one-side plywood square and a very large bottle of Elmer's. All four of the fabrics I used were gifts from the beautiful use swap and can be found at Purl Soho.

I started with this fabric (in green) as a background. I used the stitching on the fabric as a guide to cut it into strips of varying widths and then glued them down randomly. This is where my original design went awry as the fabric was not wide enough to cover plywood square.









Now knowing that I needed to hide the edges where the background ended I decided to cut out the circles in this fabric for a layered 'border' at the edges.









I used this one to simulate branches growing out from the edges and cut out the foreground image adjusting it as necessary.












Lastly I used this one as the focal point of the collage cutting out the bunches of flowers as well a few single flowers.












And that was it!

she's crafty...

Sunday was craft day in the Freeland household. Dave took apart AND put back together a washing machine and I made this....with some help from the beautiful use swap and a lot of Elmers.

throwing in the towel

I first would like to point out this has nothing to do with March Madness and although my brother is out celebrating a win after the first round, I hardly believe the contest is over.

But as a Smith it is a rarity that we will own up to defeat. There is always an excuse, albeit lame depending on which Smith you talk to you but an excuse no less. The most often used is the ever reliable "I let you win." or perhaps the "I didn't want to leave you feeling bad".

And this is no different a situation. It is crazy to think the messy house defeated us and tomorrow morning someone armed with a mop and a little 409 will take over.

But honestly!

I let it win.