Beautiful Winters and a Wonderful Surprise!

A few weeks ago, a big, BEAUTIFUL snowstorm came to New Haven. When I walked outside, the snow covered trees took my breath away. Everything was so gorgeous! I left the house early in the morning to work on my wintertime photography skills. My bestie (down jacket) and I adventured around town for a few hours, just soaking in the beauty. There were so many photos I thought I should make another slide show of them all. I realized after doing this, that I have made photo slide shows for summer, fall, and now winter...haha. All a total coincidence! It doesn't surprise me too much though, I love being outside, enjoying nature, and love the different seasons. To revisit my past seasonal slide shows, click here for summer and fall.

Soooo, what's the surprise??

The Song! While I was searching the slide.com website for a good song to go with my video, I was so surprised and excited to see that my childhood friend Valentina was one of their featured artists!!!! I had to choose one of her songs!

The friendship of Val and Val began back in 2nd grade (well, I wasn't so nice to her at first) but then hit it off in 5th grade when we had the same teacher. We remained close for many years, and would try to see eachother whenever we were both back in Texas. I am amazed at how different our lives have turned out. While I was enjoying highschool football games and trying to win student government elections, she was in New England for musical arts boarding school. I headed off to college, she went to the UK to work becoming a singer/songwriter/composer. Now I'm all setteled down, and she's livin' it up in LA! Amazing huh!?

"him's just a little guy"

Here is a smaller project that I've already completed."Him's just a little guy" is one of my favorite sayings from an EX-favorite family TV show.....rhymes with 'Mosselin'.

 

This little guys was just a buck! I love the color it adds to our TV console (sooo dark and black)

Here's what it looked like before. It's not really dieing for a makeover or anything...but I wanted to brighten it up a bit.

( Disclaimer: I'm really bad about taking true 'before' pictures. I either 100% forget, or remember once I'm already into the transformation..like here)

I covered the glass with ceran wrap on top and then painters tape along the bottom of the glass. 

Spray painted it 'ivory'

...but that didn't look too hot. I don't know if it's too cold in our basement, or if I am just a terrible spray-painter....but the paint job was really bad! It was all bubbly, splotchy, runny....ok probably ALL my fault. So I decided to sand away the pitiful paint and make it look rustic...

ps. the candles smell great!

99 cents and a whole lotta work!

Helllllllo Friends! 

A few weeks ago, I was out on another GWO adventure (goodwill outlet) and found a coffee table for 99 cents! Isn't that kinda sad?! Clearance at the Goodwill...outlet! Doesn't get worse than that! 

(Holla at Makayla, Baby Bailey, Whitney and lil Rose)

 It's probably so cheap because there is a huge, deep blemish right on the top. Doesn't matter to me though, because I will be making it into a widow bench!

It's going to take a little while though :) The wood finish is really horrible. What I particularly hate are the black speckles all over it. Who makes perfectly nice table, coats it with unncessary stain, and then adds black splotches everywhere??? I will attempt to sand it all off, but the detailing on the sides will be very challenging.

 

Here she is! Big enough for 3 friends and 2 strangers :) 

 

Just look at that hole! I keep trying to think what caused it...burn? chemicals? rotten wood?

 

Here's how far I got with one hour of sanding....not very far. Isn't the natural wood soo much prettier?! Just seeing a few inches of potential is very enouraging. 

 

This is the pretty detailing that I am dreading! It wraps around the whole table. Wish me luck! Any advice?!

A more fun aspect of this project is the fabric I picked out for the cushions and pillows....but that'll have to be on another post....tell then!

Winter Adventures

It's February. And it's winter. And I'm still alive!

I am proud to report, that I am surviving my first real winter! I owe it all to my big, full length, down jacket :) It's not cute...but WHO CARES, it is so warm! I've walked out in 18 degree weather numerous times in my down jacket and thought, "It's not even that cold today".

So thanks to my jacket (aka - new best friend) I have been enjoying the winter! I really like the snow...it is soooo beautiful! Something I've never had the chance to enjoy before. Here in Whitehall, they plow our parking lot, and ice/shovel our sidewalks and steps for us, which is wonderful.

I recently went on an winter adventure with my friend Jennifer - we went snow-shoeing. It was a lot of fun, and gave me a chance to try to take some neat winter pictures. I wasn't very pleased with them at first, but after some color adjustments (snow is sooo white! who woulda thought!?) I think they are alright. I definitely need to keep working on it though.

 

(snow shoes allow you to float above the snow)

  

  

  

  

  

  

(i like these snowy tree spines)

 

(I LOVE-U LESLIE)

this was our inspiration for....

 

 

 our lame replications :) it's the thought that counts right?!!!

Another fun winter adventure was attending a Yale Hockey game with our friends the Huestedts. We had a great time, and want to see a couple more games before the season ends. 

So winter has been great so far, but true to form, I've already begun planning weekly trips to the beach once it's warm again. Haha.

Happy Valentines Day!

 

For Valentines this year, we took it easy. No trip to the Bahamas, no proposals....just us. We made a yummy dinner, watched movies, took this Valentines photo, and relaxed! We also celebrated on Saturday, and went out to dinner and saw the movie Valentine's Day. 

Having Daniel home, all day, with no studying or events to attend was the best present ever! We made dinner together, and just enjoyed each others company.

 

dinner

 

 how much lasagna we actually ate. pathetic huh!? we will enjoy the leftovers though!

 

earlier in the week, we made valentines cards for daniel's classmates. it was a lot of fun, and these were some of my favorite.

Hope you all had a great Valentines!

Another Project!

Another Project! It started with this cute wooden dish that I found at the Salvation Army, it was only 50 cents! I spray painted it antique white and just love it!

Now, I just have to find something to put in it!

So another project ensued. I knew I wanted the dish to go on my dining table, but wasn't sure what to put in it. I was thinking decorative balls, but wasn't really sure about it. 

I then found this big bunch flowers at goodwill for 1 buck....and an idea hit me! I went and bought some styrofoam balls from Michaels and created these little beauties :)

 

I took the flowers and cut them off of the bunch, leaving about 1 cm of stem left attached to the flower petal.

 

Then I stabbed the stem into the foam balls...

 

....made a HUGE MESS....

and all these little cuties!

 

I'll post another picture of them of on the actual table - which is going to get another mini upgrade later today :) Stay tuned!

Exciting Times!

Some most exciting news has finally motivated me to get back into blogging again! Daniel has been chosen to participate in the "Escape from Alcatraz" Triatholon in San Francisco this May!

It's pretty intense! This is the description from their website:

The Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon includes a 1.5 mile swim from Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay. The race continues with an 18 mile bike ride out the Great Highway, through the Golden Gate Park, and concludes with an 8 mile run through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The finish is at The Marina Green. 

 Daniel began preparing in January, and has kicked his training into high gear now that he is officially in the race. It's very ambitious, and Daniel couldn't be more excited and happy about it. It's a great distraction, light at the end of the tunnel, all that good stuff you need while suffering though grad school :) 

 

Gooooooo Daniel! I know you will do awesome! 

As for myself, I've been working on some exciting projects too, but on a much smaller scale :) I have started to become very interested in creating things. My first project worthy of blog publication was re-doing a small shelfy thing...maybe a spice rack in it's past life. I patched up holes, painted it, backed it with fabric and added a wooden embelishment...and it's lovely! 

Before:

 

After!!!!