You how, every once in a while, someone gets you just the perfect gift? The one you wanted to buy for yourself but didn’t have the money? The one you just forgot about because you knew it wasn’t going to happen?

A couple of months ago, I found a Calder lithograph on Craigslist. I told someone I work for about it, since he’s a big Calder fan, and then I forgot.

But guess what? He bought it for me!

Isn’t it fabulous?? It’s the kind of thing that makes you want to want to get rid of your furniture and buy new stuff to match. It needs to be re-framed, but that’ll happen one of these days.

Mm, what a nice, peaceful, faintly mid-century living room. Still waiting for the couch of my dreams, but I’m learning to be content with old greeny for a while longer. (It helps that he’s really comfortable.)

In other important news, husband and I just finished watching season 3 of Lost and I can’t get it out of my head. It seems like a cruel joke to wait a whole year for something and then have it disappear in less than a week. But man, what a great week. I was conveniently sick, so we spent some lovely evenings and afternoons cuddled on the couch screaming “no, no, noooooo!” at Jack. And Locke. And Ben. And Charlie.

I hate to say it, but I found Heroes really underwhelming. We finished season 1 because we had to, but it was a grit-your-teeth-for-another-round-of-Mohinder kind of thing. Battlestar Galactica is way better. And Lost? The best of them all. I didn’t love the last couple of episodes, but the whole of the 3rd season was just so well-done, especially considering how many shows fall apart around season 3 (hello, O.C.).

Season 4 starts on January 31, and we just might have to invest in some cable, people.

Whoah, what happened to the day? And is it really Friday already? (These are both good thoughts, by the way.) I lost most of my lunch to a loooong meeting, but I’ve got enough time to show you one last little Christmas decorating project, in case you’re feeling crafty this weekend.

This is based on the ”everlasting garland” project in the December issue of Martha, and they’ve got nice instructions over there if you want details.

My twist was to hot glue some wires where the two ribbons meet so I could add ornaments. In addition to general festivity, the ornaments also help pull the ribbon down so it’s not so wavy - if you’re going to try this at home, I suggest using satin ribbon instead of grosgrain (for some reason the grosgrain just wont lie flat, even after ironing).

I put up ribbon + ornament garlands on all of the doorways leading from our living room, and I really love them. Simple, fairly cheap, and definitely handmade: now that’s my kind of decorating.

Have a good weekend, and happy crafting!

I felt a little sheepish buying an Advent calendar instead of making one. Last year, we didn’t have a lot of spare cash and our gifts and decor tended to be 1) made by me  or 2) from the dollar store. And to be honest, it was a little stressful. Handmade gifts sound so pleasant to give and to receive, but at some point you encounter the fact that they take a lot of time and don’t always turn out the way you envisioned. I remember working myself into a tizzy last year when mom’s sewing machine developed problems when I was about to embark on a lot of Christmas sewing. I had presents to sew, no way to sew them, and no back-up plan. This, my friends, is the recipe for a very stupidly unhappy holiday.

Whipup had a good editorial a while back called “Giving of Gifts” in which they discussed the stress caused by trying to make too much stuff. It made me think, and if you’re tempted to try to be Martha-the-Holiday-Goddess every year, you might want to pop on over and read it. Trust me, your husband (or wife, or mother, or sister) will be happier if you decide to make less stuff and have less stress. Right, dear? 

(I have a whole ‘nother tangent about buying handmade, but I’m running out of time. So I’ll save that for later.)

Okay, on to the Advent calendar. 

This is more like an “Advent string”, obviously…it’s basically a ribbon strung between two stars with a lot of little bags clipped to it. Yes, it would be very easy to make, but I found this version at La Bella Vita for $8.50 (which is a steal) and decided that supporting a local business is a very worthy cause.

You could fill the bags with all sorts of things, and I’ve seen a lot of blog posts about making cards with little activities to do every day (my friend Alisha has really great memories about this sort of calendar). I filled mine with Christmas ornaments as a pleasant way to prolong the trimming of the tree. Many of these were given to husband by his mother, who used to give Josh and Esther a new ornament every year. After we got married, mom gave the box to us and I’ve had a lot of fun looking at twenty-something years of accumulated treasures.

I don’t know that our mini-tree is capable of holding all the ornaments, but we’re certainly going to try!

I meant to post yesterday but caught a bug and ended up languishing on the couch instead. I did summon the energy to go out with husband last night and return with a new computer (hoorah!), so I’ll make a proper introduction in a few days when she’s up and running.

So, back to the subject of Christmas decor. In the spirit of “you don’t have to make everything yourself,” I invested in a couple of holiday prints for the top of our cd shelf. The one on the right is from the Black Apple etsy store, and it’s called “A Scarf for Two.” I think of it as the happy emo couple, and I have to confess that I get some warm fuzzies when I look at it.

The one on the left is from Office, which I found via Design*Sponge. I really wanted something letterpress, and it has the most lovely texture. Makes you want to run your fingers over it.

I got another ah-maaaaazing print the other day as an early Christmas present from someone at work (at least, I think that’s what it was), but it’s not on the wall yet. Will show off after I bump some art around to make room.

I guess this last photo isn’t very Christmassy, except to show that I finally dug my old sheepskin out of mum’s cupboard and put it on the couch. (Yes, I feel a little bad for the sheep every time I lean back against it. But God did give her such lovely soft wool and I think she lived a happy life.)

Bean approves of the current living-room arrangment and the sunlight that briefly and wonderfully poured through the window. I’m so rarely at home when the sun is shining that I want to soak it in every Saturday and Sunday. And Tuesday, if I happen to be sick.

More decoratin’ tomorrow!

We still don’t have an internet-ready home computer, but I’m going to give blogging a try again anyway (maybe call it Jupiterbuttons Lite?) . I finished some Christmas decor projects over the weekend, so I think I’ll try showing one a day and hope I don’t run out of lunchtime.

I know you’ve seen the felt trees before, but I wanted to thank Molly for linking to my tutorial on the Momformation blog. I really like the other project (a twig star)…must find some twigs and someplace to hang one.

These trees got booted out of the dining room and into our apartment’s entryway, which I think is a much better place anyhow. Except that husband didn’t notice them at all and finally told me that he never looks at the entryway when he walks in the door. After I painted the walls a lovely yellow and everything? Hmph.

(The birch bark tubes are from Small Stump - I happened across them at just the right time, because they go fast on Etsy. I’m looking forward to trying to grow wheatgrass in them next spring.)

Still to come: new prints, a ribbon garland, and a special kind of advent calendar.

Hey, remember that little craft room clean-up I started a while back? I’ve decided that it’s done enough to share, although still not really a thing of beauty. If you’ll take a second to look at the old photos (wince), you’ll appreciate how much stuff I got rid of. Lots and lots of stuff. I took a pretty ruthless look around the room and sorted out (1) things to keep, (2) things to give away, and (3) things to finish immediately so they’re not just sitting around. I tend to accumulate a lot of future projects, so it was a little tough to distinguish between (2) and (3). A lot of future pillowcases went to the Goodwill, but I also painted a frame and a few other odd pieces that I’d had kicking around for a long time.

I’ll start with the view to the right since it’s still not that pretty and I want to get it out of the way.

Lots of shipping supplies = lots of boxes, obviously. Sigh. But at least everything is easy to find.

The view to the left is what makes me much, much happier. Isn’t that cozy-looking?

The desk was my great-grandmother’s, and I love sitting down at it and wondering what she use to do there. Sew? Paint? Write letters?

This little bookshelf holds some of my extensive collection of photo albums and sewing books. [Does anyone else have trouble figuring out what to do with all the photos you've collected over the years? Which are really heavy and take up lots of space??] I found the wine-bottle crate out by our trash bin and decided it was perfect for organizing my prints and cello sleeves.

This little shelf was an old craft fair prop that I almost had to give away because I couldn’t find a home for it. But then I realized that it had loops and could be hung on the wall. It’s very classic-vintage looking, and I was sad when I thought I might have to give it away.

My fabric collection is now greatly reduced. It was hard to part with such a large part of my stash, but the happy thing is that all the pieces I own now are my favorites. Gone are the only-okay, might-be-useful-someday, and just-the-wrong-colors pieces. Hello, everything I really like.

In the end, de-cluttering was totally worth it and I’ll probably want to go through the whole process again in another year or so. I still wish I had the time to paint, but my little Ikea lamps are doing their best to make the place look less dingy and more inviting. I’m also happy about the fact that I was able to package a new order this morning in about 5 minutes and have it ready to go for my lunchtime post office visit. Success!!

Woh, sorry about the photo problems. WordPress hiccupped mid-post, but I think we’re up and running now. Sorry if you stopped by while things were looking really weird.

Third time is - apparently - the charm when it comes to dyeing sheets. I dumped them back in the tub on Saturday with a couple of packets of tangerine and, while the results still aren’t *exactly* what I’d hoped they’d be, they’re definitely good enough to put on the bed.

The color is quite even and satisfactorily covers the bleach spots, although you can still see them a little if you look hard enough (I’ve decided not to look). The final color is more orange-y than yellow-y, but at least it’s in the same family as my maple dresser.

The duvet color turned a nice dark grey after I added some green and orange, but it has been banquished to the closet for the time being as it’s much too warm for a comforter.

In my excitement about having new sheets, I also decided to do a little bedroom rearranging and, after measuring to make sure they would fit, moved the bed and nightstands in front of the window. Before you ask if that’s a bad idea because of drafts, I should mention that it’s been in the 90s and 100s over here and we would LOVE some drafts around our bed. We also sleep with a fan on, so street noise is not a problem.

I’m really happy with the new arrangement, especially since the curtains provide a rather dramatic backdrop and stand in nicely for the headboard that I can’t afford yet.

In the process of moving things around, I also found out that I can completely disassemble and assemble a cal king bed (frame and matresses) all by myself. Well, me + some advil.

In other news, I’m headed off to St. Louis, Missouri, in the wee hours of Thursday meeting for a conference. It turns out that I will have one free morning, so if you’re reading this and have any recommendations for fun things to do in St. Louis for a couple of hours (other than the arch; I’m not real big on heights) please leave me a comment! I’ve thought about trying to do a blog feature on the meeting a la “blogging the national stationery show” or something like that, but I doubt that you all are that interested in the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Phytochemical Society of North America. So, I will probably close up blog shop until the end of July. But the good news is that after the conference is over I’ll have more time on my hands, and I’ll have more stuff to show.

I hope you have a good couple of weeks!

What’s a girl to do when her husband happens to love music? And turns 26?

Throw him a special birthday party, perhaps?

This was my first theme party, and the decorating was a lot of fun.

I brought home a dozen old records that no one should ever want to play again and turned them into wall decor and record bowls.

The bowls are easy, if you want to try this at home (I used the instructions here and they worked well). The plastic folds into wonderfully organic shapes - I think mine look a little bit like big black clams.

We also rounded up enough old CDs for me to make a “chandelier” of sorts. It’s not as sparkly as I thought it might be, but the slowly spinning circles are quite hypnotic.

The birthday banner was made from the more colorful record inserts and some bias tape (the lettering doesn’t show up very well, unfortunately). It’s definitely re-usable, so family members can expect to see this again. :)

I’m afraid that I forgot to take photos during the party itself because the food took longer than I thought it would and there was a lot of scurrying around the kitchen. Josh barbecued so much meat and veggies that I thought we’d have tons of leftovers (wrong!) and I made Elvis Presley’s favorite poundcake with strawberries and whipped cream. It all turned out to be pretty delish. Good company + good food + good drinks + good music + good reason to celebrate = a very good time.

Happy birthday again, my dear; it was a very special day.

If you don’t visit decor8 for a daily dose of inspiration, you’re missing out.  Not only does Holly have really good taste, but she posts often (= more fun to look at) and saves you from needing to comb through thousands of webpages to find the best stuff. And she’s really good about finding lower priced alternatives, which is nice for people on a budget (= moi).

After my surprise “get a hobby” win, I think I’ve used up most of my luck for a while. But I decided to put together an inspiration board for her latest contest just in case.

I’ve been wanting to make a wall board for a while anyway after seeing a pattern in a recent issue of Martha (can’t find a link - sorry) and the really incredible ones made by Shim + Sons. Let me assure that, after making my own, I have a lot more respect for how hard it is to get the fabric to lay nice and flat like Sally’s does. Maybe you’d better not really look at my fabric. Or the way that my camera didn’t like to photograph lots of white. The ochre pockets at the bottom were really fun to make, though, as were the fabric-covered thumbtacks (there’s a very nice tutorial for those here).

Of course, making the board was only half the project. I also got to search through my not insignificant stacks of design magazines, develop a theme, and start tearing out pages.*

*This was the source of a little disagreement between husband and myself. Is there anyone else out there who really dislikes ripping up your magazines? This is one of the things that has kept me from making a board like this in the past. Josh assured me that there are thousands of copies of Domino and Martha and Elle Decor out there just waiting to replace my damaged ones, but I’m still not convinced. I told him that I might tape the pics back in afterward and he said that he would laugh very, very hard if I did that. Is this really that neurotic of me?

The room I picked was the living room - our living room, to be specific. I think it’s really hard to decorate something in a vacuum instead of working with a specific set of walls, ceiling, and carpet. So, my goal was to come up with objects and colors that fit the very real living room in our very real apartment were I to have the opportunity to re-do everything with no budget. :)

It didn’t take very long for me to figure out that a lot of my images were falling neatly into a grey + brown theme. I kept the yellow/ochre and teal accents that I have now, but conveniently left out the ol’ forest green couch.

And what would an inspiration board be without something wildly beautiful that you cannot possibly afford?

Of course, I am now wishing that I had done this before moving in rather than after. I think I might have found another couple of hours to add a coat of soft grey paint to the walls, along with renewed/prolonged furniture searching. But I think that the point of an inspiration board should be opening yourself up to new possibilities instead of making you ungrateful for what you already have, so I’m going to be thankful for my little living room and dream about making a few changes in the future.

(You can relax, dear, I said “a few.”)

Our back door used to have a curtain made from eyelet lace and a blue-and-maroon-Americana-print ruffle. Ick. Last Saturday night, I decided that I couldn’t bear to let our guests see it and whipped up a substitute from an old sheet.

It’s not spectacular, but the view is now much improved and it goes well with my aunt’s  daisy watercolor. Don’t you love the round frame?

Much stress at work this week. The problem with having multiple bosses is that they can all ask you to do something at once. And then call repeatedly to see how their project is going as you scramble to finish stuff for the other guy. Sometimes they even put you on speakerphone, and it’s such a nice treat to know that your “ums” and “ahs” are being amplified for whoever-else-is-in-the-room to hear.

I’m probably learning valuable lessons about priorities and time management, but I’d much rather that it be Friday already.