Winter Walks On The Beach.

It is starting to get chilly up here in the Pacific Northwest.

But in all honesty, this is one of my favorite seasons here in Washington.

The fall rain stops, the skies are as clear as glass and wind is chill.

Everyone starts putting up their Christmas decorations and the Christmas ships start floating through our harbor, just outside our door.  I love it.

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Yesterday I decided to take a leisurely walk on our beach here at Casa Del Playa.

I'm always looking for treasure, and I can frequently find something interesting that has floated in from the Puget Sound.

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Here are yesterdays finds.

An old washed up wooden boat.  It would be so fun to haul this back to my apartment and put it the plant bed just on the other side of our deck.  Though it would probably raise a few complaints with the neighbors.  The downside of not having a house!  This beauty has already been betrothed to the Seattle Dead Old Wooden Boat Society.

Between some rocks I found this gorgeous array of colors. I love the bits of bright purple crab shells.

I found an island of vibrant orange seaweed.

And I brought these beauties home with me.  First closed oyster shell I've ever found.

Every time of year is a good time to go outside and find natures treasures.  Whether its chestnuts just fallen from the trees at Volunteer Park, or oysters at the bay. 

"Beep Beep" from The Little Road!



FAMILY TREASURES

Most of us have a few family heirlooms that we treasure.

A few small things handed down through time, and sometimes by fate, to you.

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I love this idea I found from Tattered Style for those old hand written recipes that might have been past down to you by your Great Great Grandmother, or even your Great Great Great Grandmother.

Ya know, back in the time when measurements called for a "Dash," a "Pinch" and a "Smidgen."

Makes for some fun rustic art in your kitchen and you'll always have that old recipe handy when you need it!

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I think they would also look amazing in these floating frames from West Elm!

You can also find these dash, pinch and smidgen measuring spoons at Sur La Table.

"Beep Beep" from The Little Road!



WHAT I AM THANKFUL FOR

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for;

 

Blue sky's and wide open foot hills...............

 

 

Beautiful canyons.............

 

Waking up to dear peeking in my bedroom window.....

 

 

That moment when time stands still, and all that really matters is warm homemade sourdough bread.

 

 

I'm thankful for the chance to come back to the milky way.  Those stars were so easy to take for granted until I moved to the city and the stars were all drowned out by the bright lights.

 

 

Most of all, I am thankful for that moment when I pull my car into my old driveway, and I know that I am home.

 

Were all home where we feel loved.

And that is what I'm thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And......

"Beep Beep" from The Little Road!

 

A PHOTO FOR EACH YEAR

Here's an idea for all you newlyweds....

When you get to old and wrinkly and you still have the love of your life holding your hand,

wouldn't it be great to have a photo of the two of you for each year of your life together?

You could watch your lives and love grow every year.

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Curt and I celebrated our first year of marriage together last August.

The year just flew by!  It still feels like just the other day I was being serenaded by mariachi's as I met the love of my life at the end of an isle. 

So to commemorate our marriage day we decided to have a photo shoot every year with our most favorite photographer Cleary O'Farrell. Who took the most AMAZING photography of our wedding.

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Your first anniversary is your "Paper" anniversary, so we thought that should be the theme of these photos!

Each year will have a correlating theme to the anniversary year!

It's going to be fun coming up with new ideas every year to fit the theme!

Here are a few photos of our first year PAPER anniversary!

We found this amazing little spot at the Washington State Arboretum right next to this gorgeous little pond covered in water lilies.  It was so pretty! 

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We pulled the paper theme in with paper pom poms, hand made paper roses, the typewriter, a mailbox full of love notes, and of course the paper umbrella.

Yay!!

We also had little treats like lavender cupcakes, and Clementine soda with fun paper cocktail umbrellas!

And of coarse I had to whip out my fun little Brownie camera that I got form my friend Katy's wonderful store, The Classic Farmhouse. 

After all, our old photographs are paper too!

I look forward to looking back on these photos with my hubby when we are all wrinkly and gray..... and still in love.  :O)

Next year is Cotton! What would you do?

"Beep Beep" from The Little Road!!

TAXIDERMY AND THE MAN WHO KNOWS.....

Hi everyone!

I know I've been neglecting this blog.

But, ya know what, I'm just going to get right back to it.  We're all only human right?

I showed you guys a little while back our project of moving our pantry into an open shelving unit we built in our dinning room.  Well, the project continues!  We've just transformed the old pantry into a walk in closet. (I will post pictures soon!) It's been working really well! Still struggling to fit all our stuff into it though!

And now were on to converting the old bedroom closet into an office/crafting space!  Whew!

I'm about projected out at this point! 

So now that the majority of our cosmetic house projects are being rapped up, I figured its time to start pulling all my decorative stuff out of storage and start hanging pictures and putting out the chotchkeys and such.  So I started pulling stuff out of hiding and setting them out......Only problem is, and this may sound totally silly...... I just don't feel grounded!  For weeks I've been wracking my brain trying to conceptualize how my home is really going to come together, and I've hit a major stump!  So I started thinking about what makes me, me!

I love most everything shabby and industrial.  I love things that show age and tell a story, but I also love how clean and personal it makes a space feel. Family Pictures, Old pieces of torn down buildings, Relics of history!

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I also have an Mcobb side.  I love strange things! From things that make your brain go "What!" to things that give you a little bit of the heeby geebys.   I actually have a huge old poster of Alexander, "the man who knows." floating head hanging in my living room.  (FYI Alexander was a local Seattle magician that was very popular in the 1920's)  And its a really cool poster!

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I also have a naturalist side.  I work for a farm, I love being outdoors camping, exploring, combing for treasures.  I hate to fly, I prefer to keep my feet on the ground. That is a big part of who I am.

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So, how the hell do I make all these sides of me work together?

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So the other day it hit me!

Taxidermy! Biology! Creatures of strange seemingly uncharted territory!..... Usually Asia.  :O)

Think about it for a moment with me!!!

Each item has a story! A history, just like all of my old shabby furniture and architectural pieces!

Though I know it seems on the contrary, being dead and all, in my opinion, taxidermy actually breaths a sense of life into a room! It makes me remember that there is so much beauty in the world we live in!  Free beauty! So not only does it relate to my shabby/industrial side by telling a story, being able to put something in my every day environment that comes from nature relates to my naturalist side.

And without saying it relates to my Mcobb side.  Taxidermy gives a lot of people the Heeby Geebys, but for me, reminds me that life and death are constantly around us.  That there is beauty in all things and in all stages of life and existence, even the dark stages we all go through at one time or another. 

In all actuality, in a way, it also brings me back to my childhood.  I used to catch yellow butterfly's and metallic blue lizards, and keep them in a secret box in my bedroom.  You can imagine my mothers surprise the day she stumbled upon them!

So its time to start combing the beach for sea specimens, and hounding ebay for amazingly cool died bugs and bats!

Also, West Elm has this beautiful Faux taxidermy wall mount head that's above!  It shall be mine!

"Beep Beep!"  From The Little Road!!!

PEAR COZY'S ARE HERE!!!

Just added to the shop!!!

I know yall have been loving your Apple Cozys!

So we decided to up our game and develop a pattern for Pear Cozy's which are now available in

THE SHOP!

There are 3 great aspects about fruit cozys.

1. They keep the bumps and yucks off your fruit if you are throwing them in a sack for lunch

2. They actually keep your fruit fresh longer if you wrap them up as soon as you get your fruit home

3. They just make life a little more fun!

As of now our pear cozys are made to order, which is good for yall because you can specify any color and any button!  We're working hard to make a surplus, so that we can ship immediately but for now its an estimated week to 2 weeks to ship.

So head over to the shop and pick yours out now!  Or if you are local to the Seattle area, just send me a message and we can make a personal arrangement!

"Beep Beep!" from The Little Road!

THE PANTRY GETS A NEW HOME!

I've mentioned before in past posts that I've been strategiesing to move the pantry into open shelving in the dining room, thus leaving my walk in pantry to be converted into a walk in closet.  As much as Curt and I love living at casa del playa, it is after all a 750 square foot condo, and the space dedicated as the master closet, is well, not so master!  So the vision of this project was to make the pantry a more accessible, grab and cook kind of deal, along with creating a glorious walk in closet space in the hallway just outside our bedroom door.  YAY!

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And guess what!  I'm going to give you the whole tutorial!

Ready?

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First off, I wanted my shelves to look more industrial.  I first contemplated on making a huge rolling shelve unit made from gorgeous knotty wood, aluminum piping and metal plumbing attachments...  It would have been really cool, but in the long run between the astronomical price to build it and all the strange quirky problems that would arise from taking on such a project.... I decided to scale down a bit.  But!!  I kept the idea of having some gorgeous knotty wood, and purchased some inexpensive wall mounting brackets that though simple, I felt still had a modern industrial feel to them.

I purchased some very inexpensive pressurized 2x10 knotty pine from home depot for $8 a board.  They came 10 feet long, but Home Depot will cut your wood down for you free of charge.  Less work for me!  Woohoo!

Now comes the hard work.  I sanded down each board to eliminate nicks in the wood, branding stamps, and indents where the wood has been pressed.  I dug through the bin of boards at Home Depot to fish out the ones with minimal scaring, but getting a perfect board is virtually impossible.  I didn't mind to much, nicks and bruises go along with my industrial theme, and I just sanded them till they were smooth and not splintery.  Scares give the wood character.

Don't judge me for killing all my plants in the picture :O)

Developing my green thumb is something I'm still working at.

After I sanded down all my boards, I started staining.  I used an oil based interior stain by Miniwax called Ipswitch Pine.  It has a deep golden hue and it turned most of the knots in the wood a dark black.  So pretty.

Miniwax drys super fast which makes getting the job done a lot quicker.

Staining is a super simple process.  Just brush on your first coat, wait 15 minutes and then wipe it off with a clean rag.  I did two coats of stain on my boards.  I wanted that beautiful color to POP!

Note:  Since this stain is oil based, you will need turpentine to be able to clean and save your brushes.  I killed a nice brush before I realized.

See how pretty those knots turned out!

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After the stain dried, I put 2 coats of fast drying Polyurethane on the boards, which made them supper shiny!  It will also help protect the boards from stains and scratches.

Next I just installed the boards on the wall and voila!  I have an awesome, beautiful open shelving unit for my pantry!  Now to fill up those shelves!!!

"Beep Beep" from The Little Road!

WHAT THE WATER GAVE ME

I've had a devout love affair with Frida Kahlo for many many years now.

I love her so much as a woman as well as an artist.

She lived a life of countless obstacles and died very young, still she lived a passioned and beautiful life.

Her paintings to me, represent the sweet details of life, the intensity of human perspective, and the mysticism we all feel about our own mortality.

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I respect her honesty.

So for today's Music Monday, I wanted to feature a newer song by Florance and The Machine, that I recently found out was inspired by a painting by Frida Kahlo.

"What The Water Gave Me"

A painting that was created shortly after Frida's experience of miscarrying her almost full term baby, and after her husband Diego Rivera's total embarrassment of having his own fresco mural knocked down and destroyed in the RCA building at Rockefeller Square for depicting Communist figures.

The point that this painting inspires todays pop culture proves to me that Art and Music really are a significant part of our cultural and historical heritage.

Each of her paintings has changed the world in some way.

It's amazing what one little person can do,

and we doubt our impact every day.