At Last

Organization is key.  Neatness counts.  I like things to line up nicely and make sense...because...if I can't see what I have, then I can't make anything.  Or, I should say, I'm not inspired to make anything.  My sewing room had become, slowly and over time, the sort of place where no sane person would ever want to work.  The lighting was terrible.  There wasn't enough flat work space, there wasn't a good place to put things away in an organized fashion and fabric was stacked in giant piles with no rhyme or reason.  And then...a couple different blogger friends mentioned the Alex Flat File from Ikea.  And then a couple more friends mentioned how great it was.  I suddenly started to feel like I had missed the great organization boat, so I had to check it out.

It turned out to be more than your typical piece of particle board put it together yourself furniture.  I was warned that 1. It weighed a ton (it does, but once it's together, it's on wheels, so no big deal). and 2. It takes forever to put together.  Well, we brought it home, heaved the little, but insanely heavy box into the house on a dolly, I made a nice pot of coffee and set LAM to work.  Two hours and no cursing later, it was together.  LAM was even impressed with the fit and finish.  The exterior is painted wood, the drawers are on nice sliders and the back is finished as well as the front and it's quite wide, which is one of the things I really liked about it.  You see, I have this tissue paper problem.  I can't throw it away.  When it gets crumpled, I iron it.  If I buy something in a store and they wrap it in tissue, I have to save it.  My collection has come in handy on numerous occasions from packing orders to wrapping presents, etc., but I didn't have a good place to stash it so it would stay nice and neat.  In addition to housing paper, mats, templates, card stock and whole host of other artistic ephemera that previously had no real home, the two large bottom drawers are the perfect size to lay tissue out flat.  Perfect!  This freed up much needed space on shelves that were supposed to be housing fabric, so now it's all folded and organzied in a way that I can see exactly what I have at a glance.  In addition to that, I re-purposed a friend's old pine kitchen table as a middle of the room work island, moved some things around, added much needed lighting (thanks to the Alex file, I now have a PLACE to put another lamp) and once I was finished admiring my handiwork, got cracking on some new plastic bag holders.

Meet the new additions to my Etsy shop.  I'm particularly excited about the beachiness of the coral fabrics.  The one on the far left is Waverly's Coral Cascade fabric and it is just buttery soft!  Stay tuned for more additions coming soon!

~ESM

After the fact

I suspect I am not alone in that every year I feel a sense of let down once all of the Christmas decorations are packed away.  Where surfaces were once covered with a warmth and glow, everything now suddenly seems stripped bare and completely devoid of character in the wake of their removal.  I have, for the last several years, subconsciously counteracted this by re-arranging decor, trying to organize better and adding a few small items that make life in general a little bit better.

This year, I found myself in a local gem of a store, The Little House Shop in Wayne.  It is a classic breath of fresh air in a world of trendy, disposable home goods.  The inventory reads almost as though it was taken directly from the "Displaying the Loot" page of The Official Preppy Handbook.  All cliches aside, it is a great place to go if you want something nice that you will enjoy for a very long time.

The inside of the store is warm and soothing and the staff are kind and helpful.  It's the sort of place you can get lost in and completely forget about time in general.

My big find (or I should say solution to a very annoying problem), was a small basket with slatted sides.  I keep the charging cords for my phone and iPad near a small table in the breakfast room.  The problem here is keeping them ON the table, which they almost never are unless they are plugged into something with weight.  Besides looking awful, having cords draped on the floor is just plain dangerous.  The basket solved this problem perfectly since I could slide the cord ends through the slats, they stay in place and now I have a place to stash the items being charged and looks fairly neat and presentable.

The next undertaking had to do with my new found orchid addiction.  I love having fresh flowers in the house, but buying them to watch them die after five days or so was not only getting to be depressing, but seemed like a waste of money.  Enter Trader Joes and their extremely reasonably priced orchids.  The blooms last exponentially longer than a nice bouquet for roughly the same price.  Even longer, if you are better than I am at keeping things alive, but I digress.  I bought a fresh specimen to spruce up my desk, but it came in a simple clay pot that was neither attractive to look at or friendly to the surface of my desk.  I didn't have an extra cache pot, so I headed over to Valley Forge Flowers, which is sort of a sister store to The Little House Shop.

In addition to being a traditional florist, they sell a variety of horticultural oriented home goods, preserved boxwood topiaries of all shapes and sizes, soaps, lotions, candles and a wide variety of unusual cache pots.

They also have a great little gourmet cafe and coffee bar.

This perfect little black painted pot came home with me and makes my work space a much happier place.  I can almost forget about how awful the panelling on the wall looks.  That's the next project.  Stay tuned.

~ESM

Ready or Not...

I recently found an unintended use for the plastic bag holders in my etsy shop (I apologize that there aren't many in there right now, but stay tuned...).  I was on my way to a holiday party and was planning on bringing a bottle of wine as a hostess gift.  Not sure what to wrap it in (a gift bag just seemed too boring), I looked to Pinterest for ideas and saw that some very clever people had found unique dish towels and wrapped their bottles in those.  Cute idea, and I was all set to do that when I saw this bag holder that I had just finished and it occurred to me that the bungee open end might fit around the top of a wine bottle, so I played with it and wrapped it up and voilà--instant cute, unique gift.

Whenever inspiration strikes me in this way, it normally becomes the catalyst for me to start believing that I can really pull the holiday off one way or another.  This one broke the seal, so it's full steam ahead.  This morning I read Pigtown Design's Christmas Quiz, and loved reading the answers so much that I decided to share mine with all of you.  When I read blogs, I really enjoy seeing photos of the author's home, family and reading about things they like, etc.  Voyeristic, maybe, but it gives me an insight into what makes that person tick--and usually makes me like them even more!  At any rate, here are my responses.  I would love to read yours!

1.  Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate definately, but I really prefer wine.  Champagne if it's really good.
2.  Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?  Always wrap!  I actually spend an insane amount of time wrapping gifts and always look for special paper and trimmings and then my family feels guilty ripping it all off.  I think I've permanently scarred one of my step-sons for life since he practically cries opening his gifts.
3.  Colored Lights on tree/house or white? Alway white and non-twinkle, moving or LED--just bright, shiny and happy.
4.  Do you hang Mistletoe? No, it's poison and I don't want to kill my dogs.
5.  When do you put your decorations up?  I start December 1 and the tree usually goes up about two weeks before Christmas.
6.  What is your favorite holiday dish? Carrot Souffle.  It's my specialty.
7.  Favorite holiday memory as a child? Fetching my Grandmother at the bus station.  It was always the start of everything awesome.
8.  When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Sadly, I'm not sure I believed in Santa for very long.  I remember always being extremely skeptical.
9.  Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? No
10.  How do you decorate your Christmas tree? I have a vast collection of unusual ornaments.  Most are handmade--the more detail they have, the more I like them.  White lights, wooden cranberry beads and velvet ribbons.
11.  Snow: Love it or hate? Love it.  Period.
12.  Can you ice skate? Yes, I taught myself to figure skate when I was 37 and never looked back.  One of my very favorite activities.
13.  Do you remember your favorite gift? It was unintentional.  We took our Border Collie Nick in as a foster on December 15, 2007 and he never left.
14.  What is the most important thing about the holidays for you? Bringing warmth, light and love into my home in a time when all three are scarce.
15.  What is your favorite holiday dessert? I don't really have one, but I love chocolate chip cookies all the time!
16.  What is your favorite holiday tradition? Stockings.  I try hard to find the most wonderful things for stuffing and I love it when we finish opening our gifts and then remember that we still have the stockings!
17.  What tops your tree? We have the coolest tree topper ever.  It's an old LL Bean decoration that we call "The Happy Woodsman".  He's a lumberjack and wears a plaid shirt and boots.  He has bushy white hair and a beard, so everyone just thinks he's Santa, but he's not.  I keep threatening to outfit him with a little ax.
18.  What do you prefer--gifting or receiving? Gifting, definately!  I can't sleep on Christmas Eve because I'm so excited about the gifts I will be giving.
19.  What is your favorite Christmas song? The entire Nutcracker Suite
20.  Candy Canes? Do NOT like them.
21.  Favorite Christmas movie?  Love Actually.  It's not a contest.  I love the scenes with Jamie and Aurelia the best.
22.  What do you leave out for Santa? Nothing.  The dogs would eat it.

~ESM

A Cure for Cold Hands

I have tiny small person hands and they are almost always cold.  Enter one new Zippy Whip with a great new feature: the heated steering wheel.

This is the part where I should be telling you all about how great it is and how indispensable it has become (like the heated seats), but because of the placement of the button--you can see it right there on the steering column, I have never used it.  That would be because I can't see it and like anything else, out of sight usually means out of mind.

Also, while this is a great idea when you're driving the car, it is useless when you are the passenger (a state I try to avoid at all costs) or when you are not actually IN the car.  To compound the problem, when I AM in the car and in the driver's seat, my ability to manipulate the wheel, guages and shift lever is of utmost importance. 

When I drive on the track, this is what I wear.  Nomex gloves with deerskin palms in bright red.  The reason for the red is so that my hands are easier for my students and other drivers to see.  They fit perfectly and allow me to grip the wheel with perfect precision.  I adore them.  Sadly, wearing them in my regular life is not an option since they present a fashion dilemma of the highest order and so a daily driving alternative must be found.  Enter a second first world problem.  My iPhone.  You cannot operate an iPhone with gloved hands unless you can find a Borg-like pair with the metal thingees on the fingers.  Compound that with my need for fit and grippiness and well, good luck.

Here it is: the answer to the problem.  The North Face eTip glove.  They come in a ludicrous range of sizes (my perfect fit was an XXS), have rubber grippies on the fingers and palms and the smartphone enabling metal tips.  The fact that they make me feel like the bionic woman while wearing them is a bonus.

Stay warm...
-ESM

Fabulous Simple Find

I love things that are really simple and when that is combined with functionality, well it just sends me over the edge.  When I found this bag on Etsy, it was something of a revelation--not that I need an excuse to lust over a bag.  It has the ability to convert from a shoulder bag to a backpack and has tons of pockets to keep everything organized.  Oh, and a key fob clippy thing so I'm not rooting around for my keys.  These are custom made by Mims of Maine and can be special ordered in any number of fabric/leather configurations.  Definately worth the seven week wait.