Hansel and Gretel Furniture

Some people like to infuse a bit of red into every room, but I much prefer a hit of black. I bought this chair at a thrift store ages ago and it has served us well. See the before, a faded minty yellow flat finish. I adore painted black furniture  — ala Hitchcock chairs, Swedish painted furniture, cottage furniture, or, what I like to call, Hansel and Gretel pieces. The chair got a heavy coating of gloss black, then the acrylic paints came out to make flowers, finished off with gold detail using a gold paint pen. Belongs in a forest cottage!

A Seersucker Bridal Shower — A Blingy Beach Wedding

I hosted Sherry's bridal shower this weekend. A chance for all of the office girls to get together and celebrate the upcoming October nuptials of Sherry and Mario in St. Simons Island, Georgia. Sherry's wedding is beachy and blingy, a nod to Sherry's love of the beach (her parents live in St. Simons) and the fact that she's about as girly as you can get, loving the pretty, sparkly things.

Having decided early on to do a seersucker theme (see the invites here), I decorated using seersucker fabric along with silver, shells and jewels. (Her wedding invite has a silver shell on it).

The day before the shower I took off from work to get ready, 

making a stop at Trader Joe's for flowers, 2BuckChuck, and pink lemonade.

At the entrance to Chateau Gahan I put out my child-sized adirondack chair. 

I made two little pillows to decorate the chair (keepsakes for Sherry as well).

I kept my succulent wreath on the door and added a picture of Mario and Sherry (I printed a bunch of pictures out on the BW printer, glued them onto poster stock and cut them out with a white border; attached them to skewers so that I could put them into flower arrangements.)

Sherry's mom, BJ, brought two of her famous dishes — meatballs and mini-cupcakes. 

I had spray-painted silver shells and made picks for the meatballs. 

Utilized the blue and white seersucker fabric to make flags for the cupcakes.

I used the red and white seersucker to make a runner for the buffet, and bought white wooden letters 

(S for Sherry and M for Mario) which I decorated with silver-spray-painted shells and bling.

A simple round glass vase is dressed in seersucker with a ribbon "belt" and silver shell "buckle."

The white filagree metal bucket from IKEA became a vase on the coffee table, 

where I did a blue and white seerscucker runner.

I saw this fabric-lined shell on one of my new fave blogs junkaholique 

and knew just what I would make to nestle into a bowl of shells.

A vintage pocketbook became a perfect vase, especially when adorned with a seersucker bow.

I made Pink-Pull-Your-Panties-Down (yes, it's just fun to say), which is pink lemonade, 7-Up and a splash of vodka. Since Sherry is in what was once our print production department (and well versed in ink and paper color swatches), I made the drink label using a paint swatch strip, 

one appropriately with a pink shade called Blushing Bride.

And for the bouquet made from all the gift ribbons and bows I decided to opt out of the traditional paper plate base and create a paper cone.

What a fun shower to create! 

A Beautiful Mess Giveaway

Pop on over to Elsie Larson's fabulously fun blog and check out her giveaway . . . a $150 gift card to one of her sponsors shop, ThreadSence. My Harleigh Barley would love anything in this store! Check out their lookbook for fashion images that ooze Indie loveliness.

And hurry, 'cause it ends July 25!

Grandma's Sewing Basket Planter

One of the treasures Julie gifted me with as she cleaned and moved was this wicker sewing basket that once belonged to her grandmother. As you can see, the lid is ripped and beyond repair, but I like the way it looks like a window curtain blowing in a warm breeze. Found a plastic tub the perfect size to fit into the basket portion and planted it with $1 annuals. It's now put to good use; I think grandma would approve.

Love Arrows

 And so Jesse, one of the two September wedding gals whose wedding I'm helping with, fell in love with the arrows featured on DesignSponge. And so I got to work on crafting them. Instead of using wooden hearts, ala designsponge, I made a felt version and a paper version. Had some trouble gluing the cut feathers onto the dowel (because the feathers aren't straight, I'd glue down one end only for the other end to pop up and visa versa), and so I opted to glue the entire feather to the wood, knowing that you'd only be looking at one side. (Laura at work said I should steam the feathers to straighten them.) The paint and embroidery floss are in her wedding colors. Love her palette!

I plan on making more, trying out wooden hearts, straightening then cutting the feathers, and gluing on paper like the ones on designsponge. 

We'll incorporate them into the wedding ceremony and reception. Got to give that some thought.

Fun Totes

Thought that the reusable shopping bags at TJMaxx were probably the prettiest I'd come across (we packed most of Harleigh's clothes in them when she went off to college; easy to store once the unpacking was done, and reusable to boot!). Then I chanced on Jo-Ann Fabric's $1.99 reusable shopping bag . . . smitten. Measuring tape handles? I'm in love.

And then there's this vintagey wooden-handled bag, reversible with a yarn-embroidered/block-printed side and the reverse in a pretty retro "quilt" pattern. Found in an Athens,GA, thrift store. Harleigh's nabbed this one.

A Little Decorating at Chateau Gahan

I've been wanting an upholstered headboard for quite some time. Do you know how expensive they are to buy? Expensive enough that I took matters into my own hands. And here's how I did it. Now keep in mind that an equally inexpensive way to do it would have been to buy and cut plywood, but there are two obstacles there for this single mom: 1) too doggone heavy to work with, and 2) I would have had to put it up using hardware. Two things I knew I could work around. AND, the most important reason to tackle it as I did is that I want to have some flexibility with the shape of it.

I'm starting with a rectangular shape but think ultimately I'd like a curved shape like the Cleveland below.

So here's how I created my headboard . . . I bought an inexpensive piece of foamcore. Gatorboard would have been better, but it was not in my budget. Gatorboard doesn't bow like foamcore does. So to alleviate the bowing, I stabilized the single thickness of cheap foamcore by duct-taping smaller pieces of used and ready-to-be-thrown-out foamcore onto it. Not pretty to look at, but it achieved the rigidness.

The foam. Expensive expensive expensive by the yard. Even with the 40% Jo-Ann coupon, it was still going to be costing me more than I wanted to spend. Right next to the by-the-yard foam was a display of eggcrate mattress toppers. I purchased a full-size-bed one, which after the coupon came to around $20. The foam, even with the coupon, would have been close to $60. The eggcrate side of the topper goes against the foamcore, so what is exposed is flat foam. Perfect. (Although I did have to cut the topper to cover the foamcore in its entirety and have enough to fold under the edges; not a bigee, though).

The fabric was a find at Hancock Fabrics. I so wanted an eggshell blue or dove grey velvet, but . . . someday. In the meantime, this pretty floral was on sale for $4 a yard (and it's 54" decorator fabric). A steal.

I pulled the fabric over the edges of the foamcore, pulling enough mattress topper with it to give the edges a  soft rounded feel. And I secured the fabric with T-pins. Yes, T-pins. If you put them in at the perfect angle, they ain't goin' anywhere. They push right through the foamcore.

And when it was done, I put it against the wall, resting the base within the metal bedframe. As you can see, I need to pull the fabric a little tighter to get rid of some wrinkles. And I'm debating whether to add buttons to give it a tufted look. How easy would that be??? Simply pull the thread through the foamcore and tie it tightly on the back so that the button sinks nicely into the topper foam.

So, I'm going to live with this a bit, then cut it to make the curved shape I think I'll be happiest with.

And here is a painting a friend gave to me (along with some other true treasures). She's moving and purging, and some of her items now have a home here at Chateau Gahan.

Happy 4th!

It's hot as all get out here, and so we set-up our parade-watching spot accordingly. Cooler with lots of cold water, lawn chairs, a blanket, lots of sunscreen and a beach umbrella.

What's more American than the flag, watermelon and watching a television show on your phone while waiting for the parade to begin.

I love it when even the dogs get 4th of July accessories!

The bands, my favorite. The military ones always get me choked up.

Then there are the ones that make me laugh and proud to be an American, 

free to be whatever we want to be!

Grayson on Father's Day

Got a chance to photograph my adorable nephew when we all got together for Father's Day. Am working on getting my black& white images to where I want them; have a baby shoot next weekend and the mom specifically asked for some BW pix. Here is the handsome boy Grayson.