i call it: restoration hardware under the big top

some fancy 60's yard sale furniture- a la marcia brady.

some framed paper from ps- and a wonderful wall of stripes (like a circus tent, get it?) thanks, ryan :)

my proudest achievement- a pennant banner originally made for maribel's shower (also kind of circus-y). actually that chair rail is my proudest achievement. do you know how i feel about chair rail and crown moulding and wainscoting?

my lovely anthro lamp which matches the smaller one in the living room, and my very favorite cliche poster- which i now own two of.

here's what our room looked like last week. if i ever get around to ironing (and starching, judging by the picture above) my new duvet cover and sheets and pillowcases, i'll post pictures of what it looks like now. although, it took me about a year for these pictures, so don't count your chickens.

for my next trick

i'm going to try to make these bracelets...

new jewelry in the shop!

i finally listed a few new things in my etsy shop. more to come soon!

mary vii: fluorite on gold-filled (or sterling silver) chain $68

mary x: lemon quartz on gold-filled chain $68

mary xii: london blue topaz on gold-filled (or sterling silver) chain $68

mary xiii: smooth citrine on gold-filled chain $58

rachelle necklace: tourmaline on gold-filled chain $298

unique la

this saturday, my mom and i went to unique la, a neat show at the california mart downtown with a bunch of crafty local designers. we saw stacey winters, who makes (and photographs, cause she's a photographer!) the following stuff:

and her bluebird print is the cover art for a new book!

and kelly robinson, who is a friend of a friend, and had this neat booth setup:

she also has a cupcake and event planning business, where she does amazing stuff like this:

so much talent! we bought a few things for each other's stockings, and i could have spent thousands pretty easily. we had a lot of fun, and maybe next year i'll have a booth of my own!

marlo noël in a new shop!

marlo noël jewelry has landed here right down the street in encinitas, just in time for the holidays. it's a fabulous little shop called dreamy run by the nicest networker ever, heather o'quinn. if you're local, go over and check it out! or go to their website, cause it's so lovely.

ps: clearly not my jewelry above, but isn't that picture beautiful? it's actually jewelry from chris bolton, a customer of mine at paper source who sells to celebrities like gwyneth paltrow. how neat!


and look at that little bubble- dreamy was just featured in in style magazine- what timing!

they also sell wonderful gift items. you should do all your shopping there. or here.

another treasury!

how nice to be included in someone's beautiful treasury. Thanks, Holly!

the animal

we caved (i caved; ryan cheered), and finally bought this very expensive piece of machinery- the dyson animal. bed bath and beyond sends us 20% coupons every week or so, and even though dyson is listed as one of the brands it cannot be used on, apparently it can. as can all but about three of the brands listed. we saved $110, then ryan won a poker game last night, so it's like it only cost us a couple hundred bucks. what a deal!

we'd been struggling with a vacuum purchased from sears 6 years ago that seemed to emit dirt instead of sucking it up. everytime we use it, our house smells pretty awful. we decided we'd had enough after max vacuumed the whole apartment saturday and we were fairly certain it picked up nothing from the floor.

our suspicions were confirmed when we got the animal home and ryan vacuumed the whole place again (with excitement and ease! thanks to the easy maneuverability of the ball action), and he dumped the filter out three times. we ran it right next to the wall and it picked up stuff lurking in the corners. we realized how grimy our carpet felt before compared to how it feels now. apartment carpet with almost no padding underneath, granted, but still, much better.

now the boys actually want to vacuum- i know this will not last forever, so i must take full advantage of it now. there's even a motorized attachment for couches, curtains, and cars, which looks pretty neat.

so, although it was pretty ridiculously expensive, i feel like i can breathe in here without getting sick, as i so frequently do. and dangit if it isn't the coolest looking vacuum in the world.