Archive for 'home'
German egg pancake recipe
Posted on 20. Jul, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
By popular demand.
3 eggs
1/2 C milk
1/4 t salt
1 T sugar
1/2 C flour
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plate wall at the lake house
Posted on 17. Jul, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
My parents own a home in Spirit Lake, Iowa near the area where my mother grew up. A few years ago, the house completely flooded. When my parents went to see the damage, the walls were sagging and crumbling and the floors were destroyed–most of the house was then rebuilt.
The silver lining in that catastrophe was that my mother got to completely redecorate.
…black and white checkerboard floors
…black cabinets with wainscoting
…a gigantic picture window
…thick black trim and baseboards
…a gigantic new shower in the master bath
Re-doing a house is fun but it’s the accessories that make it feel like home again. Like a collection.
My mom collects Iowa plates and dishes. When the swamp house was fixed up and re-done, she began to move all of her belongings back into the home and found a special place for her collection.
Everybody who visits the house stands in front of them and scrutinizes every piece–the words, the hand-painted illustrations, the interesting differences.
I can’t believe that this many state-themed plates exist in the first place.
Let alone that my mom seems to have found them all.
I love that this detail in my parents’ home is so personal to them–not just bought for the sake of displaying, but a collection that brings my mom back to her roots in beautiful Iowa.
I don’t have any collections personally. I can’t find the right thing.
Do you?
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starting some flowers and pictures from today
Posted on 23. Apr, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
I’m still waiting on that darn overseas shipment to finish all the orders I have on my desk right now. Stupid volcano!
I started the day by visiting CAMP, my new studio and coworking space, with my friend Eric Downs who will be working there with me. The buildout process is starting this week and I wanted to get another look at the unfinished space and visualize the styling for the furniture and decor. I’m still torn on what to do with the floor. What would you do? Maybe just give it a good polish? Leave it raw?
I also started some flower seeds that were given to me by my friend Emily who works at the bank. Planting them in little peat cups just made my day and I hope some of them germinate so I can transplant them in my front yard!
So lots of manual labor and work–cleaning, yard work, and going for walks. I’ve been having hard but irregular contractions all day, and right now we’re in a tornado watch. So cross your fingers that I have this kid in my basement next to the cat litter.
And thanks to my sweet husband for the waffles.
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we have a chalkboard in every room
Posted on 14. Apr, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
This is in the bathroom.
Family picture!
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a fun school speaking engagement and the beginning of spring
Posted on 09. Apr, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
A few days ago I had the pleasure of speaking to a room of 8th grade students about entrepreneurship and starting a business. Each student had started writing a business plan for their own little startup (including an after-school concession stand, a beef jerky company, and a t-shirt design shop) and they were beginning to learn about market surveys, risks, and pricing.
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list love: creative connection event, model casting, and what’s going on with me.
Posted on 08. Mar, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
I know I have a lot of crafty and creative readers, so I wanted to let you know about an upcoming conference and market event called The Creative Connection! This is the inaugural year of the event created by Nancy Soriano and Jo Packham of Where Women Create magazine for women and women entrepreneurs.
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in the first phase of redecorating–some photos
Posted on 13. Feb, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
We have been working with interior designer Jessica McKay, owner of Birdhouse Interiors and dreamer of cool dreams, and today while Dave was at work I decided it was time to get down to business.
I also went to the store and bought the paint we chose (a light papery gray) (which I haven’t cracked open yet), a new rug, and some poster frames.
The green dots on the gray wall are dots of painters tape I cut out by hand. The neutral wall has glossy white raindrops cut out.
Somebody found his favorite toy under the couch when I was moving it. I knew it was there but I had gotten so tired of retrieving it.
Toward the front of the room there is still some work to do. We will change the blinds and get rid of the curtain rod things. I like having the bike rack there–in the summer we might move it to our cute front porch.
At first I wanted to replace the couch but I am kind of falling in love with it again–I thought the green color was too limiting and weird but Jessica is helping me make it more of a neutral. However, I am planning to replace the two big purple sofa things with smaller, vintage-inspired chairs. Something lower-profile and more minimal.
I’m overdue for another outfit/pregnant lady picture this week. I had a cute outfit on today but after I started working on our new floorplan I was just too exhausted to bother. Tomorrow I have speech all day. So, Sunday I’ll get around to that. In case you care and needed a play-by-play of my life there.
We still have our dining room, baby room, and a new studio to design, rearrange, decorate, trick out. We need more pillows for the couch. Soon I’ll move more of our knick-knacks in. We have two bookshelves to move in. Gotta move the tv to the other side of the wall. Some furniture to repaint (I want to paint that occasional table a shimmery gold!) And I still have to paint the rooms and buy new wood blinds.
So there’s a start.
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interior design inspiration photos
Posted on 28. Jan, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
I’ve been cutting out so much fabric today that orange is kind of starting to look pink, and grey is starting to look brown…it’s either time for a break or my brain cells are seriously dying. Today I was driving to one of my favorite stores–a very usual stop–and I got lost and had to call Dave to remind me how to get there. Duh!
This week I had my first consultation with interior designer Jessica McKay of Birdhouse Interior Design (CUTE website!) and I can’t wait to start working together on my house this week. I feel like I have a great eye for color and design and scale, but I also want to file this under “not my problem.” With my workload, other projects on the table, impending parenthood and increasing fatigue, I love that Jessica is going to take some of the pressure and stress out of decorating and give me some instant gratification.
I wanted to share some of the pictures collecting in my inspiration folder. I’m sure you’ve seen many of them around the blogosphere–it seems like so many of us have the same good taste! You can see the sources of these images over at my imgfave site.
Like blogger Jordan Ferney has talked about, one of my goals this year is to have every room in my house decorated so that I can feel happy and comfortable and content everywhere in my house. We are the couple that lives totally in the living room–we eat at the coffee table, we sit on the couch and talk after work, we watch tv before bed, I often sit in there and sew during the day–when I had my cyst rupture, we even slept in the living room for over a week! We have this whole house full of space that I don’t even like using! It’s sad!
I want to have places for things.
I want to get some art. (We have none!)
I want to paint my dressing room that dusty rose color and write on the walls. I want it to be a magical place for my daughter to try on shoes and paint her nails.
Another goal is to paint with a bold color. (Maybe even wallpaper.)
What do you want to do with your space in your deepest, wildest home decorating fantasies?
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a few studio pics
Posted on 08. Jan, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
I moved upstairs to be closer to the baby’s room and the sunshine. I LOVE it. There’s still a lot of stuff to move up–it’s probably 1/5th of the way done–but now I have enough to do work. It’s so wonderful.
This desk is a door on top of two sets of drawers.
Japanese masking tape, labels, and packaging tape
My favorite Stabilo Fineliner pens–I got a whole bunch of them from my grandma for Christmas!
A sneak peek at a new project for a video tutorial coming this month…
Good night. xo
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polka dot house (and some questions for you)
Posted on 05. Jan, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
1. Today I installed Roman bamboo shades in my new studio upstairs. They look SO cool and I’m so proud that I did it myself! I decided to move upstairs from the basement for a few reasons:
…It’s right next door to the baby’s room
…The basement is freezing
…The basement is ugly
…It’s better to lay felt and projects out on a wood floor than carpet
…Having a little less space will be a fun challenge. I think I will do a better job controlling clutter and maximizing my space usage. I know I can do it!
2. Moving things upstairs and going through all of my craft stuff, I noticed that I have a TON of polyester and acrylic felt (the kind you buy in craft stores). Now that I only use wool felt, the acrylic/poly stuff is just taking up space. I feel bad shilling it off to customers because it’s not something I like working with myself, but I don’t want to keep it knowing it won’t be used.
Would you use my acrylic felt if I cut it up, polka dotted some of it, and did a giveaway?
3. How horrified would our neighbors be if we painted the side of our house like this?
Photo found via Oh Joy!
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the best gift
Posted on 21. Dec, 2009 by Princess Lasertron.
The other day, a box of croissants arrived in the mail from my mom. They are the BEST. They come frozen and tiny in a huge box, and you just let them thaw and rise overnight. Bake them in the morning and smell the hot, flaky French croissants throughout your house. These were the most appreciated, unexpected treat!!
photo from palmbayflo on flickr
I have two rising right now–one for breakfast, and one to eat with peanut butter and jelly for lunch!
