Archive for 'home'
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!
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finally, a break.
Posted on 19. Dec, 2009 by Princess Lasertron.
I just finished my last order of 2009 and now I’m taking a break and enjoying the holidays! I saved all of my gift wrapping for after work was finished, so I could look forward to it and save it as a reward. I love wrapping gifts.
Tonight we’re going to two Christmas parties and tomorrow I’m going to my first cookie exchange. I decided not to try anything too flashy and just go with the old sugar-cookie-rolled-in-cinnamon Snickerdoodle routine. I did experiment with an almond topping which worked well and tastes awesome! Here is the recipe. If it’s a little hard to read, click the link and I think the picture will be clearer.
Now I gotta get started making those family gifts! Here’s a sneak peak at the last bridal order I finished…more on that later.
xo
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an indian summer day
Posted on 07. Nov, 2009 by Princess Lasertron.
We are finally getting back into a little bit of a routine. Even though this routine now includes yard work! I started out helping but it was too much for my fall allergies.
So Turbo and I sat in the screened-in porch and worked. There are lots of new pets to meet in this neighborhood–other dogs and cats that we haven’t been introduced to yet. Turbo paces along the windows, alert for any unfamiliar barks or wayward cats. I think he’s pretty overwhelmed.
I don’t drink beer, but this is my favorite beer because it has the prettiest label. It’s called Lucky Bucket Lager and it’s made here in Omaha. A local company, Archrival, designed the branding for them too. I love how much marketing and branding is changing now–every new product has such interesting and beautiful packaging. I’m glad this is finally a priority for so many companies.
This is one of the swaps I finished for Silver Bella. I’ve never done a swap before at all, and this year I signed up for two–I think it was a little more than I could handle, but I got them done. This one is for a swap where 26 participants each made 26 cards decorated with a letter of the alphabet. Then we all trade and have a full alphabet deck.
I picked Z.
I chose this swap because I thought that I could attach the cards to a huge canvas and it would be a beautiful art piece for my baby’s room. I’ll show you how to make the little pinwheels…I used vintage crepe paper which makes it easy because crepe is less stiff and easily workable.
Finally, happy birthday to my friend Justin. Last night we had about 10 people over to celebrate and hang out and he brought his new girlfriend. I loved it because I saw them smiling and flirting and being nervous and I remembered when Dave and I were like that. When he invited me over to meet all of his friends, who are now my closest friends.
For so long I just wanted to be Dave’s friend. I just wanted him to smile at me. Then I just wanted to hang out with him and his friends and be part of his life. I just wanted him to laugh at my jokes. And as we passed each milestone and our friendship developed into romance, it all went by so fast and now I am here carrying our baby and we are going to be united by this child as a family forever. It is exciting to see how live moves and how far we come.
xo
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what I learned from you!
Posted on 20. Jun, 2009 by admin.
A few things surprised me…
…You love picture posts (sometimes I fear that they drag on and on and make the screen look visually cluttered…I work hard to make that not happen).
…It’s divided pretty evenly on the craft vs. business posts–some of you read to get inspired to make things, and some of you read to learn a little bit about the ropes.
…You like the ‘outfit of the day‘ posts! Sometimes I wonder if those are boring to people. I’ve been wanting to post more pictures of ME in my outfits instead of them laid out on the screen, because then I can show things that I can’t find pictures of online like vintage pieces and hand-sewn things. It’s hard to find a photographer though (Professor Lasertron: “WHY DO YOU ALWAYS WANT TO TAKE PICTURES?”).
…You want to see more pictures of my house because “it must be so cute.” At the moment, it has mere potential.
A whirlwind of travel in the last few months has left us with weeks and weeks of laundry, mail, and laundry, and laundry. And as for the studio…well, this is what progress and success looks like to me. A MESS.
Will I clean it up eventually and present you with gorgeous magazine-quality photos? Yes. And you can look for them in Where Women Create in November.
…You love Professor Lasertron. Hey, so do I!
…You want more videos. Okie dokie.
Check out my residual bouffant, the aftermath of the 12” Hairdo I had yesterday for a fun dress photoshoot with couture designer Joi Mahon. This hair was so tall that it hit the ceiling when I got in the car. There is so much hairspray and backcombing in it that it feels like petting a sheep.
Now I’m gonna take my big hair and get out of here. I’ll probably spend the next 3 hours soaking it in conditioner and trying to comb it out before it starts auto-dreadlocking.
Today I’m going to an organized pillow fight in a park a few blocks from my home! Almost 1,000 people are expected to participate, and I hope I don’t get smacked with a pillowcase full of bricks. If you don’t hear from me again, I guess you’ll know. But how can I pass up such a great photo opportunity?
xo
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in which I am not very domestic
Posted on 21. Jul, 2008 by admin.
Tonight I tried to make Pocket Pies from Alton Brown’s recipe. I saw him do a show on them a few days ago and I think I caught the fever.
It was verrrrry messy.
And in the end, I didn’t think they tasted good.
Dave liked them. But he’ll eat anything because he’s vegan and hes used to things tasting gross.
So I went back to my old standby…a pizza. My best friend Kristal (who is still on her honeymoon in Hawaii, you jerk!) gave me this tiny pizza pan. So I could make small pizzas like they have at Old Chicago (a gross restaurant we like to eat at)
After a recent thread on the 2peas message boards, it came out that it is normal to wash your sheets about once a week.
I think I wash mine….like…every six months.
Or never.
So the shame was getting to me and I washed my sheets today.
AND ironed them. because they came out so wrinkled and looked bad.
And then I lint rolled them. Because we have a really fluffy cat.
BLISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Tonight I’m up late working on a special gift for one of my most inspiring friends. A SCRAPBOOK page. I haven’t made a scrapbook layout in….more than a year. The creativity is coming slowly. Photos tomorrow. 
