Yellow and Grey...a prelude

I'm blogging from far off exotic places today!  Two wonderful places in Italy!  Oh, if I could only ACTUALLY be there...

Welcome friends old and NEW!  Two fabulous blog friends have asked me to guest post for them. Zaira is from Italy and is a lovely girl who's posts are always filled with inspiration!  Eri is from Farara, Italy and is a sweet and lovely girl that also inspires me and lifts my spirits with every post!

I have a blog that is as RANDOM as I am, called Whimages...the blog .  I'd love for you to visit me because I love meeting new people!  It's taken me forever to figure out a post that would do both of them justice because I love these girls.  I don't know if this post gives it to them but it's all I could come up with!

You may remember that several months back I was gloriously lucky enough to win a fabulous Annette Tatum duvet cover.  Matt and I chose the Brocade Pearl pattern which is a lovely soft dove grey brocade on one side and a sweet whipped butter yellow stripe on the other.  Matt has been busy painting our room a fabulous grey and putting up glossy white crown molding.  As a prelude to the reveal, which will still be a bit away, I thought I may tease you with some fabulous rooms in this color scheme.  Oh, and by the way, Houzz has announced that grey and yellow is passe', however I've had sweet whipped butter walls in my foyer and kitchen for about 14 years. So Psssmph! And I do mean that in the most pleasant way because HOUZZ is so very near and DEAR to my heart!



unknown source ...but I LOVE this room!



unknown source...looks so Swedish Clean!

photo from Habitually Chic

Cayla's Corner

unknown source

And the winner is...

True Random Number Generator
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Powered by RANDOM.ORG
 
Nita from Mod Vintage Life come on DOWN!!! You're the next WINNER for a CSN GIFT CARD!!!  YAY! Congratulations!

CSN GIVE AWAY TIME!!!

EDIT:  CONTEST is closed.  Nita from MODVINTAGE won! YAY
If you haven't heard of the FABULOUSNESS that is the CSN shopping experience, then you just may be living under a rock.  Or don't have Internet. Or don't read blogs (GASP)!  CSN has OVER 200 online stores with everything from  fashion savvy boots and the insanely popular ghost chair to cheap bedroom furniture  and the industrial stools I've been LUSTING after!

I get to make someones day a bit more happy!  Well me and my friend the random number generator.  I have a $35.00 CSN GIFT CERTIFICATE to give away to one lucky person!  I'm going to mix up the chances of winning, just to make it a bit more interesting! 

You have 3 chances to win by commenting 3 SEPERATE times.  I'm going to give you my answers just for fun!

For 1st chance to win, just COMMENT here on the post.  You can say anything from what you had for breakfast to what word gives you the ebbie jebbies.  I had apple pie and coffee for breakfast and I can't STAND the word carcass or maggot.  It FREAKS me out even to type them

For a 2nd chance to win, go to one of the 200 CSN WEBSITES and pretend money is NOT an option and COMMENT telling me what PRESENT you would buy for someone ELSE this holiday.  I would buy a LARGE GC for a co-worker of a friend of mine who is having a very difficult time so that she could get her children and herself some much needed goodies.

For the 3rd chance to win, COMMENT and tell me if you've started your holiday shopping! ...and YES I have started my Christmas shopping! GO ME! LOL

You don't have to join my site, or become my friend on Face Book or send me a subscription to the fruit of the month club in the mail.  You can do any of those if you want to and I'll love you for it, but if not I'll love you anyway!

Speaking of LOVE, I would LOVE for you to tell other people about this give away because it just might help someone buy something they REALLY need or get a gift that might have been too pricey.  Basically, I just want this whole post to make people HAPPY!  So let's get STARTED! Spread the fun and love!    The contest will end Sunday at 6:00 pm




HOW FUN IS THIS CHAIR?



I would SO love to have these but Matt's not feeling the industrial vibe. DARN IT!  I think they ROCK and look comfy too!



TRANSFORMERS & SCENTSY

EDIT:  You will want to check back, I'm having a GIVE AWAY from a COMPANY you are not going to want to miss~!  It's going to be GREAT!

I don't know about you, but it feels like we've put out a kajillion dollars in school supplies this year. I'm going to rant here for a moment about teachers.  Before you send me hate mail, please know that my husband was an elementary and middle school teacher for 13 years and STILL works in the school system.  I also think that teachers are unsung heros and are WAY underpaid. However, with that being said, I wish I had kept the supply lists for each of my children and scanned them in here to show you. Every year the school supply list is getting more and more insane.  Let's talk about the high schoolers for a moment and I'm not EVEN going to mention the $99.00 graphing calculators times 2 for twins.  Cole needs a pack of  50 index cards that are SPIRAL bound EVERY TWO WEEKS.  They both needed about 27.00 each in art supplies for fine art.  I will be ecstatic if I get anything out of them remotely fine art-ish.  I will crumble up a piece of that 13.00 sketch pad and eat it.  They have MANY other odd little expensive items on their NEED list too(like 2 different types of colored pencils and 4 different colored highlighters) but I'll spare you.  Peyton, who's over there in these photos.  Needed basically a folder with brads in every color of the rainbow.  (that's a wee exageration but not too much) Is it seriously going to be a catastrophe if she uses a blue folder for Math instead of yellow when there is a HUGE label on it that says MATH?  She needed a bunch of glue sticks, pencil sharpener, lots of pencils, crayons in two sizes, colored pencils, etc and so on.  Her's wasn't so bad compared to the twins.

All of this talk leads me to a NEW PEYTONISM.  If you search Peytonism in my search engine when you are feeling a bit blue, it will surely lift your spirits.  Here's the latest one...

Peyton came home from school yesterday a bit exasperated.  She washed her grubby little hands and attacked the fridge and the pantry like a linebacker.  She sat down to her snack and I asked how her day went.  She shared a few tidbits and then said, "Mom, you REALLY NEED to get me some TRANSFORMERS!"  The word Transformers coming out of this little ladies mouth is beyond shocking.  Diva is this childs middle name.  I'm not sure there is an 8 year old in existance with more estrogen.  Of course I'm sure I looked at her like she sprouted a third eye and then I asked why on Earth would she want Transformers.  She opened one of her zillion rainbow hued folders and pointed to the tears along the hole punches.  Then it dawned on me that she wanted RE-INFORCERS.

These photos were taken over the weekend. Little miss Diva poses herself.


About the SCENTSY.  Ever since I was fortunate enough to WIN a plug in Scentsy from The Lettered Cottage , I've been in LOVE with the product.  If you've ever read my profile, you might know I have a "thing" for good smelling THINGS!  I've already ordered several Christmas presents because they make perfect gifts, even for YOURSELF!  I'm having a party next week, so I hope my friends can make it!  If anyone wants to check out the party, the online party is here!

THE WINNER IS...

RANDOM.ORG - Integer Widget: "Generator


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Powered by RANDOM."


Michelle from All That Jazz come on down!  You're our newest winner on WHIMAGES...THE BLOG! (said in my best Bob Barker voice with orange tinted skin).  You have won a LOVELY initial necklace from the FABULOUS STORE, SOSOBELLA!!!!! Because I'm some how incapable of figuring out HOW to actually get the REAL random org box up there, you'll have to live with what shows up.  Michelle, email me when you have a moment so I can share the details with you! For everyone else, you might want to hop over to Michelle's blog, she has a SWEET give away going on right now too!

Winner number 2. is
True Random Number Generator
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ANGELA from  I'm Like A Little Bird .  You've won a DELIGHTFUL little dance wrap skirt from SOSOBELLA!!! Thank you EVERYONE for participating!

And now for the completely RANDOM photo because I can't blog with out one...

My friend Jeannette's gorgeous home.  As a reminder since this photo doesn't have a stamp on it, please PLEASE ask before you use a photo from my blog.  I'm nice and I won't bite and I'll probably say yes. Please and thank you! ;-)

Later this week, I'm going to give you a little peek into what we've (The labor is basically Matt) been up to in our master bed room and bath.  I'm so EXCITED!  The grey walls came out so LOVELY and are going SING once the new crown molding gets it's several coats of glossy WHITE on!

Random Act Of Kindness

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.  ~James Matthew Barrie

Sometimes in this huge universe of blogs, you meet someone who you SO WISHED lived closer.  Just so you could drop into Starbucks for a cup of coffee, or shop Target together and see who spends more!  I have "met" several people in Blogdom that I would be so tickled pink to have as a  real life neighbor and a friend.  One of those people is Maria from Dreamy Whites .  She is always a positive poster and she just oozes inspiration.  Her house looks like you'd walk in and never want to leave. 

Friday, I received a package in the mail.  Of course those pesky kids of mine wanted to open it for me. (I didn't let them. Yeah, I'm mean like that!)  How often does someone like me great a surprise?!  I was not sharing my package opening glee with them.  As I opened the box, the soothing aroma of lavender filled the room.  (OH, I almost forgot, I ran it outback to snap a few photos, and yes, my children think I'm crazy)  I received from Maria, the SWEETEST little bottle with just a blush of lavender color to it, a fragrant bunch of dried lavender, and an INCREDIBLE bitty pillow filled with lavender.  She made the pillow from an antique feed sack and I can't stop smelling it! It's DIVINE! The last little tissue covered mystery awaited.  As I opened it, the clean and lovely scent of lavender once again thrilled my nose.  It was a CHUNK of homemade lavender soap! 

Maria made my weekend and I am so touched by her RANDOM ACT OF KINDNESS!  She is such a sweet girl and I believe she's soon opening an little store.  If she carries any of these AWESOME goodies, she's going to totally ROCK IT!

Thank you Maria, I heart you!

 

Heralding Autumn!

no spring nor summer beauty hath such grace
as I have seen in one autumnal face.
~ John Donne



I usually fight Autumn with tooth and nail.  On these chilly early September  morning walks to the bus stop, I just try to pretend it's a cold front passing through.  Me and my flip flops are holding onto the last warm vestiges of Summer.  I like to pretend it's not slipping away like sand through my fingers.  Mother nature has other ideas, unfortunately!

However, once fall actually gets here, I really like it.  The cozy sweatshirts and woolly sweaters, pulling on my leather boots for the first time, maybe it's not too bad.  We always welcome Fall with bonfires, roasted marshmallows and hot cocoa. Oh and the APPLE pies, apple crisps, apple anything...I love that about fall too!   I just do NOT want to think of Mr. Winter's icy fingers getting closer.  BRRRrrr.

I will be announcing a GREAT give away from a FABULOUS jewelry artist very soon.  You're going to LOVE it!  She's very talented and unique!

See that cool bucket up there?  My antique dealer friend, Bob says it's from about 1870!  It's in relatively good shape but what I LOVE about it, is the INCREDIBLE color.  He said it was called EBONY BROWN.  Doesn't that sound cool!  It's like a bitter dark chocolate color!  The tall grasses around our pond are now coming into their glory as Fall approaches.  I thought they looked quite pretty together!  I don't decorate a lot for fall but I do like an item here and there!  What do you do at your home for the Fall?  I'd love to here every one's traditions and ideas.  Bring it ON!

Lastly, I am soon going to reveal my FINISHED bedroom redux.  I'm so excited about this.  Do you remember when I was so incredibly LUCKY to win an Annette Tatum duvet set off of the FABULOUS blog, Maria's Dreamy Whites .  Matt put up crown molding and he's in the process of painting the walls a soothing color by Behr called Twilight Grey.  (I think I may have partially been attracted to this color because of my mild addition to the Twilight series of books and movies)  It's LOVELY color!  We went to IKEA/HEAVEN and got some delicious and CHEAP white netted sheers.  I can't wait to show you all!

Oh, I forgot to mention, if you want to be added to the blog roll, just let me know.  It's still in the draft stage at this point.

Flower Frog Flea Finds

I've always been quite fond of the alliteration.  It's just a fun writing element, don't you agree?  Plus when you are bored you can turn them into tongue twisters.  I'm obviously also very fond of the tangent.  You probably know that if you read this blog with an regularity or know me in person.  My son Cole will even hold my shoulders and say, "FOCUS MOM!"  Peyton unfortunately gets this little "problem" from me. The following is one example. Just one weee little drop in the bucket. 

  Last night, while eating cold cut sandwiches and chips for dinner because I had preheated the oven before dance, smothered chicken breasts with seasoning and BBQ sauce and promptly PUT THEM BACK IN THE FRIDGE.  Needless to say 50 minutes later when the timer went off, the chicken wasn't cooked. Dang appliances.  ANYWAY, we were discussing our upcoming Disney Trip.  Peyton suddenly says, "APPARENTLY, Cory is adopted."  (someone in her class) Not sure how that fit in with Disney but she's my daughter so I will not be hypocritical and say much about it other than to share it with the blog universe.

This all leads me to my flea market flower frogs. (I'm not sure how it leads me, but it does).  I've been collecting the metal ones for a bit and I picked up two more recently when we were doing some birthday antiquing.  The one with the cool white Bakelite base and the cage one are new.  I LOVE how these little round ones form a flower frog cake! ;-)  Doesn't take much to make this chick happy, huh? ;-)  5 is our family number so I have it stuck in there on my kitchen sink window sill. It makes me smile.  My favorite is still that curli-que one.  MAN I love that little bit of squiggly metal goodness!

I'm participating in a couple parties today, so check them out over there on the right under parties and see what other goodies everyone else has!  Ohhh, BTW, I love the soft pink of the drying hydrangeas in the background of these photos...it's yummy. 

ALSO, don't forget, if you want to be included in the blog roll over there on the right (it's still in draft), just drop me a line letting me know and I'd love to add you!