Terrain At Styers, AKA: Come ON SWEET SPRING!!

Have you heard about Urban Outfitters/Anthropologie's "secret" home AND GARDEN center?  It's called Terrain At Styers.  Even if you have a green pinkie instead of a green thumb, you will LOVE this store.

 Terrain effortlessly blends the line between home and garden into a magical place where even I felt like I wouldn't kill the most delicate of houseplants.  The incredibly inspired marketing/design fingers of Anthropologie and UO are most definitely at work in this fabulous charter store.

There is somethingspecial about glasses lined up like soldiers

My husband and I were attending a Scentsy event in Allentown, PA the other day.  In order to break up the drive for my back, we made a slight detour at Glen Mills, PA to check out Terrain.  I first heard about Terrain from Eddie Ross sometime last year, I quickly Googled it to see how far of a trek it would be from our house.  Luckily, it's only about an hour! 

Much to my husbands embarrassment, I took my camera with me into the store.  There were so many beautiful vignettes to shoot!  In the end he was glad I did because there were a few things he wanted photos of because he felt he could make something similar.  For example, we both LOVE this worn turquoise potting bench, but the $1,200 (from what I recall) price tag is a bit steep for our shallow pockets.  However, we both think it would be fabulous on our patio and we could use it as a buffet for parties!  
I am in LOVE with those INCREDIBLE perforated light globes.  They could have not been MORE STUNNING! They have a bit of a Moorish/Turkish/Rajasthan feel to them.  This design trend is showing up in many places from West Elm, Pier One and Anthropologie to Scentsy!  (At the event, we were able to see all the new warmers for Spring/Summer...AWESOME!)
This store left me praying for Spring to speed along a little quicker.  The lush bright greens of new growth mirrored by the bright green accents were so gorgeous. The scent of rich earth and lushly growing plants was intoxicating! We left feeling we had to go home and plant something!  Think Spring!

well-loved terra cotta! AHHH



I LOVED these bright hoses all stacked in a row!



Must plant a container garden this Spring!

So in LOVE with these clocks, dishtowels and kitchen signs!

Baby it's cold outside! I need a CLOCHE! ...and those HANGING terraniums!

Planting in an antique bakery bundt pan...genious!

Trend Alert...

Ballard Designs



Ballard Designs



I BELIEVE IN PINK.

I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.

Audrey Hepburn 
 
I love LOVE love this Audrey Hepburn quote!
 
I may have mentioned a few posts ago that I tend to have an obsessive personality.  Whatever I'm currently into gets my ALL.  Right now it's Peyton's 9th birthday.  If I saw a psychologist, she would probably be able to tell me all these different reasons why I'm obsessive.  All I know is that this is probably my baby's LAST birthday where she'll PINK IT UP.  I'm trying to fit lot's of last time stuff into this one itty bitty party.  My little girl will be in double digits next year, URGH!  So bear with me over the next month while I go into pink overload.  You can cluck your tongues at me and whisper to your girlfriends, "poor Robyn, she's gone a wee bit off the rocker".   It's okay because I bet pink makes you happy too!
 
I've seen these ADORABLE deluxe, handmade birthday hats all over Etsy and the party blogs.  They are gorgeous.  They are expensive!  Knowing I would enjoy trying to figure out how to make it, I decided maybe Peyton would want one too.  Tonight, I took a little bit of time and made a prototype of a frilly, oozing pinkness, sweet and pretty party hat.  It's just a practice run and I already know what I'll do differently (too many layers on the 9 badge).  Ms. P saw it and LOVED it!  She thought that she would want a P on the real one so she could save it and keep it in her room. I love the crochet white heart, it's an antique from Jenni Bowlin and I REALLY love the sweet iradescent flower button.  It was Matt's grandmother's.  I'll be re-using that for sure! It is such a fun project!  I can't wait to start the real thing!
 
I picked up several swatches of 1/4 yard  each of cheap fabric for my other party project.  I'm also flying by the seat of my pants on this one.  Let me tell you that it involves my SEWING MACHINE (that's always a bit scary) and there are samples all over blog land of this project too.  This is also something that Ms. P can keep in her room as a keepsake.  I'll post it when it's complete.  I *think* it's going to be pretty. Let's hope!
 
 

SCENTSY SALE and My Petite Maison

You may remember a few weeks ago I had a SCENTSY giveaway here at Whimages.  Sweet Tracie from My Petite Maison was the lucky winner.  I'm addicted to all things that smell nice, like fabric softener and the soft and sweet scent of a new born baby.  Since sweet Tracie has fallen in love with her plug in warmer, we thought we'd have a little SALE in her honor! It's a 15% off SCENTSY SALE! We love our Scentsy goodies so much that we want to share them with everyone and also share Tracie's store and blog.   If you check out our SCENTSY goodies and you see something you like, then this is the sale for you!  Email me at robynlbedsaul@gmail.com and mention MY PETITE MAISON, we'll give you 15% off your purchase! There is a sale like this only 2 times a year! This is for the whole month of February!

Our Spring/Summer product comes out in March and we are all so excited to see the debut of the new warmers and scents!  However that means IN with the NEW and out with some of the old to make room!  Some of your favorite scents and warmers are going into retirement so if you have some favorites (I KNOW I DO) you may want to stock up now!

If you haven't already visited My Petite Maison, check it out, Tracie has a lovely store with fabulous French finds and her blog is so pretty, you could stay all day.


Here's the fine print... :-)

Unfortunately, we can't offer a discount on the Breast Cancer warmer, the campus warmers or some of the combine and save but that leaves you with about 95% of the catalog 15% off!

Red Velvet Cake Balls

lushredvelvetygoodness
Yes, I had to do it.  I HAD to have a cake ball post of my very own.  I've been ohhhing and ahhhing over Bakerella's yummy and often adorable cake balls and cake pops for about 2 years now.  Cold, snowy weather often flips some internal switch for me and then I MUST BAKE.  Over the past two weeks I've made: 4 batches of Nana's butter cookies (Eddie Ross even loves these!), soft and chewy oatmeal raisin cookies, a pound cake, homemade carrot cake cupcakes with decadent cream cheese frosting (the recipe is on here somewhere), vanilla cupcakes with meringue frosting,  white chocolate dipped oreo cookie pops and now a batch of red velvet cake balls.  Peyton loves red velvet cake and has requested these for her SWEET SHOP BIRTHDAY PARTY, since I have never made them before, I thought I better do a test run. Since everything at Peyton's party will be white and pink, these dipped in RICH white chocolate, should be perfect!

Bakerella uses a box cake and canned frosting, so the baking part isn't so time consuming.  Next time I make these (for Peyton's party) I'm going to refrigerate the cake/frosting mixture so that the balls will be easier to form and hopefully I can make them smaller like Bakerella suggests.

OHHH, hey, LOOK, there is a BOX TOP on this frosting.  I'm more than a little obsessed with collecting box tops for my munchkin's schools.

I'm not a huge chocolate cake fan but I think these lushious lumps of moist cake look lovely!

OH MY!  Look at that yummy, big DOLLOP of cream cheese frosting.  My heart goes pitter patter for you, oh yumilicious frosting!

Ooops, I must have looked like I was having too much fun so the littlest munchkin decided that I needed her help with dipping the cake balls into the white chocolate.  She does a GREAT job...she must get her culinary skills from her Momma. ;-)

No comment necessary.  I'll just let you take in this sight.



Sorry for the flash photos, we made these last NIGHT

Joining WHITE WEDNESDAY  Please check out everyones white wonders!

Grand Dad's Tool Chest

I've posted before about this sweet chest that my husband's grandfather made out of reclaimed wood and wooden crates and boxes.  He had it in his garage for YEARS.  It held misc. tools and parts to the antique cars he collected and LOVED.  Matt and I have always been attracted to it.  I can remember him showing it to me about 25 years ago!  Knowing our weird attachment to it, Matt's grandmother graciously offered it to us last year. We scrubbed (well Matt did and I supervised, lol) it down and vacuumed and wiped all of it's million drawers.  We've been slowly collecting mismatched crystal knobs to replace the mismatched wooden knobs and we are probably half way done at this point.  It's sits lovingly in all it's rustic glory behind our couch as a console table.  I love that when you open the different drawers they have great vintage lettering on some of them advertising shoes or produce.  (I we thought this re-use, re-new, re-do was a new idea?!)  She has a few more knobs than last time I showed her off, I figured it was about time again.  Do you have something that you hold close to your heart because of it's sentiment?

She may not be as lovely and refined as these apothecary and card catalog cabinets but we love her just the same!



photo from shutterstock




photo from ebay



Valentine Cupcakes To Go With Those Liners

A sea of yummy cupcakes!

Stiff peak

A couple days ago, I posted an easy and fun Valentine's day craft using pretty little polka dot cupcake liners.  Today I woke up feeling like baking!I have a lot of leftover cupcake liners so cupcakes were the obvious choice. I'd MUCH rather bake than make dinner...actually I'd more than likely rather eat dessert than dinner too!  I've been inspired so much lately by the gobs of PINK everywhere for Valentines day so of course, I had to make pink cupcakes  in pink polka dots too!  The weather today was messing with my back so I cheated and quickly made a box French Vanilla cake into cupcakes.  NEVER be ashamed to make a box cake! ;-)  I knew I wanted to make home made frosting (now that's something I almost ALWAYS do, just because I like to!) so I wanted to put the time into the frosting not the cake.  Today I choose a meringue frosting, one of my favorites!  I love meringue frosting because it's fat free and so tasty. DID YOU HEAR WHAT I SAID?  It is FAT FREE! YUM!  You are going to LOVE that because you will soon realize, as you are scraping the side of the bowl and you lick a little bit off of your fingers, that you will NOT be offering the beater to the kids because you want it ALL for yourself. FAT FREE! 



Pastry bag and pretty pink gel color

As I mentioned, I love making homemade frosting.  There's a funny little story on my old blog that involves FRENCH BUTTERCREAM(can you say DECADENT?), cupcakes and a sweet dog named Chester. It's here .

This frosting is delicious and oh, did I already mention that it's FAT FREE?  It's a 3 ingredient recipe: egg whites, white sugar and vanilla.  You cook it a bit then whisk it till it begs for mercy and you end up with LOVELY, FAT FREE glossy peaks.  I added a hint of pink color to mine because Callie wanted pink frosting.  If you do this, use a gel color so you won't dilute the proportions.  There is a recipe for this fabulous frosting HERE .  Don't forget, it's fat free!

Naked cupcakes!



All gussied up.  Now that's better!

Valentine's Day Craft

 Is it just me or are these looong, icy winter days just aching for something fun to cheer them up?  I'm wondering if that's why Valentine's Day is smack dab in the middle of these dreary winter days.  A box of chocolates and some pretty roses sure would make it pass by a bit quicker!  You know what else does?  This fun easy craft!  I'm sure you've all seen this around blogland, it's too cute to miss!  I also LOVE those sweet fabric/paper bunting flags as well.  I thought I'd maybe kill 2 birds with one stone (I don't know why I'm using that phrase, it's one I really don't like and believe me, I'd never kill a bird with a stone or any other thing for that matter!)...where was I?  Oh yes, give the kids something to do AND make decorations for Peyton's party all at the same time!

 To get started, just gather some cupcake wrappers in whatever color/pattern you like and get some mini

ones and JUMBO and some coffee filters too!  Now you will need a needle and some coordinating thread.  Then you just thread them all through making sure you don't pull them too hard or they'll pull through the big knot you have at the end of your thread.  Voila'  you have a pretty little banner/garland!  There are some very COOL cupcake wrappers on the market right now so you'll find something to match any party you are having!  I also learned recently that you should just bake your cupcakes in a plain wrapper and then when they are cooled place that into your decorative wrapper.  It won't hurt anything if you bake in the decorative ones but they don't look nearly as bright and vibrant after you bake in them.

One of the REALLY cool stores I've found while looking for baking goodies is Layer Cake Shop  This little store is so FULL of FUN and RETRO cupcake toppers and other baking goodies that you'll feel like your are transported back to your childhood.  I clearly remember standing in front of the glass case in the bakery and being mesmerized by the sweet little scenes being played out by the plastic figurines on top of the snow white buttercream. Opening the cake box and catching your first glimpse of your birthday cake was pure MAGIC.   I can't wait to put Peyton's delightful little plastic ballerina's on her cupcakes.  I hope I can make a little magic too!

If you'd like to check out some other great sources for party goodies here are some I've found:
Bake It Pretty
The Sugar Diva
Cupcake Wrapture
B.Nute  fabulous vintage style invites

Pink Obsession

photo from fanpop.com

See me over there with my FUN pink hair? ...well not really but in my mind!  My friends would probably tell you that I can easily become obsessed with whatever project I'm currently working on.  Right now, that project would be little Ms. P's 9th birthday party.  It's going to be so PINKALICIOUS!  

January often finds Matt and I smack dab in some kind of project.  The cold Maryland winters make us hunker down and pick something in our house that we need to tear apart and "update".  Last year, it was the now infamous reading nook and black kitchen cabinets.  This year we are all about the organization and de-clutterfying (I KNOW you love when I make up my own words. I'm a regular SNOOP DOG!)  Considering that organization is NOT mine or Matt's middle name, this is a big step for us! I even have a sweet little sign in my kitchen I got from here that says "Those who are organized are just too lazy to look for things."  I took SO many clothes to Goodwill last week that the nice GW volunteer asked if I had anything left in my closet!  Of course when one makes a trip to drop off unnecessary items to Goodwill, one must ALSO go into said Goodwill and see if they have something that one MUST take home.  I found a sweet cut glass footed ice cream dish that happens to match the 5 I already have...so now thats a SET! WHOO HOOO!  I'll be showing them off at the PINKALICOUS party for Peyton.  Speaking of the party, I also picked up these ornate fabulously expensive plastic-wood frames.  Pretty, huh?  Well, not so much, BUT give those babies a coat of high gloss bubblegum pink and they will look FAB on the table with the menu full of candy in them!  Stay tuned for that post in March! ...see, I guess I CAN be organized (or obsessed) considering I'm planning almost a month and a half ahead for a party!  Now if I can only find a pink wig and a sweet pink apron...

The WINNER is...And thinking PINK!!!

FIRST of all, let me announce the WINNER of my SCENTSY give away... TRACIE from the stunning little blog, My Petite Maison!  Tracie, shoot me an email at robynlbedsaul@gmail.com and I'll get your FUN plug in warmer and scent of the month into the mail!

Okay, you are probably wondering about all this PINK SUGARY GOODNESS.  My youngest is having her 9th birthday in March and she had decided she wants candy, ice cream and PINK TUTUS!  That girl always knows exactly what she wants!  I'm putting a little bit of a vintage spin on things like having ballet class in an old ice cream parlor. (far-fetched, I KNOW but just roll with me okay?)  I figure this MAY be the last party that she lets me "help" her with so she said PINK and said YESSS!  We've come up with some fun ideas and I can't wait to bring them to life. The collage above is the little inspiration board I came up with.   If you'd like to check out some other birthdays we've had around here, click on these 

                                                                                  vintage paper cone favors

                                                                                    Peyton's eigth birthday

                                                                giant oreo cookie cake
                                                             cotton candy surprise party
                                                              Peyton's dance diva party
                                                                      tea cup party


photo credits:  emeraldandella.com, candycloudscompany.blogspot.com, fortandfield.3dcartstores.com

GIVE AWAY REMINDER

SORRY FOR THE POOR PHOTO, I'VE NO NATURAL LIGHT IN MY DINING ROOM!

Don't forget to go HERE for the give away.  Not many people have entered so your odds are good!!!

The Shop At Dreamy Whites & not your grandmothers lace AND A GIVEAWAY

photo from the fabulous Maria at dreamywhitesonline.com

This past September, I was fortunate enough to be able to sample some of the goodies that my friend Maria from Dreamy Whites was going to have in her FABULOUS French inspired shop.  Well it's a few months later and sweet Maria has figuratively swung open her doors and put out the OPEN sign!  Check out her fabulous store HERE  If you want to read about my little sampling of the goods, go HERE
 

 Usually when I think of lace I visualize 2 things.  The Jessica McClintock washed lavender colored blouse with the LARGE lace collar that my friend had in 6 grade.  I wanted that blouse SO BAD.  ...now, not so much.  Or I picture the hand made lace doilies that every ones grandmother seemed to have blanketing their tables.  Judging by all the lace showing up in the design world on pillows and rugs and even room dividers, I don't think lace is just for fabric anymore!



lace wallpaper from anthropologie



rug from anthropologie

 

magazine holder lonny magazine




concrete room divider zainteriora.net

 

Nothing puts a smile on my face like a LOVELY LITTLE GIVE AWAY!!!!

It's been cold and windy here enough lately to put this happy chick a little bit into the dumps.  Trying to pull myself out of the funk (cleaning my closet WAS NOT WORKING) and put a smile on someone else's face is always fun.  So I thought, "self, why don't you have a give away?"  knowing that self often has some good ideas so I'm taking her advice. IT'S GIVE AWAY TIME!!!  You have a couple ways to win.  Post a comment for one chance.  Post something you like to do when you are in a funk (I often bake, sugar usually makes me happy!).  And if you want to be extra lucky and really want an extra chance, if you post the give away on your blog and post here and tell me, you'll get 2 more chances!  ...here's the prize...

A Scentsy plugin of your choice and one bar of the scent of the month!  The scent of the month is called, MY WISH it's a delightful blend of earthy fig, violets and delicious marshmallow. It's YUMMY!  ...you are going to love it!

My Scentsy site is here if you want to check out which plug in warmer you'd like http://www.whimages.scentsy.us/

Contest ends January 20th

Happy, Bright Colors

My youngest, Peyton, loves bright colors.  The brighter the better!  Santa brought her these COOL headbands that are made by recycling candy wrappers!  I think they are so cute, Santa must know her well.  Candy and bright colors make a happy little girl.  Check out the sweet store on Etsy that Santa got them from, it's called Presents from Alex .  She also got these UBER-SOFT cloud socks from Little Miss Matched.  If you haven't heard of them before, you should check them out too.  Their socks are great for those people who never can seem to find 2 matching socks because their socks never MATCH!  You get 3 coordinating socks instead of 2 matched socks! GREAT concept! Sooo pretty too.  That fun hair band ball is from American Eagle...LOVE that store~!

New Years Resolutions

My Kitchen

The Container Store

What is it about New Years that makes you want to CLEAN, ORGANIZE AND PURGE?  We flock to Target and Walmart's container section like geese on a migration path.  The dollar section of my local target is currently filled with beconing bright buckets and fluffy microfiber dust mitts.  Putting away the Christmas tree must trigger the inner cleaning lady in all of us!  I think getting organized is tied for loosing weight as the top resolutions.  I know they are MINE!  I wish I could drop pounds as easily as I drop off stuff at Goodwill...hmmm.  What have you been working on?

BLOGGING HIATUS
I think the past 5-6 weeks is the longest break from blogging I've ever taken.  Initially I couldn't blog because our computer decided to take an irreversible crash.  Then we bought a new lap top that would start all over every couple days as though it was brand new or it would lock up. WEIRD!  We finally bit the bullet the week of Christmas (GREAT timing) and got a new desktop with a huge screen. YAY!  So, I'm back BABY! :-)

In SCENTSY news:  We've been having so much fun with our little SCENTSY VENTURE .  The month of January is a wonderful month to have a basket party because it is DOUBLE HALF PRICE month.  Meaning, that we double how ever many half price items your party earns.  It's also "bring back my bar" month with 20 special edition scents that are only available in January.  That's a total of 101 different wonderful scents!  BTW, a basket party is fun because we could be across the country from each other and you could still have a Scentsy party.  This is how it works, I send you everything (80 sample scents, catalogs, orderforms, a sample bar and a calculator) in a pretty little "got scents?" market basket.  You can have friends over or you can take the basket to work or your kids sports events.  You share Scentsy and earn free and half price items almost effortlessly!

So many things to say that I'm a bit overwhelmed.  I'll never catch up but at least this is a start.  Now to try

The Container Store

to catch up with everyone else's  blogs...