After a few days spent mostly in bed, I’m starting to see normalcy in view.  The recovery from my surgery (gallbladder removal) has been a little slower than I expected and it looks like it will be another few days before I’m up and about more than I’m down and out.  I imagined I would be so productive with my down time.  That I would write a bunch of blog posts and get caught up on my e-mail and some administrative things, but I just wasn’t feeling well enough.  My brain felt fuzzy and I wasn’t expecting it to be so hard to get comfortable sitting upright.  Most of my time has been spent sleeping and watching Netflix.  I am feeling sharper today, though, so I hope to get more done even if I’m not active.  Since I’ve been a loaf, I don’t have too much to share, but hopefully

***This giveaway is now closed*** On March 31, I am finally going to get to meet Annie Sloan when she teaches a workshop in Leesburg, VA while on her North American Tour.  I started using her paint back in April and it’s become one of my very favorite paints to use.   The DC Metro area ASCP stockists are celebrating the upcoming Leesburg, VA North American Tour event with a giveaway!   You may be familiar with some of these ladies and their businesses… Celeste Blumenauer of Catfish Studios Kelly Thompson of Stylish Patina Denise Nolan and Bobbi Morris of Repurposed & Refined and Janet Metzger of The Empty Nest What’s up for grabs?  One free ticket to the Annie Sloan Tour Event located at the National Conference Center in Leesburg, VA on March 31, 2012 from 9 am-5 pm Basket of ASCP goodies including 2 qts of ASCP paint in colors chosen by the

There are many perks to being a blogger.  Just one of them is getting to try products and share an opinion about them.  When Oreck contacted me about becoming a sponsor, they were interested in sending a vacuum for me to try.  Well, I already have a vacuum I really love, but when they mentioned a steam mop…hmmm…  I have a lot of wood floors in my house and they are stained dark, so they show everything.  For a few years, I have cleaned them with a vacuum and a squirt mop, but the floors always looked a little streaky and hazy.  I finally figured out that I could use my carpet shampooer on the hard floors in my house, but it was quite an ordeal to lug that thing up from the basement, so it didn’t happen very often.  A steam mop sounded like the perfect solution.  Oreck sent

This post has nothing to do with home decorating or DIY or any of the things I usually write about.  It’s just about me. Soooo…  Yesterday I was all excited about the new projects I was going to work over the next couple weeks and I was really ready to get back in my space at Lucketts and all of that fun stuff.  Well…  things are not going according to that plan. Last night, I started to get a pain in my back, between my shoulder blades.  It woke me up and was pretty intense, but I figured it was muscle fatigue from stress or sleeping on it wrong or just tweaking it somehow.  I put the heating pad on it and tried to go back to sleep.  I then woke up to my back hurting even worse and a new, sharp pain in my upper abdomen, just under my

  Quite a while ago, I started a series on Starting a Creative Business. Every once in a while I learn something new or get inspired and put up a new post in the series.  I used to have links to the posts in the series on my sidebar, but I never put them up on my new blog when I made the switch to WordPress. I thought it was about time to fix that. So, now there are links low on the side bar for some of my most popular posts on Starting a Business, Sewing and Painting.  I hope they’ll be a good resource for you. Well, I’m almost done with the photographs for the book and we’ve edited through chapter six (out of ten), so I’m starting to think ahead to “life after the book.”  I’m headed to Lucketts on Thursday to restock my space with new furniture and

Are you ready for another MMS pick from Wuslu? Well, ready or not, it’s here!  I think we’re all getting the itch for Spring, so this is the perfect pick to bring some Spring into your home (without having to pay a fortune for cut flowers and then try to keep them alive.)  It is a collection of six nests and they are beautiful.   Each one is different.  Some are twiggy, others are leafy.  They nests very realistic and, believe it or not, the eggs are real!  These look beautiful nestled under a cloche, in a bowl or just set on a stack of old books.         The collection of six nests is the Wuslu deal-of-the-day, so head over there if you want them for your home. …and here’s a preview of the deal-of-the-day tomorrow…     It’s a glass cloche and a mini zinc-framed chalkboard tag (and it goes

Believe it or not, I usually “entertain” in a very casual way. I normally set out the food buffet style along with a stack of plastic cups and a Sharpie, so guests can find their drink through the evening.  For photo shoots, however, I love pulling out my fine china, chargers, antique crystal, silver and freshly pressed linens to set a fancy table…           I’m getting ready to shoot some table setting ideas for the book, so I went out yesterday to find some colorful linens, accent plates, cute bowls and fun napkin rings to mix with what I aready have.     I’m sticking with my usual “cool” color scheme of blues, greens and white, with a little yellow and brown thrown in.  I’m excited to see how it all comes together.     In other news, the wall paper is hung (and it looks