In honor of Kate and William..

In honor of Kate and William's wedding this weekend, free shipping in my etsy shop today through Sunday on my Union Jack cards alone or combined with any other items!
xo,
Elena

gray weathered wicker

via Sally Wheat

I love the look of gray weathered wicker with white pillows..
I'm off to Home Depot to get some white base paint and gray paint to create the weathered look on my brown Pier 1 chairs i bought last year.. I'm going to create a pretty little front porch. See you later and I'll post some photos.. let's see how this goes!!

Laurie Lenfestey's home

Spring break, Easter and now my little Isobel home sick, it has been a busy week..
Sitting with my little one after a sleepless night for both of us, I started looking through my saved files on my old MacBook Pro and found these pictures I saved of Laurie Lenfestey's home featured in Country Living. Laurie's business is Bittersweet Designs, lot's of beautiful jewelry and paper goods!
Every room in her home has a feeling of peace and happiness. Laurie says, "Our home is peaceful enough that we can listen to life's whispers." I love that, such a lovely quote. Thanks Laurie!

My dresser...

A quick grab of makeup and jewelry when I'm running out the door with the kids in the morning.. I like to have things easily accessible yet still pretty to look at.

Beach Day art prints

Art prints April 2011, a set on Flickr.

I'm Spring cleaning/early nesting?.. The sun is seeping through the windows, the kids are in school and my mother in law and husband left for Ireland yesterday (mother in law gonig home, husband going to a wedding that I opted out of) I am a little giddy at the freedom in my own home and have been dusting, rearranging and kind of loving my new beach art prints (if I do say so myself LOL) So I have changed the pictures in my etsy shop and off I go to dust some more! xo, Elena

1st floor floorplan and renovation ideas

I sketched our first floor the other night using my architectural ruler I could scale 3/16"=1 foot.
Since we moved here, we've daydreamed about possible renovations, opening up rooms etc and so last week we talk to an architect. I picked up the survey may for the dept of planning and zoning and we awalked around our property with the architect. We wanted to get an idea of what was possible. The one thing we feel we should definitely do is add a garage so the first thing we needed to figure out is where within our set backs we could build one. It was pretty tricky just because of the angle of our house on our property and a drainage easement we have on one side.
One place we could surely make it work is where our dining room currently is and lose that room and then do an addition on the back of the house for the dining and family room.
Anyway since I have to do everything visually, here i added shaded areas where the changes would be..
We'll see. Half the fun is dreaming it up to me!

what do you think?
xo,
Elena

Trad Home is here and there's lots to love..

Here are just a few snips from the premiere issue of Trad Home magazine created by Lonny magazine and Traditional Home.. There is lots and lots to love from this issue including a huge segment on the 20 new Traditionals and i love them all.. Each of them have a little something that speaks to me!

Trad Home magazine

Today was one of those Mondays where nothing on the list got all the way finished!.. I hate that..
I did get some new product photos on my etsy shop but they didn't come out the way I wanted so they will eventually be redone (waste of time) I created a homemade light box to photograph my work but several things weren't right with it.. Not enough light bulbs, too small a box.. I've had knots in my stomach all day just feeling unaccomplished.. Not good for the baby I'm sure! So it's time to go upstairs and spend time with the kiddies..
On a happy note Trad Home premiers tomorrow.. very exciting!!!
xoxo, Elena

Small changes

before

after

Sometimes just a small change in a small room can make a big difference.. I filled all the gaps in the wainscoting with wood putty and then painted it Benjamin Moore's Quiet Moments and ta-da!.. I think a huge improvement. Gets my head out of the big ideas for a while too!!

Inspiration

via Simply Me

It was just another manic Monday and my head is spinning. It's nice to have a lovely blog like this to look at at the end of a crazy day.. Simply Me, who I am very happy found my blog, has the same passion for those romantic whites and everything shabby chic as I do. Check out her lovely blog. xx Elena

Spring chanting..

With the cold and drizzle outside, here is my visual chanting to Spring!..

I don't seem to have references to some, but the second is Rachel Ashwell and the third is Sanctuary