Lilly Explosion: Watch for Falling Pink & Green

I mentioned in my post from last May (just before I went to Denmark and the Czech Republic) that I had a new look ready to come right out at ya... And here it is. I decided that the red and gold were lovely and warm, but I was ready to express the Lilly side of life. One day early on in the Spring, I was feeling a little down and I decided to go to my favorite place ever to cheer myself up -- the paper store! This time it was Swoozie's in Preston Center and I found out there that Lilly P now does wrapping paper, paper plates, napkins and plastic cups! Pens and letterhead and picture frames and post it notes. I perhaps went overboard and bought it all, but as the Lilly ad posted on my office wall says, "Too much is never enough."

I got home with my Lilly treasures and decided to give this area of my home a makeover, pink and green and girly. I started with the backdrop. That's definitely wrapping paper on foam board and it makes a great place to pin up treasured post cards. The one of the airplane was sent to me by my most frequent pen pal, a well-traveled Naval Officer. Every time I see that plane I think of where it's going today and how much I'd like to hop on board, assuming that its flying me to Paris or Tahiti or Switzerland or Brazil. Plus the blue sky looks so crisp and inviting.

Next I decided that the lamp needed some doing over to look extra spunky. I spent a while getting the dimensions correct, but I finally was able to cut the right sized paper to cover the original design. And since I'm not sure if this Lilly theme will last forever (come January I might be awfully tired of all the pinks and greens), I decided to make sure that all the updating could eventually be removed without leaving a trace. I used a two-sided tape to attach the paper to the lamp, which, in case you didn't notice, has all kinds of corners and crevices. And from my old bag of tricks, I found the dingle balls to hang from the lamp shade. I feel like Lilly would approve. So useless, so cute, so ridiculous, so Lilly.

And just as a useless hint/trick -- The cord couldn't be hidden with this lamp, you can clearly see where the plug is and there's just no room for it to hide. I used the box that the frame came in with two slits cut in the back as makeshift cord storage. I carefully wound the unneeded bit and curled it into the box, which sits at the bottom of the books stack.

I surrounded the rest of the area with various other Lilly accessories and traded out the doodads so that they'd match, too.

Sorry Kid, You Really Do Use Math In Life

The title says it all here, but upon the rarest of occasions, I have to use math to be creative. Yuck! You know I was the president of the math club in high school (mom said it would look good on the transcript for college applications and I was the only one who showed up on Mu Alpha Theta election day). And then you know I got a D- in calculus freshman year of college and retook the class to get to B-. Oh Paul Bourdon! That class was all but impossible (to me, lots of other people seemed to ace it, overachievers). Not that my personal relationship with mathematics is particularly exciting (Does it count that a lot of my favorite people in college were math majors -- Dj Jazzy, LDA & Molly McGint?), I just wanted you to know that it is only on the solemnest occasions that I will get out the tape measurer, graph paper and draw something to scale. You do know that "to scale" means solving some math equations, right? So being a regular Archimedes, I decided that I wanted to make a wall of art. And I couldn't decide on the right arrangement for these prints and paintings. So I took measurements of the wall, the height of my comfy reading chair and then measured each little work of art. Above you see the results. I'm actually planning to show you a collection of arrangements I come up with and letting my general readership vote on the final selection. We'll see if that works. I fully expect no votes at all, but who knows.

Also, it has always bothered me that people of UK-ish origin (Aussies, Kiwis included) call it "maths" instead of "math" with the idea being that its a shortened version of a plural word: mathematics. I've never bugged a Canuck about that particular English misnomer, but I ought to. I'd like to think we have Canada on our side of this crucial linguistic debate. And today, I've really strayed away from the usual topic. Err, sorry.

Corner View

Hey folks. I bet some of you started to wonder if I'd ever post again. It's true I've been a real delinquent, and after saying I'd be better, too. Oh well. I have a billion things to post--all these great craft projects that are done but I just haven't had the chance to put up here yet.

And today's post is so silly, but I just thought I'd show you the "corner view" from my office. I built this litte hammock for my Wally The Green Monster to sit in out of a paper napkin and some straight pins. He gets the lovely view of a postcard from the Dallas Art Museum over his left shoulder and a snapshot of a lemon tree in Italy over his right shoulder. And of course, facing straight ahead, he gets to look at me typing away at my computer all day long. Naturally, a partially doodled calendar for the month of July is at the front of the picture.

And that's enough silliness from me for one day! Who ever heard of bringing a Wally The Green Monster to work? Some days I can tell I'm just going to need the little burst of energy that his silly little self brings me.

And in case you wondered... this is actually one of the tamest sections of my little office home (note that I didn't say home office). I should post more pictures so you can see how completely over the top the place is. It matches me pretty well though...

Talk to you soon!

This Just In From the Party Planning Committee...

So, I was put on the company's party planning committee. Yeah, it's JUST LIKE ON THE OFFICE. We sit around and plan parties. There's no snatchy Angela to rule the roost, and its not just a collection of every girl in the building. Actually, its one person from each department. We meet every month to discuss fun things that we could do to brighten up the office atmosphere. And well, today was my first event to plan. Can you say fiesta? Well... they gave me a tiny budget, but I dreamed the impossible: coming up with something cute, Mexican, and tasteful. So these are the pictures of the break room all decked out for Cinco De Mayo. I used a roll of red gift wrap with a green one on top (think the Mexican flag) as the table cloth -- have you gone table cloth shopping recently? It's a little ridiculous. Everything is either Disney or Pixar or Disney/Pixar. There's no plain colored party table cloths anymore. Geez. So I settled for gift wrap. It has to last for half a day, so I figured even cheap dollar store gift wrap could fit that bill. Then I found -- total dollar store miracle here (after all I asked the saints for some assistance) -- a book of 20 postcards from Mexico! So I spread those out around the table. Toss in some chili peppers, Jarritos and chicklets and I think it's a pretty great setup, considering the decorating budget was under $10. That's the cost of two helium balloons, which, in our office breakroom, is really not that festive.
So enjoy the pictures! And Happy Cinco De Mayo.

My mom was with me when I went to the Dollar Grocery Store (actually, it's the 99 cents Only store) and she approved of the bandana with the Virgin of Guadalupe on it being used as the liner for the chips & salsa bowl. And if my mom says that's OK, that's OK.

Ocean view, Framed

I bought a trio of Maine prints in Boothbay Harbor, Maine a few summers ago, back when I used to live in Maine. I call them prints, but they were sold as postcards on high quality paper. I love the colors and the simplicity of the drawings. And the ideal Maine views are so wonderfully realistic. The colors recall a great gift Maine offers to the rest of the world, Maine Cottage. The super simple, elegant furniture is given a distinctly optimistic twist when painted in bright, bold hues. When I found these prints in a drawer, I remembered that I put them in the drawer long ago with the intention of framing them one day. And that day has now come!

Many of you know that I had a fairly ridiculous accident a few years ago. The timeframe of the accident coincided with the opening of an Ikea in Dallas (ok, halfway to Oklahoma in Frisco). My mother, long-suffering wheelchair pusher that she was for me, took me to Ikea, where we promptly discovered that maneuvering the entire place in a wheelchair was disastrous! Therefore, we left shortly after we arrived with nary a Swedish-designed bargain. Well, a few weeks ago, my mother and I travelled up the Tollway to that Ikea, for a triumphant return. This time, both of us sauntered through the store with great ease. And I bought generic frames for my Maine prints.

And adopting Maine Cottage style colors, I painted them up and mounted the postcards. And well, project complete. A few details: The Ikea frames are particularly suited for painting, having no wood treatment at all. This means that the first layer of paint will be sucked right into the wood, drying in just a few minutes. A second coat is a must! I actually gave my frames three coats, just to make sure the color was particularly vivid. I used a generic craft sealant with high gloss to give the frames a good shine. Other than that, the project is pretty self explanatory. I love the coastal views, even if the coast in question is thousands of miles away.

Jaunt into Postcard Collecting

I don't really know why I decided I wanted to start collecting postcards--people who know me know I'll go to some pretty extreme lengths to nab a free postcard if I think it is visually appealing. (Katie from Subtropical Paradise had to pull her car over during Mardi Gras traffic in the Garden District so I could steal one with a picture of a superhero called NolaMan? Is that right, Katie? Whatever it is, it was a lot of trouble to grab a little piece of paper!) So, I guess it's not surprising that I decided to expand into actually collectable postcards. I am leaning toward covering a wall in postcards. I've got the wall picked out and, well, I have enough postcards to cover at least three feet squared, but clearly I've got to collect a lot more before I can finish this project. That's why I'm hitting up a flea market tomorrow with my mom. The above postcard is so beautiful. I am not sure of its era, but I can tell you, it's definitely a farm from my part of Maine. And by my part of Maine, I mean the non-coastal region. It reminds me of Maple Syrup Sunday, when maple syrup farmers open their sugar shacks to the public and serve fresh, hot maple syrup on top of vanilla ice cream! Yum!

This card is the oldest in my nascent collection. You can't tell from the scanned image above, but this postcard is embossed with a fine filigree, meaning it is pleasing to the touch and the eyes. I couldn't resist this turkey, especially since my family is so into Thanksgiving. And if Thanksgiving is not "Our National Holy Day," it certainly is "Our Family's Holy Day." I don't need to recap the entire 1848 covered wagon, happy family circle, persimmon trees walk bit here, but I will say, I love Thanksgiving and I'm awfully glad to own this little piece of history. The turkey wearing a hat also recalls all those crazy pictures of politicians (say presidents, governors, etc.) pardoning a turkey in publicity stunts pre-holiday. Those pictures always involve turkeys in patriotic hats.

Yeah, so, what's the draw for this one? I will grant you that this is less interesting visually than the rest of my postcard collection, but I bought this postcard because it shows baby Dallas, back in the day. The back tells you quite an interesting collection of facts about Dallas: "Dallas is the Nation's largest inland cotton market -- practically one-half of the cotton crop of the Nation is produced within twelve hours ride. Dallas leads the world as an oil center -- more than 65 % of the oil of the United States is produced within easy overnight travel by rail." Well, none of that stuff is true anymore. But, hey, if it hadn't been true at the time this postcard was written, Dallas would never be the city it is today. I love this bridge. I *think* I have driven over this bridge a few times myself. The street lamps look familiar. Of course, I could be wrong. I'll have to ask my dad about this stuff... He always knows (even though he's not a Dallas native).

Above is another great Maine postcard, and below is a great Dallas postcard. Do you sense a theme? I decided I'd only buy postcards that have an emotional appeal for me personally. Of course, this goes against the advice of postcard collecting books (I read an article from one online, I'm not that into it), but that's the point to me. To collect things that make me happy, things that I can look at and have memories of. Thus, Dallas and Maine are two sources of memories. I never saw that Maine signpost, but I've been to a lot of those towns and worked with people from a few of them. And John Nealy Bryant's cabin is--aside from the JFK drive--the historical spot in downtown Dallas. So I wanted a postcard of that, too.