Happy Valentine's Day

Yeah, yeah, Hallmark holiday, consumerism, blah, blah... I do. Not. Care. Any opportunity to get my holiday on is alright by me. I feel a little silly decorating for non-Christmas holidays since it's just us, but what the hell? 
 

{Valentine's decorating from years past}

Side note: As soon as we add some mini Cusis to the family, I may have to be restrained. There will be holiday crafts galore! St. Patrick's Day, Flag Day, Dr. Seuss's Birthday... Apparently June 6th is National Yo-Yo Day... I mean, come on! The possibilities are endless! I may even let Tom tell them about Star Wars Day (That would be May 4th for you non-nerds, as in May the Fourth be with you... Groan. On second thought, maybe we'll skip that one.) Bottom line - as soon as we add a baby to the mix - it's gonna get real festive up in here. Babies like appreciate holidays, right?

Anyway - point is, a couple of weeks ago, I got out my clay, my heart cookie cutter, and my alphabet stamps and got to work... First I used the non-terrible conversation heart sayings. [There are a lot of terrible ones. "URA10?" Gross. "Tweet Me?" Just...no.] Then I went on to more personal ones - our wedding date, inside jokes, etc. Then I had the brilliant (according to me) idea to look for inspiration in a list of Prince song titles at which point this became a slightly more risque craft... 

The whole project took me a couple of weeks because as much as I love a good craft, I don't tend to think them all the way through, sooo many missteps. In the batch pictured above, I forgot to poke holes for the string to hang the things on. In another batch, the holes were too small and I broke a bunch of them trying to force the string through. Then there was the whole challenge of figuring out how best to paint them... So after several crafting sessions/Call the Midwife marathons (Watch it!), I ended up with forty-something pink and red hearts, which I strung on some red and white bakers twine.

 

Despite starting this project at the end of January, I only actually hung these babies up two days ago. I'm definitely going to have to work on my efficiency. We'll see how long Tom feels like celebrating...

In other news, the end of January brought some changes to Casa Cusimano... Tom is no longer at the Corporation That Shall Remain Nameless. While this has some obvious downsides, it also means that we get to enjoy a brief period of extra QT while he prepares for the next great thing. This is particularly lovely on Valentine's Day when I got to take advantage of having my man around for a cozy, indulgent breakfast. 

As I may have mentioned, I love a holiday...hence, heart(ish)-shaped pancakes.

In a rarely achieved moment of perfect timing, I am wrapping this post up as my multi-talented, super sweet husband is putting the finishing touches on lobster tail and baked oysters. I am a lucky girl...

{Had to share this angle so that everyone can have a glimpse of Herman, Tom's childhood bear, who wears Hawaiian-print short-alls and lives on his bedside table. Unrelated - is that crooked lampshade making anyone else's eye twitch?}

Happy February 15th!

I started working on this after dinner last night, but Tom wanted my full attention on cuddling and Downton Abby watching. He pointed out that my Christmas post came roughly six weeks late, so publishing my Valentine's post a day or two late would be a great triumph. I could hardly argue with that, so...

I ended up taking my desire for more honeysuckle and less beige literally over the last week or two by breaking out the paints and construction paper and pink-ifying everything around here. 

Paints plus excessive Pinteresting led to a burst of craftiness that resulted in some redecorating. I started with a project inspired by copied from here. The heart looks black, but I swear it's a really deep red.

{Beyond My Wildest Dreams is the title of our first dance song.}

Then I stole this idea and painted some watercolor hummingbirds. I'm pretty sure that I came up with the multi-lingual I love you painting myself, but I may have absorbed that from the internet too.

{The San Diego coastline print on the left was a gift from Mo, and on the right is my fledgling globe collection.}

Valentine's Day was lovely in these parts. I gave Tom an oversized novelty card from 7-11, and he brought home calla lilies and made an amazing dinner of oysters and filet with a blueberry bourbon sauce. So yeah...he won. But that's as it should be.

{Oysters and steak don't really photograph well, but it was divine.}

I really do have the best valentine.

Week 17: Pinterest Project

On Week 17 (way back in April), I had to run to Michael's for a non-fun, non-crafty reason (specifically, I had to buy 5x7 envelopes for work), but when I took a lap around the store, I found some inspiration in the toy section. Technically, I didn't so much find inspiration as I was reminded of something I had pinned a while back. You see, according to whomever decides these things, brass animal figurines are the hotness right now. Meaning - if I were the type of person who "styled" her home (and, trust, I wish that I were), I would definitely have some sort of a brass animal figurine placed just so on my credenza (naturally, I would have a credenza), or bookshelf, or coffee table...

{ 1 - 2 - 3 }

Apparently however, these delightful, albeit totally nonfunctional, brass animals (branimals?) are pricey, so the internet is full of examples of people making knock-off versions. This is all to say that when I spotted a rubber giraffe in the clearance bin at Michael's, I knew that he should come home with me. This wasn't the first time I have turned a Pinterest pin into reality, but it was the first time for this particular craft (if you can call it that), so I decided that it could count for my new thing of the week. Now, pay attention because this is a blink and you'll miss it type of "craft."

Start with a giraffe. My giraffe is called Melvin, but I don't think it matters if your giraffe has a different name.

Introduce him to some spray paint.

 

Go to town.

Place Melvin (or Phyllis or whatever...) atop a pile of books and call Elle Decor or House Beautiful to see when they would like to come over for the photo shoot.

Week 14: Easter Fun

Tom had to stay in L.A. for the Easter weekend, so for last week's new thing, I used watercolors and washi tape to make him an Easter card that I hid (along with a Reese's peanut butter egg) for him to find on Easter morning.

While poor Tom soldiered on alone in L.A. for the holiday weekend, I attended an absolutely divine brunch hosted and prepared by Jaime. Giada better watch her back, between the home renovations and the fierce cooking, Jaime is prime for her own HGTV/Food Network show.

{Yumbo!}

 

 

We got a defective egg coloring kit (for shame, Paas!), so we improvised with food coloring. I think our eggs looked pretty awesome when all was said and done.

On Sunday morning, we went to Mass, posed for pictures in our Easter finest, hunted for eggs, tore into our Easter baskets, and stuffed our faces with hard boiled eggs, cinnamon bread, and jelly beans. Despite the fact that my youngest sister is 22, our Easter traditions haven't changed since we were all under ten, and that is exactly how I like it. I only wish that my brother, his wife, and Tom could have been there.

The aforementioned Easter photos were priceless this year because my dad inadvertently photobombed the picture of me and my sisters. When my sister checked her phone to see how the picture had turned out, she broke into hysterical laughter and started to pass the phone around until we all collapsed in uncontrollable giggles. It was the best.

 Here's a close-up for you. There are no words for how much I love this picture.

Happy Easter and a joyous spring to all!

Week 12: Fun with Succulents

 

I have recently developed an obsession with succulents. I mostly blame Pinterest. I have been saving pictures of all kinds of succulent-based projects for a while now, and when I showed my mom a picture of a succulent wreath a couple of weeks ago, she was all, "Let's make one!" Boom, just like that. If I had more Mom-based motivation in my life, my house would be full of fully realized Pinteresting projects... Animal bookends!

{Hi Sugarplum via Pinterest}

In any event, a couple of weekends ago, I went to Coronado to hang out with the fam while Tom was at South by Southwest. My mom had heard about a free class on orchid care at a local nursery, so we decided to combine that with a succulent-buying spree. The orchid class was led by Phil, a real orchid aficionado and epic storyteller.

{Phil}

Phil taught us that the state with the most species of native orchids is... wait for it... Alaska! Anyway, after Phil told us everything there is to know about growing orchids, we picked out some succulents and some moss before heading to Michael's for a metal wreath form. Once we got all of our supplies back home, we realized we would have been better off taking clippings from the plethora of succulents in my parents' yard and neighborhood because we ended up pulling the plants we bought apart since it was too hard to get the roots into the wreath after we packed it with moss.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished wreath, but it has to lay flat for a week or two until all the clippings have a chance to take root so I'll wait to post a picture of the final reveal when I can get a shot of it hanging on my parents' door.

Anyway, the success with the wreath and the realization that I didn't need to spend a bunch of money on buying succulents set me off on a stealth mission to sneakily take clippings of every succulent I passed for the next week.

{My stash}

When I had pilfered gathered a sufficient stock, I dropped $2.50 on some revolting "art" from $2.50 at Goodwill and started on my Pinteresting succulent project number two.
The inspiration was this project from Better Homes and Gardens:

{BHG via Pinterest}

First I ripped the hideous painting off of the frame, spray painted the frame blue, and stapled chicken wire leftover from my jewelry display project to the inside of the frame.

 Next, I flipped the frame over, stuffed moss leftover from the wreath project up against the chicken wire, poured cactus soil over the moss, and then stapled and nailed the "art" where it belongs, on the backside of the frame.

I can already tell that I should have had a piece of plywood cut to fit the back of the frame because I am pretty sure that the painting is on particleboard that will probably fall apart after a few waterings... I was too lazy eager to get started to make the trip to the hardware store for plywood, but I figure I can always replace the back later if it falls apart.

The next step, arranging all of the cuttings in the frame, was the most fun. Since I had to make do with whatever succulents were accessible and unguarded, and because my crafty efforts are never as perfect in reality as they are in my mind, I knew my final product would not be as cohesive and color-coordinated as the masterpiece that the professionals at Better Homes and Gardens created. And it's certainly a mishmash, but it's coming along...

Week 8: Fun with Clay

So I'm two months into this little project, and my goal of posting my new thing every Sunday is already well out the window. No matter. Deadlines aren't really my thing anyway. I'll be happy if I end up with all 52 weeks documented, besides, starting every post with some sort of half-baked excuse for why it's late is beyond dull. So I hereby renounce any commitment to scheduled updates on this matter. Moving on.

Last week, I looked to Pinterest for new thing inspiration, specifically, new crafty thing inspiration. I went in search of a project that would make use of the clay I had from my attempt at Christmas ornaments (results were mixed on that one). I wanted to attempt something slightly more sophisticated than than the ashtray I made for my non-smoking father in the fourth grade, but not so sophisticated that it would require a potter's wheel and Patrick Swayze's ghost to complete. I looked through all of the crafty things I've pinned and decided that something like this or this seemed relatively doable.

This is what I was going for.

Source: honestlywtf.com via Kate on Pinterest

My finished project looks nothing like that. In fact, it looks more like the aforementioned ashtray than that charming little bowl, and I really wanted to do it over in order to have something more presentable to share here, but... I needed to prove that a new thing was, in fact, attempted in week eight.

So, while I definitely did not create a masterpiece, it was still a fun, easy little project. I mean, really, I like any craft that can be done whilst watching Bethany Ever After or the Real Housewives of Wherever because I feel like trash TV is more easily justified when enjoyed in conjunction with another, slightly less mindless task.

Whatevs. Here's the (entirely self-explanatory) lowdown.

[Side note: I thought that a feather would make a cool pattern, so I went on a forty minute walk around my neighborhood in search of one. Nada. I did not find one single feather. For some reason, I had expected to walk outside and have my pick of feathers...probably because my soon-to-be brother-in-law seems to always have a feather tucked jauntily into his cap.

I will have to consult Buckley on the best places to find wayward feathers. Anyway feathers were a no-go, I tried leaves but they didn't really work, so I went the doily route. Side note on the side note: Do doilies have a use outside of craft projects?]

Bake. Or air dry depending on your clay.

I attempted to sand down the edges but quickly realized that my bowl was destined to be wonky. I will most likely trash it because, as it turns out, I have no real use for a tiny, shallow, wonky bowl. Nonetheless, playing with clay is fun. Took me back to the Play-Doh days.

Gettin' Crafty With It - Chicken Wire Edition

Inspired by this, this, and this (I may or may not have a serious Pinterest problem), I went to Goodwill and my parents' garage over the last couple of weeks in search of old frames.

Goodwill offered up these beauties:

{Not exactly something I want hanging on my walls...}

I decided that I would turn them into jewelry storage/display. I always forget to put jewelry on, and then when I do think of it, I always find a tangled mess in my jewelry box. I figured if my "jewels" are in plain sight, I might be more likely to wear them.

First, I got out the spray paint.

{Spray paint is my favorite. It is impossible to screw up.}

For one frame, I broke out the wire cutters and staple gun.

On the second frame, I screwed three hooks into back.

I hung the finished products up next to my dresser.


For project number two, I procured this frame from my parents' garage:

{Not terrible, but not really the vibe we're going for.}

After more spray paint, wire cutting, and staple gunning, I had this:

So, you might ask, what is the purpose? Weeeellll, I have a habit of ripping little pieces of inspiration from magazines and saving favorite quotes wherever I find them. In order to be inspired by my inspirational clippings, I need to be able to see them, so I started taping them to the wall over my desk.

{The tape is a little ghetto, no?}

Enter my new chicken wire bulletin board. Oh, and because I was left to my own devices last night when Tom went to a show, I got a little crazy. Not wild crazy, crazy crazy. By this I mean, I decorated clothespins. Who does this? I didn't even know that they (who?) still made clothespins until I came across this little jar full of them at The Broome Street General Store a month or two ago. They had just been sitting in their little jar looking all cute and plain until last night when I broke out the paint chips and some origami paper that I had lying around. I cut the paper to fit and slapped it on the clothespins with some Mod Podge. I'm sure if I thought about it for thirty seconds, I could come up with eleven better ways to spend a half hour, but whatever, now I have pretty clothespins.

{I will never be satisfied by unadorned clothespins again.}

Today I hung my new chicken-wire-bulletin-board-type-thing over my desk and used my newly bedazzled clothespins to attach my little scraps to the chicken wire.

How's this for inspiration? Pure, unadulterated, doggy bliss...

{Canine Bliss Series by Chris Becker, ripped from the pages of Real Simple}