this is where the magic happens.

sorry, i couldn't resist using that title. now i guess i can admit that when mtv's cribs first came out, i watched it way too much, hence the name of this post. moving right along, this is a little peek into my bedroom. our bedroom furniture is old retro hand-me-down furniture, and it isn't cool retro, it's hideous retro. the worst part was the headboard, so last week after seeing so much bedroom eye candy sans headboard, i finally decided to remove it! it makes the biggest difference, and now the only retro bedroom furniture we have is the armoire and the nightstand, which actually don't look so bad now! it's a pretty plain room, and we still need to hang art on the walls, but you get the idea.

above: my side of the bed. see that pretty bird pillowcase? i won a set of them and a duvet back in the summer from dwell studio! earlier this afternoon i rewired a lamp for the den, so the cut glass lamp that was there is now in my bedroom in place of the milk glass lamp. i love lamps, and i love switching them around. the picture is one i received in a vintage swap. i don't know who took, and i'm not sure where in europe it was taken, but it's so pretty i felt it deserved a frame.

above: i don't actually use that easel for my won artwork as i think my lap serves as the perfect table, but it's great for holding and temporarily displaying art before it's framed! you'll now see one of the prints framed in my living room and another framed in my den. i still need to find a frame for the largest print. an antique plate is the perfect catchall for my everyday jewelry, with the exception of necklaces, because i do NOT like getting them untangled!
below: this vintage parrot statue stands on top of the armoire and watches us sleep. i was going to add something else there, but i'm afraid you'll think i'm a terrible pervert. which i may be.

this post doesn't have a name.

i signed in to my blog today an didn't realize that i hadn't posted since thursday! i could have sworn i did it on friday, but apparently my age has started to affect my memory (and my grandma would love that because she likes feeling like she's not the only one who can't remember things). anyway, here's how my weekend went: i spent friday evening with grandma, and of course i ate there. it would have been rude not to! on saturday morning i did some serious business thinking and researching. i made a few things, and hoped to make more until i realized i was completely out of a crucial element. later that afternoon chris and i went to an auction and had lunch; it was delicious and terribly unhealthy, and of course it came from one of those mobile units. i found this set of four HUGE antique gesso frames, and i wanted them so bad. the good thing about this auction is that things rarely get over $5, and usually they start selling boxes of stuff for $1 just to get rid of it! the bad news is that they move sooooo slooooow. we sat for two hours, and they barely moved at all. unfortunately, the frames were in the very last pile of things to be auctioned off, and neither of us felt like waiting. so we went home, and the frames went home with someone else.

sometimes, i just like to take pictures of my supplies. the way they've been arranged, or the grouping of metal and stones i have laying out just seems interesting to me, so i just feel like taking a picture! don't get me wrong, i love film, but i think the best thing about a digital camera is being able to photograph anything and everything you want...for free.

back to the weekend... once chris and i got back home, we went to the garage to do some drilling and work on a few other things for my shop. sometimes i think we have the bes quality time when we're in the garage or working on something together. i'm sure date nights are fun, but for chris and i, we'll take a garage night! we didn't get in any garage time today, but we did find time for salad eating, the shield watching, and laughing at chris' ridiculous made up songs he'd sing while playing his guitar.

i'm working on sorting through more of the pictures i've taken around my house, so i'll be sharing another room tomorrow, but in the meantime, take some pictures of you home so we can see! i'm glad to know from the comments you left me that i'm not the only one who likes sneak peeks!

how has your weekend been so far?

i make things in here.

i don't know about you, but i LOVE seeing what other people have in their home. i'm no decorator, but i like to rearrange things and try to give rooms a facelift either with items i already have, or with vintage finds that are easy on the wallet from my favorite antique/thrift/junk shop. brandi asked me to show picture of my house a few days ago, so i figured i'd take a few pictures in a few rooms and share, and if i'm lucky, maybe you'll share pictures of your home, too! today's room is my pink room. it has pink walls (of which i've grown tired), so the name isn't all that original, but i feel too arrogant calling it my studio. i don't do any hammering, drilling or soldering in this room, but everything else happens here!

above: a few of my polaroids on a piece of twine. i love polaroids and want to show them, but this was the only thing i could come up with. how do you display your polaroids? flojo is modeling on her cage. remember all that free fabric i told you i got? that's some of it on the right.

above: two of my favorite cameras; an argus seventy-five and a polaroid impulse. my sewing machine that doesn't see as much action as i'm sure it'd like; i just get lazy when it comes to sewing.

below: a watercolor painting brittan did just for flojo and i! i love it not only because it's beautiful, but because flojo strikes that EXACT same pose when she's curious about something and watching it closely! i love it!

if you don't have anything else to do, or you do but you're like me and put it off, please take pictures in your house so we can all see! i want to see what your style is like, and maybe you'll inspire me to mix some things up!

heirloom bling.

don't you love a good piece of jewelry with a story to tell; a life before this new adventure with you? well, because i am completely obsessed with all things old, of course i love vintage jewelry! i love the hunt, the discovery, and cleaning my new treasure off to unveil the beauty beneath the dust. so you can imagine my excitement when i saw that the lovely kjrsten decided to host a vintage jewelry swap! i'm already thinking of the shelves and baskets full of antique and almost-forgotten jewelry i can search through (micaela, you know where i'm talking about!), and i can hardly wait to find out who i'll be swapping with so i can start the search for the perfect piece (or pieces since there's NO WAY i'll be able to choose only one)! speaking of old jewelry, here are a few of my favorite thrifted pieces...

be sure to visit kjrsten's blog for her email address and the details on joining the swap!

i have two pieces of exciting news to share with you. the first, and not as exciting bit: i opened a big cartel shop for people who don't want to go through etsy checkout or don't have an account. you can visit my shop here, or click on that link i put in my sidebar. the next bit of news, and certainly the most exciting: dinosaur toes jewelry is now at pretty in pink boutique in costa mesa, ca! yay! i LOVE that store, and you will, too! if you live in the area, you should definitely check it out, or you can shop their site!

so, you may or may not realize that it's wednesday and i don't have a wishlist wednesday post. well, i still plan to do them some wednesdays, maybe every other week, but to be honest, i've kind of run out of themes, and i find that sometimes it just takes too long, and i have the attention span of a two-year-old...sometimes.

what i've been working on

you know how i mentioned a little while back that i thought i'd been cursed with a jeweler's block? well, i'm happy to say that it's kind of lifting! it took me a little while after we returned from our trip to get back into the crafty swing of things because i had a large order that needed finishing before i devoted time to making anything new, but since that's been shipped, i've been able to spend a little more time making things for my shop. i even started a little idea journal so that i'd be sure not to forget anything i really wanted to make! it's a perfect little moleskine journal with screenprinted deer that i got from etsy, and i think it's going to work out well!

i've been making loads of rings lately with amethyst and quartz chunks, and they're all so hard to put in my shop! i'm way too addicted to raw gem stones. the earrings are made from spent bullet casings, vintage chain and porcupine quills. they sort of came about without me having any direction or idea; i love that sort of process!

i usually make hammered bangles with the dimpled, hammered texture, but i decided this time (partially because of sore hammering muscles, and partially because i wanted something new) i'd do something different. this bangle has a brushed texture, and i love the way it catches the light...i only wish the picture showed it better!

now, i have to tell you about this dream i had last night. in the dream, chris and i were staying in a log cabin that was divided up into several apartments, each having one bedroom and one living room. the cabin only had one bathroom for everyone to share, and that happened to be in our apartment. flojo came along with us, and i put her cage beside the bathroom door. whenever we came back from going to the beach, i noticed that flojo's food bowls were turned upside down and on the bottom of her cage. i knew that someone had done it, but i wasn't sure who. then i came back another day to find that her bowls were not only overturned and on the bottom, but broken. the last day i came back, i discovered that more things were broken, the bottom was filled with water, and everything inside her cage was wet. i was absolutely furious and i wanted to scream at whoever was doing these things, but i didn't know who it was. i was also scared that maybe they'd done something to hurt flojo, or maybe they'd given her something to eat that was poisonous to birds. i woke up wanting to cry, and i was so happy to go get flojo out of her cage this morning when she woke up so i could kiss her and tickle her and tell her that i love her! don't you hate those dreams that get you so worked up?

*dream update! so i just did a little researching about my dream, and while i may not be as good at dream interpretation as annie, i think i've figured a few things out. several things in my dream represented fear and worry, along with a feeling of being out of control. that makes sense considering my husband's current job (or no job, rather) situation and our financial stress. but, the best thing of all, the fact that i was in a cabin in my dream means this, "To see or dream that you are in a wood cabin indicates that you will succeed via your own means. It suggests that you are self-reliant and independent, yet still remain humble. You prefer the simpler things in life." nice to know!