Modern Quilts in Subtle Colors…

Need to finish the ones I have started first but these are just so lovely!

Modern Quilts in Bright Colors…

I really should be doing more sewing and less pinning…

Chocolate Baked Goodies…

Nom nom. Nothing else to say…

Paper Flowers…

Though I’m not sure why when there’s such beautiful real ones outside right now!

Did you have any amazing finds this week?

Today I found her post on this amazing (and budget friendly) tutorial on how to make oversized artwork (originally from this blog). And when I say oversized I mean oversized: up to 4′ x 3′. And budget friendly? $13!!!

So this has naturally been put on my short list of to-dos but what to print? Still in the works but leave it to Pinterest to give me some inspiration! I love vintage signs and have often dreamed of making an old sign into an interior wall of my house. I hate to burst my own bubble but it’s never going to happen. However, I could print a good old photo of a sign!

Wouldn’t one of these be awesome as oversized art?

I’m really loving the motel signs… I’m thinking maybe the guest bedroom?

I love old letters and signs and since our last name begins with a “K” (hence Curry K…) I would love a vintage letter collection and hang them in the back right corner wall near the peace lily plant. It’s just crying for a good “K” collection!

Here are a few I think could *start* my collection:

Terry Signs

Preserve Cottage

Raleigh Modern

loooooveeee this one!

Tennessee’s Parasise

“Heaven” would require it to be at the beach.

Close enough.

Vintage Brass Hands Tray…

I would love to mount these on a wall or put them on my entry way shelf (I have plans to make one similar to this one).

kypeep

Vintage Atomic Gold Starburst Clock…

This is just fabulous. I would rework my mantle decor to fit this beauty in. Don’t think I could convince A that a clock is worth $200 though (oh but it so is!). Kind of hurts to realize this will never adorn my wall!

Affordable Adornment

Gold Leaf Large K…

Not sure how vintage this really is but I have at least 3 places I want to put it. I love old signs and letters. In fact this gives me an idea… stay tuned…

TerrySigns

We’re thinking of remodeling our bathroom and I’m loving these… yes, I’m aware they have no common theme…

Source: ffffound.com via Laura on Pinterest

Apparently I have a fixation of frozen desserts and cocktails this week. Must be getting ready for summer!

And I already told you about my fixation on rugs. Here are some more lovelies I’ve been drooling over…

A week wouldn’t be complete without me adding to the never ending project list I have. Love all this DIYs…

Then there are things that I just love because they are awesome…

Another great/terrible thing about Pinterest is that I’m constantly adding new blogs to my Google Reader. Great because I love all the inspiration out there… terrible because it gives me a million more things to read. Quoting one of these new favorite blogs, lynneknowlton,

“We women suffer.  We suffer because of Pinterest.  And the Internet.  And Google images. Punishment.  Visual punishment.”

It’s so true, but now I get to share the new reads with you!

So go check out that blog. BTW she’s hilarious. I read a blog post about Rain Chains and found myself laughing out loud several times. You have to appreciate that.

Also check out: Little Green Notebook, Once Upon a Tea Time, A Life’s Design, Inspire Bohemia

Okay, we’re throwing a little family welcome soiree for Mr. M tomorrow and I have some cakes to bake, decorations to hang and a house to clean!

Have a wonderful weekend!

But now…

My main living areas have been pretty set for a couple of years now and, not only am I ready for a change, but my style is evolving (poor A… two years and I’m already ready to redecorate). And, gasp, I’m finding myself thinking that what I really need is some oriental rugs.

Here’s an insight into my thought process… While sitting in my living room that looks a little something like this…

“This rug is too freakin small… maybe I should put a large jute rug underneath it to tie things together and cover more of this floor… the teal makes the grey couch look blue and doesn’t go well together… what I need is a reddish color in this room… WHAT THE?!”

I’ll interrupt myself here to explain that my first apartment out of college all the way to my last apartment before moving into our house at a decidedly pink theme to the design thanks to an antique pink loveseat I picked up from my dad and a red and white striped chair I bought from a garage sale. When we moved in I vowed never to use red or pink again. Okay, thought process resumed..

“What I need is a reddish color rug with some grey or blue in it to tie in the couches… but still something with a geometric pattern, not floral… I need an oriental rug…”

Then there was the thought process for the dining room…

“Hopefully we get the reclaimed barnwood table from my dad soon… that’s a lot of wood, I need a rug to break it up… I need something that works with the gray, coral and green so to broaden the color palette… you know what works with every palette? an oriental rug… dang… that’s two of them now.”

So I went on ebay and Overstock and hit the mother load… now just to narrow it down and convince A…

For the dining room…

For the living room (which I may still do over a jute rug):

For the upstairs hallway…

I find that I’m drawn more to the geometric oriental rugs than the flowery kind. Somehow they feel like a better mix of the traditional and modern. Unfortunately I can’t get A. to buy into it at all…

Luckily I stumbled upon this tutorial from Spool Sewing. I’m not sure I even waited to show A. the plans before I ran upstairs and started pulling fabric. You all know how I love my fabric and this gave me a great opportunity to use a ton of scraps and basically a little bit of lots of designs. A couple of hours later I ended up with these cuties:

I tried to use the more contrasting fabric on the undersides of the birds since that’s what the baby will see the most (though you can see I failed that in a couple of areas!).

So after I spent ample time admiring all the pretty colors and patterns it was time to find some branches to use. This puzzled me for a minute until I remembered that not days before we had a huge blizzard and the Disaster Relief trucks had not yet picked up all the branches on my street.

This was in October, and not even a fraction of the downed trees in our area, so I had my pick of branches. After a quick dry off and thick coat of white paint we were ready to string them all up.

Easier said than done. Stringing them up was awful. Take a look at the Spool Sewing link. They make it look so easy.

Problem #1: The little brats wouldn’t stay upright on the branch. I’d sew them on. They’d look good. I’d reinforce with a little hot glue. Looking better. I’d put in an eye bolt and a test string and *whomp* the whole branch would flip over. I emailed A. during this process and he wrote back “don’t break the sticks because you’re frustrated”. Wouldn’t you know I had a stick in my hand about to do that.

Problem #2: Well forget balancing all the branches together if I can’t even get the stinkers to stay on straight.

And the the ah-ha moment…

You can’t really see it in this photo but I took a clear filament sewing thread (fishing twine was too thick) and looped it a couple of times through the back of the neck of each bird. Hazzah! It worked! So I sewed monofilaments into the back of each bird on the lower branch and then pulled them together into a knot. Not so tight that it pulled at the fabric but tight enough that the knot was close to the birds. Attach that to the eye bolt in the stick above and repeat. The second balancing act became much easier.

You really can’t tell the difference from afar and it save me a tremendous amount of stress and frustration and annoyance and all those other bad things. Our third problem was to hope and pray we hit something solid somewhere above the crib since we have plaster ceilings which are notorious for not having a lot of solid wood to screw into. It’s a bit off center from the crib but should do the trick!

]]> http://currykaydesigns.com/2012/04/bird-mobile/feed/ 0 http://currykaydesigns.com/2012/04/bird-mobile/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bird-mobile http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CurryKayDesigns/~3/WVEeXIHL4rc/ http://currykaydesigns.com/2012/04/why-hello-summer/#comments Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:31:29 +0000 Laura http://currykaydesigns.com/?p=2088 Not sure about where you are, but here in Connecticut it’s supposed to get close to 90 degrees today– in April! I remember my dad calling me my freshman year of college because he had heard on the news we were supposed to reach 70 degrees and that was a big deal. I love spring with summer weather!

I’m planning lots of walks outside, gardening, lemonade drinking and dreaming of ice cream concoctions today but first this caught my eye:

How gorgeous are those? Unfortunately I burn super easily. On my honeymoon I burned with sunblock on underneath the pretty canvas umbrellas they provide. So I have to use what A. and I lovingly refer to as the space ship. It looks something like this:

Not nearly as cute as the ones above, but it does the trick. So I’ll dream of those beach shades (and ice cream and lemonade) instead.

I’m back to keeping up with the trillion blogs in my reader now that I find myself awake 3-4 times a night. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m only about half-awake so there’s very little reading going on and mostly looking at pretty pictures. So enjoy today’s visual of these photos that caught my eye (and be a good sport and check out the lovely blog posts they came from)!

Source: ohsobeautifulpaper.com via Laura on Pinterest

• I would love to make myself one of these in every color (if only my knitting were better)…