Beauty Tip:

Do you know what is NOT helpful for healthy, lustrous hair?

Drywall Dust.

It's Curtains for You!

I am a recovering pack rat.

Collecting design ideas is one way I can channel my hoarding tendencies. I cut them out of magazines and file them in a binder full of clear sheet protectors. (Yes, I'm a bit type A as well). I figure I can "collect" design ideas for years and never fill the spare bedroom or devote the garage to nick-knacks like baby elephant figurines or framed photos of lighthouses. Anyway, I digress, I was looking through the binder today and came across this page.

Now I originally collecte it because I liked what they did with the yellow trim on the pillows. Yellow is my favorite color and I'm always looking for tasteful ways to incorporate it into my home (read: anything but blue and yellow country ducks in the kitchen).

Anyway I also have this problem:

You may not really notice the "problem" until I tell you but I got cheap and bought two smaller blinds (the ones that look like reeds). This design trick, hang curtains longer than your windows and then obscure the wall above the actual end of the window with a decorative blind, gives the effect of tall, elegant sweeping windows when, in actuality, the windows are standard height. Well as you can see the blinds are split and don't really pull this off.

Enter my design binder...for the genius solution!

Did you see it?
Look again...

Okay, I'll help you, the curtains are in the middle of this window! Well, at least some of them are. So in the easiest design solution I've EVER executed...I... get this... Pulled the curtains in!!!

TA-DA!
Can you tell I'm excited?
Anyway it was easy and I'm pretty tickled.

A few other notes about the curtains.
I bought oversized pannels from Ikea for something like $24 a pair.
I also bought curtain rods and little clippy rings. No idea what the technical term for those could possibly be. I cut off the tabs on the top, remember I'm going for sweeping/elegant/modern not "cute", and folded them over until the bottoms of the panel just touch the carpet. Voila!

Not this many design ideas are this easy.
It's almost like design drive through.

You could do this with a babe in one arm.
You could do it after a night of partying.

Heck, a 3 year old could execute this one.

This is not a derogatory statement about three year olds.

Tall "custom length" curtains for less than $300! (wayy less than $300).
You could even do this with a sheet in a tasteful color.

So, Go forth BODC-ers, and move your curtains!

Returning to the Mother Ship

Home. Cake. Decorating. Supply.

We went yesterday.  I am pretty sure they thought I was crazy.  I really don't care as long as I still get to shop there.

Check it out.



Pans in every shape and size (these were just the square ones!) 



Candles and cupcake papers and cake toppers galore!



Sugar in every color of the rainbow!



Ribbons and bows and foil to match!



Round pans and dome pans and cupcake pans and more!

And that is just the "stuff" - there were ingredients, colorants, additives, and mixes too.  Fondant and gum paste and tools to use them.  Cutters and chocolate and molds and luster dust and not one, but TWO back rooms full of cake decorating supplies!  I didn't even know what half the stuff was, never mind how to use it!  And the owner is quite possibly one of the coolest people I have met in a long time.  She knows EVERYTHING about cakes.  I know it goes without saying, but I am going to say it anyway.

This place is balls out awesome.