Fashion show, fashion show, fashion show at lunch - Glee's Emma Pillsberry

From the first time I saw the show Glee I knew I was going to love two things, fun musical numbers and Emma Pillsberry's clothes.

Now that Glee is in its second season, I'm still on the fence with the show most weeks, but Emma's clothes rarely miss the mark. Case in point this cute Eiffel Tower sweater.

She does my favorite look, cardigan + skirt so well.

I very very much want a telephone broach like this one. I think that after Penelope Emma's is the closest to my personal style. I too start 90% of my outfits with a cardigan and build from there. I also where skirts most of the time. Plus I don't have any shoe shots, but she is a fan of the Mary Jane's my own personal favorite form of footwear!

I love the sweater with all the detailing, but I'm not really crazy about the big bow.

Her look 100 % inspired me to add sweater guards/chains into my wardrobe. I now have three and wear them all the time. I'm not much of a necklace wearer so I like the little bling they provide.

Ah the Marc Jacob dress I am so in love with.

I have got to try more purple.

She does the monocromantic thing so well. It makes me wish I had more skirts in a rainbow of colors. I think the top and bottom are the same skirt in different colors.

I just wanted to show some examples of how she works patterns into her look. (Though again with the bow)

Finally I'm going to leave you with a cute green coat - I love a green coat!

All images are from the very addictive WWEPW (what would emma pillsberry wear?) visit only if you have the time to be sucked into the blog world.

What I hope for is this . . .

• finish my ripple scarf
• make carmel apples
• stop smelling like a dentists office (why does that smell just stick with you?)
• spend a lot of time laughing with these girls!
• do some christmas shopping
• clean up my front yard
• make my house look a little less like I haven't done anything in a week
• paint my toe nails
• get started on a new book
  

My oh my two posts in one day what shall I do with myself? I am back again because I didn't wanted wait until next week to kick off my new weekly instalments of my list of goals. Each Monday I intend to post little list of hopes for the week and recap how I did on the last weeks list. I find that I do best when I lay out exactly what I want to get done in a period of time. Anyway here we go. Please leave a comment with something(s) you hope to get done this week.

Hey, what does that mean?

You know those phrases and words that sound totally awesome, but you don't exactly know what they mean. I've been trying to pull together a list of them, and I though hey maybe the blog world (Ha like the blog word even knows who I am!) would benefit from my newly expanded vocabulary. So here we go; I keep running into the phrase: "Mad Money" and of course I had to know what it meant.

With the help of good old google I found the definition:

Slang

A small sum of money for unlikely contingencies.

But the real question is how did it come to mean that? So back to googling I go. So apparently the term "Mad Money" first came into use in the early 20's and described money that a girl would carry in case she got into a row with her date and wanted to take herself home. Hence the "Mad". By the 40's a second meaning had come in to use, it was also used to describe a small amount of money kept by a girl/woman for small, frivolous or spur of the moment perches.

So now that you know go ahead and hid a twenty the coffee can not for a rainy day, but for when you just can't bring yourself to make dinner or get into a row and need to take a cab home!

(I wish I could tell you were the above image came from, but I don't remember - Sorry!)

Weekend Wonder

Even with my puffy cheek and all, I had a good weekend. And Happy 17th to my great brother Ike! Seen here with my niece earlier today.

Happy Friday

Well I seem to be on the mend, still a little puffy and I have a hole in my tooth, but I could sleep last night! I know this video popped up around the blog world last month, but I can't get enough of it I think it is great! (Plus I am feeling totally awesome that I figured out how to embed a video!)
I hope every ones weekends are filled with more ups than downs!

And then there is today

Things I didn't do today:
Go to work
Drink Coffee
Wash my hair
Shower for that matter
Wear real clothes
The dishes
Cry

Things I did do today:
Sleep
Watch the last three episodes to Brothers & Sisters
Eat soup
Take a lot of pain killers
Snuggle with a little friend
Watch the Electric Company
Get a root canal

So as you can see today was a win - oh yeah all kinds of awesome!

These are the days

Well folks I don't know what it is like where you are, but we could not have had a better weekend here. The sun was shining and the leaves were changing colors, perfectly fall.

I just had to get out and enjoy. With little persuading my cousin Lydia's two girls agreed to join me on a little trip to the park yesterday afternoon.

We had just a wonderful time. While most of the people in our neck of the woods watched Michigan and Michigan State run around with a football, we counted bridges (we crossed four in case you were wondering), we followed chipmunks around, we waved to people on boats and there was lots and lots of swinging.

You can't see it very well, but this was my favorite thing that we saw, a house peeking through the trees out at the river. In my mind there would be no place better to live. I hope your week will be just as beautiful as my weekend!

Cheater Cake

A few weeks ago at our little weekly Girls Night my we celebrated my lovely friend Mel's Birthday. I whipped up my now perfected (I think!) cheater cake (in my family we call this kinda thing/half cheating at something "The Johnny Way" after my cousin who taught us it was okay to pick the next card in war, you know if you are loosing). So anyway here is my "Johnny Way" surprise it's your birthday cake.
I start with a boxed cake from Trader Joe's - you can use any cake that you want, but if I am looking for the right time + quality mix I go with their cakes, real butter and milk make a big difference.
After baking the cake and letting it cool I put a layer of Raspberry Jam (again I think mine was from Trader Joe's, but any fancy or not so fancy jam will do).
Last I made up some easy frosting: powdered sugar, milk, butter and vanilla to taste and texture. You could frost the whole cake, but I don't really like frosting that much so I normally only frost the top of my cakes.
The whole thing takes less than an hour to make, bake and clean up from so this is a great way to have a little something to celebrate someone for whatever reason!
As a variation I have also used; lemon curd or a thin layer of Strawberry in place of the jam.

So do you have any quick "Johnny Way" tricks you could share with me?

Lazy Sunday

Today I had what can only be described as a Lazy Sunday. I went to church with my family last night and ended up staying the night at my mom and dad's that meant snuggling with me sister in the morning and eggs for breakfast.

I watched far to much junk on Hulu (Modern Family, Bones, The Middle and maybe something else I can't even remember) and drank way more coffee than I normally do.

There was a lot of laughing and talk of Nutcracker dances, old and new while Phoebe, Prisca and I made some "cup-pies".

I hope your weekend was relaxing and peaceful and you are ready to face the new week!

I can hear the bells

I so love this dress from Anthropologie, if I was getting married anytime soon I would absolutely have it on my list.

My oh my

Well goodness me where has the time gone. Is it really already October? I guess it is. Well here we find ourselves on a Friday night. I have had a really long week, full of things I will not relay here and now, but trust me not a great one.
But then there are warm fireplaces and snuggly people, and tips to the thrift store (see above photo) and if you are really down you can watch "Marcel the Shell" for the millionth time and it will still put a smile on your face.

Keeping Promises

Remember when I promised all those wonderful blog things and then never did them, well here I am trying to follow through on a few of them. So here we are the wreath.

This is a really easy and fun project, great to do while watching TV (I would recommend DVDs of That Girl). I started out with felt that I picked up at the fabric store, wool felt would be nice, but I just used good old acrylic and it was fine.

I made a pattern to trace for the leaves, I made Birch, Oak and Maple leaves. I just went to Google images and looked up leaf line drawings to get the idea of what they should look like.

After I cut out my leaves I embellished a few of them. And I couldn't resist adding a few buttons of course!

I then glued them onto a wreath form from the fabric store I covered in brown felt.

Finally I pinned a little bit of ric-rac to the back for a hanger.

Here it is hanging on my door in the lovely sun shine.

Fashion show, fashion show, fashion show at lunch - Penelope

Penelope is one of my favorite movies! And of course like everything else I blog about in these little fashion posts one of the parts I love the best is the clothing - the shoes, tights, circle skirts and cardigans are just fab!

It is definitely a goal of mine to incorporate more colored shows and matching tights into my wardrobe.

The wedding dress is really some kind of magic.

I really like the layering of many different patterns together.

Oh and there is James McAvoy too, and he is always a cutie!

New look with a little help from Amy

I started off my Labor Day weekend with this fun and quick project (aided by the last disk of season 1 of Fringe, my new favorite show). I started off with some Amy Butler fabric and two 60's chairs.

These chairs were left in the garage by former owners of my house. They were covered in nasty nasty fabric and cat (or maybe racoon) hair.

I think they turned out nicely, if I do say so myself. And more importantly they are the start of a very big adveture; namely the basement make over!

The colors are based off these three fabrics and will be the place where all my 1960's furniture will eventually end up.

The Fabric is Amy Butler Lacework in Olive from her Lotus collection. It is out of print, but you can find it on Etsy and some quilt shops.

Just Like A Friday Afternoon!

Well, there's a feeling in the air

Just like a Friday afternoon.

Yeah, you can go there if you want

Though it fades too soon.

So go on, let it be.

If there's a feeling coming over me,

Seems like it's always understood this time of year.
"This Time of Year" - Better Than Ezra

We are having lovely crisp fall weather this week and I couldn't be happier. Every year about this time I begin my annual love affair with Michigan. There is no place I would rather live than Michigan in the Fall. Sunny afternoons, and cool nights, brightly colored trees and ripe apples, the wind and the over night thunderstorms, oh and the smell, and the sweater wearing, and I can't for getting being able to open my window at work and hear the EMU marching band practice. I know it sounds perfect, and it is!

P.S. in case you do not know and love Better Than Ezra and have most of their songs on shuffle in your mind I have added the song quoted above to my sidebar (you will like it I promise, I know I do I listened to it three times while writing this post alone!). Also both images above are from the Pure Michigan website.

P.P.S. a small before and after project will be posted tomorrow, as a little taste test of the next big before and after project happening at the silly little house!

P.P.P.S. keep your eyes peeled next week for talk of tights, skirt making (yes I said making!), autumnal wreath DIY walk through and maybe if I get around to it (and that is a big if) a slight blog make over it is time I think!

Fall Style w/Phoebe

According to the latest issue of Real Simple red is the hot color for fall. If money and all that other good stuff was not an object this is how I would do a red hot fall outfit. Love the heart sweater and watch and the tiny ballet broach! This collection was made with the help of my little sister Phoebe, though she thinks it is a little to mismatched for her.

Artful

One thing I have come to realize living in my little house is how little I have to hang on my walls. I always felt like I had almost enough stuff when I was in my small apartment, but now there are just so many empty walls. While I know there are many folks who like the look of clean blank walls, I am not one of them.

Fruit

So I am on a quest to find some nice bits and pieces for my walls. I am in love with the look of Victorian text book illustrations. I have one I picked up a long time ago of butterflies, but these are so much lovelier!

Mushrooms

Eggs

Of course I think I paid a fraction of the price for mine, well a girl can dream. I right now I'm dreaming of a living room with pained walls (someday I'll pick a color), a new sofa and a few of these prints all in a row!