I've Been Feeling a Little Green Lately...

And I'm not talking about global warming. I'm talking about all things green!

Hunter Wellies.

An emerald ring.

A bakelite adding machine.

A silver bowl with green enamel interior.

And a needlepoint stiff collar box.


Kelly green- add it to your life and watch the joy spread!

1st Dibs Come to the Cuty! (Sp on purpose.)

1st Dibs, my go-to website for antiques from dealers around the globe, has finally opened a DC branch. 1st Dibs organizes it's website in several ways. You can search under location, period, item type or keyword- my personal fav.

So anyway, 1st Dibs opened a DC branch which means you can search DC area antique dealers from the comfort of your couch.

My pick of the week:

These gorgeous pair of Tete de Taureaux - rare butcher trade signs. Price- you have to call and I'm not in the mood to do it. Item made out of zinc and wood. Available through Cote Jardin Antiques:

Cote Jardin Antiques

3218 O St. NW

Washington, D.C. 20007US

Phone: 202 333 3067

E-Mail: info@cotejardinantiques.com

Double Whoot Whoot!

Glidden is giving away free cans of paint! I kid you not. I read it online then logged in and ordered my free, I think quart. You pick from over 100 colors and they mail it to you in 3-4 weeks. Can't get better then that!

Order yours now!

Pool Houses

So I was going to blog about this awesome stainless steel water bottle I paid way too much for today ($20) but once I checked out their website to steal some images I was really let down by the hipster-Republicans-are-evil vibe so I will not be promoting their product. Actually I'm even mad I bought the bottle now. If they don't at the very least repesct my views then I don't want to purchase from them. So instead I will be blogging about...

POOL HOUSES!!! Whoot Woot!

No I don't have a pool house. I actually don't even have a single family home. But what I do have is an appreciation of beautiful things.... so enjoy!!!

Paper Cutting

One of my last classes for Blessed Sacrament I taught my 7th grade girls about Matisse and his collage years. Since then I have had an uncontrolable desire to cut colored paper. During babysitting the other day the little girl and I cut out paper-doll type stuff until our fingers were crippled. This is truly just a taste of what we did. I lost one photograph and cut more out after I took these pics. Enjoy!

I ended up cutting out a bunch of the letters of the alphabet. The negative and positive spaces were really cool.

Etsy Find of the Week.

A gorgeous french numbers print from Etsy seller: gracehesterdesigns.

I'm a huge fan of graphic numbers and letter so it shouldn't surprise you that I love this. I could definetly do without the butterflies on number 10. Too Mairah Carey.

Description of item:

This listing is for an 8 X 10 original-design numbers print in French. The color palette is dark, light blue, red, and orange palette. OPTIONS:1) Colors, sizes, and language can be customized. Please convo me for more information.2) This print can also be ordered with a nice black frame with shadowbox-style inset for an additional $20 which includes US shipping cost. (Look under "Add On Options" category for the listing)All materials used are archival-safe.

For a childs room frame a bunch of different graphic numbers and letters.

Shell Sculpture

An amazing wooden shell scuplpture courtsey of 1st dibs. Amazing from all views and would be a great piece of art to add to your collection.

Interesting Estate Sale

This weekend there is an interesting estate taking place across the river (VA). From the pictures there looks to be one interesting four poster twin bed and some good furniture for the next step up on the socio-economic ladder. You could buy some of this stuff and craft it up for some fun options.

http://emeraldestatesales.com/photos/2575%20Oak%20Valley%20Drive/

2575 Oak Valley DriveVienna, Virginia 22181

Thursday, June 11, 2009 [10:00am-3:00pm]
Friday, June 12, 2009 [10:00am-3:00pm]
Saturday, June 13, 2009 [10:00am-3:00pm]

Items are usually half off on Saturday.

Hope Diamond - A DC Treasure

I just finished reading a fantastic book that the Corcoran sent me about the Hope Diamond. The author, Richard Kurin, is an intellectual of the Smithsonian and has dedicated the past 10 years to piecing together the fractured history of this epic stone.

Needless to say the book was amazing! It was a real page turner and the history of the Hope Diamond is thrilling.

One owner was Evalyn Walsh McLean, a DC socialite who bought the diamond. Here is a picture of her with her son wearing the diamond. This is the kind of motherhood I can get on board with.

The Walsh-McLean family gave a lot of fantastic history to Washington DC including the famous Walsh-McLean house- now the Embassy of Indonesia.

The house in Dupont Circle was built in 1902 by Evalyn's father an Irish immigrant who made his fortune in Colorado gold. The house cost $850,000 to build then. What a beautiful beaux arts home- a great place to build a legacy.

Martha Stewart: God Among Men

Just got this book for my birthday and let's be honest there is no one I want more as a mentor then Martha Stewart. Martha infuses passion into even the smallest and mundane of tasks.

Her new book is a compendium of great crafts!

Martha covers crafts such as marbelizing paper, wreath making, beading, block printing, glittering, mat making, soap making etc... It goes on and on. As I start making some of these crafts I will post some pics. In the meantime buy this book or check it out of your library if you're not sure you're a crafter yet.

A School Year's Worth of Work

So my first teaching year is coming to a close and I wanted to highlight 2 of the grandest projects we did.

1st up: 7th grade girls paper maiche animals. This project took a ENTIRE semester so I don't recommend doing this. I could possibly be fired over this project since my girls have nothing else to show from January to June. Regardless here is the fruit of my labor.

Above: A purple frog- all is paper maiched- even the tounge.

Above: Lion- adorable!

Above: A shot of some of the classes work.

Next: My 4th grade. If there was one class that was my most challenging it was 4th. We started with empty food containers, coffee cans, pretzels jars... etc... we painted them brown and decorated them with totem pole faces. The idea was a teacher at the school who previously taught at the Lab School and she wanted to do an art project that tied in the 4th grades study of Native American culture. We installed these around the school. A pretty easy project. Hard part- getting the parents to send in containers.

One day when I'm drunk I'll tell you all about the nasty emails I got from parents who were pissed I asked them to send in a container.

In total there were about 6 totem poles around the school.

Colored Pencils

I went babysitting today and happened upon these amazing colored pencils. I promptly went home and searched and searched on the internet with the rubbish I scribbled down off the pencil itself. After many fruitless searches, I found it!!!

One of the best colored pencil sets, for cheap, that I've found. The draw so smoothly and feel good to grip in an adult or childs hand (I would know, I have child-like hands).

They're called Lyra Ferby, they're made in Germany and can be bought here.

I've Had a Fever Lately....

And the only cure is making crafts!

I wish I was kidding but no... I am that lame.

I have also had like a three-week craving for mexican food but luckily my griddle and some cheese and beans have satisfied that urge.

Back to the crafts, so I have been having insaitabe urges to create things lately so here are some things I have made in the past week:

At BS- where I teach we are in need of better water cups for the kids to clean their brushes when painting. I dug up some old coffee cans, painted and collaged them and then sealed them with polyurothane (my second husband) and voile! Adorable art-themed water cups. The first is decorated with some bulldogs I downloaded, cut out and loosely watercolored blue (the schools colors and mascot). The second I traced a Matisse cut-out work, traced it onto painted blue paper (wasn't about to go buy blue construction paper) and voile! Instant Matisse-themed water cup. Double learning for the kids- art history, art recognition and cleaning their brushes. I should get a raise.

Next up for my darling daughter who is about to switch to a big girl bed (when it arrives in early June) a pillow made out of a Whole Foods bag. We bought a bunch of these Clementine bags when she was first born because it was just freaking weird that this was the bag Whole Foods was selling when we had her. I put some away so she could have them as a teenager and my dear sweet husband broke off one of the handles. We were about to throw it away the other day and then this idea hit right in the forehead. Clem could care less about the pillow. It's got brown piping to tie the whole look together.

Enjoy!

Metal Smithing

Metal smithing could be a compound word but I don't feel like looking it up.

Anyway this morning I got an email from the director of master degrees at the Corcoran and she sent a link to a former students new website.
I was pretty impressed with the website and this womans skills sooooo check it out!

System

Self-contained Unit

Limb

Column





Funnel (brooch)

Moth Design

House Beautiful featured a pretty cool side table from Moth Design.com so I went and checked out the website and here are some samplings of what I found:

Some edgy tables with an even "edgier" price tag- like $3000 each.

A interesting take on a chandelier- called the Dinner Party.

A side table that will keep guests on their toes!