Simple Summer Ideas – Eats, Drinks, Decor

Hey there friends,  I have been staring at the last post for much too long and I’m sure you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, so here’s a little sumthin’ for your summer inspiration.

I know, it’s way past time to bring out the summer decorations.  It will be Independence Day next week, after all!  Can I confess that I still have my Easter decorations on my branch in the living room?  Yowzah!  Hopefully, I can switch them out for summer decor this weekend.

Things have been quite buzy around here with a bunch of changes happening, as well as more on the horizon.  Sadly, my time to concentrate on the transitions are limiting my time to post.  No worries though, there will be more news and posting to come.

In the meantime, here are a few photos of my Summer Centerpiece.  I happen to use mine in the guest bath.  Yes, a centerpiece in the bathroom!  As you know I try to trick myself into believing that I live near the water, especially in these hot summer months when our temperatures are consistently in triple digits (this week it was up around 113 degrees F)!

I keep this simple centerpiece in the bathroom where I get ready every morning.  It fills my mind with memories of sandy beaches, coastal breezes and the sound of waves lapping on the shore.  Which reminds me…I may have a chance to visit my little hometown on Lake Erie in September and I can’t wait to walk on the beach and hear the sounds of the waves as I drift off to sleep!  I never realized what a blessing it was to live just steps from the shore until recently.

For this fun candle arrangement, just find a rustic container, fill it with sand, shells, a candle (or 3) and things that remind you of summer.  Try one yourself and post a link here so we can all see it?

More ideas for your summer inspiration:

Patriotic Slipcover Transformation

4th of July Beverage Ideas

4th of July – Summer Recipes

4th of July – Patriotic Decor

Let me know your plans for the summer and have an awesome holiday!

Easter Branch Decor

Can you believe that Easter is right around the corner?  I know!  I can’t wait to show you my latest update for my seasonal branch.

As you may remember, here’s my hubby, so excited about my fabulous find.  He just didn’t quite understand the vision of the branch, but was so sweet to empty the trunk of suitcases so that we could squeeze it in and transport it home from Sedona.  Click here for a bit more of the story.

This year I found some hanging egg ornaments with letters to spell out Happy Easter!  It was so easy to hang the letter eggs on a thick ribbon that was strung between the branches.  Of course, I added a variety of pastel eggs, as well as several celery green crystals to fill in the spaces.

I love having this branch in my living room.  It’s so much fun to think of all the possibilities for decorations.  What would you use to decorate it?

Happy Valentine’s Day Friends!

I hope you had an extra special day with the ones you love!  I hope you enjoy these photos of my Valentine Branch.  Don’t you just love this sweet little owl.  He was a gift from my friend, Sharon.  The branch hangs in my living room throughout the year, all decorated for each season.

I also wanted to post a quick note to apologize for being MIA for a while.  I didn’t realize how long it’s been.  There’s so much to report and there has been so little time to report it.

This past weekend we were in Puerto Penasco, Mexico.  It was the first time I’ve been there.  The Catfish Hunters did a concert on Saturday night and we had a great time!  Pictures to come soon.

More big news and probably a little bit of an excuse as to why I haven’t been on my blog too much.  I just received in the mail the book that I created through Blurb.com!  It was a (mostly) photo travel book about a trip that I was privileged to take to Israel and Jordan in October with a non-profit organization that I work with.   The book is 12″ x 12″ and 200 pages (yes, you read that right).  It turned out beautifully if I must say so myself!  I’ll have pictures of that and a link soon too!

I also had the privilege of planning a celebration for a dear friend of ours…of course there are photos of that on the way too!

See, I really do have a few good reasons for not being online.  Just sorry that it kept me away from all my friends here.  See you soon.  I promise.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

It’s been a busy and somewhat non-traditional month for us.  As you’ll see from these photos, there’s been a good amount of time spent with those we love, but somehow things were busy in other ways too.

We also went to the Musical Instrument Museum (the MIM) for our 34th wedding anniversary on Dec 9th, celebrated the holidays with a few of the non-profit groups that I work with and had a lovely evening with some other dear friends.  All of those activities don’t have pics posted yet, but hopefully I’ll get to it.

I’m not quite sure how the month got away from me, but we didn’t decorate inside the house until December 19th which is VERY LATE for me!  Originally we weren’t expecting to have any gatherings at our house this year, so I guess that gave me the freedom to put it off.  Then we found out that we were hosting our family gathering, so I got busy and did a few things.

We still have at least one more celebration to come with our son, Kevin when he returns from being overseas in early January.  That will be a special time to have him back home and in the U.S. hopefully for a very long time.

Here are links to a few photos that I’ve posted on Facebook over the last month.  I hope you enjoy them!  (Note: I was told that some of these links didn’t work for those that aren’t on Facebook, so I’ve updated them.)

Randy Thompson’s Christmas Concert where Terry played in early December

Christmas with our Home Group (they’re like Family)

Christmas with my side of the family

Christmas with our Los Angeles area family and our precious friends, the Thompsons

Exploring La Jolla California (Part 4)

For my fourth and final post in this series about La Jolla I thought I’d share a couple more fun photos and treasures that we discovered on our quick trip over there in July.

After we left the La Jolla Open Aire Market we had to walk a few blocks to get back to where Terry parked the car.  During our stroll we passed a sweet little coastal store called “The Faded Awning Collection” at 7464 Girard Ave.  (They don’t seem to have a website that I can find. If you know of one, please send it to me.)

In case you’re new to my blog, I need to tell you that although I currently live in the desert, I love the casual feel of coastal-cottage style decorating and I try to pretend that I live in a beach climate when I’m inside the house.  You won’t see adobe, saltillo tile, or southwestern decor when you visit.  It’s blues, greens, sea shells and white painted furniture for me.

So you can imagine why this caught my eye.  Tucked just outside the door at the entrance to the store I saw this wonderful pillow made with a vintage blue nautical flag.  I just had to take a short detour to see what else they had inside and my sweetie was nice enough to patiently wait for me.

Don’t you just love the simple beauty of that pillow?  And how easy it would be to make some like this!  I’ll have to add it to my craft idea binder.

Once inside the store the space was a bit overwhelming and crowded, but I did see some wonderful pieces.

Like this seahorse art which was 4 or 5 feet tall.  The silhouette was painted in black on weathered wood with the words stenciled on top of the black.  I’m sure it isn’t as easy as it looks, but would probably be a fun project to try.  Imagine the variety of similar pieces that you could do with the same basic format…starfish, fish, and other sea creatures with your favorite beachy prose or just random words to fill the space and a myriad of color schemes, like navy, or shades of beach glass, of course.  Let me know if you decide to try it.  I’d love to see how it turns out.

Now, to say goodbye to this lovely coastal town, I thought I’d share a few photos that reminded me that we weren’t Phoenix.

While driving down Mission Blvd. on our way out of town we passed this little beach house with these gorgeous morning glories covering the back fence.  That shade of purple was so vibrant!
Did you know that just about 15 minutes south of La Jolla there’s a park with a roller coaster?  It’s called Belmont Park.  We didn’t have time to stop there, but it looked like it was hopping!  Let me know if you’ve been there and if it’s worth a stop.

And just how many different modes of transportation can you count in this pic?  Those crazy Californians.

And I just had to take this photo of the quintessential beach community.  Where else will you see folks walking their dog, heading for the beach with their surfboard and driving in a convertible all in the same scene in the middle of July.  In Southern California of course!

So we bid farewell to La Jolla for now.  I’m sure we’ll be back again, but not sure when.  Thanks for coming along for the ride.  Let me know where you’d like to go next.  How does Scotland sound?  It’s a little bit different than Southern California, but I’d say well worth the visit.

Be sure to stop by again soon and see what we can find in Scotland and Ireland in the coming weeks!  Or better yet, sign up to receive notification every time there’s a new post!

Awesome Japanese Masking Tape

I was sitting in the car for hour upon hour this weekend as my hubby and I made the six-hour plus drive each way from Phoenix to L.A. and back, so I did some catching up on my magazines.  As you may remember, I LOVE magazines, but they tend to pile up around the house while I’m busy with other things.  So I REALLY look forward to our road trips so I can have a few hours to flip through a stack of my favorites.

This time I thoroughly enjoyed my latest Fresh Home Ideas magazine.  I can always tell when I got my money’s worth because I tear out at least a dozen pages for future reference and this one was no exception.

Here are some of the treasures I found on the pages:

1. We bought some fresh green and wax beans at La Jolla’s Open Aire Market on Sunday morning (more on that later) and I found the perfect Roasted Beet Garden Salad with Goat Cheese recipe on the drive home.  Unfortunately, I don’t see it on their web site so you would need to buy the magazine for it.  If the beans make it long enough for me to try it, I’ll post it with pictures.
2. I saw this great idea (above) with instructions on how to make an oil lantern from a Patron Tequila bottle.  We don’t buy tequila, but I wouldn’t be afraid of going to a local bar and asking for their throw away bottles.  Of course you can do the same thing with any unusual or eye catching bottle.  I can just see the collection of different colors, heights, and shapes sitting out in the moonlight now!
3. Then they shared several wonderful ideas on creative containers for fresh flowers.  I have some hanging containers (also from Ikea) that are very similar to these below and I love the possibilities here.
4. But the product that I can’t wait to get my hands on is this Japanese Masking Tape!  As soon as we got home I had to look up the website where they sell it and I’ll be ordering a few rolls very soon just to try it out.  They suggest decorating glasses for a one-time, easy to remove pick-me-up, but I can think of endless possibilities for these beauties.  Think of mirrors, vases, trays, jars, even painted furniture and on and on…I SIMPLY LOVE IT!  Or how about adding it to that trio of hanging rose vases above?  How would you use it?

So many sweet ideas and so little time…well, at least I have the pages to put in my “craft ideas” binder if I can’t get to them right away.  I’d love to hear your ideas on these things and let me know what your favorite magazine is for new ideas.