snaps from the weekend

This past weekend was both restful and productive. I went to the fabric outlet to stock up on things (and promptly forgot about half of the stuff I was meant to look for). I crossed a bunch of things off my list, got my spring cleaning on in the living room and even managed to squeeze in a long bottomless mimosa brunch with the bestie. I even somehow finished a book! Now lets see if i can be as productive during the week.....

{snapshot}

mother adventure

I spent the weekend in Santa Cruz with my mom and while the weather certainly didn't seem to feel like cooperating (low 60's and very cold wind) we still had a very lovely girls weekend. We spent our time exploring the city on foot, poking into shops, and tasting various tasty treats. Plus we came home with a car full of amazing finds (mostly thanks to a super good thrift store that was having a 50% off everything sale!!!) which I will make sure to share as I get them cleaned and integrated into my home. But here are a few little moments that I snapped while we were there.

{snapshot}

working hard

I haven't really finished any projects let alone photograph them in the last few days, as I've been busily working on one big one. It has taken up the majority of my time. Here's a few quick snaps from my desk I will leave you with while I go and try to scrub the ink out from under my nails....

#100 happy days continued

The 100 happy days project has been going steady over here. I find sometimes it's hard to choose which photo to represent the day and I still love having something to motivate me to think of positive moments for every day no matter how challenging it seems. This is just a selection of photos from the last few weeks. I'm almost at the halfway point and starting to dread the quickly approaching end of the project (maybe I should just keep going to the end of the year? 365 days?) It's fun to see the trends in my photos, they seem to be about 50% food and then lots of pictures of projects I am working on and detail shots of what I am wearing. So here are a few things that have made me happy over the last few weeks.

{snapshot}

Just a little peek at something I've been working on. Was talking to my BFF from back home about why we think of rabbits as inherently french and we realized it's probably because there was a store in our hometown called Baby Lapin and we are just making that association in our head.

Hallway confetti

I liked my valentine confetti packet idea so much that I made another batch, this time with a few different confetti mixes (yay for using up my paper scrap supply) and they were all stamped with big question marks. I put them in a tall glass vessel I had just sitting round, in the hallway, along with a new chalkboard (can there ever be enough?!) and the giant pinata which is looking for a new home in the house but currently is enjoying lounging in the entrance.

experimenting

I discovered a new photo manipulation app this weekend with which I have become very quickly obsessed. It allows you to combine two photos to make a double exposure and there are optional filters to add as well. You can play with the order of the photos which changes the image, and there is also a random option where you shake your phone and it picks to photos and a filter for you which yields some quirky results. I've found this to be the perfect early morning train commute distraction as it is both mindless and satisfying and it produces some very interesting images as well. These are just a few that I came up with this morning.

{snapshot}

repainting

I believe I mentioned last week that there was some spontaneous painting going on in my house. It may not be immediately clear what is happening so I will just cut to the chase.

I went from this:

to this! 

Please excuse the variations in the wall color, I've noticed that this gray looks vastly different in different lights and times of day but I assure you it is the same paint in all the photos. Anyway, I wanted to do this pretty much since the moment I painted my living room back in August. While I loved all of the molding in the apartment, as I was doing battle with the living room walls I became more and more frustrated by the condition of the inner moldings. They were so old and had been painted (and in some places it appears they were chipped away at) so many times that the edges were not straight or clean and with the high contrast of the gray and the white (not to mention that the white was semi-gloss trim paint so it was shiny next to the matte of the walls) it sort of drove me crazy from the beginning. But I thought I would be even more nuts if I repainted quickly so I set out to live with it as see how I felt in a while. I didn't change my mind however and in a fit of my signature brand of productive procrastination, I pushed stuff away from the walls and got to it. 

Since I had the leftover paint and i didn't have to tape anything off, it was pretty much the simplest paint job ever. I did three coats over the course of an afternoon (this paint seems to dry remarkably fast) and after he first coat I most definitely felt panic. It was patchy and looked about 3 shades lighter than the wall color, and I was beginning to strongly regret my rash choice and so I went and made some cookies while I waited to be able to start on a second coat. Luckily with just a few moments of starting on the second coat I was smiling and saying out loud "this looks so much better" 

I think with all the various doorways and windows in this room, and all of the trim, it just looked too busy and complicated and the walls being more.....solid, helps it to feel a bit calmer. Plus you can still see the moldings, and they actually look much straighter now that they are the same color as the wall, and it's all just a bit more subtle. Hard for me to do but I certainly like the effect. Overall, for something that didn't require me to buy any additional supplies, and took only an afternoon, I am quite enjoying to effect. Of course now I'm wishing I hadn't put it off for so long....