{the day after the party}

I woke up this morning to a home that needed to be cleaned up from the birthday celebrations from the evening before. The kids were having so much fun playing with all of the birthday decorations that I decided to let all of the piles stay a little longer before it hit the blue and the black garbage cans. Besides why should the party only last one day when I paid extra to have the balloons filled with that special stuff that makes them stay afloat a little longer. The gal at the party store told me she has never seen a latex balloon filled with the magical goo come down any sooner than 6 days. As for those big balloons...they barely made it into the car and I had to in fact make two trips just to get them home. In the meantime I really enjoyed watching the kids being entertained all day by the balloons and took it upon myself to document "the day after the party". Yesterday though I smiled when all of the kids were making the birthday sign..something about Maren spelling out "Happy Berthday". I also love how the the kids wanted to tie streamers from Dad's Jeep to our front door. They said we should make him start at the front door and have him hold onto the streamers all the way to his Jeep where he would then open the door and find all of his presents.

P.S. - I am still tempted by that last piece of sweet cream cake...even though I told all of the kids to save it for Dad.

A few photos from the weekend.

This weekend we went on a little jaunt to Besh-Ba-Gowah which is an archeological park located in Globe, AZ. Besh-Ba-Gowah has one of the largest single site archeological collections in the Southwest and is one of the most significant finds of Southwest archeology. We had planned on going over to the Tonto ruins as well but found ourselves spending a little more time stuffing chips & salsa amongst other items into our mouths. Oh and we also found ourselves a little lost on lets say a primitive road. Great fun. We even added a few more rocks to our collection.

How are all of you?

upholstery tacks, thumbtacks, nailhead trim and magical unicorns

Those little upholstery tacks are trickier to install then I initially thought. I'll be patient just this once being that this is my first ever attempt. Let's just say that if it all works out then for sure we have the power of magic unicorns on our side..love it when that happens.

Upholstering a cheap piece of furniture on the other hand luckily was so much easier. I will give you the easy run down when I am finished.

I know they make upholstery tack strips but of course I had to have the ones that coned out a little more and looked a little bit edgier.

There are so many ideas out there on how to make cool designs using tacks...I am not saying you should go and try to tack everything you see now but there are certainly some fun things out there to inspire.

Have you ever conquered a project like the above?

For the original sources go to my Pinboard.

{large artwork}

On my brain is a nice large piece of artwork to go above our piano. It is not a project I really want to take on myself but I can't spend a fortune. I am however ready to invest a little money into a nice quality piece. I am thinking I will look for a vintage piece or have one commissioned. I do have a few ideas but would love to hear of some of your favorite places to go for large pieces of art. I am open to prints and lithographs but would love a painted piece. Any ideas? All of the below pieces of art can be found here. One of them unframed is 30 x 40.

Jimena's home in Guatemala City

Sometimes I forget that anybody even reads my blog...let alone someone from Guatemala. If you remember a little while back I blogged about my experience with going to Guatemala...well a couple days later I had one of my favorite things happen...a lovely reader sent me a note telling me a little about her and her family...and not only that she wanted to show me her home that she has decorated....LOVED that. Jimena is her name and she started out by saying she wanted to introduce herself because we shared so many of the same passions. We were indeed both the same age with a few or more kids and obsessed with design and decor. Anyway I can not begin to tell you how happy her email made me. In fact I have to share Jimena's home with all of you. She really loves the incredible textile legacy that her country has and she tried to apply it all around her home. In Jimena's note she even gave me details about how she used all of her native textiles around her place.

From Jimena's note:

"I HAVE USED VINTAGE ¨GUIPILES¨ AND LOTS OF SPECIAL COMISSION FABRICS AND TASSELS I HAD DESIGN AND HELP DESIGN SPECIALLY FOR MY HOUSE...MADE ALL FROM "BACKSTRAP LOOM TECHNIC ¨ (FROM MY FAVORITE DESIGNER IN THE CITY DELPALOMAR.COM ). I USED ALL OF THE ABOVE TO MAKE MY ACCENT DECORATIVE PILLOWS, THE LAMP IN MY PANTRY (YOU CAN SEE MY VINTAGE APRON COLLECTION FROM THE DIFFERENT VILLAGES IN GUATEMALA ON THE WALL IN THAT PICTURE) AND I USE THESE ALL OVER MY HOUSE SINCE THE COLORS ARE A ONE OF A KIND LOOK. MAKE ME GO MAD EVERYTIME I FOUND A NEW PIECE OF FABRIC FROM GUATEMALA. EVEN THOUGH I LIVE SORROUNDED BY THIS INCREDIBLE COLORS I WILL NEVER GET TIRE OF THEM!! "

Want to sneak a peak....

SOOO beautiful, right?? In fact I am thinking you all should leave Jimena a comment here to let her know what a wonderful job she has done at creating such a great space. I am sure that would make her day as well as mine.

In case you were wondering Jimena also runs a high end design shop in Guatemala found here and blogs over here. I know for a fact that quite a few of your readers will enjoy that content that Jimena puts out on her blog...even if you a can't a read a Spanish.

Just a snippet from Jimena's shop:

You should also go to her Big Apple Home website and click on "Love Big" in the bottom left corner. It may get you all excited for Christmas.

Goofy is the key word today.

Way-LO from the block (husband) was gone for 6 days and left me with sick kids.

No sleep due to the above.

Got up this morn and had black circles under eyes.

It's no biggie though because..

today was the first real peppy day we've had in a while.

Back in the blogging saddle.

Seriously come back tomorrow for something that made me happy.

Loves.

Liza is one of my favorite names

Well I promise you that when I say that I really love being a Mom this week that I'm not just trickin...even though one of them found the paper shredder and took the girls report cards to it and even though the sickies spread around from one child to the next (that is my dog ate the homework excuse as to why I haven't been around blogging town much this week..except it is a true story).

With that I'm thinking that I may be missing a few screws here and there but I'm ok with that because I made a mean chicken noodle soup and I know how to LOVE...what more does one need? If you really must know I did accomplish something by finally carving out a space that will function other than a trash pile. It will now be used as a place to build some muscles. This room isn't new to being a strength building space because a little over four years ago I carved out a space to fit three cribs so that I could bring home "triplet surprise"...oh AND THERE were building of muscles going on but probably located more in the central nervous system area. I had a few very nice moments reminiscing about the nights that included getting up and feeding three babies all at the same time..lets just say a couple body pillows were included.

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

P.S. - I really do love the name Eliza or Liza because one of my favorite sisters happens to go by it. When I found that Liza print by Joe Eula, I knew I needed it as a reminder of a fun sister that still dances around the house to Backstreet Boys..or was that New Kids?

fusion

Perhaps you didn't know this about me but I dream of a modern space that is fused with something rustic in nature. I can imagine this place being placed somewhere in southern Utah where the forest meets the red rock.

What are you dreaming about?

{above images via House & Garden}