The Beginning of the End

If you've followed Temporary Nest for even just a short while, you'll probably have noticed that I'm a pretty big sap.  Big, fat, sentimental, cheeseball.   So the move was all well and good in theory, but now the count is down to 12 days, the real sentimental side of me is piping up.  My house is replete with boxes- some empty, some full.

YIKES.

My House is Haunted.

IT IS!

 

No ...no it's not. That's totally untrue. But for someone who, as a child, watched Unsolved Mysteries and therefore never slept {I snuck it. The 'rents thought I was watching the Simpsons. Little did they know...} this latest find totally freaked me out. 

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Hats Off!

Heya Nesters! On Saturday, I was on my way home from upholstery class I made a little detour down a  side street I don't normally take.  Like it was destiny, there, sitting in the four foot pile of snow, was a gem of a trash pick - a broken chair. And it was mine. All mine.  Now you may be thinking, "Gina, why would you ever want a broken chair?" You'll just have to trust me on this.  But that's not why I'm telling you this story! Believe it or not, it gets better! As I was pulling the chair out of the snow, the owner came out and asked me if I was interested in any vintage hats.  She was moving and said they would just be thrown out otherwise, so I followed her to a pile of hat boxes.  I only went home with one adorable one that I am totally in love with.

Isn't she cute?

If I Had a Million Dollars: Jewels for Your Rooms

I have a confession: I am scared of using bold colors in my home.  I think many people feel that way.  I have ideas galore of great colors and what would work without clashing but still being bold and make a statement.  And then I step into my beige house. Hello, Beige couch.  Hello, Beige walls, Bathroom, kitchen, bedroom.... everything!  But it's safe.  My theory is that down the line I will have a home I own, that I can paint the walls rich colors and that way my furniture will match whatever walls I paint!  That's why this week, If I Had a Million Dollars I would have my whole house in rich, saturated jewel tones. 

 

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 The accessories in this room really complete the jewel toned heaven. The chair that incorporates all the colors and the bedding are all spectacular. Is it bad that my favorite part is still the silver deer head?  Damn you neutrals!!

Baking Bonanza: Attack of the Gingerbread!

Heya Nesters!  Welcome back to Monday! I believe we are officially so close to Christmas now we can taste the egg nog.  Speaking of tasting things, I decided to have another baking bonanza last week.  {Get ready to ingest some calories via osmosis.}  After slugging down my fair share of Dunkin Donuts gingerbread coffee I started thinking about making the real-deal.  Cookies, that is. 

Pantry Shmantry

Heya Nesters! Happy day-after-Halloween.  Now that we're all in our candy induced coma's and back at the daily grind,  it's time to get real about cleaning our homes before the really cold weather sets in and we lose any and all motivation.   Or maybe that's just me?? I've found that with the Fall, I've been baking a whole lot more. Thanks to that I've also been forced to take a good hard look at my pantry and spice cabinet.  I've been stocking and restocking much more frequently and having much more fresh goods but sometimes, accidentally some duplicates. Whoops. 

Tealicious!

Hiya Nesters!  This morning- like most mornings lately- I've been getting up with my eyes still closed. I shuffle to the bathroom for my steamy morning wake-up shower. Most of my shower is performed also with my eyes closed. Only once I emerge from the powder room and turn on 'Good Morning America' do I start turning into a normal, cognisant human being.

Baking Bonanza!

Good Morning Nesters!  I found myself in a seriously productive mood this weekend. Saturday morning, I got to hang with Mom a little and started sewing a dress I'm making for a wedding we're  going to in November.  Then Matt and I went to scare our own pants off by going to see the movie Devil.  After a good nights sleep {thankfully without any nightmares! That movie was scary!} we got up bright and early and headed out to Stow to Honey Pot Hill apple orchards. 

 

If I Had a Million Dollars: Making and Eating

Eating. Everything in my life revolves around eating. {It doesn't help that I love to cook too.} When Matt and I go on dates: we love to chat and laugh over a good plate of food. When I spend time with my girlfriends: We make sure to find a new spot to try a new drink or a new stack of nachos. When I'm spending time with my family: we cook for hours on end and scarf it down in a matter of minutes.

DIY Project: Pretty Little Dish Towels

Heya Nesters!  Today I'm bringing you a new DIY project to spruce up that kitchen of yours. Remember way back when I wanted to flank my LOVE poster with this lemon printed fabric?  Well I chose to go with a different accent for that piece and saved the fabric to use to make my dish towels look much more "Gina."

Brimfield: Part I- Doppelgangers

Heya Nesters!  Did you all have a good weekend? You bet your bottom dollar that I did, Annie! Matt and I grunted and groaned, waking up with the sun to get ourselves to the Brimfield Fair.  The Brimfield fair is the second largest flea market and antique show in the country located in Western Massachusetts and we're lucky enough to be a short hour long drive away.  I had high hopes and a tight budget in mind but I knew I would pull away with a noggin full of ideas since lots of the antiques would be "out of my league."

Click READ MORE to see all the goods! 

NO WIRE HANGERS!

But wire baskets??? Heck YES! There is something about this airy, farm house wire basket from Pottery Barn that makes my heart leap!

There are unimaginable possibilities of what you could do with this simple storage receptacle.

Crystal Clear

Howdy Nesters! I opened one of my least used cabinet the other day and found a glass oil bottle that I had forgotten that I had picked up at IKEA last time Matt and I hiked out there. 

It was still intact with price tag and all. It felt like finding money in your jacket pocket: What a nice surprise!   

Vermont Cheddar

Hey Nesters!  I'm sad to say I'm going to be missing you over the weekend. But wipe those tears from your eyes and pull yourself up by your bootstraps because I'll be back on Monday with all new goodies for you! 

Break the Bread

While visiting the fam this weekend, Dad and I decided to get a little pastry at the new Le Pain Quotidien location on 85th and Madison on Saturday morning. 

{image courtesy of http://www.thesweetkitchen.com/}

I Heart NY

Hey there Nesters! So, remember alllll the way back at the beginning of May you read this post about my brother, Joe, and my sister-in-law, Molly, making the leap over the river to live in the heart of Manhattan!  Well, they moved the exact same day I did back in Mid-May.  When I visited them this past weekend they let me take a few snapshots of their new nest and some of their new additions to their eclectic railroad apartment.

First things first: Molly and I had a conversation a while back about what to do for a kitchen table. And our thought process was chronicled in this post.  While they are still waiting to find the perfect legs for this table, these sawhorses and Ikea chairs really work with the soft, creamy yellow shabby chic door turned tabletop.

This Ikea island has already been put to good use.  Its loaded down with cookbooks and pots and pans. Did I mention Molly is a self taught chef?

The tight squeeze of a living room is made into a modern ethereal restful spot with branches flocking the TV and the ever famous birch tree wall mural.

And here is the view of the kitchen from the living room. {Who are those debonair men sitting at that kitchen table?} I love the cardboard rhino.  I'm very seriously considering getting one for myself.

And onto my brothers-in home office, where all of his illustration magic happens.  He loves the gallery wall look and I must admit ...his blows mine out of the water.

The bedroom has this combination antique and greenhouse feel.  Since this is the room that gets the most light at the front of the building, they keep most of their plants in here and it gives it a very lived-in, fresh feeling.

Molly mentioned that once settled in further, she would like to put a reading chair in this corner but I am loving this vintage sewing machine hunkering down right here.

Well there you have it! For having only been in the apartment for a few short weeks, they really have done a phenomenal job.  Don't you think? And I look forward to reporting on their progress and new exciting projects that they will share with us.  Do you have any new pics of your new apartment that you'd like to share with the fellow Nesters? Leave us all a comment or email me at temporarynest@gmial.com.

Love's accents

Hey Nesters! I hope all of your enjoyed some BBQ'd meats {or veggies!} yesterday in celebration of this fine Memorial day! Well, while I was stuffed to the gills with grilled goods, I did a mini DIY project that looks great hanging next to my newest LOVE image. 

Yesterday I showed you the how this piece hung on the wall in the kitchen.

But somehow this just looked so empty to me.   In this post I mentioned covering some small canvases with the lemon printed fabric. But with the idea of making my own kitchen towels, I think that fabric can be put to better use as towels, rather than wall hangings.

So I decided to paint on the canvases.  I know- old school, right?  I have an affinity for polka dots so it seemed natural for me to choose a Chuck Close-esque take on polka dots. 

So here's the how-to:

Step 1: Choose the size of your canvas according to the size of your frame. I got four 8X8 canvases for around $5.00 each.   If you get even smaller ones, you could layer 3 on each side.

Step 2: Choose the size of your "dots".  I used a smaller cereal bowl. I decided I wanted the space between the dots at the edges to be about 1" apart, so I measured each of the 4 sides and marked the center, and then 1/2" on either side.

Step 3: Grab that bowl that you picked out and lay it over the corner of the canvas face down, lining each side up with the 2 closest marks and trace lightly in pencil. 

Step 4:  Once all your markings are finished choose what color you'd like to paint! This is the fun part! for a little girls bedroom it would be fun to do a pink and green. Or for a dark master bedroom, maybe you would want to do a chocolate brown and a beige.  Since I'm in love with yellow, I chose a canary and white. Since I knew I wanted the white to be the inner color, I started with the yellow on the dots.

Step 5: Once the dots are completely dry, paint the inside color carefully to clean up anything that that may have gone outside of the lines. 

Step 6 (optional): Once I finished painting and cleaning everything up I wasn't totally happy with the pop of the yellow/white. I busted out my trusty black Prismacolor marker and went in and traced each of the dots with as steady a hand as possible.  {Think Greys Anatomy} But since this can be done with any color this part is totally optional. Maybe your pink and green will pop enough  that you won't need any tracing! That's the beauty of DIY, you can make it suit your needs.

Step 7: Hang and enjoy!

So here's the breakdown:

The Love image: $0 printed by Daddio. 

White Frame: $14.99 on sale at A.C. Moore

Canvas: 4 at $5 each-- $20

Paint/Marker: Already owned.

All in all this entire wall decor cost $35. 

 

The yellows aren't exactly the same and I'm happy that it turned out that way because it makes it a little more dynamic.  So, what do you think? I want to hear your thoughts!

PS: Now you can be a friend of Temporary Nest on Facebook!  So come on over and become a fan!!

L-O-V-E

Good Morning and a bright, sunny and very happy holiday to all of you Nesters out there!

You may remember this post I wrote about a yellow poster that boasts a bold L-0-V-E, love.  Well as promised, good ol' Daddio dropped off my prints a couple weeks back and I just now found the right frame for it.  As soon as I did, I couldn't help but speed home to hang it.

I bought the frame from Michael's {on sale!} bundled with this cute silver lined mat. I love the way it adds a little definition between the mat and the image.  As soon as it was in the frame I busted out my hammer and hung it over my cutie little cafe set in the kitchen.

But don't you worry your pretty head, I've got another little project in the works that will accompany this lonely looking art.  Stay tuned for that addition later today!

Soap 'n' Bubbles

Hey Nesters!  My sister-from-another-mister, Ashly over at Moon Walk wrote a blog post inspired by our fave gal, Martha, and about keeping your kitchen lookin' cool even with all the mandatory cleaning supplies in plain view.  As Ashly posted, Martha was sick of the ugly dish soap plastic container and decided to think outside the bottle.  So why not decant your pretty colored soap into an oil bottle for all to see?

Well I took this idea and ran with it! Check out my lovely new kitchen addition.

I picked up this ribbed glass oil decanter from TJ Maxx for a whopping $4.99. Now check out what it looks like with my over the sink addition that I posted about yesterday.

Not too shabby, huh? 

I have also fallen in love with this soap dispenser from Target.

They have it in a green or a blue tinted glass in stores. I am dying for it in the green tinted glass but right now I just can't stand the thought of paying $12.99 for a soap dispenser.  Does that seem outrageous to anyone else?! Sheesh! Maybe I'm just a cheapo? 

Well when all is together I'll give you an updated shot of the vintage inspired sink area.  After all, if you're going to be doing dishes, you might as well enjoy the space, right?

The View from the Sink

Good Morning Nesters! One of the first things I noticed about this apartment {but was in no way a deterrent} was this really awkward, ugly space over the kitchen sink.

Isn't it atrocious!? I know, I know... I was stumped at first too!  It was too short to hold any dish soap, and I didn't want to put the sponge up there.  Wood and wet sponges don't mix all that well.

And then something dawned on me. I had these four, multicolored faux French vintage canvas wall hangings that I used to have in my old bathroom.  I got the lot of them from The Christmas Tree Shops for $7.99.  So I retired two and took only the green and yellow ones to keep with the color theme and I was in luck! They fit perfectly!

They just tucked right into those two little panels that were so unsightly with water damage. But the shelf still looked a tiny bit empty.  So I added my hand-me-down marble rolling pin that my Grandma gave me.

The rolling pin does triple duty of holding the prints in place, adding a little culinary flair and also easy access when I bake! Does it get any better than that?

What do you think? Do any of you have an awkward space that you've changed it's function or at least made it look pretty? I want to see! Send your pictures over to temporarynest@gmail.com and maybe you'll see a blog entry about you!