Brocade Home

I recently fell upon this site and instantly fell in love.  I don't know why, but this style just shouts "drama" and I want it!! A touch of gothic feel to things and a flare for...je ne sais quoi...only that it's completely "me" (although, goth is the last thing anyone would use to describe me!). 

If stuff from Brocade Home was a little more in my price range, I would definitely be filling my house with these treasures...

 How cute would this look at a make up desk?

 Stunning...

 Love it, love it, love it!

 Ah....to dream....

 Is this chandelier too much for a bathroom/laundry room??? I thought so too....but I still adore it!

This coffee table retails for $399 on the site ($488 to ship it to Canada). I found this exact same one at HOMESENSE for $39!! Steal of a deal? I think so!!

{images via Brocade Home}

And you can see my coffee table (along with my new chairs, lamp, & foo dogs) in my house, here (I think the lamp has that "brocade" feel to it, don't you??):

I wasn't sure if the coffee table would be too tall next to the chairs, so after I took the photo, I removed the price tag!! LOVE IT!

Do you love Brocade as much as I do?? I think I'll be following their blog soon!

New Blog Header!

Updated my blog header, courtesy of The Background Fairy,  where you can get free images, backgrounds, buttons etc for your blog! Nice change from the simple text I had before... can't wait to learn more about blogging and give my blog a makeover!

My Christmas Tree...

We spent some time today and decorated our Christmas tree. We still need a few more "pretty" ornaments (and some lime green ones!), and it will be complete! What do you think?

Fabric hunting no more!

Well, instead of spending a small fortune on fabric and time, we purchased this couch from the Showhome furniture sale of the company I work for. We scored this beautiful vanilla linen couch for a mere $150! In need a steam clean, but a small price to pay considering how much fabric could've cost us to recover the old couch (just need some new cushions!) Now the majority of the furniture in our living rooms come from old showhomes. A great perk of working for a homebuilder!

Your weekend...

I'll be spending time this weekend putting up our Christmas tree and decorating it with my new ornmanents in these colors...and, as my husband says I seem to quote in nearly every post, won't they be AMAZING??? How will you be spending your weekend?

De-clutter...and me?

Since I will be off Christmas shopping tomorrow, I decided to post twice today (I'm hoping I can post everyday, minus the weekends or holidays...). 

Does anyone else have a problem with clutter taking over their kitchen? OMG...we do!!  And it's our kitchen because that's the main pit-stop in our house...first place we go when we walk in)  Now, I like to think that I'm not the problem, but, lets face it, my husband can't be responsible for ALL the clutter!!  One of my pet peeves is clutter. I hate it. I try to stay on top of it and not keep junk sitting around, but I know I leave my share behind as well.  My husband comes home and (if he's checked the mail), comes in, and places all the mail and flyers right smack on the kitchen counter as soon as he enters.  Then, he proceeds to do other things while leaving the pile of unsorted junk on the counter. I am typically the one to toss the flyers immediately in the recycle bin (where it can be grabbed if you want to look at later), and sort the mail (recycle, junk, and bills). The bills go in my purse to pay the next day (if I see it sticking out, I know I have to pay it soon), and the rest get tossed or recycled.  But there's always other junk that piles up on the counters. You know what I'm talking about; receipts, coupons, gift cards, keys, sunglasses, etc etc.  Well...I just came across the blog, A Thoughtful Place, where she describes her solution to "the pile" here. Now I think I NEED to find a little holder like she has on her counter (and once we get a new knife set and get rid of our "The Ex" knife-man block --which I do love, it just takes up too much space -- we will have the room for it!) Isn't this a great idea?

 She ensures to wake up every morning with a clutter-free kitchen

 The holder....

 Throughout the day, things slowly accumulate....

But at the end of the day, she ensures to sort and file all the clutter so she can start off on a clean note the next day!!

{images via A Thoughtful Place}



Now...she does have a few kids, so there are a lot more things piled up at the end of the day than ours would...but at least it's a start for where my hubby could always put things. (although, I have to admit, I still think the flyers should immediately be recycled...they just take up way too much space, don't you agree?)

What do you think?

Monochromatic....White-on-White

Does anyone else love the new WHITE trend, where everything is white-on-white-on-white, etc?  I absolutely LOVE it!! I just don't know if I could go through with it in my own house...with my little black puppy that sheds and a husband who loves color.  Not to mention, I've only ever seen the white-on-white in magazines, online, or in photos....never in person.  So I would be SCARED to try it for real!!  Some people may think the white-on-white look is cold and unwelcoming...but not me! I think it looks crisp and clean, warm and inviting...like fluffy white clouds that say "join me!"  Won't you join me in this new love?


{image via Style at Home}




{image via Style at Home}




{image via zainteriora}




{Made By Girl's home office - image via Style at Home}




{image via Sarah Richardson Design}




{image via Style at Home}





I'm contemplating making my own DIY foyer light like Jen at Made by Girl did (see here), except smaller for our place...wouldn't it be gorgeous and unique??
{image via Made By Girl}



Damask...and me!

Does anyone else love damask as much as me? I hope so! It's gorgeous!! I especially love black and white damask patterns, but I will not rule out color as well.  Lets see...in my house, I have damask dinnerware, a giant damask serving bowl, a damask throw, damask throw pillows, damask-ish china (in white-on-white), a damask area rug, and a painting from my sister-in-law, Crystal Driedger Illustrations of "Damask Lady" (that she painted specially for us as a wedding gift)...just to name a few...oh!! And I just picked up a new damask lamp for $10!! (also black....)

This canvas painting hangs in my home office -- purple is also one of my favorite colors, so she incorporated that as well (isn't she amazing??)

{image via Crystal Driedger Illustrations}

My favorite throw from Homesense (I also saw this recently in a pale aqua-green and white combination....it was so hard for me NOT to pick it up!!)

I've wanted a damask wallpaper feature wall in my master bedroom for some time now, but I was always too afraid that the pattern would be too overpowering. After coming across P and T Interiors from Mady By Girl's blog, I may think differently now... I mean, check out the wallpaper, curtains, stools...they're GORGEOUS! Is there anywhere I CAN'T put damask??? I don't think so!!

{images via P&T Interiors}

Test post from my iPhone

Quick pic of my puppy, Jack.

iPad & iPhone....and me!

I didn't have much time to contemplate decorating this weekend, so no new ideas or new loves came to mind. I was too busy WINNING my new iPad!!! That's right, I won it!! At my company's Xmas party. It was probably the most fun I've had at a Christmas party in quite some time. They did a casino themed night, and gave us "funny money" to gamble with.  At the end of the night, you could pool your winnings with your spouse and bid on "auction" items (aka door prizes!).  My husband and I were #2 in "money" totals ($71,500!), only $500 behind the leaders!  They were after the 40 inch flat screen TV, so we decided to bid on the iPad. I mean, when else would we have the chance to get a FREE iPad? (not to mention, there are so many other things going on in our life right now, an iPad is nearly the last thing I could justify spending money on right now...) So we "won" the iPad, and it cost us $57,000 of our winnings. The rest of our "money" went to buying raffle tickets (at $1,000 each) for the Grand Prize (a 3 night stay at a Panorama condo, that sleeps....get this.... FIFTEEN people!! [5,000 sq ft]).  We only walked away with the iPad, but I'm not complaining! 

It was quite the night!! (not to mention, I just picked up my new iPhone 4 only hours before!!). Now I'm just waiting on my new iPhone cases that I ordered on eBay....

{image via eBay.ca}

This one (rubber soft case) I purchased for $3 (plus free shipping!)

{image via eBay.ca}

and this one (hardcase) I purchased for $7 (plus free shipping!)

Now I'm trying to find cool apps to put on my iPhone!! Any suggestions?

Your weekend....

{image by Krystal}

Black doors....and me!

Since my husband and I decided that we're going to paint our new baseboards and casings to white (instead of matching the existing color -- which is a orange-y-peachy-pinky white), and we'll have to paint our interior doors anyways....I've suggested that instead of painting the doors white, and blend in the the casings etc, that we do BLACK!! Yes, black doors!  It would play in well with our countertops and backsplash (as both have a little black in them), and it would add a nice dramatic, interesting feature to the house.  As we're trying to go with a more neutral wall color, why not add some flare with our doors?? We'd only have two doors on the main floor (foyer closet and pantry), and 5 in our upper hallway (3 bedrooms, bathroom & linen closet) and one door in our 3rd level (door going to the basement --we live in a 4 level split).  We could also do the closet doors inside our bedrooms, but that wouldn't be a necessity, as I don't know if we'll bother painting those casings all white (as we'd have to take out ALL the furniture...). Plus, with a black door to the bedrooms, we wouldn't HAVE to paint those casings inside the rooms. They could stay as they are, because there would be no bright white anywhere near them that would set off an alarm of: "Oh...those casings are actually an orangey-peachy-pinky white...not actually white....eww.....". (when they're not near something that's actually white, you really can't notice it...but if we have to paint the new casings anyways, why not get the color we want??)

Here are a few examples of black interior doors. Don't they look amazing??? I'll probably still have to take him to my friends house and show him their doors in person, but still...just imagine! (ok, so if I hadn't seen them in person -- we used to have a showhome with black doors -- I would probably be wary of doing them too). But once you see them, they're amazing!!

Backsplash...

Well I think we've finally selected our backsplash!! That was a lot less painful than our wall paint selection process has been (still undecided -- I have my interior designer coworker coming over next week to help us select a paint color, as we currently have EIGHT colors on the wall and hate all of them..).  We selected this backsplash.  I'm not exactly sure of the name or the make of it (other than we're getting it from Ames Tile & Stone).  It's similar to the mini glass strips I originally wanted (see this post), but with two colors (including black!!) with a bamboo stripe behind the glass.

Seems like we really like the "bamboo" style tiles, as this is what we selected to put around the fireplace...one of my absolute favorite items in the house since the renos...it looks AMAZING!

The new backsplash should pull out the black in our Kashmir White granite, without being boring (our other selection was a tan brown subway tile with a mosaic accent band in varying browns).  I would've loved to do a stone & glass combination backsplash, but I only liked the ones with white stone, and our "white" granite isn't exactly white, so they just didn't work...Our next step is selecting a paint color for the walls. The yellow that we currently have has GOT TO GO!

 My dad built the cabinet opposite the stove (yes, we lacked THAT much counter & cabinet space!!).  We had it built to match our existing oak cabinets, although I still haven't ruled out painting them a cream color (white is out due to the "white" of the granite), but our renovation list got way too long this winter, and we decided to leave the cabinets for now. It's always something we can do later on...Oh, and I also want to add crown moulding to the top of the cabinets, it would just help finish it off, don't you think? (You should see my DIY list of projects we have to do yet....and that I want to do, just for fun!!) I definitely want to do the backsplash and paint before Christmas though. The baseboards and door casings can wait 'til spring (as we have no garage to do any cutting in - not to mention, not enough room to lay the 14ft baseboards out in to paint -- and we live in a snowy climate...brrr).

Photography Course #1 - Done!

I had my last class of my first photography course last night. Sad that it's over, but I did learn a lot about my digital SLR camera. Can't wait to take another course and learn more!!  Here are a few pictures from my picture taking adventure.  The colors might be slightly off, but the point of the assignment (after day #2) was just to get a working exposure and meter to zero.  We learned why our colors were off in the other class and how to adjust things...

We could hear people laughing at us as my friend and I were taking pictures of this storefront.  Yes, it's a sex shop.  But it's a beautiful sign....

My friend and I were supposed to get a motion shot.  I panned on her as she walked and set the shutter speed at about 1/6 second to get the blurry background. Her leg is also slightly blurry, but I got this on my first shot. I just require more practice, that's all!

Walking around the mall made us thirsty....

We went to the mall because we wanted to get our motion shots from Galaxyland.  Sadly, it was closed to the public because it was rented out for a Christmas party...

We attempted some motion shots from the gates (obviously not this picture...), but someone actually stopped to observe the amusement park beside us, got all excited, and asked, "Is there a celebrity in there?!?"  Nope...just some photography students practicing and looking liking creepers.... haha

Our instructor told us that some photographers will actually zoom while they're taking a picture. So we tried.  Kind of a cool effet, huh?

We were trying for some 'silhouette' shots...but I got this instead. I do like the sun bubbles though

Just a pic of 'the ship' at West Edmonton Mall to end our photo taking adventure.

{Image by Krystal}