Sometimes you find the coolest stuff...

in the most unlikely places.  While Anthropologie is all the rage, I just can't see paying their prices for things.  I mean, $128 for a shirt?  Are they nuts?  I'm sorry, regular people just don't pay that much for one item of clothing.  An entire outfit, maybe.  But then it would have to be something I was planning to wear to, oh, I don't know, the Inaugural Ball or something.  Or when George Clooney asks me to be his date for the Oscars.  I might even spend more than that for George.  But I digress...  I clicked the Kitchen button - you can really tell where my heart lies, can't you?  And there, along with those adorable ceramic egg crates I am using to organize my jewelry, I found these completely charming ceramic farmer's market baskets.  Well, I could not resist, because in addition to their abject sweetness, they were very reasonably priced.  The white one came to live with me first - and it's perfect for a pretty bunch of fake cherries.  I love it!

And well, the blue one was so pretty and his shade went so perfectly with the basket liners on my desk - I gave in asked him to come and live here too.  I didn't want him to be lonely on his trip, so his little coral friend came along for the ride.  Mr. Blue is staying on the desk to hold treats for my clients, but I haven't found a spot for Miss Coral yet.  Any suggestions?

There are great ideas...

everywhere, it would seem.  Isn't this bookshelf/table just the cutest thing?  And such a great idea on so many levels!  Recycling an old spool, spindles to hold the books upright, on wheels for easy moving and getting to your favorite books - you get the picture.  I'm not sure I'd go with white - I'm more of a natural or stained wood sort of girl.  And I'd use less obtrusive-looking wheels.  Of course, about the only place I have left for such a great thing is as a coffee table - and space is at a premium here at the Villa of Reduced Circumstances.  Still, I can dream...

All it needed was a couple of picture hooks...

I sometimes have a tendency to over-complicate things.  I bought this adorable chicken wire bulletin board on Etsy - isn't it cute?  I wasn't sure where I was going to put it, but I loved it and knew I would decide where to hang it once I had it in my hands.  It arrived and I carried it around the house looking for the perfect spot.  Well, I didn't find one and then it hit me - put magnets on the back and hang it on the refrigerator!  Off to WalMart I went for magnetic strips, but much to my chagrin, when I tried to attach the magnet strip, it wouldn't stick.  So I glued it on - problem solved.  Or so I thought.  When I hung the bulletin board on the fridge it looked great - for about a minute, when it slowly began to slide down to the floor.  Too heavy for the magnets!  I set the thing on the floor behind the recylce bin and decided to ponder another place for it.  Several days later, Ariela got some of those 3M stick-on hooks and came by to hang the bulletin board over my craft desk  Great solution - and it looked so cute until...  You guessed it - too heavy for the hooks.  I decided to embrace the crooked look until someone could reach to hang it more securely for me.  And to the rescue, once again, my friends Tom & Al who flipped it over so it would hang more evenly, found the right spot and nailed two big picture hooks to the wall.  As you can see, it's still straight and I can reach it to take it down to clip things to it and easily hang it back up.  Shoulda just hung it there in the first place!  Thanks, guys!

Another Target bargain...

I admit it.  I am a sucker for Target.  It's like going to a great big junk store that has lots of incredibly cute, reasonably priced junk.  Well, not junk - but you know what I mean.  Consequently, I don't go there often.  My most recent trip was actually Tom's fault.  After he changed the oil in my car on Saturday, I said I had to run to WalMart for some necessities.  He suggested that I go to the SuperTarget instead since I was in the area.  I didn't need much convincing - after all, Target's prices are about the same as WalMart and it's a much more pleasant shopping experience.  And then there are the sales...  I am drawn to the piles of things on sale - sometimes half off! - on the end caps of the aisles.  I am powerless over those little red tags; I just have to see how much I'd be saving.  On Saturday, I successfully passed them all by on my way to and from the bedding department.  I ignored the kitchen gadgets and dinnerware after my brief tour of the school supply area.  I was doing great - until...  I am inexplicably drawn to the indoor floral aisle and all those adorable Smith & Hawken garden accessories and fake faux house plants.  I browsed, I admired and then I came to the end of the aisle.  They had the cutest terra cotta strawberry pots on sale.  And the cutest smaller green glazed strawberry pots!  And then I spotted this adorable tray with three grow pots marked down to $13.98.  In my mind's eye I saw it perched on the plant shelf on my screened porch - perfection!  And so into the cart it went.  I motored on to the toilet bowl cleaner aisle and then to the check-out where much to my surprise and delight, my bargain rang up for a mere $9.98!  It came with soil disks and flower seeds, which I am going to try my hand at planting and cultivating once the weather gets a little cooler.

Along about November probably...

Found one...

and I am a happy camper!  I haven't had an ME page-a-day calendar in several years and I've missed it - new Mary Engelbreit artwork and an inspirational - or sometimes pithy - quote every day.  Can life get any better?

A new year and new...

calendar backgrounds for your computer desktop!  Okay - I'll admit that I am a sucker for a new calendar - and a pretty free calendar is even better!  I found these free downloads at Home Made Simple - the same place I found the Ten Goals for 2010 last year.  The design is sort of a departure for me - I mean, it's not even remotely Mary Engelbreit-ish - but I like it.  The Home Made Simple website also has lots of other great stuff - recipes, decorating and organizing ideas, product reviews - it's definitely worth checking out.  I am still on the lookout for a half-price Mary Engelbreit page-a-day calendar for this year; I haven't had one in forever, but I am not willing to pay full price for one.  I keep checking Amazon and eBay because it's dangerous for me to actually go into a bookstore.  Way too tempting - even when I don't have any extra money.  I mean, who needs to eat?  It seems that both Target and WalMart didn't have many calendars this year - and I saw no ME calendars in either store - or I would have had one by now!  For now I'll have to content myself with these cool free desktop calendars...

ME Monday...

It's that time again - ME Monday - and we are linking to Vicki over at Cherry Chick to share a few Mary Engelbreit goodies and favorite things.  A few years ago, my friend Joanna sent me this ME address book in a surprise box of lots of ME things.  I love it - and it's pretty enough to leave out in plain sight!

Yes - I have about a million ME pens and pencils - and I keep my pencil basket way back on the other side of my desk so I'm the only one who can reach it.  I have clients who are known to make off with pens!  The pencils were an eBay find several years ago and I am down to three of each design.  Uh oh!

My bear isn't an ME treasure - but she's an ME fan, too - dressed in her sweet cherry dress and red sweater.  I had good intentions to be finished with the ME pillow covers I am making for the living room for today, but I got sidetracked ironing more fabric yesterday...  Oh well - next week!

ME Monday...

This is a Longaberger Medium Boardwalk basket.  Sort of plain and boring on its own, huh?  Never fear - Mary Engelbreit to the rescue!

Better, right?  I had started making seasonal liners for the purse: Christmas, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day - you get the picture.  Then those months like May roll around with no holidays - enter my stash of ME fabric.

The black liner is pretty all-purpose, but I made one out of LHFF, a teapot print, a cherry print, the houses and flowers on the red background and LHFF for Halloween.  Too cute!  I have some ME Christmas fabric and some scotty dog print - don't you think I need liners in those patterns, too?

P.S.  Don't forget to check out more ME Monday over at CherryChick!

ME Monday...

For years I enjoyed the Mary Engelbreit page-a-day calendar - oddly enough, I haven't had one in forever - and I would faithfully clip the artwork or quote from the page and save it.  Because I love school supplies, and these composition books, I frequently use the ME clippings to decorate the front of my to-do list books.  Cute, huh?

I love my ME desktop backgrounds - free at the ME website. 

I also like the Mother Goose screensaver!

P.S.  Check out more ME Monday at Cherry Chick!

Change is good...

Well, how do you like that - I had a tag on my blog that said I needed to refresh my Cutest Blog on the Block background or it would disappear on Friday.  So I've changed again - temporarily.  All the more reason I need to get with it and make my own busy bee blog layout.  Yes, I guess change is good.
And this is sort of cute for a quick re-do, if I don't say so myself.

Almost finished...

getting all of this stuff weeded out, hung up and put away!  Ariela and Marco stopped by tonight to put up these two wall ledges for me.  We figured it was a project best left to a guy - and Marco was the just the guy for the job, even though he has tried to tell us on several occasions that he leaves his handyman skills on Longboat Key when he leaves his job every afternoon.  Nice try, buddy.  Anyhow, Marco measured and asked the group of female onlookers if the bracket looked straight.  After a brief discussion, we all said yes - after a tweak here and there.  The first shelf went up.  On to the second bracket - "Is this straight?" he asked.  Another conference - "Yes," came the chorus.  "Looks good."  Up to that point, Baby had been in the living room alternately playing tug-of-war with Aggie and being licked within an inch of his life.  Suddenly, Baby is standing next to the desk, waving his hands at his father and proclaiming

"Looks good, Papi!"

I tell you, he's too cute for words sometimes.

Meanwhile, Ariela finished hanging up my porcelain advertising signs.  She had put most of them up the other day and we ran out of tacks!  Since Lowe's is the only place in town that carries these uber-cute tacks that look like daisies - gotta be cute in this house - Richard stopped and got more tacks for me yesterday while he was out and about to save me a special trip.  I've never had a kitchen that didn't have a tile backsplash and it turns out that my sign collection was just the thing.  I haved pared it down a bit, but I kept my favorites.  Like this one:

My husband and I collected these signs over the years on trips to the Plant City Strawberry Festival, Washington DC (the Smithsonian gift shop is a great source of these cool signs!) and other places.  We also used to frequent a shop in Sarasota called Last Flight Out which had scads of them.  But I digress...

I am just so thrilled that my home is finally coming together - and it is just the way I want it.  All I can say is:

"Looks good, Papi!"

You go, girl!

A class act - I aspire to Betty-ness.

And the proceeds from the calendar go to animal rescue!

So much for sleeping late on a Saturday...

I'd forgotten what it's like to have a dog and a cat in the house - particularly a pair that aren't used to each other's company yet!  No more sleeping late on Saturdays for me!  And, to add insult to injury, my head is seriously stuffed up.  Already!  I'd stopped taking the Zyrtec because I was only with Peter in the office during the weekdays - and that was a lot of space for me and a cat who hid in the inner office most of the day.  Now we're in much closer quarters - and my eyes are itching and well, you get the picture. 

Oh well - one of the hazards of pet ownership.

I found this really cute desktop background the other day when I went looking for Gooseberry Patch online to see what was new - only to find that they have ceased to exist as a gift catalog and now only publish and sell their cookbooks!  I loved that store!  It wasn't like I was going to buy anything, but still...  They had such neat stuff and great decorating ideas and I will admit I used to steal borrow craft ideas from them as well.  I loved their country style - and my house used to reflect that - but since I've moved on to my less is more philosophy, my style is more eclectic.  Speaking of - I am going to attempt to hang framed pictures on my living room wall today.  Have hammer, will attempt to drive nails...

Animal wisdom...

I am sure these photos are in a million emails floating around out there, but these three were so cute I just had to share!

It's sort of like...

Eat...

Drink...

Regret it later.