Rainy Weather Mushrooms

All the rain we've been having has been causing some pretty interesting mushrooms to start growing in our yard. It's weird because my parents live just a few houses down from us and they don't have any but here they are popping up all over! I've been joking with Eric that I should give up on growing anything else and just start a mushroom garden :-)

Tree Table DIY

Finally I get to post about my tree table! I got the idea from this post on Design Sponge and have been in love with the thought of it ever since. I have always loved this kind of natural wood furniture but it will cost you a pretty penny if you buy it from a store (see this example from Amazon). There is no reason you can't make this yourself, it's actually super easy (if I can do it so can you!). I started by selecting the perfect log, this was not too difficult because if there's one thing we have a lot of in this neighborhood it's trees. Lucky for me my parents had recently had a tree cut down and had a whole stack of beautiful logs in their back yard from which they let me take my pick. A word of caution about starting this project, these logs are heavy!! Be careful trying to move something like this, you can kill your back. Fortunately I have a big burly husband who carries my heavy things for me and he picked it up like it was a rag doll and hauled it back to our house for me. After I had it in the garage I knocked all the bark off of it and sanded it smooth. I didn't go overboard on the sanding because I personally like having some texture to the wood but you can sand it as much or as little as you like. After the sanding I cleaned off all the dust and coated it with several layers of polyurethane. Here are some pictures of the finished product.

this is replacing our $7 Ikea end table :-)

I love that you can see the insect paths on this thing.

The stump was not quite level so I used some of these to help it stand a little straighter. 

So that's what I've been working on this week. I must say I am pretty darn proud of it. It has really inspired me to take on some of my other DIY projects that I have been putting off forever.

Kitchen Organization and Storage

As I may have mentioned before our house has a teeny tiny kitchen. There is lots to love about the kitchen like it's proximity to the dining room and deck and the fact that is has surprisingly deep cabinets but it is still small by modern standards. It would probably be fine for a normal person but we both love to cook and have kind of a ridiculous amount of kitchen gadgets (all of which we can't do with out). The result of this is that we are always tight on space in the kitchen. We have used a lot of the wall space for storage already as you can see in this previous post, and we recently added a few more items to help us stay organized in the kitchen.

First of all is our new dish drying rack. It may seem silly but it has helped the kitchen stay a lot neater, we used to use a dish towel to dry things on and this just looks a lot cleaner.

I also recently purchased something I've always wanted and that is a tea box. We have a lot of teas (way more than will fit in here) and this helps us keep our favorites close at hand while still looking stylish and uncluttered.

My last recent improvement is adding hooks on either side of the sink to hang dish towels and pot holders. Again, this is a small thing but makes a big difference. Having things close at hand and easy to reach can really make your cooking experience.

The next thing I have to tackle is organizing our ridiculous spice collection which is now spread out in three different places.

Spices are currently stored here,

here,

and here.

Any suggestions for this one? We'd need something pretty massive to hold all of it in one place.

Low Carb Cooking- Lettuce Wraps

Another addition of low carb cooking. We have been a lot less careful about eating carbs since I am home more now and thus cooking a lot more. Having more home cooked meals should cancel out the need to eat low carb right? lol. In any case I do still try to cook reasonably healthy things and tonight I made this lovely low carb recipe. It was super good and very easy to make. It left both of us feeling full and satisfied in spite of the lack of carbs, I would definitely make it again.

Yummy yummy lettuce wraps!

Working in the Garden

I've been slowly but surely trying to get a handle on the little garden out by our mailbox. Not to say that there's a lot in it right now but it requires a lot of weeding and watering of the few new things I've been able to plant in there. Let me tell you, this garden is like a death trap for anyone who tries to weed it. It is full of holly bushes and yucca plants, both of which are extremely spiky and hurtful when you are trying to weed around them. Time to invest in some heavy duty gardening gloves I guess. In spite of all the stabbing plants (and cursing under my breath), I am making a little headway in the garden. I went to home depot today and invested in a new plant, a major treat for me! I also got a few bags of pine bark to start refreshing the bark that is already present, although it is clear that I'll need lots more of it. Good thing it's cheap! Here are a few pictures from today's yard work.

Pine bark replenished, still some weeding to do around the edges but lots better than it was.  The light green things are my little baby flox, they've been suffering in the heat. 

My new plant! A lovely Pennisetum that I picked up at Home Depot. I've planned on putting one in the front garden ever since we moved in.

I finally got around to potting our Pothos in a permanent container a few days ago and placed in in the loft near the railing. The plan is to have tendrils of the stuff hanging down from above, like a leafy curtain :-)

Pinterest

I was just turned on to this site called Pinterest by a friend of mine and I was blown away. Maybe I am the last to know about this but now I am totally hooked. It is the ultimate inspiration tool, allowing you to collect images of just about anything and save them all in one place. My friend is using it as a wedding planning tool but I thought it would be a perfect way to catalog and store images that inspire me in regards to my plans for the house. To see my house inspiration gallery go to http://pinterest.com/audrey_albright/house-inspiration/
If you have a pinterest account let me know about it and I will look you up!

I haven't gotten much done on the house lately but I do have a diy project in the works that I will blog about soon. It seems like the hot summer is zapping my creative energy and I have also been busy with my photography business lately. In any case, stay tuned because I promise I will update again in the near future.

example of a pinterest pin board, go check it out!

Rustic Modern Floral Design

Today I had a little foray in to floral design. There are all the beautiful bunches of Queen Annes Lace growing wild by the side of the road out here in Marietta and I have been eyeing them for weeks. Today I talked my mom in to a little wildflower picking expedition and the two us came back with bunches of the stuff! I also cut a little tall grass to add to my bouquet. Here is the result, I think it's lovely and and simple, the perfect compliment to our dining room :-)