Photographers and Stylists

When I read a magazine or book, I read all the little, seemingly inconsequential, things in it - who did the photographs, styling, editors, staff, date it was published (if a book) and all those little things with which we don't concern ourselves very often. I can actually tell when the editor of a magazine has changed just by perusing the magazine even before I sit down to peruse it leisurely. They each have a certain "style" as evidenced by the "recent" (few years ago now) changes in Romantic Homes magazine. I noticed it immediately with Country Home and Country Living through the years.

But besides seeing who the writer of the article is, and let's just talk about magazines in this post, I look for the stylist also.

I didn't think it would be a particularly hard job, but certainly glamorous, and would have loved to do it. But since I've become a photographer, and I use this term very loosely here, I learned how hard both jobs can be! Getting the light just right. Cramming all the lovely items into a small space to add pizzazz to the photo. Hard work I'm sure!! I don't even come close to being good at either. I am barely adequate when posting pix for this blog. So with great "reverence" I salute the photographers and stylists of those truly beautiful stories we read in the magazines today.

Now, the the proofreader I've noticed is slacking on the job though. The current issue of Romantic Country, summer 2008. Have you noticed that on page 21 in the top left picture the clock is running backwards? And just below that one the clock looks like it's upside down. Now, that can't be a reversal of the photo but what's with those people hanging the clock upside down???? Page 28 left photo of the buddhas. Read the description and look at the buddhas. They've reversed the photo. Then we have page 50! Whooooa chicks! The pink telephone dial is backwards, the writing on the shadow box on the wall is reversed and the clock again is running backwards. I know, I know, not a big deal, but those proofreaders should have caught those "goofs"! Yoohoo, Romantic Country, I'm available!!!!! I'm not cheap though!! :-)
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The shutters were put beside the archway on the dining room side. I'll probably spend the rest of the year patching nail holes........uhhhhh, only the visible ones though!

I've put one french wire basket under the picture off center. I could not get it centered with all the other stuff. AND since I worked so hard to get it out of my daughter's shed and home to Idaho I'll be darned if I'm NOT going to put it up somewhere! Now I just have to figure out where the other one will go. It will have to be low because of not being able to see what is in it up high. I also hang items HIGH and low on walls. I think it adds visual interest and love it. I've even put pictures leaning on the wall on the floor or on baseboards too.

Be creative in what you do in life and how you decorate your home. It sets you apart from all the "cookie cutter" or "accepted" decorating styles and shows YOUR style, not your friend's style or the show room salesperson's style, but your unique style! I do and I highly recommend it. :-)

Today I went to Boise since Love Bunny is away. I bought these 2 feather pillows for $24.99! Squeeeeeal, yes for both! That's $12.50 each for a 20" x 20" feather pillow. I am truly blessed. :-)

Now for this next part you're going to have to use your imagination since I didn't get "before" pictures but they're in some picture somewhere on this computer but I'm too lazy to find it so I'll just describe the "before" to the best of my ability. Ooooohmygosh!!!! Yep, that's what it was before. (I bought it but for the life of me I can't remember WHY I would have bought it!!) An "ohmygosh" lamp! Dark wood with a beige shade and amber crystals hanging down. Pretty ugly let me tell ya, chicks! Soooooo, I decided to take my handy dandy spray can of white paint and spritzzzz it. I had that other shade - remember, I stuck a faux fern in it till I could figure out what I was going to do with it?? Okay, after taking off the amber (yuck!) crystals and painting the lamp white, I then decorated the lamp shade.

Now, a sweet friend named Sharon gave me a little charm last year and I wanted to do something reeeealllly special with it since it is so teensy tiny. I don't see how she paints on them. Very tiny! I decided to put that little pink roses charm on the new lamp. Voilà, the new frou frou lamp with parchment roses, lace and Sharon's lovely exquisite charm!! Very little effort for spectacular results!!!



Sharon's hubby is really into western movies. He watches them frequently. I have this art print by Chuck Haan in my hallway. No, I am not into western art, but when I saw this many years ago in a little antique shop in the Niles area of Fremont, Calif. it touched my heart. It's an Indian brave looking sweetly at a little bluebird on a snow covered branch of a tree in the dead of winter. It just stole my heart away and I had to have it. So even in a romantic, shabby, girly pink house this print holds a place of honor. I thought Sharon might like to show it to hubby.

The point of this story is: If you love it, if it touches your heart, then you should have it no matter what the decor of your home is. Ooooooh, and btw, please don't tell Love Bunny I said this. It DOES NOT apply to model trains!!! No no no no no no no no no!!

Can We Talk? And a Tag or Two....

When we go on vacation we will watch television at the kids' houses and this time I saw a commercial that really struck me. Okay, okay, just listen now and give an old lady a chance, will ya?!?!

It was about some "green bags." Yep, Debbie Meyers bags. Now, this might not be a revelation to you chicks, but it was to me! I'd never ever heard of them before since we don't watch tv. Anyway, I got on my laptop and immediately ordered some and they came about 3 weeks ago. Wellll, let me tell you, they are really something!!

When hubs is away I don't cook. Usually just eat salad or microwave something easy. So tonight I went to Burger King, got a salad, brought it home and threw some tomatoes we've had for about 3 weeks on top. You'll see them on the salad below - the grape tomatoes. They are great, haven't shriveled up at all and truly, they are at least 2 weeks old. I love those green bags. They truly do work. I had some strawberries in them and they kept lots fresher for a long time. I saw in WM the other day that they carry them. So run out and get some! Trust me, they work and are WORTH it so save on fresh veggies and fruit!

Below is a cuke I just put in one. The grape tomatoes have been in the bag for about 5 days and still no deterioration at all.

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Also The Polka Dot Rose has tagged me for 7 things you don't know about me. Now that's hard because I've pretty much laid it on the line on this blog but I guess I still have some "mystique" about me to come up with something.

1.
Against all the things your mom and dad tell you to never ever do, I did. I accepted a ride with a stranger once at about age 10 or 11. Nuuuuuuu, nothing happened. We lived in Texas and it was a long walk to school and a couple offered me a ride one day. A husband and wife and it was hot and rainy so I accepted. They took me to school and it was fine but it's one of those rules your parents throw at ya 5 minutes outta the womb. I still remember it, so on some level it must have "traumatized" me!! I was perfectly fine though.

2.
I swam in a bayou once in Texas or Louisiana; we were close to border so don't know which state we were in on that outing. After I got in the friends and their parents told me it had alligators. You never saw anybody get out of a body of water so fast in your life! Never again did I swim with those people. OR go with those people!


3.
I absolutely hate balancing my checkbook. Hate it but I do it every 3 or 4 months. I don't worry about the money because I check my account on line frequently; it's just the actual procedure of it that I hate. My son is like me; my daughter ISN'T........

4.
I lost the back of my bathing suit once in a pool. I was about 12 or 13 and had a new suit with ruffles on the bum. They ripped off and I didn't know it until a sailor (it was a pool on a military base) came up to me and told me. I was mortified and it took several days before I went back. My glorious naked b*tt was in full view for all those guys to see for a while! Now they'd probably go eeeewwwwwwww and run the other way!

5.
I love public speaking. It doesn't bother me one bit. I'd rather do that than fly in a plane, which I refuse to do anymore anyway!

6.
I love going to the dentist. Most people go every 6 months for cleaning and checkups for regular maintenance. I go every 4 months because I can't stand them not feeling clean. I also never have bad breath. I have no clue why, but my granddaughter told me my breath is always like a baby's breath. Of course, she may not have been near me after a chunk of extra sharp cheddar cheese!

7.
I hate wearing shoes! I'd rather be barefoot in the house so that's why I'm compulsive about clean floors. And that's also why I am always crunching my toes on a piece of furniture!

Now I'm supposed to tag 7 people to do the same. I'm tagging you chicks who have Roses in your blog name. Youuuuu know who you are, sweets, so fess up and do it. I think you need to link back to me, so do that also. ;-)
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The other award is Best Friends Forever Awardy. Shirl and Alaura gave me this one.
Here are the rules:
1. Use the Twinks Bank icon
2. Nominate 5 other people only
3. Four (4) nominees have to be dedicated followers of your blog
4. One (1) has to be someone new to your blog and live in another part of the world.
5. You must link back to whoever gave you the award.

I'm nominating Katie, Rhea, Vickie, Ele and Fitty.

Cottage Picture

I had to run out today for something and stopped in at a store and look what I found! Squeeeeeeal......I love it. A true cottage picture and it was 50% off so I love it even more. Won't Love Bunny be proud that I saved him 50%?!?! I'm not telling him till he gets back from Orlando friday night. Surpriiiiisssseee! It's going behind the sofa in the family room. I don't need to shop for any more pictures. I have a "store load" of them sitting on the floor, side tables and cocktail tables in there. If I had anybody living close to me that loved shabby, chic, romantic, cottage or roses I'd give it to them! Not many people in Idaho have the taste for that yet, but they will, they will! ;-)

Then I wanted to craft something with hubs being away and all this time to myself. I haven't done that for a long time and I have a lot of "alone" time this week. Feeling a bit lonely when the person you've spent the last 47 years with is gone. Not many young people want to associate with the older chicks anymore and that's sad. It happens. (Shrug!) But I've thought a lot about that lately when something happened to bring it to the forefront. It's kind of sad actually because we can teach them so much. I'm old but I'm not incapacitated, ya know! I've got a lot of things I could teach the younger moms, but they always seem to want to hang out with their ilk and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. We older ladies just kind of sit in church with all these memories and skills and no one who wants to learn them. (Hey, I was the highest paid woman in a large Fortune 500 company, ya know; I ain't dull by any stretch of the imagination! And that company was in the top 60 of the 500. So I have more than "housewife" skills!!!) :-) This may sound a bit morose, but I didn't mean to sound that way. Just reminiscing. I have such an active brain that it's never ever idle of ideas and "energy" to do something. Maybe I need a protegé! Hah.

So this is what I've come up with. All pink and girly. I wonder who will be the recipient of this gorgeous little roses frou-frou "cake"??? Hmmmmmm???? ;-)

Miss Molly Moo!

I took a "hint" from a comment - sorry cannot remember whose it was - and jazzed up Molly Moo a little bit!

Now, Molly likes ribbons - PINK ribbons - hanging on her bell. She also LOOOOOVES flowers, in particular roses because of the meadow.......uhhhhh, smell so we gave her a little remembrance for her "necklace" in the form of a garland of roses. She also adores being remembered by her name so we wrote it on her jewelry for all the world to see. Now, we know that Molly isn't really a "chick" but we're giving her "Honorary Membership" into the "Hot Chick Club" headquartered (in Molly's case we might call it "hindquartered" ;-) ) right here in IDAHO.......round of applause please. Thank you...... You may be seated, please.

Her "motto" is on the back side of the bell. Moooooo! Molly isn't hard to please at all - just an everyday morning "teat squeeze" and she's purring.......uhhhhhh, I mean MOOOOO-re than satisfied for that day. Loooove chick cows that are easy to please, don't you?! This positively makes her quiiiiiver in her little hooves. (Author's statement as Molly is just too embarrassed to admit to this. She's a bit bashful, ya know. But I've seen that "contented" look in her cow eyes.)

Lamps Redone

Okay, so now apparently I'm scaring the family dogs with the cackling coming from some of ya chicks hearing my voice?!?!?! LOL.... BUT don't I sound s*xy?!?! I sooooo don't sound like a grandma almost 70 years old, do I?!?!? Answer that correctly or I'll come pinch yer nose off, sweetpeas.... I'm sitting here cracking up!!! You gals are just toooooo funny............ohmygosh......

Okay, if you are terribly interested in what I sound like, click on the icon to the right------------------------->
This will take you to a page that will download an audio file for you. It is completely safe as I wouldn't have it any other way(!) and you can put it in a file folder to click and hear what I sound like. I absolutely love hearing what other people sound like. It's such a treat to put a voice to the face OR a face to the voice sometimes. :-) Enjoy.....
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Okay, okay, I admit it: this little lamp has had more flower "plastic surgeries" than Joan Rivers! But what can I say when these adorable parchment roses are so lovely and cheap?! I love them and decided to put them around the house on several different things. But here are just a few of the things I've done.

Another lamp shade close up.




Okay, okay, so these are silk I still had to show them sitting next to my original wedding cake topper. :-)



Uuuuuhhhh, while dusting today I couldn't figure out what to do with this extra lamp shade sitting on top of my dresser for weeks now just waiting for me to decide what to do with it. Soooo, I stuck some silk ferns in it and there they stay indefinitely or until I decide what to do with the lamp shade, whichever comes first! ;-)

Extra roses awaiting their fate!