Old Friends

Last week was a frenzy of decorating and creating for two events on Sunday.

I was hard at work creating decorations and gifts for a baby shower I could not attend.

And, cleaning/organizing the house for a reunion of high school friends we were hosting.

Other than sprucing up the garden and cleaning house,

my biggest challenge was setting the table for 11 people.

I have lots of different linens, but only in sets of 4 or 6 so I decided to paint napkins for this get together.

I had to mix and match dishes for the two tables - my little dining room won't hold 11 for dinner.

I think the colorful mix of napkins tied the tables together.

I usually have table topic questions as part of the table setting, but I knew this group would have no difficulty talking so I went with little fact cards for 1966 which was the year we graduated from high school.

With the inside of the house clean and

the outside all spruced up,

I was ready to have fun with the "boy and girls" I hung out with in high school.

We had so much fun laughing . . . talking . . . remembering . . . eating . . . and I did not pick up my camera once - thank goodness everyone else was snapping fun pics of everyone.

I did take photos of the wonderful chocolates, coucougnettes, napkins and apron that Linda, who lives in France, brought for me to enjoy.

My high school friend and college roommate, Cindy, who reads my blog and knows my style brought me a beautiful candle lamp.

All of Linda's French candy and the colorful candy Kathy brought were eaten right away, but the lovely orchid Kathy brought sits on my window sill reminding me of a fun evening with old friends.

Everyone stayed at the Emerald Iguana in Ojai so we spent yesterday exploring Ojai, walking on the beach by our house, of course eating, and discussing the destination of our next reunion - I am voting for Linda's house in Serres-Castet.

The frantic preparation is over and I awoke this morning ready to relax all day long.

And then I found all the baby shower supplies sitting on my porch - I guess I get to clean up even though I didn't get to attend the shower.

But before I clean, I am going to eat one of the chocolate hearts Linda brought me from Maxim's.

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I am sharing at 

Green Willow Pond - What We Accomplished Wednesday

Coastal Charm - Show and Share

Cozy Little House - Tweak It Tuesday  

Savvy Southern Style- Wow Us Wednesdays

Cedar Hill Farmhouse - The Scoop

Disguising the UGLY!

Do you have a spot at your house that you dislike, but there isn't much you can do about it?

For me, the spot is BUB -  the Big Ugly Box - between our house and our garage.

In the 60s, the city closed off all the sidewalks leading to the beach;  alleys became the streets and back doors became the entrance to the house - I wrote about the changes in our house here.

Steve and I weren't thrilled with this as the entrance into our house and wanted to create a real entry way, but the city and Coastal Commission would not allow us to put the water heater and washer/dryer in the garage.

 BUB was the solution and you can see the difference in our entry way without appliances.

The other day, I decided to embrace BUB and "dress up" the area.

In a cropped photo of the garage, BUB doesn't look so bad decorated with my new "keep it simple" sign.

In this photo, BUB looks like it is part of the garage.

I have a narrow space to create a front yard out of a back yard.

A little banner I found at Target spices up the side fence and sand dollars from our beach walks found a new home.

An old baker's rack helps to hide some piping along the house.

The baker's rack placed between the windows of my creative space holds favorite beach buckets and more sand dollars.

I would love to have a basket of flowers hanging from this beach cruiser someone left in our driveway,

but the basket of flowers sits by the door because

Steve would not be happy if he had to remove a basket of flowers every time he headed out on his cruiser to the grocery store or to check the surf.

I kept it simple, BUB doesn't look quite so ugly and I have a front yard I actually like.

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I am joining these fun parties

Southern Savvy Style - Wow Us Wednesdays

Ivy and Elephants - What's It Wednesday

Lavender Garden Cottage - Cottage Style Party

Green Willow Pond - What We Accomplished Wednesday

Glitter Glue & Paint - Project Pin It

Old Wood

I think Steve might hide my paint and brushes after my latest project.

Yesterday I decided to paint more signs using an old cupboard door and a pointed piece of wood I found in the wood pile.

First, I painted both pieces with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Greek Blue.

Next I used stickers to spell out the words.

I like these stickers I bought at Michael's because they are almost 3" high.

I used the same letters on a tablecloth and napkins I made last summer - you can see the project here.

I used small alphabet stickers to spell carol's garden on the pointy piece of wood.

The washed out sign  (I like it that way) is serving an important purpose in the garden - the yarrow always falls to the ground so the sign keep the yarrow standing tall.

Steve would have been quite content for me to leave this sign as it was, but I had ideas which involved him.

Steve drilled holes in the sign and helped me attach a jar to the sign.

Then Steve had to hang the sign for me, but I can't show its home yet - that's a project for tomorrow.

Yesterday was a pretty productive day :

1 keep it simple sign
1 carol's garden sign
150 chocolate chip cookies
75 ice cream sandwiches - and I only ate one.

I hope you had a relaxing Memorial Day - ours was quite relaxed because our street party was yesterday.

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I am joining these parties

Cedar Hill Farm - The Scoop

Coastal Charm - Nifty Thrifty Tuesday

Cozy Little House - Tweak It Tuesday

Glitter Glue & Paint - Project Pin It

Frivolous Fun

My husband and children enjoy making fun of me and my silly projects.

 I acknowledge that many of my activities are frivolous, but I have fun.

In my last post, I gave myself 3 projects to "copy".

From this view of the garden, you would be hard pressed to see my handiwork

and even zooming in, it is still difficult to find any changes.

Yet when you look closely you can see that I added birdhouses to the side fence.

birdhouse on the left via

I really should not have used the word copy, because the photos I pinned on Pinterest were just for inspiration.

With the birdhouses hung, I was ready to make the boats and that involved a long walk along the beach hunting for driftwood.

Making sailboats out of driftwood and left over fabric absolutely falls into the frivolous category.

I moved the yellow bench to under the front window and played with my new boats.

It was a silly pastime, but I had fun.

I waver between liking and hating the large boat, but you can see that the glass bowl is full of driftwood which means I have lots on hand and I can just make another boat.

boats on the left via

Just as the birdhouse picture led to inspiration, Beachcomber's boats were simply inspiration for my silly boats.

I fully intended to make a tray with numbers just like this one made by Linda from Itsy Bits and Pieces.

but when I saw the condition of the tray, I decided to use an old lid from either a bread box or a coffee canister.

When I went looking for numbers to use as stencils, I came across two different sets of magnetic letters hidden in my alphabet stash.

A magnetic sign that can be changed as the mood strikes seemed like a much more practical way to go.

The shelf in my creative space got an update and the best part is that I can change the sign any time I want.

I wanted to complete these 3 projects by Friday - it's Friday and I am done.

And, I must stop all of this frivolity because I have to make 50 different boxes, cut out tags and make a banner for an upcoming baby shower.

And that is serious business, no frivolity involved.

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Join me at the following parties

Glitter Glue & Paint - Project Pin It

Sunny Simple Life - From the Farm Blog Hop

Jennifer Rizzo - Fabulously Creative Friday

Rooted in Thyme - Simple & Sweet Fridays

The Pin Junkie - Friday Link Party

House Kaboodle - Meet the Neighbors