Wonderling

Portland Fashion Week

So it's been a long while. I have no excuse other than it was summer, nice outside and I was just plain lazy. But seeing how it's fall again, I'm back in school, the band has more shows and I'm busier in general with obligations that aren't strictly "social activities", I should be a bit more consistent with this thing. Makes sense. 

This last weekend I was offered a VIP ticket to one of the Portland Fashion Week shows which I hastily accepted. Here's what I saw

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have to say I wasn't really impressed. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I thought, a city like Portland that thinks of itself as so alternative and forward-thinking should have some pretty innovative fashion designers. At least the theme was sustainability. 

Where I lurk

My google reader is pretty impressive and it keeps growing every day. There are just so many awesome blogs to follow! I thought I'd highlight a few of my favorites here and, thankfully, they all update their sites much more often than I do. ha!

One of my favorites. I particularly like the before and after section and have tried a few of the DIY projects myself. 

Great place for interior decorating inspiration (you probably figured that from the name already). This blog covers all design styles, so there's eye candy here for everyone. 

I love this blog. It has great design ideas as well as fun sections like "the daily eat" and "picture it". 

This site as well as If the Lampshade Fits are both lovely and hilarious. I love that she has no problem calling out ugly design and ranting about it. The pictures are absolutely lovely and I've gotten many design ideas from them, she obviously has a good eye. 

Like the name suggests, a blog about cool and interesting stuff. I always find stuff on this site to forward to friends, always interesting and fun. 

Weekend Projects

So this weekend I left the house only to pick up supplies at Home Depot. My mission: build a custom closet and paint, paint, paint!

The closet only took a couple of hours. I did have to do a lot of the cutting of the wood myself, otherwise it would have been a 30 min job I think. 

Unfortunately it's impossible to get a shot of the whole thing without taking the doors off and I was afraid if I took them off I wouldn't be able to get them back on. The shelves in the middle are IKEA and the rest is commercial grade particle board that I really should have taken the time to paint. It's not pretty, but it's so much better than the one, long, wobbly bar that was there before. Unfortunately my ceilings are low so the two bars on the left are a tad too close together, but again, a huge improvement. 

The painting I don't have pictures of yet because I haven't quite finished the bathroom yet, but I should have time for that this weekend. 

dreaming of....

via desire to inspire

Cozy Coffee

 

Crafster user kymj made this french press cozy for her coffee-loving husband. I would have never thought to make a cozy for my french press, but look how cute it is! 

The year of home improvement

For anyone wondering where the heck I've been, don't worry. I'm right here.

I've decided that this year is my year of home improvement. Do I have a home? Yes, but it's not mine. Thankfully I have a great landlord who, so far, doesn't mind my making a few cosmetic improvements to the apartment. Why would I invest in someone else's house? For my own enjoyment really. I'm not looking to buy a house anytime soon and I'm not looking to move either (cheap rent, great location!). 

Right now I'm working on the bathroom. Here's what I have to work with:

White walls. Dirty white walls. some of them are plaster, some are sheet rock. they're gross. 

horrible picture, but it's all I could find. That's the sink in my bathroom. 

The toilet I have is just like this...only with a white lid.

the floor in my bathroom is the same as above....it's pretty nicked and scratched as well. 

The bathtub/shower is hideous. really. It's not yellow, it's not green, it's pukey yellow-green. It's an old fiberglass installation with gold framed, frosted doors that look dirty no matter how much I scrub them. My only hope is that the cracks in the tub get worse and my landlord is forced to replace it.

So what is changing??

1. new faucet

I've already installed this. The sink is still dusty pink, but now it's dusty pink with a touch of class. 

2. paint

I am currently in the process of painting the walls to match this picture. My ceilings are low, so I figured stripes would help make them seem taller and the yellow is so cheery! I think it would be a bit much to have every wall painted with stripes and the contrast between the bright white and the yellow was kind of surprising at first, so I've been toying with the idea of doing the stripes on a "feature wall" and painting the rest of the bathroom in a light cream color. With the bathroom being so small I think the look needs a bit of softening. 

3. Shower. 

ugh. the shower. There's nothing I can do about it, but thankfully a shower curtain hides the whole thing (unless you're actually in the shower). So here's the curtain I have up there..

I think it's going to be really nice when it's all done. I will post pictures of the end result (should have thought to take before photos! doh!). 

After the bathroom I will still have the living area and kitchen, so there's plenty more improvement to come :)

Pizza on Italy...

These map-plates are awesome. I'm really not sure how useful they actually are, but they certainly look cool. Maybe someone will get Sarah Palin a set before she runs for Senate.....[via NerdApproved]

My first slipcover

A while ago I purchased an IKEA sofabed and couldn't have been happier. I figured that I would look on the IKEA website for slipcovers later, but when I went to look I found that my sofabed didn't have any readymade slipcovers. argh!

So the other day I was riding the bus home and remembered that I had a shower curtain that would make a great slipcover for my little black sofa. I just wasn't sure if it was big enough or if I could even make a slipcover.

So here's what I started with:

And here's what I ended up with:

I think it turned out really nice. Maybe having the Olympics on in the background was good luck. I can't believe I even got all the stripes lined up. Now I'm going to be on the lookout for more shower curtains to make more slipcovers out of (I like to change things up a lot!)

I need these...

Paper Brain is in the studio. That equals hours of time spent in one room with very little to do....other than listen to stuff. Tonight I spent my hours surfing the web. In all my surfing I found a "real" bigfoot, lots of cute shoes and these lovely, wonderful, amazing tabletop items from Lama. If it was humanly possible I would have hearts in my eyes.

How to get free stuff (and other money saving ideas)

It seems that free stuff is always too good to be true. That there's a catch. You have to sign up for something and call in 30 days to cancel or they charge your credit card, you have to visit 12 sponsor sites, your email inbox turns into spam central, etc. Well, I've spent the morning checking out some websites that are all about free stuff and here's what I found.

The good:

gogoshopper.com: freebies listed by category. The links usually take you right to the free sample page and none of the sites required you to enter credit card info. The only downside is that a lot of the offers had expired.

justfreestuff.com: a lot of the same deals as gogoshopper, but with occasional commentary about the link. Also broken down by category and also a lot of expired offers.

Walmart: yes, we are supposed to dispise walmart, but I think we can suspend our hatred just long enough to get some free samples every so often. These offers are current and ever changing. They are also extremely easy to get. All you have to do is enter your mailing info into the walmart site (not into all the different vendors sites)to get your samples.

mygrocerydeals.com: this was my favorite of all the sites I checked out today. I'm putting myself on a strict food budget and this will help immensely. You enter your email address and zip code, then pick your favorite grocery stores. When you log in the site displays all of the sale items from your "preferred" store with sale end dates and even the option to add items to a printable grocery list! It will also tell you if a coupon is needed to get the sale price.

gutenberg.org: project gutenberg is a website devoted to online books, as in whole, complete books. Not just snippits or sections, but the whole thing. There aren't a lot of new books in the database, but there are plenty of great not-new books to read. There are also audio books and even sheet music!

opensourcefood.com: if you haven't been to this site, you are missing out. It's full of amazing recipes that all have photos! I have a hard time wanting to try recipes that I can't see first (I'm a visual person!). You can browse other user submitted recipes or submit your own. Not only that but the website is really user-friendly and the recipes are fantastic!

The not-so-good:

startsampling.com: there were a few coupons. not anything I would have wanted to buy anyway and only one actual free sample of powdered lemon juice.

myfree.com: a lot of links to free stuff that you could find for free on your own very easily (recipes, "ideas", jokes, health and fitness tips). also sweepstakes notices....I'm really not a fan of online sweepstakes.

freebiesgalaxy.com: the freebies that I would have liked were all linked to "try 2 of these silver offers" websites.

There are endless "freebie" websites online. These are just the few that I took the time to try this morning. I have a "junk mail" email address that I used to register with the sites and I highly reccommend having one if you're going to delve into the world of online free stuff.