Another Picture!?

My job at a recent open house was to take pictures. This is not a problem for me, I love taking pictures! In fact, I ended up taking about 300 or so, some candid and some posed. I tried to be discrete and out of the way, so I could get some great candid shots of guests interacting. I even wore black!

However, my camera has a pretty loud shutter so people caught on pretty quick. And I was wearing heels so you could hear me coming. But, going through the pictures, I found some pretty great expressions. 

-        Erin

Custom Artwork

Sometimes, you never quite know what a home designer had in mind when he/she was creating a set of blueprints.  On a particular project I was working on, the designer added a humongous niche above the fireplace in the family room.  Humongous may not be the correct term... how about gargantuan! 

Not even exaggerating, the space measured 9-feet tall, by 4-feet wide, and almost 2-feet deep!

So, what do you put in such a large place?

While looking through some wall covering books for a different client, I came across this wall covering mural. It was a set of three panels that could be applied together to make a beautiful mural.  All the colors were right, the size was almost perfect, and the price was unbeatable.

So we went for it.  Except- we had to turn it into art first.

That's where my faux finish friend, Laurie Lopez, and her helper Jeremy came in.  They applied the mural to a piece of MDF I had cut to a size that would look great inside the niche.

Then, to make it not look so flat, Jeremy and Laurie added some painterly touches. 

Here's the result!

Perfect! 

What the frames match?

I love, love, love, photography. I love to look at pictures, take pictures, edit pictures all that jazz. Most of my photos are high contrast and brightly colored. I do like black and whites but I love color!

When I went to redo my room after I moved back home, I wanted to use the photographs that I had taken. I had a lot of photos with a lot of different colors. When I showed my mom all the pictures I was going to put up, she was a little worried that they might clash. However, I had a plan to make sure that that wouldn’t happen. I got some thicker, cheap frames and spray painted them a glossy black and silver. Then I framed the pictures with those. This way even though all the photos were different colors the look as a whole worked.

My room! (My bedspread is way cuter in person lol)

I also had these awesome opera reprints from back in the 50’s and I really wanted to display them as well. But there was the same issue. There were no colors in the prints that were anything close to coordinating to what I had. So I did that same thing. I got two thick black frames to put them in. This way the pieces are still the main focal point but there is an element to tie it all together.

So if your afraid that your photos, or your art work are going to clash, but you really want to display it, frame everything in coordinating frames.

 - Erin

Nothing Bundt Cakes!

My sister, Adrienne, went crazy when she discovered they were opening a place called "Nothing Bundt Cakes" in the Woodlands next to the new Trader Joes. Her emotions were so intense, I had to try this place out for myself. So, after picking up a few groceries, I headed over and popped one of their "Cinnamon Swirl" samples into my mouth.

I was overwhelmed!!! The cake was so dense and yummy while the icing was delectably cream-cheesy!

As you can see, I bought a small one with the intentions of enjoying it over a few days. 

Nope- it was gone before lunch.

I got Adrienne a Red Velvet cake for her birthday party! So worth it :)

Check out Nothing Bundt Cakes here!

Suddenly Salad Dinner

Sneak peak at an almost complete project!

Custom houses seem like they take forever to complete; all of the planning, drawing, selecting, meeting, building, fixing, installing, placing, fluffing, and karate-pillow-chopping, take months and months until you start seeing the beautiful potential a house possesses. 

After working on a project since March, here are some pictures of the home finally starting to come together. 

Master bedroom seating area! (Yes- we're missing a drapery rod- to be installed soon :)

Pool bathroom.

Living room.

You can see there's still quite a bit to go, however, once everything is in place, the house is going to be absolutely stunning! More to come in the next few weeks!

P.S. This guy tried to hitch a ride home with me! I wouldn't have minded the company, except I had about 20 miles of highway driving ahead of me that I didn't think he's enjoy :)

Ouch!

I recently had some dental work done.  Ok, a lot of dental work done. There was so much anesthesia in my face, the numbness stretched from below my chin in my neckline, up through my cheek just under my eye. Safe to say, I sounded strange, couldn't eat or drink, and drooled for several hours at work after my appointment.

I was really curious what I looked like, so I snapped a picture of myself smiling as hard as I could....

here's the result.  You are welcome!