Etsy Pillow

If I have ever loved a pillow, it is this one.  I love how it's both really simple and powerfully graphic at the same time.

Available here on Etsy.  Someone please buy it because I can't afford to spend $45 on a pillow right now.  Then send me pictures of you and the perfect pillow cuddling.  I'll be insanely jealous, but I'll know it went to a good home.

Seriously, this wouldn't be that hard to recreate on your own with whatever color stripes you'd like. 

Housewarming

I'm getting to the age where a lot of my friends are buying houses.  Oh, how I wish I was one of them.  Anyway, with new houses come housewarming presents.  People always enjoy gift cards, but I tend to find them fairly impersonal.  And there was the one time when I bought someone a $50 Pottery Barn card to be told that "I went to Pottery Barn to use your card, but everything is so expensive there."  Talk about a slap in the face - sorry I couldn't afford to get you a new living room chair.  I thought you could pick up some nice knick-knack.


I could just buy people a platter or something, but who knows what people need.  Gone are the days when people went from living at home to getting married and buying a house with no in-between steps.  By the time most of us buy houses these days, we have been renting for a while, and have a pile of stuff to shove in those brand new closets.  So if I do buy sheets or whatnot, I always make sure to add a gift receipt. 


But lately I've been trying to give out more personal presents.  My favorite of late are address stamps from Sugar Letter on Etsy.  She has a lot of great designs and quick turnaround.  I love that they are completely personalized, and have multiple uses - from stamping envelopes to stamping books.  They don't come with stamp pads, so I buy some pretty ones for cheap from Oriental Trading.  Here's a few of my favorites from Sugar Letter:

Beautiful, right?

Industrial Light

The overhead light in my son's room is in a bizarre place.

Who puts a light right up against a wall?    The room luckily has some pretty decent natural light, but this placement means at night it's a fairly dark room.  The light is also pretty ugly.  And since I'm going to repaint the lime green ceiling anyway, I decided it would be a good time to get a new light as well.

I knew right away that I didn't want to have the boyfriend (my go-to electrical guy) go through the trouble of moving the light box.  Instead I decided to look for a pendant light that could be swagged out to the center of the room.  I also knew that I wanted to go for an industrial look for a more masculine feel.

Shades of Light had some great options, but they were either too small or too expensive.


Outdoor Bulb Glass Nautical Pendant, $99



Nantucket Pendant, $105



Fresnel Glass Pendant, $189



First Class Period Pendant, $349 (on sale)

I found some cool cage ones on Etsy.



Old Wire Cage Hanging Light, $48



Wire Cage Light, $175

  

But I really liked these two options from Pottery Barn Kids.


Fisherman Ceiling Lamp, $69





Depot Ceiling Lamp, $89


If you are looking for lights, a good tip is to always check out kids' stores.  They usually have much better prices than regular home stores.

I really loved the last one.  But I'm cheap.  Frugal.  Whatever.  And although that's a good price if it was for a house I owned - the chance of us taking it down and moving it with us to the next house are slim to none.  So, that makes $89 (which is a good price) something to reconsider.  So, wanting to pull the trigger but not quite being able to, I looked at one more place.  My go-to cheap home store - Ikea.

My family and friends in Louisiana don't have an Ikea.  The closest one is Houston's (with which I have a love-hate relationship).  I'm not sure why a company with such brilliant ideas can't understand that they would make a fortune in Louisiana.  Just the amount they would have sold post-Katrina would have been enormous.  I know, because my mom had an antique store that after Katrina was turned into a resale shop - people needed everything.  Everyday my mom had customers who would come in saying things like, "I went to make pancakes and I realized I don't have a spatula."  Anyway, Louisiana needs an Ikea - I'm just putting that out into the internet universe and hopefully someone will hear it.

Back on topic, I found this light that not only fit my criteria, it was cheap as well.

Ottava

$29.99 baby!  I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it that same color - I'm leaning towards not but I want to get the room painted first.  So right now it's still in the box (big surprise).