Supplies:

• Tumbled Marble tiles
• Bumpers
• Rubbing Alcohol
• Clean old wash cloth
• Clear Spray

Just go to the home & garden store (I like Lowe’s) and pick up the tumbled marble tiles and bumpers (and clear spray, if you don’t have any). Be sure you have some rubbing alcohol, or get that, too. I spent on $3.98 on the tiles (9, which means you will end up with 2 sets of 4 and one left over) but the bumpers are the expense…$9.92 for the little buggers. Don’t get the felt kind, get the clear rubber – they grip better and are water-proof. Maybe you can find them at Dollar General or Wal-Mart a little cheaper.

The weather was so nice I took my project outside and enjoyed robins hopping around while I crafted. Have a glass of iced tea! (It was too early for a margarita.)

Pour a little rubbing alcohol on a tile and wipe clean (this removes the dust), do this two times on both sides of each tile. Let dry thoroughly. (I talked on the phone with a friend and sipped my iced tea while the robins kept hopping through the flowerbed.) Sometimes I get out the stamp pad and a large stamp, and stamp a design on the tiles, but this time I opted for the plain and simple look. Or you can paint a little design.

After your embellishment has dried, apply the bumpers on the bottoms. Place a bumper near each of the four corners and stick one in the middle. Don’t ask me why I put one in the middle, I just do it to distribute weight (AND because I like the number 5). Apply a very light coat of clear spray on the topside. And you’re done!

For gift giving I stack 4 coasters and tie up with raffia or ribbon and slip it into a small gift bag

P.S. I told Amy recently that I am going to try to avoid doing another post about spray painting something…but the darned stuff snuck in anyway. I can’t help it! I LOVE paint in a can!!!

{Note from Amy: Mom introduced me to this project a few years ago, and I’ve had a stack in my gift closet every since. They’re a great go-to for a last-minute present, and always a hit! And heed the rubber bumper advice… with felt the coasters stick to wet glasses, and falling stone tiles are a bad thing.}

So I’m pretty happy to have graduated from my necklaces wadded up in a box…

…to staring back at me from suction cup hooks!

It’s the little things that make life happy.

(Note on suction cups: I’d actually hoped to use these imported hooks (thanks for the care package, Mom!) on the tile next to the mirror, but they only work on slick, non-porous tiles and glass. Call me a doofus.)

And I love the space-saving solution my best friend/sis-in-law came up with for all her beads, too.

She put a series of stick-on hooks on the inside of her bathroom cabinet door. Doesn’t this make you want to play dress-up?

While I’ve outgrown that trick (though I’m tempted to pause right now and try it again), I still often drift off to sleep envisioning patterns. My favorite was an umbrella that popped into mind once. Wish I remembered what it looked like.

All that to say, I went to Nancy Mims’ house!!!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mod Green Marvelous

Nancy is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Mod Green Pod… the hippest line of organic fabric and wallpaper out there. I’d seen Nancy’s work in some of my favorite magazines (Dwell, Domino, Cottage Living) and on some of my favorite websites (Apartment Therapy, Design*Sponge, Craftzine). I had no idea she was from Austin until I bumped into her at a party!

I had the privilege of seeing her home and studio (I invited myself). The tour did not disappoint.

Nancy’s style is funky. Quirky. She is funky. Quirky. And while I literally felt like a kid at an amusement park taking in all the wonder of her home, it’s what I took away that I’m even more excited about. I don’t mean I took anything (though I could list right now what I would’ve liked to stuff in my pockets… and my bag… and my car). Nancy has this fantastically fresh perspective on things the rest of us look past.

Easy Cheese

Case in point:

“I find graffiti to be really beautiful. I especially love it when spray paint artists spray paint messages that aren’t very nice, they aren’t very polite, but they use really beautiful script for them.  I find that really charming. Because I think it’s funny they’re sort of  relaying this mean message, but they’re doing it in this really polite, formal way. I find that really funny.”

And I wouldn’t put it past her, so I had to ask.

“I’ve definitely done my share of graffiti,” she said. “I’ve never used spray paint. But I actually drew an entire 7-foot tall can of easy cheese — the spray on cheese — on a dorm room wall [in pencil].”

Regarding the Disregarded

Perhaps the thing that most inspired me about Nancy is that every day, she quite literally exercises her wonder and amazement at the overlooked among us. She goes for a stroll and photographs things that catch her eye. (Here’s her flickr stream … I can’t believe what she captures with an iPhone!) Can you imagine? Finding something that inspires you and doing it every single day? I bet that’s a powerful weapon against the grumps. And life’s curveballs. And maybe last night’s ice cream.

Many of the great knick-knacks and decor in Nancy’s home are from junk shops she just ducked into, and, of course, got for pennies. Which makes me love her even more.

“I think that’s a good metaphor for life, too — to go out in search of the unknown. And  be open to things you would’ve never guessed would happen.”

“Keep your eyes open,” I say.

“Exactly. And that happens a lot when I doodle, too. Whenever I set out to do a specific design, it doesn’t really happen for me. I have to sort of let go and see what else emerges.”

100% Conscientious Cotton

And though pretty designs are plenty for me, Mod Green Pod is about more than that.

“I’m proud of the designs. But I’m most proud of the fact that it’s organic cotton.”

Something textile giant Robert Kaufman likes too — the company just released a new organic craft collection by Nancy called, appropriately, “Free to Grow.”

Which, luckily for the rest of us, I do believe she is.

Music by Hot Club Sandwich. Buy at iTunes Music Store

Calcium crud. My gag reflex kicked in when I looked too closely at the tray in our fridge door. No amount of scrubbing or scraping would clean it, so I’d resigned to just averting my eyes when I filled a glass of water.

But thanks to some twitter friends, I discovered a miracle worker on the dang crud: vinegar!

First, with some persuasive tugging, I removed the tray.

Then I filled it with vinegar and soaked it in the sink for half an hour. And I watched the vinegar bubbles eat the little calcium suckers.

Finally, with just a gentle swipe of a sponge, it was good as new!

If you have calcium crud around faucets, it’ll work there, too. (If you can’t get a puddle to stay, try soaking a sponge in vinegar and setting it on the crud.)

Know any other miracle cleaning tricks that use vinegar?

In one of our houses the large laundry room was in the basement and it had lots of room for a wooden dinette table. It became the play dough table. Besides tubs of dough, we kept a shoebox full of cookie cutters and gadgets and a wooden rolling pin. Amy and her little friends would spend a lot of time making all sorts of girlie things. The boys, not being crafters by nature, usually made rolls and sometimes brought in the plastic army “guys” and the plastic cowboys and indian “guys.” Guys – that’s what Amy’s younger brother called them.

In these pictures I got a little carried away with the red food coloring, but it sure is a pretty color! But I have a good excuse! I was in the middle of making dinner (lasagne and chocolate cake if you must know) when a couple came over to show us her new motorcyle. Isn’t that distraction enough?

I still have that old recipe card even tho I don’t have kids around who want to play with play dough…maybe some day. Maybe the house next door will be sold to a family and I can have kids come over for a little play dough time.

Play Dough

• 1 c. all purpose flour
• 1/4 c. salt
• 2 tsp. cream of tartar
• 1 Tbl. oil
• food coloring

Mix together in a small saucepan, stir over low heat until it thickens and comes together in a ball. Cool a few minutes before playing! Store in airtight container (my favorite are icing tubs).

{Note from Amy: Oooh! I love this color! Raspberry, I’d call it. This would’ve been a hit on my pretend cooking shows… my favorite play dough game. So Mum, whatcha gonna do with this batch?}

The fruit here often comes in these nifty little plastic bins, and I’ve found plenty of good uses for them once they’re empty.

To containerize my dish soap, sponge, and sink stopper.

To corral empty produce bags (I wrap stinky meat packaging in them before tossing).

To create some order in our bathroom cabinet.

And to neatly store bags of food (which seem to be more popular here than boxes of food).

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have a hankerin’ for a nectarine.

Here’s Mum sewing a pillow closed for me, with a smashing hot pink manicure.

Here’s Mum beautifully side-lit while she continues to sew a pillow closed for me.

And here are the finished products, that I swear I worked on, too.

See? I’m holding them. Proof that I contributed. I did.

And here’s Mum holding the baby whose room the pillows are now in.

Here’s Evelynne laughing at the joke she just told Mum.

Here’s me holding Evy (my niece) whose room the pillows are now in. Aren’t babies fun? Evy’s going to love her Aunt Amy.

(She has lots of this to look forward to.)

Oh! And the pillows. I think they turned out pretty fun, too. For the small one, I cut the front off a favorite tee I ruined with a snag. And for the petal pillow, I followed this tutorial from Cluck. Cluck. Sew.

Don’t answer that. (Besides, now recycling is cool.)

Well, that same sense of pride still wells up when I find uses for would-be tossers. Like jars! Sara Vahle got me started with her recycled jar centerpiece. Since then I pretty much save every jam, salsa, and spaghetti sauce jar I empty, figuring I’ll find some use for them.

Jars have taken on a new level of excitement now that we have zero containers (only packed clothes and electronics for our move to Prague). So I’m pretty happy with my two little salsa jars

that make my earrings easy to see, grab, and put back,

(which beats the gift box I stuffed them into for packing… even though it IS a Tiffany’s box… that came with a free key chain from the grand opening I covered as a reporter… because I’m not actually a Tiffany’s kind of girl… though I do love their signature turquoise…),

and that keep my wine bottle stoppers from rolling around in the classy/handy cardboard box I repurposed from some Ikea purchase,

and a garbanzo bean jar that makes my art supply shelf look charming enough to belong to Van Gogh, or someone. (Nevermind that my art supply shelf has one box of tiny acrylics, one jar of paintbrushes, and a few tiny canvases (not shown).)

Exhale. There.

Any other ideas on how to use empty jars?

After

Over 36 years ago I bought a wicker clothes hamper right after we got married. It started out being a salmon pink. I’m not a pink person so I painted it yellow and covered the lid with a piece of oil cloth. Oil cloth is a plastic coated material…like the plastic table cloths your grandma (or great-grandma) used to have. Get the picture?

Before

A few years passed and I got over my yellow craze and went with neutral: cream fabric on the lid and cream paint.

While the kids were growing up the hamper was a favorite hiding place when playing hide and go seek on rainy or cold winter days. It’s hard to believe any one of them were small enough to get into it!

A few years ago I looked around for a new hamper but quickly realized they don’t make them 1) sturdy enough or 2) big enough for a week of laundry, so I’ve kept my old relic.

I often put my foot on it while applying lotion to my legs, and the cats sometimes sit on it so they can visit with me while I’m brushing my teeth or applying make-up.

It needed a new look so I went looking for fabric that would hide dirt and the random cat hair, found a multi colored piece. The new color of paint is called “Caramel Latte,” Krylon’s spray line of brushed metallic spray paint. (You may have noticed in previous posts I am becoming the queen of spray painting stuff.)

I still love my old hamper!

{Note from Amy: I never appreciated this hamper till this very moment. Mom, when you’re done with it, can I have it? And I’m just sure I could still fit in it.;) }

I read an article a while ago about a woman who was organizing her closet, and got rid of 2/3rds of her clothes. She only kept what she loved. In moving, we sort of did the same thing. We only brought the clothes we could fit in our 200 pound baggage limit, which amounted to just our favorites.

Good thing, too, because our new closet isn’t the spacious expanse our closet at home is.

But! It’s my new favorite thing!

The closet is in the hallway right off the front door. Ees stylish, no? However, upon opening the doors, my immediate reaction was, “That’s all the hanging space??”

But then I started unpacking our clothes, and realized I can fold and stack most things.

There’s even plenty of room for our fall and winter, on the very top shelves, and in the side cabinets with cool push-doors.

And these collapsible Ikea boxes are awesome. They’ve become impromptu drawers for underwear, belts, socks, etc.

And last but not least, I’m loving the full-length mirror on the inside of the door. So smart! Right where you need it, right when you need it.

Next up on the “My New Favorite Thing” list: open shelving!