It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful
This is where I write and try to stay somewhat organized. That table is rarely clean like that.
It looks like this right now but, not for long, I’m trying a new organizing system for my precious scraps of paper and ripped out magazine pages.
Part of my problem is that I’m not using this dresser to its fullest potential. Most of the drawers are empty right now.
Today I’m joining in the fun with Centsational Girl and her Where Do You Blog Party. Come link up too!
More about the office:
Have you discovered the CSI project yet? Three talented bloggers thought it would be a fun idea to create a challenge every week and then have people link up with their entry and then, a guest judge picks their favorite and top 10, and the top winner gets a prize. This week the category is Roadkill Rescue–a project created for your home with something you got for free. You can read all the rules here. And, The Nester is the guest judge. After looking through half the entries, I’ve already subscribed to about 10 more blogs. The contest is open until Thursday, so you can still enter.
I really love my computer. We are a mac family and I love how easy everything is to figure out. But. We have this…thing that pops up when you take your um..thing? {cursor? mouse? arrow?} down into the bottom corner. I never use it, I never pay attention to it. But every now and then I accidentally add something to that page? {I’m sure there are fancy terms to everything I’m trying to explain, this is why I don’t write about dumputers}. One day, I was reading something online and accidentally added that picture of that baby to that mystery page. So now, every time I mistakenly go too close to the corner, this sweet child pops up and I have no idea who’s baby it is. It’s been there a long time. Maybe a year. If it’s your baby, it’s precious. I look at it every day.
In other news, we need to announce some winners.
First of all, the TJ Maxx $25 gift card winners. {insert dramatic yet not annoying drumroll}
How funny is Su’s comment? “Gotta happen someday” and it did. Oh and Kate, I’ve actually met Kate she’s amazing. I promise I didn’t rig the contest. I mean, give me some credit, if I rigged it, I would have made up a fake name, entered it and picked myself 4 times. If you won, email me: nestergirl {at} gmail {dot} com with your address so I can come visit. I kid. So you can get your card.
Also, did you see where I announced the winners of the Reluctant Entertainer books? A few of the winners still haven’t contacted me.
Next stop the HGTV twitter party was extremely fun. I mean, I did pit out my shirt 15 minutes in because of my profuse sweating but I think I’ll continue to watch Design Star and tweet at the same time. It’s kind of like watching it with 369 of your closest friends who are all funny and think like you. HGTV is giving a prize pack away to one of the tweeters and I said I’d pick my favorite tweet.
Unfortunately many of my favorite tweets cam from my sister, probably because we have the same issues, I mean humor.
I can’t let her win because she is kin.
Luckily many others of you made me laugh out loud. Here’s the winner :: Amanda//@SerenityNowGirl
And just for fun…
It’s not too late to enter to win a book or canvas from Jeanne Winters and DaySpring!
It’s about time HGTV smartened up and figured out that the people who hang out at Nesting Place are the smartest, designyest, funniest, brilliantest, wittiest, most beautiful people on God’s green earth. And we are, aren’t we what with our hot glued mistreated fabrics, our Goodwill coffee tables and our embracing of all things imperfect?
Anyway, they like us so much, that they’ve invited us to join them this Sunday for a party. Not only that, it’s the perfect kind of party for ordinary hermits like myself, you don’t even have to get dressed. You don’t even have to talk. At least not out loud.
HGTV has invited the Nesting Place community to this Sunday’s Design Star Twitter Party. You have been watching Design Star right? You do know who Nina and Dan and Tom and Michael are, right? If not, no worries, you can catch up on all the past episodes here or you can just watch it this Sunday and tweet along with us.
Heather Armstrong, from Dooce, and I will be hosting the party. Lucky for me that role doesn’t entail standing at the door making small talk. I’m really bad at that. Plus, I would probably be staring at Heather’s hair the whole time wishing mine were short and sassy and blonde. So instead, let’s all meet on twitter Sunday night at 9:55 EST. We’ll watch Design Star and we’ll all put the hashtag designstar {#designstar} in our tweets so we can find each other. And because I am helpless and cannot do anything without my bloggy BFF I’ve already made Melissa promise she’ll hang out with us too.
Here’s one of my favorite tweets from Heather from the twitter party a few weeks ago…see the #designstar? that makes her part of the party. Simple.
So, on your tweet deck or wherever you do twitter, search for #designstar to follow along in the conversation, and please, PLEASE will you consider joining in? I really want my friends at the party with me. Plus HGTV is giving away a prize pack to one lucky tweeter who tweets during the show. I’ll pick the tweet and tweeter using my very sophisticated method. Best tweet gets a prize.
Here are some of the people you might want to follow on twitter but it’s purely optional:
Judges:
Vern : help, I thought I had found him?
Candice: too much sense to use twitter
Contestants on twitter some are already gone::
Tera {she was my favorite but, she’s already been booted}
Now that I”ve done all that, it would probably be easier for you to just go directly to the HGTV list for Design Stars and follow people from there.
Also, I have been really horrible about following people back on twitter who follow me. About a year ago my email inbox was so deep that I had all my twitter emails auto filed so I wouldn’t have to open them each time they came in my inbox. My goal was to go through them every other day or so and follow people back. However, mostly I just forgot to ever check it. If you would like me to follow you, would you send me a tweet on twitter? Just include @thenester in your tweet and I will follow you post haste, I really want to follow you.
Seriously, you want to follow me because the information I share on twitter is no less than riveting, life changing, Nobel Peace Prize worthy. As you can see I have a unique perspective and genius that cannot be equalled. “I would use old fashioned soap and water” write that down people, it’s gold. And believe you me, there’s a lot more where that came from.
More questions?
So You Want to Join a Twitter Party
What in the world is Twitter and how do I Get an Account? Here’s a video.
PS, I still think my youngest looks like the first Design Star winner David Bromstead {@bromco : thanks HGTV Jen, try not to blush when you see his avatar photo}
Let us know in the comment section if you plan on joining and, to make it even more fun, make sure to include your twitter name so others can follow you–feel free to leave a link. {ps, if you leave more than one link in your comment my blog will automatically think you are spam}
Recently, I changed up our family room. I did it super thrifty, just adding paint, moving furniture, slipcovering my sofa {with the help of 12 friends}, added striped window mistreatments {just fabric from Mary Jo’s} to my windows, using a few yard sale pieces and changing the lighting.
These lamps turned out to be the statement pieces of the whole room. They demand attention when you walk in. They were a splurge for me at $80 a piece. Luckily, one was a little damaged so I got a discount. Then, I read what Janell found at Overstock and realized that those were my lamps with different shades for $125–I got a great deal!
I have another pair of shapely lamps in our front room. Again, they steal the show. Since that room is full of yard sale, and thrift finds, it would be easy for it to lean too country or too rustic or too thrown together. A pair of slightly modern lamps with drum shades really helps to balance out the room.
Almost impossible to get a photo with both lamps in it but, still, having a touch of ceramic up to date loveliness helps keep this room looking current. Getting new lamps is much less expensive than replacing a rug or a sofa.
Next to our sofa, I needed a shorter lamp. All the lamps I had were too tall and when you sat at the sofa, you could look up straight into a blinding light bulb. I hate that. I like this lamp because it adds a pop of a different shade of blue, it’s short and squatty, it’s base is substantial and looks like pottery and, the drum shade helps to balance out my more country pieces and can so easily be recovered if I ever get tired of it.
I’ve got a pair of bird lamps in my office. Again, I think they are the first thing you look at when you walk in. Show stealer attention hogs. Something as simple as a pair of lamps can really add personality and fun into a room. These lamps started out in my boys rooms, then went in the family room and finally found their rightful throne in the Nesting Place office. Why’d it take me so long to realize that bird lamps needed to be in my office?
I found this big huge lantern and stuffed it with some oversized plastic lights. Lighting doesn’t just have to be practical, it can be fun and pretty too.
A pair of turquoise lamps found a home in the guest room. I love to have a lamp next to the bed. The better to read with my dear.
This lamp I found at the thrift store lets me add what ever kind of personality I want. I could fill the base with legos or wrenches or even set a plant under that glass.
Just about every room can benefit from the warm light, added character and style that a lamp brings. And lamps are such an inexpensive way to instantly change, update, add personality to a room. You can replace a shade, paint the base, or recover the shade, all quick ways to update the item that can quickly update or change the feel of your space.
The power of lamps is too often overlooked.
More of my lampy ramblings::
Using Lamps in Your Home::A Must {oh how it pains me that the comments all disappeared from this post when the blog moved–it was so fun to read how many lamps you all had–I think a few of you had close to 40!}
***
check out the winners of the Reluctant Entertainer Giveaway
If you suddenly find yourself motivated to paint your hutch and dining room table and 5907 billion chairs
do not, I repeat DO NOT do anything but follow that motivation.
Don’t ever squander the precious gift of motivation, come Home Goods or high water, I’m painting today, I have no idea how long this motivation will stay with me so I need to use it all up while I can.
See you soon.
125x125-30days.gif)
