Help! I'm painting all my furniture black!

Ok, seriously, I'm painting everything black, and I can't stop… do I have a problem? My husband is thrilled, because he's been trying to get black into our home for years, much to my opposition. That was before I discovered Miss Mustard Seed's "typewriter" black. Yes, milk paint black. The perfect answer to the "farmhouse industrial" look I'm all about right now. I love it, and everything is being attacked with it. 

Let's recap:

First, these two dressers got covered in "typewriter": 

The Wizard of Oz dresser and the Refurbished Antique dresser

And I love them.

And we can't forget about the Black Wicker Chair!

Well, before we talk any more about black, we need to talk about blue. When I moved home from college, I "redecorated" my room from high school, had my dad build me this desk, and my mom picked up this little table for me at a garage sale. I painted it all a deep blue. (They're actually the same color, like the desk on the right but the lighting was weird). 

 Well, they were being sacrificed to my world of black "typewriter." But not without depth...

I gave them a quick white wash with "shiloh" first.

Then I went over it with Miss Mustard Seed's Luckett's Green. I told you, I wanted depth.

Excessive much? We can't just go straight black, we need layers, people!

And finally they ended up black, with a coat of hemp oil. Can't see the "layers" on the desk, but you can on the little table. 

I don't have a great picture of the little table, but here it is in my bedroom:

 After a few weeks, I felt like the desk needed to be more durable, so I cleared it off and gave  it a coat of Miss Mustard Seed's furniture wax. Perfection.

I feel super organized at my desk now. :) 

(I actually had another desk I was using, but my sewing stuff took over… see that post here.)

(the white cloth was on the desk for a bit because the hemp oil wasn't quite soaked in yet, and I REALLY wanted to bring it in the house, haha) 

So here's the recap of black furniture in my house:

My other furniture better run and hide!

Aloha, Rebecca

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Playing On My Pod

I told you before in my Gungor post (click here), as a dance teacher & choreographer, I spend HOURS on Spotify and iTunes scoping out music for work. My iPod is used on a daily basis, solely for work purposes. So if I'm going to listen to it for hours on end, it better have some good stuff on it! So why not share the wealth with you all? Here's my top song pics people. Enjoy!

Holding On For Life, by Broken Bells
Give Me Love, by Ed Sheeran
A Life That's Good, by Lennon & Maisy (The Music of Nashville, Original Soundtrack)
He's A A A Able, by The Nevels Sisters, PK & Lecrae 
Place For Us, by Mikky Ekko

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Kitchen Sink Green Smoothie

I drink smoothies year-round. It's a perk of living in Hawaii. I wrote a really yummy, well-calculated post about a Raspberry Oatmeal Smoothie that has be pinned hundreds of times on Pinterest. Well, this smoothie recipe is a little different… it's my Kitchen Sink Smoothie. Basically, if we've got it, it's going in the blender. Except for bananas, I'm allergic.

Here's what we normally have, that I use in this smoothie:

-Almond Milk

-Some kind of juice

-Ice

-Peanut Butter

-Honey (mine comes from the Big Island)

-Frozen Raspberries and Pineapple

-Ivy's leftover Strawberries and apple pieces that she doesn't finish

-Stevia (don't overuse!)

-Frozen Basil from my friend's garden (Thanks Bethany!)

-Green Super Food powder in Orange Dreamsicle flavor

-And a couple chocolate chips… for my own sanity

No measurements, just eyeball 'em. What do you put in your smoothies? Do you calculate it carefully, or just toss it all in? 

Happy Saturday! Aloha, Rebecca

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Sew, I Made A Shirt

I made this shirt/tunic/whatever you want to call it, in about an hour. No joke. Serves me well, because I've been thinking about making this shirt for about 3 years, ever since I found this glorious vintage fabric at a garage sale. It's a thick woven cotton floral, reminiscent of some upholstered chair from the 1970s. I love it. 

I never use patterns. And it's either me or Ivy wearing the clothes I make, so I'm not trying to go for perfection, here. I started cutting out the pieces of this shirt at about 1:00am one night. I knew I couldn't sew it that late, because I'd wake up the whole house. (pardon the cheesy modeling photos taken by my husband in front of our red door)

The next morning Ivy had a birthday party to go to, and I really wanted to wear my new shirt! So I sewed the pieces all together in about 20 minutes. No joke. That's how motivated I was to make and wear this thing!

I wish I had time to re-do the back elastic gathering (see that tuck on the left?) 

I also would have preferred to use different straps, even though I LOVE the color of them. It's just ribbon!

And, the best thing happened while wearing this shirt, I got to meet this little cutie for the first time. :)

Good things happen in good shirts!

Aloha, Rebecca

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Vintage Doily Bunting - My New Love

Let me introduce you to my new love:

Don't you just want to dive into this crocheted pile of goodness?

Earlier this year I realized I had some doilies in my possession, and had an idea. Since I LOVE bunting, why not go the route of doily bunting? I've seen the doily curtains and shirts and such, and am just not that into them, but bunting? YES!!!!

Some people saw the above photo and wrote me hate letters. 

"How could you cut those piece of history in half?!" they cried.

Easy. Like all old things, they eventually need new life.

My first Doily Bunting came to me out of the blue. I was going to a going away party for my friend, Katira and it just seemed like the right gift! A means of "taking something old to a new place."

I was hooked. A few days later I pumped out another Doily Bunting, listed it on Etsy and Instagram, and it sold within 30 minutes!

My mother-in-law saw the beauty in this new art form (if I may call it that) and sent me some doily heirlooms from my husband's family tree! These babies go back in time!

They transpired into this:

Glorious. It was so fun to preserve the heirloom doilies and send it back to my MIL for her to display in a new way. :)

But now I was just about out of doilies. I put an ad on Craigslist for any unwanted doilies. I got 80, yes EIGHTY, of THE MOST GORGEOUS DOILIES from a lady nearby.

Many from this new batch were matching, so I was able to do more of a pattern with this next Bunting. 

Ivy and I went to the Post Office after hours to get this shot. It's actually really hard to photograph any type of bunting strung out to it's entire length. Any tips?

 This one is still for sale in my Etsy Shop. Click here to view the listing.

I've got quite the inventory of regular fabric bunting, so I'll probably be focusing on my new love for a while: Vintage Doily Bunting.

Aloha,

Rebecca

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Will you have me back?

Dear www.ivy-and-co.com,

I'm sorry I've neglected you. I have good reasons, I promise, and I'm going to tell you all about them over the next few days! It's gonna be exciting. The truth is, I've been on Facebook and Instagram like my life's depending on it and I'm trying to figure out that dang Google+ and Twitter.

Sometimes I feel like the only reason I joined twitter was to keep up with @jimmyfallon #JimmyFallon #TonightShowWithJimmyFallon
— Rebecca Owen (@IvyandCompany) February 28, 2014

In the meantime, I know you'd like a little love from me (aside from my Friday 4's, where I feature my Instagram favorites. You know me, I love to help promote other artists and bloggers!) 

So let's catch up! One day, these two things happened:

At Home

At Work:

It's funny how my home life and work life sometimes look so similar.

Speaking of work, my co-worker (ok, she's basically one of my best friends) asked me to "fix" this tear in her Billabong shorts. #Lacelove (I don't think I've ever used a hashtag on my blog before. I told you I've been trying to figure out Twitter!)

We sold our couch a while back, and I told Kit that we would not be getting a new one. Our living room would include a recliner, and my sewing center. After a little rearranging, my corner now looks like this:

Yes, that grey entertainment center used to be under our TV and was home to DVD's and speakers. But now it is full of sewing goodness. 

That shelf up above was in our bedroom, but I also cleared out our bedroom and streamlined the furniture in there (see the Wizard of Oz dresser here, and the Refurbished Antique dresser here), so it was relocated. I love it as it houses some of my branding items (tags, stamp, business cards, etc). 

And I love this photo of Ivy and I from Ajja Photography, so I put it up on the shelf, too. 

At first my computer was in the sewing area too, but I could only handle that so long until the sewing took over. So I created this little nook next to the Card Catalog. I love everything about it: the cane chair, my Mac, the coffee, my Rifle Paper Company weekly calendar, a permanent home for my external hard drive, a reliable stash of pens! I'll go more into detail about the black desk in another post, but I love that too. (Notice how suddenly all my furniture is going black?!)

So now, dear www.ivy-and-co.com, this is home to where I will write to you. It's focused, it's clear, and I'm ready to return to you. Will you take me back?

With love,

Rebecca

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