Handi-Indiana

A few weekends back, husband wanted to watch the World Cup with some friends.  I didn't mind, as in the winter he has a group of guys he gathers with on Saturday mornings to watch Premire League soccer (I think that's right, honey, let me know if I totally botched that) at a local soccer pub, the Chatham Tap, not too far from the house.  However, I didn't feel like hanging with the guys to watch soccer.  Earlier that morning we had gone to our local record shop to poke around and I saw a poster for the INDIEana Handicraft Exchange at the Harrison Center for the Arts in Downtown Indy.

As I have already mentioned here at Pretty as the Morning, I love me some arts festivals.  Its the food, the music, the atomosphere and the chance to see new stuff--it just does something to clear my head and get my creativity going.  Plus there are always cool people to meet.  I had never been to a INDIEana event (I heard from a friend they do several around the metro) so I headed over the the Handicraft Exchange to poke around for a bit.

And let me tell you it was TOTALLY worth it!   The sellers there were AMAZING!  So many great letterpress art work, handmade bags and jewelry!  It was amazing--I texted my soccer watching hubs that I had died and gone to Etsy heaven! I found this great necklace I want to post about later from Pear and Peacock.  Super cool!  Plus the people watching was prime (per usual with these events).  The main exhibit hall inside the Harrison Center was pretty crowded.  Ok, it was packed shoulder to shoulder, so I would hope that next year they space it out a better for all the foot traffic so you can actually stop to look at things with out feeling smooshed. 

But on the whole it was a great way to spend a Saturday morning not watching soccer!

Lonestar State of Pie

This post is long over due, but I finally uploaded some pics so I thought I would finish it up and get it posted!

So, at the church pie auction a few months back I saw a pie where instead of laying the crust across the top and slitting holes or doing a lattice, they cut dozens of little stars out with a cookie cutter and scattered them across the top of the pie to form the top crust. Brilliant. My mom has a whole collection of tiny cookie cutters she uses for just such occasion but since she lives so far away in the south, I couldn't just hop over and see what she had, so I got to digging through my stash. It was a really hard decision on which one to try but since there's no such thing as Christmas in May (yet) I decided to go with a Texas shaped cookie cutter to make the hubs a Texas apple pie. Here is the results, not too bad if I do say so:

Sorry for the crappy iPhone pic...I am just lucky to snap a pic sometimes!

originally uploaded by Pretty as the Morning

(images originally uploaded by Pretty As The Morning)

Just reminiscing over our flowers from last year (at the rent house) and looking forward to this year.  Pictures coming soon, of the new landscaping, mulching, etc, I promise!

Weekend Warriors

This weekend our family seriously stepped it up to get some major projects around the house tackled.  I am super bummed I didn't take any pictures of our efforts, but maybe if I have time I will snap some afters. 

As you already know, our bathroom has been in a bit of transition.  Obviously its all functioning, but I really struggled to find the right paint color, then I realized the contractors dinged up ALL of our trim work, so I stripped it all down to bare wood, filled the dings, and sanded it.  This has taken FOREVER, or at least it seems that way.  But this weekend I finally finished the final coat of paint on all the trim work and hung the new curtain I picked out!  Now all I have left to do is to take the extra curtain panel and applique it to the shower curtain (will post the final product and DIY instructions later) and order my piece of art work for in there and it is done!  Whew!

In addition to finishing painting the trim in the bathroom, we also painted the trim in the dining room a second coat.  So tonight I am going to rehang the curtains and then this room will be done too!!!

But we are not done yet!  On Saturday, we ordered 1 1/2 cubic yards of mulch and weeded and mulched all 7 of our beds in the front and back yards.  As soon as T left the garden center our friend's borrowed truck piled high, it began to rain.  Needless to say we were covered head to toe in dirt and mud by the end of the day. Hubs was a trooper and I am so thankful for his help.  The house is really coming along and I will post some pictures soon!

I told T, that if we could mulch the whole yard in one rainy Saturday we could do anything including tackle cleaning out the basement!  We'll see about that...

World, Meet Our Pup. Pup, Meet the World

This is Ranger our pup.  He is unfortunately, hardly a pup anymore, as we adoped him a little over four years ago.  He has been a wonderful companion, complete challenge and totally entertaining.  He looks a little like Dobby the House Elf from Harry Potter, but we love him just the same!

Ranger loves laying in his bed under his blanket (seen in the second picture bottom right corner) with one eye peeping out in case we were to drop some food, long walks around our historic neighborhood, making sure every dog he meets knows he is the boss, agility and obediance training and being on a first name basis with Ben Fold and Allison Krauss....seriously.  Ben stopped hubs one day on the street and said, "Aren't you Ranger's owner?  I'm sorry man, I forgot your name."  When we told the story to Ranger his ego swelled so large he walked around looking like a German Sheppard for days...sheesh!

Anyhow, you have seen the inside of our bathroom, so I figured it was time to meet our pup!