Blog has moved

Hello,
I am moving my blog here http://tangerinehome.blogspot.com/ I will be posting updates of my etsy handmade home décor business and our home renovation projects there for now on. Soon to come will be our laundry room makeover so follow me there now.

Grey Stag Tea Towel now available

My grey stag deer tea towel is now available at my new etsy shop TangerineHome This handmade tea towel is screenprinted by me onto a grey 100% linen using water based non-toxic white ink. Linen is a natural material made from the fibers of the flax plant. It is very absorbent and gets softer and softer with each washing, perfect for drying hands or the dishes!

Tea towel features a 100% cotton twill loop on the backside for easy hanging. It is pre-washed and pre-shrunk.

I will have more colors coming soon!

Our house on Rearranged Design!

Our little house is featured on Rearranged Design today, check it out! Thanks Ana!

Sneak Peek

So as I've mentioned before I've been hard at work on a new collection for my etsy shop and I'm going to be moving everything plus my new collection to my new shop TangerineHome Currently I'm working on a series of 100% linen tea/hand towels which are screenprinted with a water based non-toxic ink. I'm super excited about these! The linen is soft, mostly environmentally friendly since linen is made from the flax plant and is super absorbent! Here is a sneak peek of one of those new tea towels!

Like Tangerine on Facebook and be one of the first to know when this towel along with several other new items will be available in my new Etsy shop! There will soon be a new blog as well.

Coming soon...

New name, new etsy shop and many new handmade, eco-friendly home décor items. More information coming soon!

Big Changes Coming!

I've been hard at work on new designs for my Etsy shop! I've also decided that with these new designs is going to come a whole new name, look, website and shop! I want the new branding to represent my modern approach to home décor. So in a few weeks I will be unveiling my new name and website, I'm pretty excited about it! I will be introducing environmentally friendly items into my shop, using organic materials and water based eco friendly inks, all handmade in my San Diego, CA studio. I can't wait to share it all with you! Stay tuned!

Light Fixtures

The past couple of weeks we have been working on renovating our laundry room. Currently there is just a bare bulb for a ceiling light so I've been in search of a stylish period style light fixture that will look appropriate in our 1940 cottage. After a little searching around on the trusty internet I came across this fantastic website, Schoolhouse Electric! Not only is their website super cute, clean and easy to use, it's filled with some pretty great light fixtures! I have my eye on several of them because we need new light fixtures in just about every room as well as some new outdoor light fixtures. Here are just a few of my favorites:

For our laundry room and hallway I really like some of these classic styles:

 

Two of these would be really cute on the wall in our restroom, one on each side of the vanity mirror:

Here are a few others I really love:

 

How cool is this one below?

 

 

They also have a great selection of light bulbs including the classic Edison bulbs which have recently been gaining popularity once again.

Their website is filled with so many cute light fixtures that would work great in just about any period style home, barnyard style or even modern home! I think I will definetely be purchasing a few light fixtures from them but with so many great options the hard part is choosing which ones!

New exciting things coming!

So it's be awhile since my last post but it's not because I'm doing nothing it's actually quite the opposite! I'm in the process of getting all set up so I can start screenprinting and I have all sorts of new home accessory products coming to my Etsy shop! It's still going to be several  more weeks before this happens but I'm very excited about it!

We have also been working on our laundry room makeover which I hope to have completed in the next couple of weeks so there will be photos up soon! It's about 75% complete, we just have some cabinets to paint, need to find a new light fixture and a few other things before it's completed. Since I don't want to post without a photo here is a photo of my red tubes pillow cover.

Driveway Landscape Project

After many delays we have finally finished our driveway landscape project! Our driveway is very long and narrow. There is a narrow planting area that runs the length of our driveway and is the dividing line between our property and our neighbors. When we first purchased the house this area looked like this:

 

 There were hedges running the length of our driveway. This photo was after we did a major trimming job on them, they were so overgrown and a huge mess. The white building behind them is our neighbors garage. The hedges were a great privacy barrier but they grew into the driveway, were always dropping piles of leaves in the driveway making a huge mess everyday and when the car was in the driveway you couldn't get into the passenger side because the hedges prevented you from opening the door. Also the way the bricks had been placed allowed weeds to constantly grow in between them and it was really difficult to pull them out. It just looked like a big mess all the time. So we decided to hire someone to come remove the hedges.

After the hedges were removed this area was even more sad looking for awhile. We pulled up all the bricks with plans to reuse them.

We decide to reuse the bricks by creating a border on the edge of driveway which would widen it just enough that when passengers got out of the car it would be wide enough that they would no longer be stepping into the dirt. First we had to make a large trench by removing a lot of dirt and tamping it all down. We added this edging to prevent the bricks from moving around.

Next we laid down a weed barrier and then we added a gravel base on top and tamped that all down.

After the gravel base was laid down we poured a layer of sand on top and tamped that down. Next we started laying down the bricks and used a mallet to set them into the sand.

Once the bricks were laid we swept sand into the cracks which keeps the bricks from moving around. It's really solid, those bricks aren't going anywhere!

This is the final outcome. It was just the perfect amount of width we needed!

 We continued this process all the way up to the garage. We are really happy with the result! I love the added detail of the brick edging.

Next was the fun part, planting! This area gets a lot of sun and it was really important to us that it didn't require a lot of watering. First we needed to address the privacy issue that removing the hedges caused.

When we removed the hedges it uncovered our neighbors garage window which looks almost right into our dining room window. We wanted to screen this window. First our neighbors painted their garage to match the rest of their house since  they were never able to do that when the hedges were there. Once they completed the painting we constructed this wire trellis and planted White Star Jasmine which will grow along the wires and eventually cover the entire side of their garage including the window. We can't wait for it to start blooming, White Star Jasmine has the most wonderful scent!

I choose to fill in the rest of the area with a combination of pony tail grass and succulents, filling in the remaining area with a pretty rock mulch which will help maintain moisture in the soil, block out weeds and won't break down like wood mulch.

 

The Ponytail grass is really pretty when the wind blows it.

To the right is our neighbors driveway. They decided to lay brick down too and I think it looks great! Where the post is they plan on building a little fence to cover up their trash cans. I haven't planted much right behind it yet because I'm going to wait for them to finish this fence so the plants don't get trampled. Once they complete that project I will add a few more of the grass and succulents, right now it looks a little disconnected,

Next we plan on doing the same brick work on the other side of the driveway along with similar plantings. It was hard work but the result was worth it! Plus no more stepping in mud in my heels when I get out of the car:)

Stag Deer Now in Burnt Orange!

My Stag Deer Pillow cover is now available in one of my favorite colors, burnt orange! Get it here

Little Bird Pillow in Inside Out Magazine!

I want to thank Inside Out magazine for featuring my Little Bird pillow in their March/April 2011 issue along with several other fantastic pillows! I just love everything about this photo!

 Get your Little Bird pillow at my etsy shop

Office Corner Organization

San Diego doesn't get much rain but these past two weeks have been filled with it so our landscape project we've been working on has been delayed (you can read a little about it here). I thought I would be done with that project by now and would be able to have the full reveal but it looks like it's going to be another week or two, weather permitting. When it comes to house projects everything seems to take longer than planned.

This past weekend I took advantage of the rainy weather and took care of some much needed cleaning and organizing in my office/art/sewing room. My Etsy shop has been getting more and more busy and my sewing area looked like a fabric bomb had exploded. So I took some time out to sort through all my fabric, separating it into solids, prints, felt and remnants stacks. I purchased some cute boxes from IKEA, one for each stack and placed the fabric in each box. Now I can find what I'm looking for quickly rather than constantly sorting through my growing stack of assorted fabrics!

Next I needed somewhere to put my newly organized fabrics as well as some books and other items that have been stacked up in the corner waiting for a home.

I had been putting this off because I wanted to search around for a interesting bookshelf but due to time and money constraints I decided it was time to hit up IKEA for a bookshelf. I found this modern looking white bookshelf, added some vintage finds and one of my collage art pieces to add a little character and voila, a well organized office corner!

 

Geometric Modern Pillow Cover

I found this great modern geometric fabric! I think it's a great color combination. I made a pillow cover out of it and it's now available at my Etsy shop! A great way to add some color and style to a chair, sofa or bed!

 

Driveway Landscaping Make-over Sneak Peek

The past several weekends we have been hard at work expanding our driveway by edging it with bricks and doing an entire landscaping make-over next to the driveway. It's already a huge transformation but it's going to be another week or two before the project is completed. In the meantime here is a sneak peek of what is being done! I'll go more into detail about the project in the big reveal!


A before photo. The bricks have been laid, I'll show the real before photo in the final reveal in a few weeks!

After

 

 We are trying to do a mostly water wise xeriscape garden. Here I used Ponytail grass and succulents.

Sam Maloof

A little less than 2 years ago my dad signed us both up for a class offered through UC Riverside called "A Day with Sam Maloof". It was a birthday present to me and what a great birthday present it was! For those who don't know, Sam Maloof is known as one of the finest woodworkers/furniture makers of our time and a leader of the California modern arts movement. If you have never seen his furniture you must check it out, it's really beautiful! So this class was to be taught by the master himself in his workshop which is located on the property of his home in Alta Loma, California. There are two homes on the property, the newer home where Sam's wife still lives and Sam's old home where he lived with his first wife. You can tour the old home and see Sam and his wife's art collection and a lot of his original furniture pieces, I wanted to take everything home with me! Sadly Sam had fallen ill and was unable to teach the class so one of his woodworking partners filled in. We were really disappointed that Sam wasn't going to teach the class but his partner did a really excellent job and we were happy we still attended! We got to tour the workshop and learn about many of the woodworking techniques Sam used, it was a fantastic experience! Sam and his wife were very kind and invited us all over to the house so we could still meet Sam and what a honer it was! Sadly Sam passed away just a few months later but he has left behind some truly beautiful art pieces. If you are ever in the area I highly encourage you to go tour his house. Here is a link to the Sam Mallof Foundation where you can get more info http://www.malooffoundation.org/

After the class was over we got to tour the grounds and the old house which houses many of Sam's furniture and art collection. I was so upset with myself because I forgot my camera. All I had was my cell phone and the camera on it is terrible. So I'm going to apologize now for the terrible, low quality images that are to follow but I wanted to share anyways.

A wooden gate on the property made by Sam Maloof.

 Sam and his wife were huge art collectors. There was beautiful pottery everywhere I looked!

A Sam Maloof chair, beautiful isn't it? Sorry for the terrible photo, this chair deserves better.

 More of Sam and his wife's art collection.

I'm so in love with this stain glass window!

 

 

 I'll take one of these please!

 

Amazing pottery collection

 Another wonderful cell phone photo, gotta love that poor quality. This is one of Sam Maloof's famous rocking chairs.

 Beautiful wood carved spiral staircase.

This is one of my favorite chairs.

The gardens on the property are really beautiful too, well worth taking the time to walk though. They appear to use mostly drought tolerant plants.

This made me swoon. I'm hoping to do something similar in our backyard one of these days. 

Wood carving that sits in the garden.