I know this is a DIY/decorating blog, and y’all know I never get tired of talking about fabric and paint swatches, but sometimes a gal just needs a little mid week girl talk.

Today, I feel like talking about summer skin essentials.  Even though around these parts, we talk plenty of decorating and home improvement, I often digress.  Today’s topic happens to be favorite skin care products for protection, coverage, and subtle glow.   Ooooh, cosmetics, I can hear you giggling !!

Let’s pretend we’re all out to lunch together drinking iced tea, gabbing about our favorite things, loving each other’s shoes, and giving each other the down low on beauty products.  Glad you could join us girlfriend ! 

There’s an ongoing debate about the sun’s rays, its dangers and benefits (Vitamin D), but the overwhelming consensus is we are all supposed to avoid extended sun exposure. 

For face every morning, I use La Roche Posay’s Anthelios SPF 60 Ultra Light Sunscreen Fluid and I buy it at my local CVS Pharmacy.   It’s very thin, fragrance free, and has matte finish, and that just makes me happy.

In the afternoons, or when I’m outside, I use Colorscience Sunforgettable mineral sun protection and I love it.  It’s pricey at $50 a tube, but worth it since it avoids the often greasy feeling of lotion sunscreens, and for me, lasts all summer. 

It has titanium dioxide and zinc oxide to intercept ultraviolet rays ~ I carry it around in my purse and dust it on throughout the day.  Definitely a fav. 

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I had every hope of finishing up all the final touches in my master bedroom over the weekend, but as fate would have it, nada was accomplished.  Instead, I took some leisure time, and I’m so glad we got out and enjoyed ourselves.   

Instead of finishing the space, we went out wine tasting in Sonoma and had the best time ever.  The weather was perfect, the kids were angels, the wine was cold, the cheese was stinky, and the evening ended so well, I crashed on the couch with the kids, all of us completely wiped.  It was heaven. 

But our bedroom remains a complete disaster zone, with laundry and ladders and paint cans and tarps everywhere.   I had a crazy idea to repaint the entire room last week in ‘Nantucket Gray’ by Benjamin Moore.  It’s the perfect shade of medium gray with a hint of olive.  My poor husband has been so patient with me while I try to give this room a facelift. 

One of the upgrades I was eyeballing were these lamps at Z Gallerie, they’re delicious. 

But then I found a pair of lamps for 1/3 the price at Marshalls ~ loved the shape, but of course I wanted them white ! 

I got this idea from Janell to spray paint some curvy lamps a glossy white, and I absolutely love the final result ! 

$40 lamp from Marshalls:

Love !

I spray painted with Rustoleum’s ‘Gloss White’ (heart!), and removed the brownish band from the shade.   Then I hand painted the champagne stripe at the base to make it pop off the dresser. 

So modern !  So purty ! 

Did you happen catch the sneaky peek at the hand painted wall treatment ?  If you follow my tweets, you’d have seen my inspiration link for it last week !  The bedroom should come together very soon, fingers crossed.

Today I’m off to Restoration Hardware ~ ordinarily I don’t shop there because they’re a little pricey, but I’m holding in my paint covered hands a gift card and their linens are on sale !  Aw, yeah.  Gotta love how my hub redeemed some miles from his business Am Ex to bring me a RH gift card.

He must have been listening when I kept saying how much I love their Belgian Washed Linen Quilt and Shams, and how I kept repeating after ten years, how much we really deserve something nice for our bedroom. 

Or maybe it was the page from the catalog that I taped to his side of the mirror.

I’m just subtle like that. 

I’m torn between Fog, White, and Orchid.  Decisions, decisions !  

What have you spray painted lately ? 

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Greetings friends, there’s a great interview with me over at Style at Home where I answer 20 questions they ask a series of decorators and designers. 

Want to know which designer I’d love to shadow for a day ?   What I’d buy if money were no object ?  My favorite Hepburn ? 

Have a look, right here !

Thanks so much Lauren. 

Greetings all, happy Friday, I have a great giveaway for you this weekend.  My dear friend Cathe from the very popular blog Just Something I Made just happens to be a most talented graphic artist and collector of vintage monograms.   She combines her professional graphic artistry skills with her collection of vintage images to create these very stylish one-of-a-kind custom monograms for a multitude of uses. 

Take a peek at this sample of her work, aren’t they completely wonderful ? 

There’s so many ways they can be used  ~  you can create something unique and truly you with your own custom monograms:

Imagine the creative possibilities ~  I love the idea of framing different styles in a wall gallery, or creating personalized stationery.  What a wonderful wedding gift these would make !

Cathe will create for you a set of custom monograms with your chosen two initials, a $125 value.  You will receive a high resolution PDF file with at least six different styles with your chosen letters.  There will be two winners of this giveaway !

If you have any questions about how these monograms are created, how they can be used, or what colors are available, please visit this FAQ page.   You can view even more examples in this Etsy shop.

Eligibility to win one of two sets of custom vintage monograms: 

1)  Simply leave a comment describing what you would do with your own set of custom monograms.   

2) For a second chance to win, either link to this giveaway on Facebook, or tweet this giveaway on Twitter (and leave a second comment telling where you linked, FB or Twitter)

3) For a third chance to win, visit Cathe at Just Something I Made and become a follower, or sign up to follow Cathe on Twitter.  Leave an additional comment telling where you are following.

Giveaway ends Monday July 19th at 8 p.m. PST.  Two winners chosen by Random.org.

GOOD LUCK ! 

Wishing you a fabulous weekend.  We’re going to try to hop over to Napa for some wine tasting, can’t wait !

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I’ve been blogging for well over a year now, and in my quest to keep my toe in the know, I stumbled across ProBlogger a few months ago.  I like to read ProBlogger’s daily tips because I am trying to learn everything that I might want to think about maybe, perhaps, considering or actually doing someday with this blog when I either discover how to clone myself or give up sleep entirely.  I subscribe to ProBlogger to absorb helpful bloggy stuff to incorporate here and there.  Today is the Seven Links Challenge, where I am playing along by listing seven links in these categories:

1. Your first post
2. A post you enjoyed writing the most
3. A post which had great discussion
4. A post on someone else’s blog you wish you’d written
5. Your most helpful post
6. A post with a title you are proud of
7. A post you wish more people had read

OK, today I’ll bite.

Here are my Seven Links:

#1)  My Very First Post.  First let it be heard all across the land that I’ve almost deleted my first post many times, but something in the back of my mind keeps saying, “Aw, how cute” every time I read it.   I confess that my very first post was about . . . . . chocolate shoes.  

I remember sitting there at my computer, stumped about what to write about (in hindsight, why???) and going to Google images and typing in the word ‘chocolate’. 

Somewhere between the third and tenth page, this image (pictured right) came up. 

So I wrote about it.  Right here.  My favorite thing about that first post is the one and only comment from across the sea.

Now that you’ve read my very first post, we shall speak of this no more.

It’s unlikely I will ever write about chocolate shoes again.  Although *confession* they are fabulous.   

#2  The Post I Enjoyed Writing the Most.    This is really challenging question to answer.  This online journal of my adventures allows me to connect with people across the globe that I’d never ever meet in my lifetime.  It’s really extraordinary.   I enjoy writing just about all of my posts, although some days I am sillier than others, like this one about fuzzy pillows. 

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