Antique Mania

We visited Cottonwood, Arizona recently on a quick stay in Sedona (thanks to a free stay Mom & Dad!). We came across Larry's Antiques in Old town Cottonwood. Maybe I am just getting introduced to the antique world, or maybe, just maybe .. I am right in that this was one of the biggest little antique stores around! Every corner you turned in the store opened up a whole new variety of antiques to relish and old commercial ditty's to reminisce about (okay, so I wasn't alive back then, but if I was I would be reminiscing about these ditty's). I've been in touristy antique shops, but this one seemed much more entertaining and eclectic to me with everything from pioneer type wagons to a deep orange vintage pitcher sitting on a tilt angle (loved this one!) to an old fashioned egg beater with a beautiful turquoise handle (that I bought for $2) to vintage advertisement signs and old stoves.

So I wanted to share one of my favorites with you here.

Milk Jugs. I can see any of these as a decor piece, inside or outside. I especially love the rusted one on the left & the vibrant blue jug near the right.

Just throw some lemon branches in the blue jug, and set it near your fireplace, on a display shelf, incorporated in your kitchen, next to your front door. The possibilities are endless! And I love the saturated blue. I can't stop visualizing it.

(Photo bucket Picture; unfortunately no lemon branch pictures to be copied, but isn't this pretty?)

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The next weekend after our Cottonwood/Sedona jaunt (I think the word jaunt is amusing for some reason), I attempted a flea market excursion to east Mesa to look for more antiques to share ideas with you, but there were no antiques. Just the worst kind of southwestern pastel art that I could personally do without (no offense to those who like it; it is good that we all have different taste right?), along with silk screened t-shirts & millions of gadgets to clutter your home. No antiques (as advertised). So I will be looking for other real antique markets soon. Because I keep seeing great finds on other design blogs. Does anyone want to venture out with me?

Here are a couple of our other finds.

I love this bright red & this very subtle silvery blue.
See all those antiques in the background? Stories to be told there I'm sure.

Can you just imagine your hair pinned up, your apron tied, in your antique kitchen? I know I like modern, but I could really get into antique accents. Actually, I just like a balance of both eclectically mixed together, yet simple & clean. What about you?

Winners! Winners!

Are you biting your nails? Are you pulling your hair out? Have you been able to think of nothing else but my Classy Closets Giveaway results today??

(see last Monday's post for reference)

Just as I thought.

Well, wait no more...

Taya couldn't decide on just two of you, so we fired her.

Just kidding, I didn't really peak- (that much). ;)

...

Deanna!!! Come on down!! (And please, don't be scared by my drunk looking expression, or my expression that looks like I'm laughing in someone's face - I promise. I'm not.) I can't wait to meet you!!
And Katie!!! Yay!! I am so excited for both of you!!
(And even I am a tiny bit jealous, seeing as how we haven't been able to buy Classy Closets for our own home in the 2.5 years that I've been designing there).

All of the rest of you that entered: thank you so much for entering, for your enthusiasm, & for spreading the word. Word of mouth can help me in my job so much right now. I would love to give any of you that entered a great big discount if you are wanting to do a project (closets, garages, pantries, laundry rooms, entertainment centers, offices, wall beds, craft rooms, you name it).

Congrats Deanna & Katie!!!

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And on another short, but good note! ...Do you remember how I mentioned that I was listed as 1 of 8 favorite blogs on a favorite blog of mine a week or two ago? You don't? Oh. - you were supposed to remember that. Anyway, that blog is 3 Bay B Chicks, and it is co-written by my lovely sister-in-law, Kacey, along with 2 of her good friends (Francesca & Thuy) who take turns writing posts; posts that are helpful to other moms, and posts that are down right hilarious. They all live in the San Francisco Bay Area (near where I grew up), hence the witty blog title - not to mention they all have good parenting ideas, creative toy & mommy finds, good recipes & hip tips to boot. My brother does an 'Ask a Dad' segment almost once a week, that is always funny. Seriously, my brother is funnier than funny, and anyone that knows him knows I'm not just saying that because he's my brother. I love 3 Bay B Chicks! Go check them out!!! Especially today's 'Ask a Dad'!

Architect for Hire

Has Paul started modeling you ask? What, would you be surprised by this or something?
The truth: Architect Magazine is doing an article, featuring Paul. So they had this mega talent photographer, Joe Pugliese fly from LA to Phoenix just to come to our house to do a photo shoot of the one & only: Paul (along with Taya in a couple photos too). Joe's website shows his portfolio filled with celebrities (family friendly note: one photo might warrant avoiding going very far on the 'Portfolio: Portraits' section). It was very cool to have Joe & his assistant, Aaron in our home for the photoshoot & to see their process (btw, they use film, not digital, interesting huh?). They were so kind in letting me hang around and ask them questions about their work. I put on my best clothes, did my best make-up and hair, but to no avail: no one asked for any pictures of me ...

I know, I know, it was Paul's shoot.

So why is Paul being featured in Architect Magazine? Well, this is the more unfortunate part: Paul was laid off from Circle West Architects in the middle of November. Amanda Hurley, of Architect Magazine found Paul's resume online & was impressed with it; she gave him a call asking if she could feature him along with a couple of others in an upcoming article about quality architects being out of work due to this economy. Well, obviously Paul was up for the article. (Check it out in February!)

Work it, work it...
It is VERY difficult to find a job in this economy right now, especially in architecture in Phoenix. We are open minded (in location & field of work), so if you have any ideas or networking or opportunities to share with us, please let us know! Paul is licensed (AIA) and LEED accredited (respected certification relating to environmentally sound design). A few of his valuable skills include Revit knowledge (respected 3D rendering program), along with intuitive strength in design. I hope you don't mind me using my blog to try to open up any other possible doors for my husband's career. We have included a slideshow of images of Paul's work on the sidebar there. Some of Paul's other skills include: furniture design & carpentry, graphics & renderings, and construction & home improvement.

Shown below are a few examples of Paul's talented work.

South Bank Mixed Use Development Rendering

Life Cycle Building Challenge Competition Submittal

Frehner Residence, Las Vegas, NV

Student Thesis Project: Cal Poly SLO 2003

If you know of any connection that might be interested in Paul's work, please forward this post on! You can also contact Paul by email at paulhjohnson@hotmail.com.

Thanks for checking us out!

Classy Closets Giveaway Reminder: 2 days left!!!

I just wanted to remind those who are interested & haven't entered yet: the Classy Closets Giveaways (two $350 value closets/credits) end on Monday. All related comments or emails (E: breanneclosets@gmail.com) received by midnight on Monday will be entered into the random drawing on Tuesday.

You can read more details two posts back: Monday, January 12th's post.

If you have any questions, let me know!

GOOD LUCK!!!

4 Years, Not a Single Disagreement (wink, wink)

Yesterday we celebrated 4 years of marriage.

In early November we revisited the beautiful spot where Paul proposed (see here for previous proposal story) in Provo Canyon

shown here.
Yesterday was a good day; time at the park with beautiful weather with Paul & Taya, and a nice little night out while my wonderful sister-in-law took the kiddo for us.
Happy 4 years Loaf!

Okay, Okay, I'll explain 'Loaf' now and not keep you just that perplexed. Paul & I sometimes call each other 'Loaf' because while we were engaged we were around our 2 newly wed friends (Friend are you reading this? Do you know who you are?) who kept calling each other 'Love' as a pet name; Paul thought they were saying Loaf at first and so ever since then, that is the closest thing to a pet name in our relationship (joking yet oddly endearing). Like it? Me too.

TWO $350 VALUE GIVEAWAYS!!!

Seriously. A giveaway worth $350 (and two of them!). I am so excited about this!

Here is the deal:

As a Classy Closets Designer, I have received permission to give away 2 Classy Closets gift certificates worth $350 each here on my blog! (I can see your eyes just got big. It's a good Giveaway huh?) You can use the $350 for our set design $350 Closet Special, shown below (applicable to 6'-8' wide reach-in closets) or you can use it as $350 credit toward any design of your choice! In order to enter you simply have to leave a comment in my comment room on this post and you will be entered in the drawing. You can also choose to email me at breanneclosets@gmail.com instead. All names entered as comments on this post or emailed to me by next Monday, January 19th will count. I will post the results on Tuesday, January 20th (I will also notify you if I have a way to contact you). NOW, I want to encourage you to spread the word and not keep this to yourselves, so please let any parents, cousins, siblings, friends, co-workers, etc. know if you think they would be interested at all! You can give them my blog address, my breanneclosets@gmail.com email address, or you can even enter their name in the comment room for them. I want as many people possible to have this great opportunity!

Conditions are: One entry per household & you must live in the Phoenix Valley. This is a permanent and custom installment, so homeowners only please. (Family members of me and any other Classy Closets employees are excluded).

Here is a quick sketch I did with the overhead view & elevation of our $350 Closet Special with an average closet size (6'-8'), just to give you an idea in drafting form.

Make sure to check back here for the results next Tuesday, January 20th. There will be two very lucky winners!! (And of course this drawing will be done at random).

GOOD LUCK!!!

I'll save the apologies for a delayed post.

Does anyone else miss Christmas already?

There are parts of it that are good to see go of course, but overall, I am a little sad every year when I take the tree down. It seems like Christmas just disappears come January 1st every year.

This is my Enjoying the Christmas Season Part II.

I have this syndrome: too many of my own pictures are cute or interesting to me, esp. when it comes to pics of Taya. C'mon, you know what I'm talking about (well, you definitely know when you see how many pics I'm posting here, I can hardly weed any out for the life of me! I know I'm not the only one. So just skim our pics if you want, or not. And if one catches your eye, then that's wonderful.
This first set of pictures is our own little photo shoot in which our wonderful friends, the Bandas let us borrow their camera (digital SLR camera; life changing equipment I tell you; or at least it will be blog-life changing one day down the road when we purchase one). I've been working & learning photo shop a little bit when I have the time, and love it! I could see Taya wear this dress everyday if it was possible, I love the dress, I love red on her, and of course - I love her! I bought it last year at Children's Place on super clearance after the holidays. I think I'll bust it out for Valentines Day too if it still fits her. Anyhow, back to the pictures!

Setting up for Christmas Eve Dinner at our house, with my parents & Paul's parents (Paul's parents stayed with us over the holidays, Thanks again for coming Skip & Julie!)
Love the hat too (it makes me laugh though too); but this is the longest she would keep it on; good thing it was just over a buck. Can you hear a British accent coming out of her (if babies could have accents, can you imagine baby babble with some sort of British accent to it?)

Christmas morning.

Amazing Christmas Dinner hosted by Bret & Candy (my oldest brother). Looky there. That is a crown pork roast, cored apples stuffed with corn bread based stuffing, mouth watering salad, and you can't even see the huge shrimp they brought back from Rocky Point. See? I told you it was amazing.

And no Christmas season would be complete without a trip to the LDS Mesa Temple Lights. They are BE-U-TI-FUL.

As usual, it was a wonderful Christmas season; I don't care what is going on in my life or how bad the world around me can seem; there is always happiness, meaningful times & sacredness to be found at Christmas Time. I believe there is a reason for that.

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Stay tuned for a HUGE Giveaway!! Seriously .. in the next day or two (although I'll warn you, it only applies locally, sorry long distance friends!).

Does anyone else do this?

Do you ever go to tell someone something about yourself or how you do something and realize just how funny or quirky it is? I have these moments frequently, I mean frequently (italics & repeated words may not always be trusted, it is possible that they are only used for attention getting, theatric's sake, and exageration).

This was mine this morning. I went to comment on Sara's post this morning and realized how funny this habit is:

(Insert not-so handy-dandy little picture of spray bottle here, the one that photo bucket is NOT successfuly downloading for me)

Paul & I almost NEVER iron anymore. What do we do instead? I bought that Downy Wrinkle Releaser once a long time ago, and the ironing game was OVER then and there. It was a breeze! Now we just use water bottles (doesn't work quite as well as Downy's Wrinkle Releaser) so as to save money. It started with trying the new product. And Paul would ask me in the mornings to 'Spray Him'. Soon enough, he would take position (arms out like a scarecrow and legs apart) while I would spray him up and down, front and back and he would walk out the door to work or church. Now he doesn't even always have to say 'Spray me', we just know. He comes up, takes scarecrow position while I grab the water bottle and start spraying.

So to learn from the Spray Wrinkle Releasing Masters, I will share my tips with you today, and only today (this just in, you can access this post later on? Oh golly gee willickers, that takes the glory out of it. My message of help just got cheapened).

TIPS:

Husband (can be wife sometimes, but never the mailman): Take scarecrow position, give wife the all knowing look.
Wife: Start spraying nice even strokes, er sprays. That spray CANNOT be a squirt! I repeat, it must be a nice even spray. Beautiful. If it's a squirt, forget about it!
NOW, here is the secret. You cannot just spray, the other salesman will tell you that you can, but it just doesn't do the job 100%. You must spray, then press. Press with your hand nice and flat, nice even strokes, all the way around. If your strokes aren't even, you will create stripes of wrinkles. So you must find the art of the hand press stroke.
Last but not least, do it with a few minutes to spare before sitting down if you can, otherwise your moisture will set into the sitting wrinkles that you create.

And there you have it. The most useless, I mean useful post ever.

(I keep letting my other post ideas that I haven't gotten to keep me from posting, things like how I was just listed as 1 of Top 8 blogs on a favorite blog of mine - yay!, or how I love my new header that my talented husband created for me, or how our Christmas & New Years went and the pictures we took with a borrowed camera, or how we visited the coolest antique store I've ever seen last weekend in Cottonwood, Arizona, OR, OR...)

The funnest part of this post: Using the term Golly Gee Willickers. Not sure if I even spelled it right. But I liked it. If only you could hear the voice that comes along with that phrase in my family. I'll give you a hint. It's sarcastic. It turns Ron Howard in The Andy Griffith Show in an instant.