Follow my blog give away!

I am working out the details of a "follow my blog giveaway".  I will be pulling something from one of my 3 Etsy shops as the prize.  I'd love your help in making that choice.  I want you to vote for the prize that I will give away.  

Finding an item and responding here with your suggestion gives you one entry.

Following my blog gives you another entry.

Following me on twitter gives you a 3rd entry.

Tweet about the giveaway and earn even more entries.

I will be posting the give away item as suggested by you in the middle of next week, say Wednesday.  Then you will have 3 days, Thurs, Fri, and Sat to earn more entries by the means listed above.

We'll see how it goes!  Should be fun!  Visit one of these three!

Fabric Flair    SimplicityInteriors    ByEveryWord

Home Decor Fabric Sale!

I am having a SALE at Fabric Flair.  There are tons of home decor weight fabrics on sale for a fraction of their retail price.  Fabrics that are normally $25-$35 per yard are drastically marked down to move them out.

Check them out!

Spotlight ESST: Beads and Such

It didn't take much searching to find so many amazing supplies in my fellow ESST members shops.  I will be the first to admit that I know nothing about beads or jewelry, but I think these are just beautiful.  They make me want to learn how to do something with them!

Melon Beads and Dahlia Cabochons from MK supplies

__________________________________________

 Czech Rondelle beads from Mountain Shadow Designs

__________________________________________

Mussel Shell Coin Drops from All Earrings and Supplies

I hope you enjoy looking around these shops as much as I have!

Office ideas from Better Homes and Gardens

During lunch I was flipping through a recent copy of Better Homes and Gardens that was lying on the table.  I found a decorating section that showed the office I am longing for.  So neat, so organized.  Look, they even have their fabric oh so neatly folded and stored.  Here's a copy of the entire page from May's issue.

It's so pretty and girly.  I wonder how long it would stay neat.

Organizationally Challenged!

It seems like every time I turn around I am having to reorganize my office.  It makes me nuts.  Week by week my life changes enough that I have to move everything here and there to suit what I am working on.  One thing I have found, there is no such thing as too much storage!

The one thing I am kinda proud about is having built my desk.  I began with one side of the room with a built in desk, where the computer sits, and a little white desk I got from Pier 1 ages ago.  I liked it, but it just wasn't functional.  So I decided to turn the other side of the room into an L-shaped work space.  It has made life much easier, but still isn't enough.  Here's a few pics.

My stores of fabric are exploding.  I am going to need to build up in order to get the storage I need.  Use that vertical space!

I was SUPPOSED to be able to use a chair in the corner, but as you can see my shipping supplies make that impossible.

Here you can see more of my supposed to be usable workspace.  Actually I should mention that no space can remain usable as long as you have a toddler whose reach is slowly extending and everything on the desk needs to be 18 inches from the edge, and the desk is only 24 inches deep.  Keeps things interesting

I have "tried" to keep him on his own side of the room.  But apparently my "toys" are much more interesting than his!  Not to mention that I have completely lost any storage ability on this side.

And then finally there is the built-in side of the room.  For some reason, this is the only side with overhead lighting.  It's nice and bright...even though it has no real workspace.  And here you can see my shelves that are in a constant state of being rearranged.  My husbands things have been banished to the small shelf in the top left side.  I'll have him pushed out soon...!

Waiting for fabric...

So I ordered a bunch of new fabrics well over a week ago and am still waiting for them to be delivered.  It's difficult to have to sit and wait when I really want to get them listed on Fabric Flair!

I was able to get to work on a few new things, however.  I just love these sets!

Joel Dewberry Manzanita patterns in espresso and sky

Another from Manzanita in pear

Another Joel Dewberry set from the Chestnut Hill collection

Balancing My Time!

Okay, so I am having a really difficult time balancing my time between blogging, twitter, my Etsy shops, and everything else life throws this way!  I'm wondering how others schedule their social networking time.  Especially if that networking is done mostly for promoting business.

So you set a schedule?  Do it when you can?  Plan a certain amount of time each day?  

I feel so far behind!

Here's a few of the things I have been working on lately.

Redesigning Simplicity Interiors to carry more contemporary fabrics.  

Adding to my collections at Fabric Flair.

And trying to be more creative at

Simplicity Interiors on Etsy.

Oh!  And adding some Father's Day pieces at

By Every Word!

Please share how on earth you

balance your time!

Bad, Bad, Bath! Take 4

One late night after the tiling was complete and we were at a standstill because we were waiting for the shower doors to be shipped, we found...you guessed it...another water problem.

Jason's closet is just outside the bathroom door.  We discovered that the carpet inside was sopping wet.  So Jason takes yet another trip down to the crawl space to check things out.  He finds a steady drip that appears to be coming from one of the pipes that leads up through the wall to either the shower head or the body sprays.  PANIC!

Why is the pipe behind the newly tiled wall leaking??  Why is the water spreading under the tile, across the floor, and into Jason's closet??  At 11pm, one doesn't expect to find answers to these questions easily.  Jason immediately called the contractor and left a message, and then turned off the water main to the house for the night to try to prevent further damage.

Problem solved...the contractor came back first thing in the morning and discovered that the water problem in Jason's closet was likely due to the amount of water he used to clean the tile the previous day.  Sounds like quite a bit of water to me, but that's what he said it was.  The dripping was caused by one of the body sprays.  None of the fittings were back on yet, and there was a small steady drip from the pipe directly down into the crawl space.  Easy fix, put the fitting on, and no more water leakage.

We ended the day feeling good that there were no major problems (our worst fear being that the shower would need to be torn apart to find the leak) but a little more frazzled and worse for wear.

Then I began to do the walls... 

Bad, Bad, Bath! Take 3

So here we are living with the knowledge that even though we budgeted time and money to redo 1 bathroom, we now had to do 2 bathrooms.  At least we don't have to rush to complete the guest bathroom.  It gets used rarely.

We had chosen a beautiful travertine tile that we are absolutely love.  We also wanted to install radiant heat under the tile because we have some heating issues on that side of the house.  Our tile guy laid out the wire mesh mats and things seemed to be working out well.  However, after a few hours of trying to figure out how to set the thermostat with my husband's assistance, he realized that he wasn't supposed to cut the mat.  He had trimmed off the excess mat and now the wires couldn't complete their loop (whatever that means).  In turn, he needed to buy a special patch kit so that he could fix it.

So this puts a delay on completing the floor.  He is able to do the walls in the meantime, and they turned out beautifully.  We redesigned the shower and added half walls to give it a more closed in feeling.  With the detailed tile work and our design, things were moving along and turning out even better than we had hoped.  The shower pan was now installed properly and our water problems should be at an end.

SHOULD have been at an end...

Bad, Bad, Bath! Take2

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING SCENES MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ...ANYONE!

When our construction worker,

who is absolutely wonderful 

by the way, tore up all the old 

tile, he found our worst nightmare lying beneath.  There was so much water damage that

 the flooring looked like it should be what you'd find in a house about 100 years older!  Had we gone on much longer, we likely would have fallen straight through the subfloor and

 down into our crawl space.  The water damage was also so bad that we needed to have part of a load bearing beam replaced.  So our wall could have come down too!  

So here we are, happy that we decided to have this done when we did,  and reassuring ourselves that it wasn't out of vanity or that we didn't like it, there were going to be serious problems had it stayed that way.

But, our little vacation away from home, within our home, is disrupted, because now there is evidence that the other shower pan was installed the same as the first INCORRECTLY.  So in order to avoid further damage in that shower, we moved into our son's bathroom.  A dire inconvenience for all of us because now his bathroom is just full of mommy's and daddy's no touches, and we don't have anywhere to put anything that he won't get into.  

So you got it!  Some things stay in the guest bathroom and some have gone to his bathroom.  The GBr is in between the 2 bathrooms so we feel like we have some sort of refugee camp set up with all of our worldly belongings strewn through 3 rooms.  Opps!  4 if you count that we are now just leaving our clothing stored in the washer and dryer rather than taking all the way back to the bedroom time has seemingly forgot.

And the beat goes on..stay tuned for part 3