Day one in Charleston

I took waaaaaaayyyyy too many pictures on our trip to South Carolina! It’s taking me forever to go through them and organize them and resize them. So far, I’ve managed to get through my April 15th folder. So, here’s what we did in South Carolina on April 15th!

My day started with a walk on the beach…

After breakfast, we drove into Charleston and picked up some info and maps at the visitor center. We parked down at the end of peninsula and spent the rest of the day walking around old Charleston and taking lots of pictures. We also got talked into going to a time-share presentation – at least we got some free tickets to out of it :-)

We started off walking along East Bay Street and admiring all the beautiful houses. I overheard a tour guide say that the houses along East Bay Street sell for around $9 to $10 million. There was one for sale at a “bargain” price of $6 million. EEK!

I love the combination of old red brick and lush greenery…

The houses in Charleston have the most beautiful gardens. Some of the gardens are hidden behind beautiful doors. I kind of have a thing for doors. And horses :-)

There are lots of beautiful & intricate ironwork gates too…

Some pretty porches…

Lovely architecture…

It took me a while to realize that the lanterns that I assumed have fake flames in them are actually REAL gas lanterns with REAL flames. Very cool, and a little bit eerie at night. They sort of transport you back to the 1800s. Many of the houses have window boxes and shutters. The crescent moon on the blue shutters below is a popular symbol in South Carolina – it’s on the state flag that was designed in 1775 by Colonel William Moultrie. He was asked by the Revolutionary Council of Safety to design a flag for the South Carolina troops to use during the American Revolutionary war. Colonel Moultrie's design had the blue of the militia's uniforms and the crescent from the emblem on their caps. Click here to read more about the history behind the South Carolina state flag.

Fountains in Waterfront Park. The pineapple is a traditional symbol of welcome and hospitality throughout the south.

Our first day in Charleston was a bit grey, but the sun finally came out late in the afternoon and was joined by a beautiful blue sky…

And that was our first full day in South Carolina. I’ve just about finished going through my next set of pictures – they’ll be coming soon :-)

I have to say a huge thank you to my blog friend Kathryn at Take My Breath Away. Kathryn used to live near Charleston, and when I asked her for some suggestions for what to do there, she sent me a long list of places to go and things to do. We did almost everything she suggested, and it was all great! Thank you Kathryn for all your help!

Grits & tomatoes & hushpuppies AND a giveaway win, oh my!

My body is back from South Carolina, but my mind is still there. It was an awesome vacation that definitely ended too soon! The ocean, the history, the food, the beach, the sunshine, the food, the palmetto trees, the architecture, the food…. did I mention the food? ;-) I’m now officially addicted to shrimp & grits, fried green tomatoes, and hushpuppies. I won’t tell you how many of them all I ate! It never occurred to me to take pictures of the food – well, maybe it did, but I was too busy stuffing my face! – so here’s a little sampling via Google…

Images via The Professional Palate, Eat Good 4 Life,  Pamela’s Products

Luckily, I remembered to take pictures of everything else we saw and did in SC – like the driveway to Boone Hall Plantation…

And houses in Charleston…

Once I get my {thousands!} of pictures organized and resized, I’ll write some blog posts about our trip. If you haven’t already been to SC, I highly recommend going :-)

Just before we left for SC, I found out that I won a super-awesome blog giveaway. Jessie at Mix And Chic teamed with Murals Wallpaper to give one of her blog readers a wall mural up to a value of $500. Yep, that’s FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS! Holy crap! I was beyond excited when I found out that I was the winner – especially since I got my entries in just under the wire. Sometimes procrastination pays off :-) Now the hard part – which mural choose! These are just a few of my favourites…

 

A HUGE thank you to Jessie and Murals Wallpaper for the awesome prize! I can’t wait to get started designing a new room around one of these amazing murals!

Charleston interior designer Angie Hranowsky

In honour of our trip to Charleston, South Carolina next week (thank you Unshaven Mavens & Porter Airlines!), I thought it would be a great time to enjoy the work of Charleston-based interior designer Angie Hranowsky.

I discovered Angie’s work when my blog friend Vanessa at Decor Happy posted a picture of Angie’s living room on her Facebook page:

Angie’s home is featured in the April issue of Lonny Magazine. She transformed an 1850’s single house into a home for herself and her two children that’s modern, comfortable, stylish, colourful, and fun.

I love that she’s displayed her son’s and daughter’s artwork in the eating nook. I also love that she painted her kitchen lavender, and those purple chairs – an EBay find – are pretty cool :-)

Traditional Home named Angie one of the 20 Designers To Watch. Her work has been featured in Domino, House Beautiful, Metropolitan Home, and Coastal Living, as well as Lonny.

Some more of Angie’s awesome designs…

 

   

  

And with that, I’m signing off for the next week and a half while we enjoy some sun, sand, and scenery in and around Charleston :-) And after the snow and ice pellets we had yesterday, I’m REALLY looking forward to this:

Image via Pinterest

Time to get your Blurb on!

Have you ever dreamed about writing and publishing your own book? Well, here’s your chance! Blurb is offering JAX does design readers a 25% discount until midnight on Sunday, April 14th. 

You can create your very own bookstore-quality book using Blurb’s creative publishing platform. It lets you design, publish, and share professional-quality books.

The new Designer Collection templates enable everyday photographers and social media users to create and publish books in less than an hour by pulling directly from your Facebook timeline, a friend's Facebook collections, or Instagram photo streams.

If you’re an interior decorator or designer, this is a great opportunity to create a portfolio of your design work to show potential clients or to casually display on your coffee table :-)

Tammy Kramer DESIGNS Portfolio

So what are you waiting for? It’s time to get your Blurb on!

Promo code for 25% off:  BLOG414

 

 

 

The fine print: Offer valid through April 14, 2013 (11:59PM local time). A 25% discount is applied toward your product total. Maximum discount is CAD $100 off product total. Valid for printed books only. This offer is good for one-time use, and cannot be combined with volume discounts, other promotional codes, gift cards, or used for adjustments on previous orders.

Let there be a $7.00 light

Years ago, my brother off-loaded this lamp from his old dorm room on me.

I tried selling it on Kijiji last year for $10, but nobody was interested. So when I wanted a new lamp for the loft, I decided to see what I could do with this old lamp. I started off by trying out a shade that I had lying around.

Hmmmmm, not too bad, actually! But it looked a bit squat. So I took a taller harp off another lamp and put it on this lamp.

Yep, that did the trick! Now for the base – I did a bit of research and discovered that yes, you CAN paint ceramic. I already had cans of primer, purple paint, and spray gloss. I just had to pick up a can of spray adhesive to complete the lamp makeover.

I wanted to take the harp & socket off, but the base of the lamp is sealed. Taping it all off would have been a pain, so I Saran Wrapped it! Just needed to tape off the base of the socket and the plug cord.

I set up a little spray booth with a piece of cardboard and did a few light coats of primer (sorry about the blurry picture).

Then I sprayed a few light coats of purple and finished it off with a few light coats of the clear gloss. It was still drying when I took this picture, but the final finish looks just like the original ceramic finish.

Now what to do with the lamp shade... I wanted something more fun that plain white. I had bought this funky purple leopard print fabric from JoAnn a few years ago for a project that I never got around to doing (typical!).

There was just enough to cover the shade. Now, if I was a patient and meticulous person, I would have cut the fabric to the right shape and size to fit the shade with minimal overhang. But I’m more of a just-get-in-there-and-do-it kind of person, so I took the lampshade outside and went crazy with the spray adhesive and the unwieldy piece of fabric. I don’t have pictured of this step, because my fingers were covered with glue and I didn’t think it would be a good idea to touch my camera with gluey fingers. But after lots of positioning and re-positioning and a few bad words, I managed to get the shade covered. There are some bubbles here and there and the seam where the end of the fabric meet is pretty rough, but it’s easy enough to hide it in the back :-)

And here’s how the lamp turned out.

And the total cost – about $7.00 for the can of spray adhesive with a 40% off coupon at Michaels. Not too bad for a boring old unwanted dorm room lamp :-)

Linking up to…

To Etsy or not to Etsy

I’ve been putting my craft room to good use lately and creating some new foil paintings…

“Eruption”

“Purple Hydrangeas”

 “Purple Petals”

I also have quite a few in-progress paintings, and a huge canvas that’s prepped and  just waiting for some paint – it’s the biggest painting I’ve tried so far and it’s just a little bit intimidating!

So now that I’ve created quite a few paintings (probably between 40-50), I’m thinking of maybe opening an Etsy shop and selling a few before they totally take over my house! It’ll suck if none of my paintings sell, but I guess I won’t know if I don’t try, right?

If you’ve had experience selling on Etsy, I’d love to hear about – both the good and the bad!