To continue Part I of my Blogroll, I thought I would share a different side of my taste, one that’s less trashy and more tasteful. I know I said it’d be the food blogs but because of the current state of my house, I’ve been digging decor blogs lately in a big way.  I have this side of me that wishes I was creative and artistic in more ways than just relating to photography.  I really wish I had an eye for interior decorating.  I can spot what I like from afar but when it comes to decorating my own spaces, it’s not as easy for me.

I have, as you can tell shortly, an decorating identity crisis.

One blue wall to match the lovely curtains from Iceland as well as the fantastic painting that’s been in B’s family for years.  One wall with earthy tones, a line of beautiful tealight candle holders in shades of dark orange, green and brown, with an apple container and a handmade framed mirror made by Spanish nuns.  Dark wood coffee and end tables (that double as bookshelves as we don’t have space for a real bookshelf, plus books weigh a lot which we have to keep in mind when we move every few years) mixed with lighter wood entertainment center and secretary and even lighter computer desk.  Hideously stuffy dining room set with eclectic red and green paisleyish tablecloth - and thank goodness you can’t see the awful painting over the table.  Fortunately for everyone, said awful painting is soon to be replaced with very cool new art that will, in its very own way, not match anything else in my entire living room.

So we’ve established that in my decorating style, I suck.  I do have one place in my house that I like, and that’s my entranceway:

While the cat scratcher is admittedly out of place, I really like everytihng else.  The orange is shocking and yet it works, because it’s an awesome backdrop for the incredible painting that B bought for $20 at a thrift store - a total steal!  I also love the chest, a memento from B’s father’s days as a sailor.  It’s good for storage (which is at a premium in our little house) and makes a good surface for the lamp I picked up in Morocco, the elephant and the camel from the middle east, and a dark wooden basket filled with yummy smelling potpourri.  This is the one and only place in my house where I feel like it all matches itself, cat scratcher aside, but that’s because it’s one very small wall that has nothing else around it to display my inability to commit to one style.

I’ve been hoping that one of these decor blogs will inspire me to somehow get it together and be able to come up with something that makes sense.  It hasn’t happened so far, but hopefully when we move I’ll have a little more space to separate the things I like into their own spaces.  With that, I give you my blogs:

housemartin: I love her floral arrangements, her new brick & mortar store, and what she finds and posts from other places.  She’ll take you into a store and share great vignettes that make me envy everyone who lives near these kinds of places.

renovation voyeur: It’s not updated as often as I’d like, but who am I to talk, right?  At any rate, this site showcases renovation projects that take old, ugly rooms into wonderful spaces.  Inspires me to do some renovations myself, except for that whole bit about how I CAN’T.

Vintage Vavoom: Ignore the most recent post if it has anything to do with buttons, but please, do scroll down and see some of the projects that refinish old, or sometimes just ugly, items into pieces that fit into her style.  While a lot of her stuff isn’t exactly MY style, her blog reminds me that things can always be changed to fit individual tastes.  A dated brass lamp can be refinished into a custom lamp that fits perfectly into your mismatched living room.

small space style: Completely unattainable but really beautiful rooms in limited - though I wouldn’t go so far as to say “small” space.

haus maus: While Holly is better known for her other blog, decor8, I really like this one because it’s real decorating ideas that she’s putting together in her own renovated German apartment.  She’s got a lovely style that’s bright and charming, welcoming, and best of all, she has a very limited amount of space in which she can do this.  I can relate, except that I suck at decorating my small space.

Anja came home with an assignment to create a paper doll that she felt resembled her. With the unusual opportunity to raid my scrapbooking supplies, she picked, designed and oversaw the assembly of her paper doll. All the ideas, papers, etc., were hers except the design of the necklace. She wanted diamond earrings but the doll didn’t have ears so I made her a necklace with one fiber of gold embroidery floss and a tiny silver bead. She has wavy (corrugated) hair, a glittery pink crown and a feria-style dress. And nail polish. And blush on her cheeks.  And pink high heels.  The only thing I vetoed was HER BABY.

I have never tried to hide the fact that glitter makes me happy. Very happy.  Unnaturally happy.

I’m contemplating setting this page as my default homepage when I open the internet:

Martha Stewart Glitter

O happy day of glittery goodness!

She was SO excited to see that the shirt from Nana was HANNAH MONTANA!

I posted a series of 3 photos on my flickr page…click here!

I think it’s that time of the year where the blahs set in. It’s that point right before the trees start blossoming and the weather starts getting nice, and I’ve just been feeling a little bit stir crazy.

So in an attempt to brighten things up a bit, I have done a few things in the last week or two that have made me feel significantly better about this time of year, and it all started with a trip to Ikea. Because really, Ikea makes everything better.

I bought a duvet cover in a gorgeous, deep, rich shade of red which I’ve been lusting after for about 3 years now ever since I first saw it at Ikea Seattle. I didn’t buy it then because it was poorly designed, with the down comforter being held in by some loops with knots loosely pulled through them, and I could see that that would not work. They made some great design improvements, closing off the old opening so it’s merely decorative now, and smartly putting in snaps on the bottom to keep the comforter from slipping out. My last duvet cover was worn out and the once-peaceful shade of beige was now a depressing shade of ugly brown. The new color brought a lot of life into my room and even inspired me to finally put pillows in the pillowcases I bought in Qatar when I was on R&R there during my deployment.

I have one more thing I really want to do for our room which is to replace the painting above the bed with a tapestry that’s similar to these pillowcases, which unfortunately will involve having to find someone who can sew fabric loops on the top so we can hang it from a pretty rod. I don’t know when that will get done, hopefully before we leave here but I’m not too optimistic.

Then yesterday, B and I rearranged the living room. We should have done this sooner. It’s amazing how much space swapping two pieces of furniture can free up. Everything feels much tidier now. I still have to put up a few pictures next to the entertainment center and hang the painting behind the sofa, but I did finally hang our curtains - 2 years after we moved in.

I also finally got around to printing out a bunch of photos so I could start scrapbooking again. The pictures turned out so beautifully and I’m so excited to be able to put them in an album and finally get to use some of the creativity that lately I have had no outlet for, other than cutting out beets for Valentine’s day.

We decorated today for Christmas, and I’ve never been so excited to decorate before. Maybe it’s because for the first time in a long time, we actually have enough disposable income to be able to afford decorations. We’ve had a few things accumulate over the years, but we finally were able to fill in all the emptiness we had in between the few things we accumulated.

So here is the living room, ready for Christmas (all the pictures are linked to Flickr where you can see them larger):

The sticks remain, with new sticks purchased for Christmas. I told B I’m helping clean up the forests of all the twigs that have fallen…or something…

Happy Holidays! Next up, Christmas cookies! Those won’t be for a few weeks, though, as I’m leaving for yet another work trip this weekend.

I’m the queen of unfinished projects. I’m always finding/collecting/gathering/buying things with the thought in my head that I’ll make something cool with it. But it inevitably sits somewhere, like on a patio table, and gathers dust for months.

The new Navy Exchange opened on base here on Friday. ‘Round here, that’s a big deal. We went yesterday to look around and maybe buy a few things for the holidays - I’m really excited about the holidays here and decorating the house. One of the things I wanted to buy is a new Christmas tree. We got a huge Christmas tree a few years ago, like 7′ tall huge, and our house is just too small for it. In order to put it up we’d have to move out an end table, but we don’t have anywhere to move an end table to for the holidays. So this year I wanted to buy a smaller one. I had it in my head what I wanted - about 5′ tall, so we could put it on top of the end table. We got there and they had tons of trees - 90% of them over 6′ tall, and then a couple of tiny ones. But because the store just opened and they’re trying really hard to have a good start, I took advantage and asked them to assemble one of the mid-sized trees. The very friendly associate got right on it, and it turned out to be exactly the size I wanted.

They have tons of decorations this year, tons and tons of stuff that I actually love and I could have easily spent a couple hundred dollars on decorations. But instead, I wanted to buy something now for Thanksgiving, since the only thing I have is a small turkey that sits on the edge of my entertainment center and looks oh-so-lonely. I found a few vases, and then I found a bundle of sticks with red & orange berries and Chinese lanterns, and I brought it home and actually put it all together and have the loveliest end table decorations now!