Brass is Bad Ass(phalt)

Have you noticed it? The brass that has been creeping it's way back into decor? It's not the shiny brass of years past- but a honed, aged more sophisticated brass. It's popping up on hardware, furniture, and accessories.

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It goes with anything like most metallic do. Unlike silver or chrome it's not cold feeling. And it's not overdone like gold.

I personally am jumping on this band wagon. No I'm not replacing every or spray painting every metallic accessory in my house. But I am making it an accent in our bedroom. As you can see on my $10 thrift store pendant light:

This antique solid brass fire hose nozzle. It was my grandfathers, he used to collect them from the refinery where he worked. When the fire trucks at the refinery were finished with the nozzles they used to throw them away; he would save them and had a bunch! Some were brass like this one others were solid nickel. I love having this piece of family history in our home.

And the brass accents on my TV Console:

 I am adding brass accents on our new unholstered headboard, but it's the kind of shiny fake brass I'm not a fan of:

I'm going to fix that shiny-ness and will be sharing with you soon!

Are you on the brass bandwagon? Or are you going to let it pass by?

To Accessorize or To Not Accessorize?

That is The Question. Do you accessorize your coffee table? I see lots of beautifully decorated tables both online and on TV and I've been a little jealous. My own hesitation comes from scenes like this:

This is what the coffee table in our living room usually looks like- it's most often used as a race track.  Which is ok because I built that coffee table and I don't mind it taking a beating. Or I am afraid of things getting knocked over all the time. 

And lets face it- all those beautiful accessories = more dusting to me.

Nate Berkus & a Video

I happened to catch Good Morning America this past week and guess who was on? Nate Berkus! 

He was on promoting his new book "Things That Matter". He believes that interior design should tell the story of the people who inhabit a space. He spoke about your home should tell a story about you; because you are the one who lives there. He said if something in your home don't have meaning to you then get rid of it. He advocates a mix of old and new in the home; and discourages running with every new trend, to give your home a lived in feel.

Vintage Trophy Wine Stopper

Hello All! We're back from a whirl wind vacation- we drove down from Oklahoma to Louisiana. Then over to Texas and back up again. We've been gone for almost 2 weeks visiting family one last time before Tiny Falcon #2 shows up (I'm almost 35 weeks now!!) 


It was great seeing family and friends but I'm glad to be home again. 


I have a quick and easy DIY for you today. While I was home in Houston my Mom informed me that it was really time for me to get the last of my stuff out of my room; you know since I'm 30 and all... (is it sad that I'm referring to something of my own as "vintage"?)


I've cleaned out a lot of it but some things still linger. One of those things are my old soccer trophy's. I was a big soccer player back in the day. I played from 3rd grade all the way into college. So needless to say I had a lot of old trophies hanging around. It's hard getting rid of things like that so I decided to keep one of them and thought it would be neat to make something out of it.

I had seen this article a while back which gave me my inspiration for this little project; a trophy wine stopper!

 I started by taking the trophy apart and scrounging up an old wine cork.

Since my cork was used I utilized the hole already made by the cork screw. I used a Philips Head screwdriver to deepen and widen the hole. If you use a new wine cork you may need a drill with a 1/8" drill bit to start the hole.

I wanted to make doubly sure my soccer girl stayed on the cork, so I dropped a little Gorilla Super Glue into my newly made hole and some on to the top of the cork. Then screwed the Soccer Topper on.

Done! Seriously I think it took me longer to type this post then it to do the actual project. Now I have an awesome wine stopper that will always remind me of my past and of one of my favorite activities. And it was FREE! Triple Score (or as we say in soccer speak a Hat Trick!)

How do you hold on to old memories? Did you have a hard time getting rid of all the things in your childhood room?

I was also left with the marble bases from the trophy. They are Carrara Marble so I didn't want to throw them away; need to think of something to do with them next!