New York Books

When we were in the city last weekend, I found some NYC books that I have added to our wish list.  I thought it would be fun to amass a small collection while we are here...

Here are the ones on our wish list...

Up & Down New York

A Walk in New York

We saw this one when we went to the Guggenheim, and it looks like you can only buy it through their store, as it is a reprint.  It is a very cute story...looks like we will need to visit the Guggenheim again :)

 The ones that we have...

Goodnight New York City

USMA 101 

(this is Paddy's FAVORITE book right now.  He loves the page with the mule and the sports page)

And onto the coffee table books that I have scored...

At Home in the Hudson Valley

Historic Houses of the Hudson River Valley

Any other good New York books that we should add to our collection?

Going to the Big Apple....

We had a lovely day in the city last Saturday.  There were a few stores I was wanting to check out, so we had the morning free and we ventured into NYC.  We hit up Fish's Eddy, ABC Carpet & Home, MUJI, Pearl River, and Canvas.

From Fish's Eddy...

I could have taken a set of everything that they had home with me...amazing dishware here.

Cute chandelier made with what they so appropriately call "Kitchen Weapons" :)

We cruised through a Farmer's Market in Union Square...
Check out this yarn that one of the vendors had...made me wish (once again) I was better at knitting.  Haven and Jen - I need so much more help!

At Pearl River, they had the most amazing selection of printed blue bowls.  I can't believe I didn't snag a few of these while we were there...perfect for trinkets or for food!

We were pretty close to Canal Street at this point, so we figured we might as well check out the strip of vendors with all the knock off purses, etc.  It was pretty comical to be chased down the street by ladies who would not stop asking us if we wanted Louis, Chanels, etc.  I have seen people buy such cute things from NY street vendors, and I want to...I just need to have more patience, perhaps?

We had a lovely lunch in Little Italy and right before we left, we scored two dozen roses for 10 bucks...woo hoo.  Ahhh, it brings back memories of the Wholesale Florist in Columbus that I usually went to see every week :)

It made me want to continue to make trips to the city as often as we can.  It is such a blessing to be so close.  After a day focused on all places that I wanted to go, Sean will get 'his' city day on Sunday when we are going to see Duke vs. St. John's at Madison Square Garden with a high school friend and his wife!

Online Shelter/Lifestyle Magazines

After Lonny arrived on the scene, it is incredible how these shelter/lifestyle magazines seem to keep popping up overnight!  If you want one more thing to consume your time, check some of these out!

Lonny

Matchbook

Covet Garden

Rue

High Gloss - first issue coming out on February 1...

Banana

Recently, I had the privilege of spending a wonderful girl's day in NYC with my mom and my aunt.  It included an informative bus tour, some walking/shopping on 5th Avenue, great dinner with our 'celebrity spotting' of Wes Moore, and the brilliant Broadway musical, Promises Promises (based on the old movie, which is totally worth seeing, The Apartment).

I loved every inch of the Banana Republic on 5th Ave...check out the art deco stairwell...

And the branch - OH MY, the branch.  I am a horrible accessorizer (can that be a word?), so I really don't have much at all that is worth displaying, but seeing this makes me want to display what I do have on a pretty branch...

The cutest mule you'll ever see.

My dad surprised all of us on Christmas morning with the cutest Army mule you will ever see (okay, besides Sean that is).

I wanted to get some better photos of the mule when we got home, but he suffered a little injury in one of the parades that Sean and Paddy were having with little Glory and the mule.  We will be attempting to fix him soon!

Here he is without his back legs...

I wish my dad could crank these out quickly - I bet there are lots of West Point families that would enjoy a cute mule like this one...

Speaking of mules, we went to the Army/Navy game on Saturday night, and Paddy would squeal so loudly every time he spotted the mule.  So cute. 

Paddy is one...decor

How pathetic is it that I am just posting this now?  It took me this long to have enough patience to upload these pics to blogger :)

In keeping with the 'keep cost down' theme, I really tried to use things that we already had for Paddy's 1st birthday (that was in NOVEMBER!)...

Banner Flags to drape on front of table - I cut the flags out of fabric scraps that I had and fabric glued them to this grosgrain ribbon. 

Large Balloons...I had ordered these for my maternity pictures, and then used another one for Paddy's photo shoot with Shea Halliburton.  I had three left.  I had planned to get them filled with helium, but because that is so expensive, I decided to copy an idea I had seen - probably on Party Perfect...and just string them across/above the food table.

Clipboards...I ordered 5x7 pics of some of my favorite pictures throughout the year from Walmart, and then taped them to cardstock and hung on the clipboards.

Flag toothpicks...I contemplated getting special sticks that would be longer than toothpicks, but decided that I couldn't beat free toothpicks and free fabric.  One night, I just sat down for a while and cut lots of fabric and then just fabric glued the pieces onto the toothpicks.  I would use these for the sausage cheese balls and carrot cake cupcakes.

Food tags...I designed these in PPT and then used double stick tape to stick these onto lollipop sticks.

Cake pop display...I needed a way to display the cake pops and the large chocolate covered marshmallows.  I wanted to have some on the food table and also have some cake pops near the door since these were pulling double duty...they were a dessert during the party, but they were also a 'favor'.  I ended up buying two 10 lb bags of sugar and filled my cylindrical hurricanes.  I picked sugar b/c I knew that I could use it after the party, so it wouldn't go to waste.

Splurge...I am such a straw girl.  I usually have one Diet Coke (usu. caff free) a day, and it is always with a straw.  I have been really wanting a reason to order these paper straws.  Since I had to pay the shipping, I figured I better get some blue, red and gray ones while I was at it :)

Games & Prizes - I have such fond memories of the little games that we would play at our birthday parties growing up.  My mom was a champ and took on the game responsibility and set up bozo buckets with the help of the Thompsons (thanks, again :)) as well as a clothes pin drop into a glass jar.  We were thankful that it was a beautiful day, so the older kids were able to be outside to play games.  I bought some gum and candy to match the color scheme.

 

 Party Hat - I wasn't very good at making this, but I just bought a sheet of 12x12 scrapbook paper and added some ribbon to the top, and it stayed on for all of 2.2 seconds...

Happy 1st Birthday, Paddy Man - what a fun day!  Thanks again to my friend, Jennyjo, for snapping most of these pics!

Mirror, decided.

This poor mirror has been through so much...since the last post about the mirror, I have tried navy and finally landed on gold leafing it.

I sprayed some other mirrors gold this weekend, and I was disappointed with how they turned out, so I was nervous about gold leafing.  However, the finish/color/texture is so much different and better than the spray paint.

To gold leaf this, I first sanded the mirror.  Then, I applied a metal leafing adhesive.  I let it 'dry' for 45 minutes, and then it will be tacky...ready for the super delicate gold leaf sheets.  I applied the gold leaf...I would love to see an expert do this because I am clearly not one.  I had SO many spots to retouch.  Wine and some streaming Netflix movies helped :)  There were some spots that I had missed with the adhesive.  I went back over the missed spots with adhesive, let is 'dry' or get tacky, and then I applied more gold leaf.  Once I had finished the retouching, I applied two coats of sealer.  You can buy all these supplies at Michael's for less than $15.

I am enjoying the results...it is fun to have a finish that is different from my standard painting option. I think it brings a nice pop of color and a bit of glam, which I felt like the room needed.  


 So, here are the stages of the mirror again...

When it arrived in the mail...

Painted white and in the downstairs teeny bath where it just didn't look right...

Then, the mirror stayed white for a few more days and had a test drive in the living room.  I really liked the location, but the white mirror faded into the gray owl walls.

I had a small sample paint of Rich Navy by Glidden.  I did a horrible job, but slapped one thin coat of paint on the mirror to see if I might like navy.  I think this could be nice looking - but I already have too much going on in the room, as it is, so I opted to gold leaf.

And...here is the final verdict.  (At least until I get tired of it :))

this pictures makes it look brighter than it is in person...