Here it is....the Northcrest Tour of Lights!

I just posted some of the wonderful holiday lights around the neighborhood on Home Sweet Split Level....
Take a look!

Enjoy, and Merry Christmas to All!

Merrry Kitschmas!

Here we are, on Christmas Eve eve, waiting for that guy in the red suit and hoping for a snowy white Christmas here in Atlanta!  Jeff, our good friend Brian, and myself are all going to saddle up in the car tonight, eat some bbq and do our annual "Northcrest Tour of Lights"!  Look for the results tomorrow on Home Sweet Split Level!  There are really some impressive houses in the 'hood, but Brian's probably takes the cake!  He prides himself on riding that line between over-the-top awesome fun, without being tacky.  It really is spectacular this year!  Here is sneak peek...

Oh don't worry, he has added more since this picture!



And, last but not least, here are our holiday decorations this year.  I swore I was going to pull out all the stops, but I just didn't have time with everything going on this year.  I am determined to stock up on some crafty holiday supplies for next year's handmade holiday when everything goes on sale.  I did make the wreath I had been dreaming of this year, and I may have squealed when the handmade vintage felt deer ornaments went perfectly with it.  We also usually get a real tree, which I adore, but we weren't in town much earlier this month so we pulled out our old college tree.  It is so tiny that I had to put it up on boxes for it to fill the space!  Oh well, it is really about the ornaments to me anyway!  I adore a good vintage ornament, and I picked up several new ones this year....we are going to have to get a bigger tree eventually because all my ornaments won't fit!

Improvised vintage Santa tree-topper.

Awesome wrapping paper from Target.

Holiday Tea crafting.

Holiday House.

Best attempt at a holiday dog portrait.

Have the happiest of holidays, all!

Patio Living...

We worked hard on the basement workshop this weekend, which means we are rounding the corner to other projects!  We did lots of organization and thanks to a lucky find through our neighbor, we now have the perfect basement work bench (more on this later over on Home Sweet Split Level).  Having the workshop finally finished (2 years in the making!) means we can conquer other projects with much more ease.  We are finally focusing on finishing up the basement Rompus Room, which will feature our vast tiki collection, a new tiki bar, the Heywood Wakefield rattan set we bought a while back at Kudzu Antiques, and the WW2 bathroom.  It is so nice to have an end in sight on that project.....which means we are adding more projects.  Since fall is just around the corner, we are hoping to squeeze in a quick patio build for the next couple of weekends.  We bought an awesome vintage patio table and chairs (also at Kudzu) last summer and they are awaiting a good refinishing by me.  This will be the perfect time to get that project done.

Here is just a taste of some of the things we are thinking for the patio....

Eva Zeisel...

Back in February when we went on our roadtrip with friends Brian and Kevin to the 20th Century Cincinnati show (more on the trip here) Jeff fell in love with a set of Eva Zeisel dinnerware in a Kentucky antique mall.  It was timely that we had just upgraded to iPhones the week before (and that we had Brian and Kevin around to actually show us how to use them!), so there we were....walking around the antique mall, thinking it over, researching it, wondering if we would ever have the chance to buy a nice set again.  I can always tell when Jeff really wants something, and he does have a "thing" for all mid-century dinnerware/servingware/glassware and so it wasn't long before they were wrapping them up at the cash register.  We found out that this set of dinnerware from Hallcraft in the Holiday pattern was reproduced in 1999 in conjunction with the exhibition Lost Molds and Found Dinnerware: Rediscovering Eva Zeisel's Hallcraft . The molds for this collection (Tomorrow's Classic) were thought to be lost and the production of this line ceased in the 50's.  Once we were back home in Northcrest and hanging out with some neighbors, our friend Lukas told us more about it and helped fill in some holes on the research we had done.  He also has a lovely set of Hallcraft Tomorrow's Classic in a different pattern.  Here is a portion of it, including my favorite, the serving platter.

Ebay search for Eva Zeisel:

mid-century textiles: Marimekko

There is really nothing better to me than staring at a bunch of bolts of Marimekko fabrics, and recently on a trip to Seattle, Jeff and I did this.  We did this at a small store on First Avenue called Tuuli.  They carry a ton of Marimekko as well as other amazing Finnish-designed wares.  They had wall cubbies filled with bolts and bolts of massive print florals in every color-combo you could think of!  Gorgeous.  I didn't think to take any pictures....too busy living in the graphic-oversize-print-technicolor-moment....but it looked something like this:

Marimekko has been producing quality textiles since 1951.  The longevity of their original prints is amazing as they are still just as popular today.  CB2 carries a lot of Marimekko items, and from time to time ReproDepot (one of my favorite sources for online fabric) will have some great deals on Marimekko fabric. 

We have this print in a shower curtain, which I love:

And this yellow/black/gray simple tray hanging in our hallway as art (with Pizmo the Wondermutt posing):