Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Post-Christmas Decoration

In my house, Christmas isn't over til it's over, and by over, I mean May. So early in January I made this cute wreath (I think it's cute) out of random evergreen clippings which I likely found on the ground. The wire frame is leftover wire from the IKEA curtain hanging project, and I tied it on with dental floss. The rocks are from Lake Michigan, either the dunes or maybe from the Upper Peninsula, and I learned on a recent trip to the Field Museum that the holes are actually caused by small crustaceans slowly burrowing through! I strung them on library cord when I had that library job where I spent hours in chilly stacks shelving forgotten European dissertations and re-wrapping Indian books from the 70s.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Studio Life: A Tour of My Stuff

So I did move into my own studio -- first time living alone, etc. I now camp out at boyfriend's house a lot and use the internet, because (gasp) I don't have it at home. No internet, no smart phone (that is now a lie because I got a blackberry from work), and no TV. But really, my sweet little baby apartment is too small for a TV.  
I feel like my windowsills are too cluttered with random stuff. But I like it all! My plants are loving all the sunlight, and I can display all the glass and lantern-like things that I own. You can't really see, but I made hanging vases out of old lightbulbs like the Pinterest-addict that I am. And yeah, I have Christmas lights around the windows. I put them up during the first snow fall in November and I think I'll keep them up forever.
My wee kitchen! It fits in the closet. After much delay and frustration, and with the help of boyfriend who almost gave up, I installed a curtain wire from IKEA and put up these IKEA-via-Craigslist curtains so that when I'm not using the kitchen (aka almost always, basically all I do is use the water kettle I got for Christmas, thanks mom & dad!) I can close it away and not look at it. I think boyfriend worries about the potential fire threat of curtain near the burners but I tell him I move it out of the way (and then I don't, good thing he doesn't read this.) You can also see so many other things I like in this photo-- the great sunlight, the dishtowel I bought at the Appalachian crafts center, the green & blue painting I got at STOP thrift store, and the perfectly-sized wall-mounted dishrack I got at IKEA. We went nutz at IKEA this last trip. Oh, and the keffiya that I use to cover up the random stuff in the bottom shelves of my little kitchen storage/counter furniture PIECE. (What are those things called?) (Relatedly I think its funny to call things a "piece" like they're a piece of art. It's like when the friend of my old hipster roommates said she wanted to open a "space" for artists or performances or whatever and I made fun of her to her face, or certain old hierarchicly-superior coworkers constantly saying "utilize" instead of "use" and I died inside constantly, or basically whenever most people talk about "culture." I am a terrible snob.)
Me, the snob, picking at the broken zipper of an old (vintage. ok, it's vintage) dress I want to sell on etsy. My apartment is tiny, but not too tiny for an ORB and a vase full of Christmas tree branches that I picked up from the ground outside of Big Star. Folding chair and stool: IKEA, blue chair and plaid blanket: grandma's house, bookshelf: left from previous tenant at previous apartment. On the bookshelves are my small collections of cookbooks, journals, fashion magazines I should stop reading, thermoses, and glassware with shiny rims.