I'm falling...

Indeed. I'm a summer girl pretty through and through. But for some reason, I'm really looking forward to Fall this year. Perhaps since we didn't have much of a summer, I'm just excited for some sort of season change. Santa Barbara stays pretty temperate all year long (us Cali folks freak out at the slightest bit of rain). Our only real signal that fall has arrived is the shorter days and changing leaves.

I'm already thinking of Halloween, an adventurous Thanksgiving and travels for Christmas.

Perhaps I'm most looking forward to a fresh crop of deliciousness at the Farmer's Market. I'll take any excuse to try a new recipe. Or two. And any excuse to eat hot food and sit by a fire!

I've been trying to find a way to style this silk romper ever since I thrifted it. I found it in summer and definitely thought it had summer appeal. But for some reason, I picked it out on a rather cool and gloomy day. I thought the color was pretty perfect for the first day of Fall though. In typical crazy California weather fashion though, the forecast call for upper 70s the rest of the week.

(dressed:

thrifted silk romper,

old target cardi,

old steve madden wedges) 

What do you love most about the changing seasons?

XO,

Chelsea

break out the spandex

Christmas came a bit early for me this past weekend! I'd been hunting for a road bike and finally found just what I was looking for. We had checked out a few bike shops so I knew what size I needed and of course, Carl knew exactly what else I needed. A week spent trolling craigslist and look what I found:

My own pink lady!! Apparently this bike previously belonged to someone in the ladies cross country cycling club called the pink ladies. She's painted black with pink handlebar wraps. Very cute. But the pink will probably be nixed in favorite of some white tape to keep her sleek looking.

We spent Sunday cleaning her, I learned how to change my bike tubes and even took a test spin (and of course some gratuitous photos). I can't wait to get to know this bike. And yes, I will be purchasing those oh-so-sexy spandex shorts with all the padding in the butt. I feel an awful lot like Debbie Hunt in the movie Singles when she gets all suited up in spandex and winds up kissing pavement.

Getting a bike has been high on the wish list for a while. So I'm quite smitten. With the bike, and the sweet guy who made Christmas happen in September. Thanks honey!

What's on your wish list right now?

XO,

Chelsea

what's new around here

What a wonderful, lazy weekend! I seriously wish every weekend could be like this.

We got the kids up extra early on Saturday morning (in the dark!) to grab some delicious Mexican pastries and head down to Butterfly Beach to watch the sunrise. We all bundled up in sleeping bags and laughed while we ate our delicious treats. Unfortunately, it was a foggy morning but no one seemed to notice!

Other weekend awesomeness included a day at a lovely watering hole watching the kids play in the water and some sun-soaking by the adults, a stop-off at Cold Springs Tavern, a delicious dinner at home, spending a day in bed watching movies and giggling like kids and a nice long walk to a friend's new home to round out the weekend.

A recent little visit to my favorite place...

Why does Anthropologie have so many irresistible things?!?! I had a little birthday gift card to use up and couldn't help but add a few more bowls to the latte collection, a sweetly-hued blouse, the most amazing smelling (and looking) candle in sultry black and possibly my new favorite thing to read at bedtime - a book about macarons! I'm hoping to try my hand at making them again since my last endeavor fell apart - literally.

How was your weekend? 

XO,

Chelsea

a friday DIY: painterly shirt

I've said it before, I'm addicted to stripes. I've never met a stripe I didn't like.

Feeling inspired by some of the painterly stripes I've seen out there, I set out to make a DIY version. I'd never worked with fabric paint before (those neon puffy paints from the 90s don't count), so this was a fun experiment.

the summery inspiration from J Crew

DIY Painterly Stripe T

materials needed:
plain t-shirt
fabric paint - make sure you pick the right paint for your fabric
paint brush
ruler or straight edge
tailors chalk
some sort of dropcloth

1. make sure you start with a clean, washed t-shirt. I had an old tar-jay T-shirt that I knew was clean already.
2. Lay out your dropcloth.  You may find it easier to work if you have the dropcloth taped down. I didn't because I'm deathly afraid of ruining the hardwood floors. My landlord put the fear in me when we moved in.
3. Slide a piece of cardboard or paper bag inside the shirt. You don't want to paint through to the other side!

4. Using the tailors chalk and your ruler, make lines to your desired width. I went for about 3/4 " lines with about an inch between each stripe. I wanted some extra space between my stripes so I went wider but you could certainly make your stripes bigger or smaller to get whatever effect you prefer!

5. Start painting!! I was extremely surprised by how quickly the fabric absorbed. The first line was definitely a bit more saturated then I had planned but I started to get the hang of it by about the third line. If I was smart, I would've painted a few lines on some scrap fabric first, but I have zero patience so I just went for it!

6. Wait for the front to dry. Mine took about an hour to dry to the touch.
7. Flip your shirt over and repeat the process on the back.
8. Once both sides are dry, follow your paint manufacturers' instructions for setting the paint. Mine called for ironing for 3 minutes on the reverse side. I decided to keep my cardboard inside while I ironed and I'm glad I did because some excess paint absorbed into it.

9. Turn your shirt back to right side out and you've now got a fun, painted T-shirt that you did yourself for a fraction of the $70 price tag.

I really like the way this turned out. The blue was quite a bit brighter than what the bottle and sample in the store showed. Next time, I think I would like to experimenting with mixing some of the colors to come up with something more custom. I also think this could be awesome with darker T-shirts and lighter colors or some metallics on top.

What do you think?

XO,

Chelsea 

fancy friday

Its hard to believe that Labor Day is actually here already! It definitely feels as though summer has breezed in and out way too quickly this year. In my neck of the woods, summer was a mild affair. I think we were all hoping for some more heat, but the last few days have proved to be plenty warm once the morning fog burns off. I love Indian Summers and although everyone seems abuzz with talk of Fall, I'm still hoping for warm days spent basking in sunshine. 

I'm definitely pumped to work on lots of projects in the long weekend ahead. A little family time, some time in the great outdoors and going to see David Gray and Ray Lamontagne are topping my list! 

Here's a little roundup of what I fancied this week:

Dreaming of this peanut butter tart ever since I saw the post. Does anyone else obsess about certain foods? Recently a friend told me about some salted caramel ice cream and I couldn't stop thinking about it until I got some. 

This adorable idea for gifting money. So much more creative than an envelope. 

Drooling over Hilda's $4 thrift find. Her photography is also amazing. Check out her color vignettes. 

These beautiful key-print blouses from Snoozer Loser's F/W Collection. 

Playing this song over and over. And over. 

Here's to hoping you all have a fantastic loooong Labor Day weekend!

Do you have any traditional ways of saying goodbye to summer? 

XO,

Chelsea

bedroom eye-candy

Have you checked out Lonny Magazine yet?

With the demise of Domino (thankfully I have all the back issues!!) and Blueprint, glossy-paged inspiration can be few and far between for those of us looking for real and attainable home decor. Most readers have taken to the internet for inspiring spaces and Lonny fits the bill.

I meandered on over to Lonny today looking for some above-referenced inspiration for our bedroom. While I'm more than pleased with our simple furniture, the mismatched drapes and worn-out duvet could use some updating. When we moved in, there were already some white drapes on the large picture window in our bedroom that is also at the front of the house. Fast forward to a few days after our move-in and I walked by our room from outside at night and realized you could see right in! I threw up some raw silk drapes I had previously used in lieu of closet doors and they seemed to work fine. Until I realized they made our whole room look red. Suddenly, "Roxanne" by The Police was on constant replay in my head. I figured we could live with it until a friend pointed out that we were likely going to go insane looking at all that red all the time. Here's some bedroom eye candy to help you get "Roxanne" out of your head. You know you're humming it right now. 

I'm feeling especially inspired by the all-white beds I'm seeing and thinking that may be the route to go considering the fabric I found for drapes is busy, busy. However, I'm still drawn to the image below, which is a nice mix of patterns. Could be the stripes, as I am a sucker for those. Or that dreamy light. Sigh.

What about you? 

Do you like your bedroom calm, serene and simple? 

Or do you like to use creative license to go wild with patterns and color?

XO,

Chelsea