When life gives you lemons...

A week ago, I run into my landlord. As usual, she asks how everything in the apartment is going and if there's anything we need. She's naturally caring and is always looking after us. Such a nice swedish lady!

They - her, her husband and three kids - live not far from where we are and have a small vegetable garden. Maui weather allows it to keep producing all year long and although small, that garden gives enough produce for them, and to share with us. That's where we come to "save" them! Ha! Every now and then, we stop by and get a mix of the best organic produce: tomatoes, chard, beets, onions, carrots, all kinds of herbs...

In her front yard, they have this huge (I mean enormous!) lemon tree that doesn't stop producing fruit! I've never seen anything like it. Bringing two full bags of them was the least we could do for them.

So, what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon with some time to spare and a whole bunch of lemons? Naturally! Lemon pound cake! I kinda follow a recipe I found here, but I sub the all-purpose flour for a rice-whole wheat-spelt flour blend (gotta use what you have!).

The three lemons that were sacrificed

The end result :)

It turned out pretty awesome, and my apartment ended up smelling amazing! :)

Happy Sunday!

S

Pillow Cases!

It's been a while since my last post! I haven't been doing much since then, but I always manage to do a little thing here and there... ;)

Holly (Matt's mom) sent me some fabric from Maine and the pieces were so ridiculously cute, I made these pillow cases for our living room. They're super colorful and give our wood-filled living room some life! They are the envelope type, super easy to make!! You all should definitely try to do it yourself.

(Disclaimer: We are currently living in an apartment where the light is not the best of the best for photos, and I don't love to spend too much time re-touching them. Anyways, it is what it is..)

(This one went back to Maine, as a gift for our niece Cora) :)

Quick and Easy

I had a minute before stepping outside to get some cool air (cool meaning not too hot - summer in Hawaii is not a joke) so I decided to do something quick... A few materials that I had from previous projects, a couple of photos that were never "qualified" to be up in the wall and some minutes to spare... Nothing special, just a quicky. ;)

Hope you liked it and DIY. Now, out to da beach!

Aloha!

Great Quote + Some Paint + Time = New Pillow

Hi there again!

I'm not big on quotes, but lately came across a couple a really liked. I found this one by Theodore Roosevelt some time ago and wanted to do something with it. So I did :)

The arrows just came randomly. Basically they were the first thing that came to my mind when I had the white fabric and black paint in front of me. I had no stencils, but I did have masking tape! Cut some pieces and voila! Arrows!!

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are"
T. Roosevelt

Hope you liked it!

Aloha!

File Cabinet Revival

I've been thinking on doing this project for a while... And I finally did it! Ahhhhh..... Again that sense of accomplishment. I love it!

I'm in Maui, so finding old cheap furniture to work with is not easy. Garage sales, Craigslist, used furniture stores, even Salvation Army... All so expensive compared to the US mainland!!! But I guess we gotta work with what we have, so I decided to overpay for an old used dirty file cabinet I found on CL. Oh well...

It is my first "before and after" project. More like a face lift than a full transformation. Easy, kinda quick, and not a whole lotta work involved. Just paint, sand, paint, sand, paint. And here it is. Hopefully I can pin down my landlady and get a piece of wood she claims she has to convert this cabinet into a desk (or a part of it). If that happens (not if!! when, WHEN!), I'll be posting photos of the finished project. Stay tuned!

Before

After :)

Wall Art Intervention - Part I: The Bathroom

Matt and I just moved to a new house, which to my eyes, means opportunity to re-decorate! Ha! The down side is, we are renting. And when you rent there are projects that are off limits. But as I heard Alice Cooper saying in the radio* yesterday "Instead of thinking what is the worst part of the situation, think about what the best part is".

My first quick and easy move was to change the wall art. Maui's rental properties are characterized by a whole bunch of cra**y tropical style. This includes: furniture (a looooot of wicker!), prints (both in furniture and walls) and fake interior plants -as if the enormous amount of real plants outside wasn't enough! Anyways, since our landlord was adamant that "what is IN the unit, stays IN the unit", there isn't much I can do about the fake flora... I guess we will have to learn to live together. What I did do was taking out all the "wall decor" and start putting up my own style. I started with the easiest, least ambitious of all rooms: the bathroom. 

On the first wall, next to the mirror, I put two strips from the Argentinian artist, Liniers. He has a very sweet style, his drawings are exquisite and his lines are simple yet profound. I absolutely love his work (and that's why it's in my bathroom? : / Sorry!). On the other wall I put together a photo series that I found looking through my mom's old pictures' box. It's from around 1970, when my dad was in Veterinary School in Buenos Aires. To me, not only has sentimental value, but also a great sense of style. If you follow the story, these vet students are catching a cow, and after the action, they are all relaxing... I set the pictures in two pieces of wood I found, following the storyline. The third wall has a photo I bought in one of my visits to Buenos Aires, several years ago. I was already living in Maui at that time, so something that it was totally normal to me as this "Buenos Aires sky", turned to be a great image I cherish. The image belongs to an Argentinian photographer, Agustin Del Rio (Unfortunately he doesn't have a website and couldn't even find it on Google).

As everything, it's still a work in progress. It will need a couple of weeks to settle, and some more changes to the rest of the details (shower curtain is screaming for an urgent intervention!). But for now, this is my bathroom:

Liniers strips

Vet School series

"La Terraza de mi Casa" by Agustin Del Rio

Hope you all have a nice week!

Sofi

*Yes! Alice Cooper, the legendary rock singer has a radio show in Maui. Check nightswithalicecooper.com

Quick Update - Birdies

After some time making birdies and thinking of different ways to set them in the branches, I came up with this one:

It's basically the same idea but they are hanging from two branches that spin (more like a classic baby mobile). I loved it, and thought it would be nice to share it. :)

Have a great day!

Sofi