Must find this!

Saw these fantastic carpet tiles as a 'sneak peek' of a FLOR Fall 2011 design
(thanks to Poppytalk's post here)

These would be so great for my craft space!

Enjoy the day!

JavaNut

My favorite lamps... at long last!

A LONG time ago I saw a really cool lamp at Anthropologie. LOVED it! It was a stack of cups and saucers. It was me. LOVED it! It was $200. LOVED it! But not the price tag for something that immediately prompted my inner DIY-er "I could do that..."

I collected a bunch of pieces from thrift stores and Goodwill (and my cabinet!), got a lamp kit and the drillbit the 'tool man' suggested. It took me an incredibly long hour to drill through one saucer and it didn't create a clean hole. Project tabled...

I was link-hopping one day and found Mandy of Vintage Revivals. She recreated my lamp AND wrote a great tutorial on how she did it. So a couple of false starts later... I got my lamp!!

Forgive the phone photos... camera was charging and in my 'just do it' frame of mind, I grabbed the phone. The guest room colors are really hard to photograph well, so now I have the phone camera as another excuse for poor photos. And I'm still looking for lamp shades... trying to find some that I can thrift and re-make, but not successful. But here they are in the guest room... still LOVE THEM!!!

The large cup on the right next gets filled with toiletries when guests are here, and if they're lucky, flowers in the pitcher. If I'd made an effort for good photos, maybe I would have "staged" that too ;-)

When I finished, my friend immediately wanted one... so I continued my stalking of the nearby Goodwill. Numerous trips later had a good collection of yellow/blue... the saucer under the small yellow cup has a cute pattern, too. (and again... still working on finding the right shade).

Check out Mandy's tutorial and detailed photos... and thanks to her for making it easy!

Enjoy the day!

JavaNut

Freeze your shoes!

I really avoid buying shoes that aren't comfortable, but if I ever have shoes that are too tight - here's a fix. I never would have thought of this...

Who knew??

This year's garden has been a bit of a bust... possibly strange weather pattern this summer, but mostly just from neglect.

Tomatoes are always my priority and I've got 7 or 8 plants... woefully unproductive. Just enough to keep me eating them... no bumper crop, no overflowing basket, and very sadly no roasted cherry tomato bruschetta! Or tomato bread salad. sniff.

Even the zucchini has been perfectly manageable!

I planted lettuce for the first time. It stayed healthy, but didn't exactly grow so I wasn't sure if I picked some of the leaves if/how it would keep growing. Then I forgot about it.

If you've ever wondered what happens... I totally cracked up when I turned the corner and saw these! Then I left them to see just exactly what would happen. They grew another 10 inches or so, flowered at the top, and then fell over. (I had also turned off their water supply as that seemed a bit irresponsible!). So not exactly my intention, but I was entertained!

(I do plan on trying lettuce again and WILL remember that I've planted it. Probably.)

Back to blogging...

Back to blogging... I've been contemplating this for a while, and clearly this is a case of the longer you wait, the easier it is to wait longer! But I love the blogosphere so here's the 'just do it' post.

Significant contribution to my loooonnnnng hiatus was a long battle with tendinitis in my left wrist... therefore no knitting and less computer time. Second contribution was switching to a Mac was a less-than-pleasant process and I still find anything to do with photos a challenge. But months of therapy and then surgery late 2010 solved the wrist problem, and I'm just adjusting to the Mac. So... I'm back!

And since this was originally a knitting blog... a summary of my pitiful

output of 2010 until the tendinitis hit... pics aren't the best, and the resolution of the mosaic-maker-tool-thingy is even worse, but it's about all these projects warrant!

I do love the little gnome guys, though... Alan Dart is brilliant designer of knit toys. I NEVER would have considered knitting toys until I saw some of his patterns... totally cute! I dare you to look at his patterns and resist. Some people pay CRAZY prices on eBay for out of print ones that can't be re-released because of copyright laws...

I obviously failed the "10 Shawls in 2010" Ravelry group challenge, but jumped right in for the "11 Shawls in 2011" and had those all completed several months ago (and then some!).

So I'll leave this blogging re-entry post with another mosaic of those shawls...

I've discovered a surprising affinity with some Stephen West's designs - brilliant in their simplicity and use of color. I love knitting lace, but for out & about and the office, his ClockWork (gray/cream stripe, and multi/cream stripe) are incredibly wearable!

Mosaics done with the the aptly named Mosaic Maker from Big Huge Labs using my flickr pics.

Enjoy the day!

- JavaNut

(phew! I did it!)

Bailey says: I'd rather be going somewhere...

brownies, and chips, and cookies, oh my!

Before turning this into a random food oriented blog (garden, prepared, and then today), I have had other things going on (sadly... still no knitting).

Garage sales have been a focus of recent weekends, and I've been partially successful on my hunt, along with a few unplanned treasures. This weekend was a good one!

First up - pair of lamps. These were a bargain for $5/pr and will be perfect in the guest bedroom after a good cleaning. Of course I have a different project-in-progress for lamps for that room, but I couldn't pass these up and the other ones might not actually come to fruition.

A fun game board... the top glass has checkers to cover the backgammon board, and the drawer includes dominoes and cribbage. I'll need to get more little bits to use for checkers pieces, but already have a good idea. I may paint and distress the wood box as it's certainly seen better days, but this is a good addition to the game cupboard!

And a $10 bread machine. My bread machine didn't survive the move-storage-move process, so I'll have fun with this one.

The major purchase of the weekend will appear in a make-over post one of these days...

But instead of installing shelves or working on the headboard, I make Pillow Cookies. Not an intuitive name in my opinion, but essentially a brownie surrounded by chocolate chip cookie. YUM!

If I were to make these again, I'd go for a thicker cookie dough. This was REALLY moist and soft, so chilling the dough was critical, but made for a flat cookie with a bulge where the brownie bite was. And as Bakerella says, you will need to cover the cookies for further cooking when the tops start to get brown.

And they are HUGE! This plate is 7 3/4" across!

For the full recipe and much more enticing pictures, click here.

Temptation on so many levels...

Happy, Happy -

JavaNut

grown-up "Mac 'n Cheese'

I enjoy cooking, but as a household of one, I rarely actually cook. Grocery shopping after work is torture so I often "assemble" instead of cook.

This is my stand by for 'the last resort' and I call it grown up's Mac 'n Cheese. I'm not sure the nutritional value compared to Kraft, but at least it's not neon orange!!

After a long, hot day it was definitely time for a meal of last resort. And tonight's add -ins were broccoli and sundried tomatoes...