Tiernan Design

With a Blink of an Eye

 
With a blink of an eye, my little girl is five years old today....sassy and sweet and the love of my life.

 

She wanted me to make this Princess Cake.  I made marshmallow flowers instead of a crown. It seemed prettier than a plastic crown and the marshmallows were in my pantry.  At 10:30 at night, you have to work with what you have.  I call this design by default.  It was a scratch cake, so my mom would be proud.  I am not sure my mom ever made a cake out of box while we were living at home.  She was kind of crazy like that and it has rubbed off on my sisters and me, well at least for special occasions like birthdays....I cropped out the box made brownies sitting in a pan on the counter! 

Happy Birthday Stella, we love you to pieces!

Crazy about White Pumpkins

I love white pumpkins, gourds and autumn in general.  We went to Pumpkin Land last weekend at a 125 year old family farm in the middle of the city; Theiss Farm.  As we walked through the market to check out I came across a farm table filled with my favorites.  I thought I would share it with you.  Needless to say, I bought a few and added them to my autumn mantel.  

Here is another photo from other favorite autumn activity - apple picking. 

We went early this year so it was super hot.  I wanted to get it in before my knee surgery.......

 

Little Towheads

I have posted plenty of times before how I absolutely love Etsy.  Most of my gifts now come from happily searching Etsy.com.  My last experience is exactly why I shop Etsy.  Not only do you find realy cute, one-of-a-kind, non-mass produced works of love, but you actually can communicate with the artist yourself.   

I orderd the above very boyish tshirt for my grandchild (yes you read that right).  I am part of great blended family.  I was able to customize it with his name and was so excited to send it to him for his 2nd birthday.  Well, days, weeks, months went by and we never heard a "thank you".  So a long story short, the shirt never got there.  Not the fault of Little Towheads, but my gut told me it had to do with the Post Office - not the most stellar run "company".  Little Towheads made me another one at no charge, in one night and shipped it via UPS.  All of this in less than 24 hours.  These artists love what they do and want to keep doing it so they really know what customer service is about.   It is raining today, really raining.  I would love to snuggle up and browse Etsy today and get a jump on Christmas, but I am at work right now.......shhhhhhhh.  

P.S.  Free shipping for the month of October from Little Towheads. 

LEGO'S for Grown Ups

I am working on turning my little boys, little bedroom into a little home office.  I would love to have one of these models in our office.  I think these would be great for all kinds of kids big and some-what small - okay no where near small.  Frankie would have the pieces in Daisy's cage, in the crayon box, next to the "cheezy crackers" in the pantry and our Empire State building would have to be modified to maybe look like a cell phone tower.  Not quite the same impact.  Check out the LEGO Kits here.  Great Christmas gifts  - something interesting for a change. 

Pasadena Hills, Come for Sunlight and Health

"Come for Sunlight and Health" that is what the original brochure for my neighborhood of Pasadena Hills writes to describe this place in the country.  Looking at the photos, it really was in the country, but for us, it is just a 10 minute drive from downtown St. Louis. Crazy huh?  Can you say 0-60 in 3.5 seconds?

Check out the brochure, it is pretty interesting. Probably more interesting for me because I know every house that is sketched in the brochure.  I guess it is kind of like talking about your children to a stranger; the stranger doesn't give a hoot, but you will blab on and on as if they really care.  Humor me.  Take a look.  Our street lamps are still original, so I enjoyed reading about those too............like I said, humor me! 

Winding Staircase

I said I would post highlights of our house and I am starting with the biggest.  Our stair to the second floor of our house is great.  It winds 180 degrees and has a pretty ceiling you don't notice until you get partially up the stair.  The trim molding had the original antiqued paint finish, so we painted the foyer and stairwell walls a warm tan to play nice with the trim moulding.  The chandelier is original and filled with bottle glass stained glass.  It is a bit large, but cool.  I will post a pic of it later.  There are a lot details to talk about in the stair, but my favorite are the niches.  There are two of them and they are illuminated by the prettiest little brass flowers; two per niche.  You got to love the details of the days gone by. 

I Have Become an Anthropologie Hoarder

Just like the title says, I have become an Anthropologie hoarder.  I don't throw away any catalogs.  I hold on to them for design ideas, for clothing ideas and pretty much just because they are cool.  I hide them, which makes me a hoarder.  I have mentioned this before, and it is still true, my husband HATES the amount of magazines I get and that I leave around the house.  I don't want the anthropologie catalogs to end up in the trash, so I hide them.  I hide them in the "future projects" black hole in my closet.  I started to make a sweater from last fall's catalog because I have turned into my mother and constantly say, "I can make that". Needless to say, it is still on my dress form.  It looks cute, but I just need to the time to finish it.  One of my first posts  delt with my love of Anthropologie.  The photo above is from this spring/summer catalog.  It is my favorite one so far.  Not so much for the items for sale, but just for the layout design.  Check out Hatch Show Print, the catalog's inspriation.  Here is a sample poster from Hatch.  I love all things vintage.

 

Mom Business Cards

Stella is going to be starting Pre-K/Kindergarten soccer.....can you say "laugh so hard you pee your pants".  Anyway I was talking to the mom who is heading up the soccer team last night.  I had no paper, no pen or anything to write practice times, game info or anything down.  She whipped out a business card with her kids names on it and all of her contact info.  She wrote the first practice info on the back and said to contact her by any means listed on the card if I had any questions.  I thought it was the coolest thing.  So needless to say, I have already ordered my "Stella & Frankie's Mom" cards. 

The best thing about this is they are FREE!  Well, you have to pay for shipping, which is minimal, and put blinders on while navagating through the check-out process because they show you a lot of cute items with your new "business" info on them, like baseball hats, stamps, note pads & sticky notes.   

Mad Men Starts in Four Days!

Have some fun and Mad Men Yourself!

My House

I thought I would begin a new category called "My House".  We live in a "they just don't make them like this anymore" neighborhood.  Really, they don't make houses like this anymore.  There are so many details, etc. in my house I would like to share with you.  I walked into my house a few days ago and saw this view.  I thought it was really pretty and took a snap shot.  In the foreground is a dinning table I bought off Craigslist for less the $300 (which included a Baker Furniture Buffet) - which makes me think of another category........."why can't we own a piece of furniture someone didn't own before us".  That might be too long of a title, but that is my husband's reaction to my thrift store, craigslist, estate sale purchases.  He is coming around especially when he found out the history of the thrift-ed dining table manufacturer - John Widdicomb.  I had know idea who made this table when I bought it, I just liked the lines of the chairs.  After doing a little research, like the link I just attached, it makes me like it even more!