Laptop Bling
Does anyone else think that laptops, while incredibly convenient and useful, can be quite boring? I definitely thought so, so I dressed mine up with some bling. :-) I saw these vinyl decals at my local Michaels, and liked them immediately.
While in the store, I couldn't think of any way to use them, so I left without purchasing them. But, happily, a few days later I came up with the idea of putting them on my laptop cover. I hadn't wanted to purchase a skin for my laptop, but was put off by the price and the overwhelming amount of options. That's why these little flowers were perfect. They're easily removable, so they don't damage the computer at all, and they add a little pop of color to the otherwise boring case. The only catch was, when I went back to Michaels they were no where to be found. I had half expected that, as they were clearanced out on my last trip, but I tooled around the store, looking at other fun stuff and hoping I might find them in some forgotten corner. I may or may not have spent copious amounts of time in the art aisles, admiring all of the oil paints, canvases and brushes. Brushes are my weakness. :-) Anyways, I took one last trip around the store, and voila! There they were, hiding in a dark corner of the scrapbooking section.
Putting them on the computer was easy peasy. I simply cut out around the shapes, and positioned them on the back of the screen.
The decals included a little plastic piece the size of a credit card that worked very well to smooth out any stray bubbles. Now my 'puter has a little bit of sizzle to it. Isn't it pretty?
Centsational Girl is having a "Where I Blog" party. Because we travel so much, I don't really have a stable spot that I blog from, which is why I love my super portable laptop with its long battery power. So now the "where I blog" is a little prettier! Go see all of the fabulous spaces that these girls have!
Also linked to the Sunday Showcase @ Under the Table and Dreaming:-), the DIY Project Parade @ The DIY Showoff and Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch
King Xerxes is played by Luke Goss. The story, according to the movie's website, is that he auditioned for the part of Xerxes, and was told "thanks but no thanks" They told him he didn't really have the look they were trying to find. So he asked his agent to help him get into the character, and flew up from South Africa to audition for the part again, despite being miserably sick. Happily, he convinced the producers, and the role was his. I think he did an excellent job portraying a king who was bound by protocol, but wished for love.
There are a bunch of well known actors who play the other key roles in this film. John Rhys Davies plays Mordecai, each time I see this actor, I am just in awe of all of the different roles he has played. Although he does an excellent job here, I think his favorite role of mine is Gimli the dwarf in Lord of the Rings.
Omar Sharif plays Memucan, the voice of reason to the king.
John Noble plays the evil Prince Admantha, who plots against the king in any way he can. Up until Fringe, I had only seen John Noble play tortured, mostly creepy roles where he is definitely the villain. Do you watch Fringe? As Walter, he is still tortured, and sometimes a bit creepy, but mostly he is sweet and endearing.
Tommy Lister plays the harem eunuch, Hegai. He says that this movie was an opportunity for him to show off a softer side that his size and looks have never allowed him to play before, having always been typecast as the scary huge giant. :-) Softie, or not, I still wouldn't want to cross him!
Oh, and I mentioned the costumes before, here are some of the awesome outfits that Tiffany DuPont and Luke Goss got to wear for this film.
Stunning no? Do you think I could pull this look off? :-) In conclusion, if you haven't seen this movie, run, don't walk to your nearest video store or kiosk and rent it to watch tonight. Trust me, you'll thank me tomorrow. :-)
But the back of the house received zero attention. :-) We've tried really hard to balance out our life with our renovations, and not allow them to take over completely. With that in mind, last summer we decided to only work on the front. Which meant that the back of the house still looked like this:
Not quite as pleasant, right? So this summer we thought we would tackle at least part of this mess in the back, and at the same time spruce up a fun little deck area that we could enjoy throughout the summer. My other two goals were to mostly tackle projects I could do myself, and to not spend huge amounts of money or time by changing anything. We would simply work with what we had, using paint, new light fixtures and simple accessories to make everything liveable. And here's what we accomplished:
Quite a difference, right? I need to mention here that we ignored the left side of the house entirely. Its time will come, but we need to kill some weeds, get rid of some garbage and take out some planters before we can even think of "sprucing up." So this is two thirds of the back fixed up. :-) We continued with the yellow and green color scheme we started with in the front, and then added in some fun shots of red, blue and colored glass to make it very festive. As you can see, the difference is drastic.
Painting all of the exposed wood, and caring for the neglected deck wood really changed the overall look. For all of the wood that I painted, I simply sprayed off any dirt, then followed with a coat of Kilz primer, and finally with outdoor paint. I love how sunny and warm the yellow is, with the bright pops of green. Caring for the wood of the deck floor was a little more tedious. It took me several hours to sand it all smooth, then I sprayed a deck cleaning solution on, and scrubbed that off. Finally, after everything was clean and dry, we spent a Saturday afternoon applying an outdoor deck stain to the freshly scrubbed boards.
See how rich the wood looks now? And it is splinter free, which encourages bare feet. :-)
The plants, other than the silk poppies on the table, are mostly clearance finds at the garden centers. Next year I hope to grow some healthy geraniums and petunias to fill up all the pots, but for now, these bargain babies provide some much needed splashes of color.
These last ones, the red petunias, are my favorites. We found the little red pails at Target for $1.00 a piece, and I filled them with a six pack of red petunias from Walmart. They are the perfect scale for the corners of the deep windowsills, and they make me smile every time I see them.
The aqua colored votive holders on either side were clearanced out to $2.57 at Pier 1. I used some floral wire to string them from the ironwork above, and they are so pretty with the sun shining through them, or with tealights inside at night.
I wanted this area to be slightly reminiscent of the balconies in Spain, so I hunted down some pretty plates to hang on the wall, as they so often do there. Beneath them are some colored glass jars and bottles I thought were cool, and a metal smiling sunflower from Christmas Tree Shops.
Lover also made up a bunch of glass tiki torches. We simply collected some little bottles we liked, and filled them with tiki fluid. The wick is a length of sisal rope, threaded through a hole made in a bottle cap. Once the sisal is saturated, these torches burn super clean and work wonders at keeping the bugs away from the deck. The green torches below were made from cooking wine bottles, and we repurposed their tops to hold the "wick" in place.
We also painted the front of the entryway, and it looks tons better. I'm slowly building up a pretty flower garden for this planter, and already it looks tons better than it did before. My beautiful morning glories from last year naturalized, and I love how they look climbing up either side of the window.
So that's how we transformed our less then stellar deck into a fun, relaxing retreat. I can't decide if my favorite part is the yellow wall color, the happy red geraniums or those cool plates on the wall. What about you?
This guy is the oldest. He makes sure to keep everyone in line, and he has the privilege of being the very first grandchild so you can imagine how great that was. He just started losing his baby teeth, as you can see here.
Next up is the little brother, this guy is a barrel of laughs. He is the goofiest kid I know, but most likely the sweetest as well. For a while his favorite thing to do was rhymes. You'd ask him, "what rhymes with window?" His answer "finnow". Hilarious.
Then, we have their little sister, who looks exactly like her mom did growing up. She's sneaky like her too. (JK :-) Is she not the most adorable little girl?
I love her little flowery dress. It made her look like such a little lady.
Sweet girl. The baby of the family is another pretty little girl, who I photographed last fall with mixed results. She was cranky last year, but this time she was in a perfect mood!
She is so cute. They call her the little bean, and I always think she looks like a baby elf. Either way, she is so sweet and adorable.
Munching on some clover.
And then she found a pretty flower. :-)
The two sisters together. I hope these girls grow up to be best friends.
And the brothers - they're both in school this year! When did they get so big?
And then a few of the four of them all together. As you can imagine, this part was mayhem. :-)
So there you go. Adorable cuteness, available whenever we need a baby fix. :-)
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