Objects of Affection

Photo above is from my Out with the Old photo project from 2009.

The thing I learned from being a fly on the wall around dudes, is that if you want to get laid by your date, you have to really not be expecting it to happen at all. Just clear the whole idea from your memory. I think I went into the holiday season with the same approach.

I was really not expecting anything for Christmas. I had really low expectations. I feel like all I deserve is coal. Well, kairo. Kairo are those little  disposable Japanese heat packs that are primarily made of coal. They last for hours and have the most adorable packaging ever. Thanks to my Floridian years, wearing two of them under my layers of clothing is necessary for daily survival in this weather.

I ended up buying a ton of them as a gift to myself. Then I started receiving the most amazing things in the mail! I had a really amazing Christmas. I got the following:

A KitchenAid, from my mom!

If I had the option of trading my arm for something more useful, I would trade it out for this attachment. Its made everything I do in the kitchen so much easier.

A Wacom tablet from my siblings

Tins, from  James

Candy, from his dietary restrictions.

Abest friend, from Atlanta. (so what if he’s not an object)

A Christmas card that looked as though it had been shot at by a bedazzler, from Nixon.

A few pairs of really comfy sock slippers and a few really endearing Christmas cards, from my nana and great aunt.

Betsy Johnson lingerie, from a secret someone.

and some of my favorite perfume to go along with it.

Twin massive bottles of lavender soap, from TC.

a new adorable keychain, from Twinkie Chan

a Leica R3 rental (shot with my new 50mm), from Frank

This long feathered earring, from Gala. Along with the bone barrette that I made, I feel like a very fancy indian, sometimes.

And a very goofy Indian, at others.

The only gift that I can’t take photos of, is my trip to Thailand and Vietnam, that will be happening in February!  What an exciting gift to segue me into the new year!

Although I brag, I know its not about the gifts as much as the people who gave them to me. Everything I received is about to get some heavy usage (except for the candy, which is already gone and the friend who, again, is not an object.) and I’m going to be able to be reminded of where and who it came from , on a daily basis. I’m an unbelievably lucky girl with some really amazing friends and family.

What did you guys get for Christmas?!

 

Squash Sucking Freaks

There has been a little pumpkin sitting on my coffee table for nearly two weeks. It was dying for me to use some of my kitchen witchcraft to turn it into a pumpkin pie. Everyday I would come home and there it was. Begging and pleading for me to chop it up and toss it in the steamer until its little pumpkin guts turned to mush and doused in nutmeg.

Sick of its incessant cries, and inspired by the best scene in Blood Sucking Freaks, I  pulled out the power drill, some diffrent sized drill bits, and a roll of measuring tape and created a different kind of jack-o-lantern!
The perfectionist in me could deal with the thought of trying to carve a face and loosing a silhouette eye or tooth in the process. So I measured out a starburst shape with the measuring tape, tagging the measurements within an an inch along the way, and the used multiple drill bits to pierce holes through the little squash.

It was a lot more fun for me to watch ribbons of pumpkin swirl out as the drill punctured it, than feeling like it was the first time I had ever used a knife, all over again. Plus, I think it looks really pleasant!

Its not very scary but it does make it feel a little more like fall, around here.

I’m pretty sure I make up for my lack of Halloween spook on things I have in my room year round. A good example being my bedside shelving:

And although I may not have had the time or forethought to make the bedbug costume that would have been perfect to galavant around New York in, I did let my hands get into costume for the occasion.

eeek!

Happy Halloween, internet.

Magic Trick of a Florist

I like finding hints of nature in very urban surroundings, so finding this little DIY tip on ReadyMade really just sprinkled my ice cream.

Rainin’ Blood

During the past couple of gloomy days, I stayed cooped up, listened to one of my favorite metal albums (Reign in Blood by Slayer), and got crafty!

Some results of my metal induced furry are for sale on my Etsy shop, I Felt That.

My Broken Cubical

I had recently recovered a hard drive full of music that I haven’t heard since high school, made myself a girly Ska mix, and spent all of yesterday partaking in my favorite spring time activity. SPRING CLEANING!

My non-cubicle was my favorite and most improved area.

Feel free to step into my office:

Brain Shades (96/365)

When I moved in to my apartment, I was told that the building across the street was abandoned. With this knowledge, I procrastinated putting up shades for a few months and frolicked around my room as naked as a flower child, knee deep in acid, at Woodstock. This was fine and dandy up until the day I looked out my window to see several workers peaking their heads out of cracked windows of the NOT SO abandoned building.

Next day, I had my curtins hung but they weren’t long enough to cover all my window space. So I punched some holes in my MRI’s, attached them to each other with fishing wire, and hung them from the ceiling.

Now those dirty ole’ worker have no choice but to see me for my brains and not my tits. 

A Dignified Version of Eggs and Ketchup (69/365)

I’m not a fan of eggs. I find them most bearable drenched in hollandaise sauce or ketchup. yes….ketchup. This morning, I made what is pretty much the more dignified version eggs with ketchup.

Poached eggs in a simple tomato sauce.

How To Maximize Your Minimal Kitchen

I live in a loft (no storage space) with another lovely little cook (twice the cooking supplies). So I recently had to get a little crafty with how to tuck away some of our supplies.

Wanna see whats cookin’ in my kitchen?

Does the Carpet Match the….Place Mats?

Rugs aren’t as cheap as you assume they should be.

especialy since it seems that you can pick up a small one for about 5 bucks, but a larger one goes into the $100’s.

Luckly some craft genius put two and two together and made one of her own. Although this is a stealable idea, her makeshift rug looks like a few well sewn place mats.

The Cable Box

I have the ability to lose just about anything.

• Keys
• Personal laptops
• Metrocards
• Lighting fixtures
• Full plates of food

If I can hold it, there’s just a matter of time before I loose it.

I imagine it has to do with my short attenti-

I’ve recently come to find that the best way to prevent myself from loosing or destroying things, it to put them in some sort of casing.

Now that I’ve figured out the art of getting those little headphones in my ear, I’ve also figured out a pretty nifty way to keep them visible and tidy.

Just tucking them into an old cassette case!

Then I took it a step towards O.C.D. and put all of my tiny cords and loose batteries into cases before tucking them away in the travel case that I found for 5 bucks at a street fair.

All photos taken by Chloe Rice

I contributed a section of this to Mikeys newly started blog.

Tiny Homes

I know I can’t afford to own a real house, but I would honestly be completely  satisfied with this little home. 

Boxed Shelf

I will never be able to explain or understand for myself why i love cubed shelving so much, but i do.

• I can hold so many things in such a compact space? 
  
• It makes a perfect room divider? 
  
• It stacks boxes conveniently?
  

Who knows. 

I’ve gone through 4-6 different ones between my last two apartments, and have no photos that really display how amazing they are. I could kick myself. Its sad that i almost miss shelving.

Luckily, Ikea will be selling them for the rest of my adult life. (fingers crossed)

In an ideal world, I would like to have the space to make them on my own out of real oak.

Heres a few photos that I’ve taken where you can kind of get the idea of how my brain wanted these shelves to be intended.

Recently, This Interior is what I am For

More poorly taken photos of this gray little apartment, can be found here.

Unexpected Home for the Gypsy.

This was a photo taken of the current room I’m working on, when it was still a living room that i had just cleaned and moved the furniture around in. Nothing was mine. The pea soup green walls, the Grimace purple wall in the back room) and all of the furniture were a decision made before I was around. 

After I moved the living room into a different part of the house, I was left with this big empty room and no idea how to utilize it. I’m still not sure what I’m expecting from it, but it is the first room you see when you walk in which was an embarrassment. And the green walls and piles of toys and sewing objects began to drive me nuts.

So this is the result of my Saturday. (I painted and lit the red room, back in July)

I’ve been going though another wave of domesticity. I constantly find a ned to make my home more homier. Its something I’ve craved my entire life. 

• Between living at home where I was strictly forbidden to paint the walls of our apartment rental or to get furniture that my mom didn’t approve of.
• Being on tour where I spent months finding things that I loved and hated about the more chic hotels, and how i would someday apply it to my home when I decided I would no longer consider myself a vagabond.
• Watching tacky domestic shows on TLC about turning one version of an ugly home into a more organized version of an equally hideous home just for the hope of once in a while getting an idea on how to hack a skateboard into a shelf or something that would stimulate my creative mind.

I’ve been spending the past 2 years slowly turning a dude palace of beer cans, cat urine, and cigarette butts into my dream home filled with lots of light colors, well coordinated book placement, and no cats.

The process seems like it will never be done, but everytime i make a tiny step closer to my end result, i feel better than i could ever imagine. 

I get high off it.  Redoing a room, getting every knick-knack off of the floor, replacing an overhead light with something softer, then walking into that room and realizing the drastic change makes me feel better than any drug. Unfortunately, it is usually followed by the come down. I think of how the whole house NEEDS to flow, but all i can do is stare at the imperfections, immobile and unmotivated to move forward. 

This is usually about the time that i look at interior design blogs and wish that i was living in those rooms, before figuring out how to apply it to my house. these are some rooms I love this week: