Spooktacular Spaces

One of my favorite holidays is quickly approaching. I am dreaming of crisp fall evenings, crunching leaves, juicy red apples, and carefully carved pumpkins.



Here are a few inspiration photos I have saved up over the years for the perfect Halloween haunt:








Metallic pumpkins, ghostly gourds, towering jack 'o lanterns - what's not to love!?

Fabulous Vintage Fabric

While working on a nursery idea board for a friend of mine, I came a cross a site with some fabulous vintage fabrics! It's called warmbiscuit.com and they have all kinds of groovy baby (and kid) gear.

Here are some of my favorite fabrics from the site (although I could've posted all of them)

(Click to make larger)


They even do custom curtains for those of us (ahem) who can't sew to save their life!

Rainforest Romp

During our visit to Oz we explored Eungella National Park and saw spectacular views of waterfalls, the rainforest, and wildlife. To get there we had to drive over some fairly rough terrain:


And after being greeted by a kookaburra, we trekked back through the rainforest trail:





I saw Tarzan along the way (okay so maybe it was just the hubster)



And the tallest skinniest palm tree I've ever seen! How does it stay up? I was tempted to blow on it to see if it would fall over:



The trail ended at a gorgeous waterfall:



After enjoying the waterfall, we hiked back to the car, and kept on driving to some of the amazing overlooks:


And ended our trip with some platypus watching. My sister and her father-in-law said they have been here before and did not see any platypus:


We all took up different positions to spot them. It was best from above because of the glare on the water:


A few turtles poked their heads up to say hello:


And finally, amazingly, we saw a platypus! And then another! We were so lucky to be there at just the right time of day. They're such strange, fast-moving little creatures. And who knew they had such sharp claws on their back feet? Not a little fellow you'd want to cuddle!



And we topped the day off with a few shots of the bush turkeys - they were all over the place!


It was such a fabulous day full of nature, wild exotic animals and plants, and family. I'd say my first rainforest experience was top notch!

Want to Really Go Green?

A friend sent me this very interesting video on what it truly means to go green. We all tend to think that we are doing a great job by using reusable shopping bags, buying fluorescent light bulbs, and recycling, and those things are great, but apparently they don't make as much of an impact as we think. In this video, Graham Hill, founder of Treehugger, gives us a scale for how much we should be doing to go green and how to do it in very simple terms:

For those of you who don't have time to watch the whole video, here are some notes I took:


The average Co2 Emissions - American Average vs. World Average:


What most of us do now is only reducing that 20 tons by 600 lbs or 1.5 percent:

Bigger impact items = becoming a weekday vegetarian, flying smart, and using green energy
Why fly smart?

• Flying from New York to Bangkok = 9.8 Tons Co2 = half of our yearly carbon footprint = yikes!!!

How to fly smart?

• Combine business trip flights with vacation flights
• Instead of meeting in person meet online via Skype or iChat
• Fly via newer planes
• Fly economy class.

Where to buy green energy?

• Click here

Why become a weekday vegetarian?
Combined they can reduce our carbon footprint by half - from 20 tons to 10 tons:I don't fly much, but I am intrigued by the idea of becoming a weekday vegetarian. It is healthier and cheaper and you would still get to eat meat on the weekends. One thing I personally would worry about is the fact that I have mild hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, and I control it by diet. This mostly means limited carbs, especially simple or processed carbs, and eating a lot of protein and vegetables. I also have no idea how to create good-tasting, healthy vegetarian meals.

Although I don't think I'm ready to commit to a weekday vegetarian lifestyle, I'd love to find some yummy vegetarian recipes to cook every now and then.

If you have a favorite vegetarian recipe to share, I'd love to try it out!

A few weeks ago, a fellow Nestie wrote:

Hi, I need some help! I have a visual of what I want but when I go to the store to buy this things I am over whelmed with everything at the store and always end up looking at what is on sale versus what I am actually looking for (grrrr). Here is our Bedroom:

And here are a couple of inspiration photos:






I basically want a romantic vintage chic feel to our room with very light neutral colors. I wish that I could remove the ceiling fan and install a chandelier, but we live in Miami and it's too hot year round to be sleeping without it. I really do not know what else to do. Thank you!



Romantic, vintage, light, and neutral? Here's what I whipped up:


Bedding - Bed, Bath & Beyond
Drapes - Pottery Barn (Ivory)
Paint - Behr Powdered Snow
Rug - Macy's
Lamps - West Elm
TV Frame - Pottery Barn
Sunburst Mirror - Pottery Barn
Patterned Blue Pillow - Bobby Berk Home
Neutral Floral Pillow - Jayson Home & Garden
Metallic Rectangular Pillow - Bobby Berk Home
Neutral Striped Pillow - Bobby Berk Home
Solid Blue Pillow - Crate & Barrel
Candleholder - Wisteria
Headboard - Add batting and fabric to the homeowner's current headboard

*I apologize if any of these items are unavailable - I created this idea board a few weeks ago and haven't had time to post it until now.