Bamboo

**Disclaimer: These photos (and most of the others on this blog so far) were taken with Scott's puny little point and shoot camera (sorry, hon). It's pretty crappy at 5mp, but it gets the job done for these everyday photos... not very proud of them - so for the time being, until I save enough to get my camera, please pretend that I'm not a professional photographer. :D

So I was browsing Craig's List's free section and found this ad for free cut bamboo poles...

The ad said you can help keep them out of the landfills and use them for arts and crafts or yard stakes... I thought, I'm sure they're like a couple of feet long, and there's only a hand full of them. I wasn't even sure if they would still be available since the ad had been up for a couple of days already and they were out on the curb, but I thought, why not check anyway.

Here's what I found:











It's hard to tell from the photos, but these Poles were between 9 and 14 feet long!! We had to pull some branches off of them and clean them up. We weren't armed with any garden sheers or knives, so poor Scott got a big blister on his finger and I got bug bites. We had to have them stick out of the car about 4 feet out, and even had to break a bunch of them to fit! We kept praying that we wouldn't get pulled over! Luckily we were only 20 min away from our house.

They're about 3" wide in diameter and some were brown and dried up, some were still green. As you can tell, there were quite a few... probably 30 poles or so. I'm excited to see what we're going to do with them. The possibilities are endless... :D

New finds, Old Treasures

For all my friends and family back in LA stuck in LA 5 o'clock traffic....


This is 5 o'clock traffic here in Nashville, going about 60mph. :)


Since we've been here we've been looking around for inexpensive furniture and decorations to fill up the other 2 rooms in the house. :) so here are some of our cool finds:

When we were downtown on my b-day, we picked up a couple of small touristy things... We found this magnet and couldn't resist. It's now become our little southern catch phrase... it comes up in conversations randomly and we always have to say it in a southern accent...



We also got these two I thought were cool. The one on the right is the Nashville flag.



This is a dresser we found on Craig's list for only $20. It's not in the very best condition ever, but we love the old 'aged', 'antiqued' look, and it's a good solid piece. I gave it a good cleaning and now it's shinier and prettier.



This rockin' wicker rocker was also a steal at $20. It's pretty big and comfy... and bright (it looks orange, but it's like bright fire engine red). We're going to spray paint it and I'll post some after photos of that too. It goes on our front porch.



This is an awesome Antiques sign we scored for FREE! Thing is... it's HUGE!!! like 6 or 7 feet long!! We didn't know where we were going to use it, but we couldn't pass it up. It has that old crackling paint look... you know the one they sell special paint to make it look old and peeling... with this one is actually old and peeling. Very cool.



Both these shutters were also with the Antiques sign. They're really cool cause of the paint peeling and the old aged look. We love them. Also the color of the blue one is so rich for how old it must be. I think the blue one is going to be our new headboard. The green ones are actually facing away from each other... They're supposed to look like the ones at the old cowboy saloons in the old western movies... where the cowboy enters through them and they swing shut behind him... then the whole place turns into a bar fight...

They don't look that great right now, but after a good scrub I'll post some after photos of these too.



This floor lamp was marked $18.95 at the Goodwill, but at the register the lady took $5 off. SCORE!! the lampshade belongs to another table lamp, the one that came with it is not that nice (in my opinion... but Scott likes it - we'll see what happens to it.)



This is also another thrift store find... It was $6.95! But it had the wrong type of shade on it... but that's a super easy fix. They sell the little wire things that hold up the shade real cheap. But it needs a good coat of paint to cover up this goldish weird color.

I love it when stores think something is broken or busted and sell it for a lot less than it's worth so I score and then I can go fix it up for only a couple of bucks. :D



So there you have it. :D Thrifty shopping at it's best. I totally love spray paint now... I found a whole isle of it at Wal*Mart in all kinds of colors... and even some fun finishes and textures... It's perfect when you find that great piece of furniture but it's the wrong color. I'm using a Pewter one with a 'hammered' texture to cover up some gold fixtures - it's going to be awesome!! :)

:D B.

Summer Weather

Just when I thought I was missing the breezy CA. weather... The last couple days here have been Perfect!! It's 80 degrees with a beautiful breeze and sunshine. I even sat on the front porch for a while yesterday enjoying the view and nature.

Even though we get beautiful days like this in Ca. it's different here... in Ca the sun seemed to make it too hot or too bright... here, it's just been perfect. And there's so much greenery around, so many trees and bushes that it makes you feel closer to nature. Lots of birds too. The cats are loving watching the birds and bugs flying around outside.

I just hope this great weather lasts a while. Sure beats the heat from that first couple of weeks when we arrived.

Weirdest thing... last night I got a nose bleed. This may not be a big deal for some, but it was my very first one. Very weird. It was so funny though, as soon as it started, Scott couldn't figure out what to do... do you lean forward, or do you lean back... he ran to the computer to google nose bleeds and within seconds had some answers. Isn't the internet great!! We figured it out and I'm fine now.

:D B.

Leaving Comments...

When you leave a comment, below your typed comment, you have the option to choose an identity: you can use a google account (ie: gmail or igoogle) if you're logged in it will recognize you automatically. If you click on OpenID it will give you a list of other accounts you may have. or you can click on Name/URL and just type that in. or click on Anonymous. :)

If you would like to make a google account, click here, it's free and will also give you a gmail email account (which you don't necessarily need to use).

Thanks!!!

Downtown Nashville

So for my birthday, Scott and I took the day off from painting and visited downtown Nashville and some surrounding areas...

Here are some photos of Broadway Blvd. in downtown. There's a section of the blvd where there's one cafe or bar after the other lined up and down the strip with a few tourist souvenir stores peppered in between. It's really cool. When you walk by the doorways, you can hear live bands preforming - in EVERY single place! like 20+ cafes or bars! Don't like this one? go right next door to the next one! I love it! (you can click on the photos to see a larger image)









































There's so many beautiful old brick and stone buildings



















And a few random ones!

Nashville!!

I can't believe we've been here for 3 weeks already! It's been a crazy time.

Since we didn't have much help packing the truck back in CA. and it took way longer than we expected, we didn't end up leaving town till 8pm (despite our plan of 1:30pm). We were wiped out from packing that we were unable to go to far... we found a hotel in Ontario, Ca. and crashed. Then the next day, Sunday the 18th, we drove to Flagstaff, Az. (9 hours). The next day, we drove to Santa Rosa, NM. (about 8 hours or so). Then the 20th was a much longer day, we drove all the way through Texas, Oklahoma, and stopped in Fort Smith, AR. (12 hours!) That was a tough one! The next morning we took a break and visited my friend Kristin in Fayetteville, AR. It was really nice to see her after.. gosh, 6 years!!

Then back to the road.. on the 22nd, another 10 hours got us to West Nashville, TN (right outside of the city) at 3am. We were definitely wiped out that night.

We crashed at another hotel and stayed there for the next 5 days. We didn't account for the 3 day weekend where most people were out of town and couldn't show us houses till Tuesday, which was the day after the truck was due. We were definitely not going to unload the whole truck to storage, rent storage, keep renting hotel rooms, re-rent another truck, re-load a moving truck, then unload all over again. Whew, that was exhausting just thinking about it!

Anyway, we were SO blessed to find an awesome house for rent last minute. It's huge: 3bed, 2.5 bath, 1677sq feet!! garage, front porch, screened in back porch with a hot tub!! All for less than what we were paying for a one bedroom 850sq ft back in CA!! So Awesome! Only downfall is the decor and wallpaper, it's hideous. lol. but good thing we like to fix up and DIY! :)

So, here are some photos of the house... remember, these are the before photos - We've been working on painting and improving and I'll post some after photos soon. Enjoy.




Only Half empty!















Front Porch


a little creek that runs underneath our driveway. This photo is the neighbor's drive, but ours looks the same. There's even little gray fishies in there. :)



The very very ugly Kitchen wallpaper. Thank God for paint!


not to be topped off by the equally ugly hallway wallpaper... notice the shimmery silver in the patterns. elegant!


More to follow tomorrow, I promise, cause I'm wiped and have a headache. time for bed. Later! B.

We're live!

Hi everyone -

We're finally up. Thanks for dropping by, I hope you can come back and check often for new posts.

The purpose of this blog is to keep in touch, to share projects and crafts I make, post photos and videos, and to get comments back from YOU. :) yes, that means you get to leave comments.

It's easy, just click on the word 'comments' below and a new window will pop up. Leave a little comment, type out the little characters in the little box, you can click on 'preview' to see how your comment looks, or you can just click on 'post comment'. That's it. :)

Come back soon,
Bassma. ;)