Home Decor | A Thankfully Imperfect Woman

Oct 30

Meet Karianne of Thistlewood Farms

This woman…

This Karianne of Thistlewood Farms…

This incredibly creative, zany and funny woman writes one of my favorite blogs. She talks of ambulance auctions and red lipstick and carriage houses and apple baskets…and best of all junk.

I LOVE her gorgeous home. I LOVE her gorgeous decorating. And I LOVE her cute/funny/hilarious writing style.

Anyone who loves junk and decorating with junk has heard of this woman.

And if you haven’t, here…

Let me share my morning smiles, laughter and yes, one of my inspirations with you:

Dear friends, meet Karianne. Karianne, meet my friends. Just click here:

I Love Junk and a Linky Party

You’re welcome.

Patty O

Oct 24

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A Grease Monkey, Family Heirlooms, and Barb Kellogg Photography

The Grease Monkey is me…yes I shop at the St Louis County Mall (aka the dump) and yes, I grab greasy treasures! I have a little too much fun cleaning up these treasures…thank you Dawn dish soap, or as my husband puts it “If it’s good enough to clean ducks, it’s good enough for this”. (Obviously referring to the oil spills, the affected waterfowl, and the Dawn dish soap commercials.) I had GREAT fun cleaning up the pulley!

And yes, my husband thinks I’m nuts. Oh ye of little faith…but then he sees the finished product and says “Well, that’s cool!” 🙂

In the featured LOVE picture, the first two items were dump (oops Mall) finds. The V is a folding tape measure that was Tim’s Grandpa’s. And the two clamps I picked up at my friend’s garage sale…I needed an E…what can I say?

And here’s a collage of the rest of the wall! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! Read more

Oct 23

Antlers, Leaves, and Wreaths = FALL

I LOVE FALL!

For anyone who’s seen my house this is no big surprise. Deep green with red and pumpkin colored trim? Yes, please. Fall is absolutely my favorite time of year. Bring on the sweaters…the pants…oooohhhhh – the scarves! And then there’s the decorating! I had so much fun doing my fall decorating this year…ok, it was done 3 weeks ago, but I’ve been kind of busy!

There’s outside decorating:

A Tiger for Elena

Little Miss Elena loves tigers.

Not just any tigers, she loves the tiger at the zoo…and I think the tiger loves her.

We all went to the zoo on her last birthday so she could introduce us to her friend, and while we were there Elena stood on a ledge to point out her tiger, who was pacing back and forth. One moment he was pacing, and the next he’d reared up with his front paws on the glass to literally look at her eye to eye.

I’m not sure if he was thinking ‘lunch’ or not, but I quickly told her he was saying “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” The poor little peanut turned her wary look into a big smile and off we all went to see the next animal…and her love of tigers remains!

I decided a week ago to get rid of an old dresser I’d been hanging onto. I mentioned it to Elena’s Mom, Jen, and she said she didn’t have one for Elena yet and maybe it was time.

Well…I couldn’t just sell her the plain old dresser, not for our little Miss Elena. I had hoped at one point to paint a beautiful flower on the front and then sell it, but had decided to just get rid of it…needless to say…the idea came back to me. I asked Jen what animal I could paint on the dresser for Elena and she immediately said a tiger. I should have known.

A few days later little missy appeared in her favorite t-shirt adorned with what else, but her favorite animal. So I convinced her it was dirty (it actually was), so I could borrow it.

Here is my weekend project, done with lots of love, for a sweet little girl who loves tigers…

(This is where my oldest daughter would say “Ta-daaaaaa!”)

Elena got to see her new dresser yesterday and her smile said it all.

Patty O

ps…this is absolutely one of my favorite things to do…so if you know of anyone who wants an extra splash on their decor, whether it be for a child’s piece of furniture or an adult’s, just give me a call!

Sep 23

2 Comments

Monday’s Here…Bring on the Coffee!

Gasp…Gasp…crawling out of the weekend into another week…

Lots accomplished this weekend. Garden harvested and cleaned out, fall decorations up, spray painted new/old goodies and furniture, birthday dinner and cake for Miss Alex, sewed in some clothes (for Gabi), cleaned up the house…etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

And, Alex, Tom and Louis came up Thursday night for a visit! Mr. Louis had surgery (snip, snip…and hernia) on Friday with our favorite vet, Jen. He was quite a trooper and back to normal by Saturday afternoon. More stories to follow, of course as he and Motzy had loads of fun.

And…while they were here, Tom and Alex helped Tim put in our new fire pit and dig out an old sidewalk. Tim and I jokingly called it the sidewalk to nowhere…it didn’t go all the way to the shop, and it didn’t match up with the garage door. Gone, gone, gone!

There was a bonfire, toasted marshmallows, a game of Horse in the dark (with a light up basketball). There were naps (ok, not by me…), visiting with the babies, and more craziness sprinkled throughout the weekend.

Pictures of the harvest, fall decorations, recipes, maybe a little story of the sewing swear session (I hate sewing machines), and more to come.

Sorry for the absence, this blogging thing takes a lot of time and I’ve had ENERGY. More energy than I’ve had in a year…guessing it’s a thyroid thing…whooo heeeee!

Talk more soon!

Patty O

Thank you to Women Get it Free for sharing the photo!