Baby Costume

Thinking on costumes for baby Syl this year. The neighborhood parade is always filled with the best costumes around. If you have any pics from that parade last year, please e-mail them to me and I'll post them on here. Here's baby Syl on her Friendship plane (my mom found this plane a few years back along the curbside).

"You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life: and the procedure, the process is its own reward." Amelia Earhart

xo

sharon

Fall Must-Haves: Book-Nook, Sofa, & Tights

Do you have a good book you're reading? Do share. It's cold and rainy and I would love to get lost in my very own little book-nook with a real good book. The bookshelves are genuinely fake (tromp l'oeil) by artist Deborah Bowness (decor amor) The sofa--Is it not pure classic elegance?! (also found on decor amor)

I just purchased tights for Sylvie, Eleanor, and myself. black, black and black. (Willow Ships image).

Have a sweet Thursday.

x's and o'sies,

sharon

Under One Umbrella of Design

Under One Umbrella of Design:

We're busy today. We are probably busy doing a dib or a dab of the following...

interior decorating, wedding planning, party decor, table-tops, seasonal decor, stylizing, theme concepts, window installations, mural paintings, upcycling furniture, DIY projects, or sourcing for our clients and shop.

That's Will, and that's me.

x's and o'sies,

sharon

Classic Meets Edgy {Red+Black+White)

13 more days til Bright Star shows at the Moxie!!! Can't wait to see the movie based on the romantic poet, John Keats' life. The tale of love entwined with death and rapture with sorrow, will surely be one that is filled with beautiful, rich, and "dark-chocolaterie" imagery. I am so drawn to this Classic Meets Edgy look for fall right now.

I've been procrastinating on getting started on painting silhouettes for one of my client's bathroom installations...here's where I've lost myself today instead: another artist's work where Classic Meets Edgy: designer M.S. Corley. He recently created some book covers for the Harry Potter books, along with several other series, i.e. A Series of Unfortunate Events, among others. These books are sure to become classics, but before they do, I guess so many years have to have passed before they are classified as such. M. S. Corley is an artist ahead of the game and so he made the covers to look like Classic Penguin Books. Time will tell if the publishers will use these. But I have to say that I fell in love with their classic, yet edgy look. What do you think?

I found a sweet little blog which was recently launched... bird and banner. It offers custom event invitations for weddings and such. That's where I found the cute window image that was taken in Copenhagen.

The mailbox and canoe paddle are ours. Will placed the canoe paddle right by the front door a long time ago (right before summer)...which was so cute to me that he did that. I captured it today on camera before fall/winter come 'round and then the paddle will become a rake, then snow shovel. (Seasons changing cause pause)

Here's one of my stumble/rumbles I had over the weekend:

While I was out East of town last weekend, I drove past a yard sale that had a few french-looking chairs outside...I did a quick u-turn to discover twelve red, velvet-cake like chairs in pretty darn good shape. Before I could even ask the owner if he would take less than the asking price, (I usually always do this)...he offered them to me for half price @ $10 a piece if I would take all of them! Well, not having any cash on me, I tried to offer my gps system as collateral because I knew if I didn't secure them, that someone would come along while I was fetching cash, and offer full price, if not more, for these little red dream cakes! He said it wasn't necessary, but I still sped away with a coffee-gurgling body to the bank and back.

Sure enough, when I got back the guy said he could've sold them and asked me if I had a sister! (in my head I'm rolodex-ing my sisters and/or cousins who have very similar tastes to mine). He told me that while I had run to get the cash, a gal who looked a lot like me, was fifteen steps behind me, and wanted these exact chairs BADLY. He said "The gal" quizzed him a bit on who was purchasing, and they both came to the conclusion that the "purchaser" (me) HAD to be one of her five sisters. We had a small goose chase of phone calls to match up sister to sister to chair fiasco. It was sister Lizzie.

We had a good laugh/rumble too. Love your style, Lizzie!

Baby syl in her new striped shirt from the baby gap.

Have a great week everybody! I'm ecstatic about having 10 followers now! Others, oh won't you please jump on board this ro-ro-row your boat?

x's and o'sies,

sharon

Friday's eat, play, love: musical chairs

I pulled together a 'stachio of chairs for tonight's game of musical (hoot) chairs. Baby Syl's assistance always helps. She's a rearranger and a rearranger like me.

Do you like the gothic grunge chair I pulled aside to accentuate my nephew's grafiti? This chair is one of six...a flea market find from the 70's that I had lacquered in black and recovered in white vinyl. Loved the bits of green and grey that are posted over on Snippet and Ink today.

Will post this full-fledged shoot and hoot-of-uh-musical chairs soon!! eat, play, love!!!

x's and o'sies,

sharon

Carameled Apple Tree Instructions

Here are the instructions I promised, along with another carameled apple tree I did recently. I think this project would make an excellent alternative dessert bar for a fall party. You could also use this mural as an escort card station for guests. Just add the guest's table number on the bottom side. (This project is currently being showcased in Staxx Apparel fall window installation) Carameled Apple Tree on Cellar Door You will need the following items for this project: One piece of chalk. $2 Exterior high-gloss, oil-based paint (one gallon Black and one quart of White) Rustoleum Brand paint brushes. Cost: $40 Paint brush (large,all purpose from Lowe's) cost: $5 Artist's paint brush kit from craft store. Cost: $5 A cellar door or any large smooth surface. Image of tree ( I googled the image of The Tree of Gondor) Projector (rentable) Laptop Computer Green apples. Cost per bag: $5 Carameled apple kit (includes the caramel, and sticks) $5 Ink pen. Cost: $2.50 Spool of twine. Cost: $3.50 Roll of wax paper. Cost: $3.50 Hot glue Gun. Cost: $4.00 Hot glue Sticks. Cost per bag: $3 1. The cellar door was first painted black and left to dry for 48 hours. 2. Before painting the image of the tree, I traced the outline I wanted with white chalk. I free-handedly painted this, but a projector could easily be used with an image of your choice...(For this particular one, I used the Tree of Gondor). 3. Granny smith apples were then caramelized using a carameled apple kit purchased at the store. 4. Pop-sicle sticks were personalized with each guest's name using a fine black pen. 6. Short pieces of twine were tied around each stick. 7. Each apple was adhered to wax paper and then hot-glued onto a branch. Table numbers could be written underneath as well (to use for guest escorts) ta-ta 'til tomorrow! sharon

Sharon Taylor Designs Featured On Style Me Pretty!!!

Good news yesterday had me putting an extra hard spin move on my living, dining, and kitchen chandeliers. At least 1/2 an inch of dust and dirt came flying down off of the crystals after I received an e-mail from the lovely Abby Larson, of Style Me Pretty, asking if she could publish my designs today!

Cheers to my people (also to Will's inspiration and Janae Hardy photography)who made this happen!

I couldn't be any more tickled-with-caramel than this. Style Me Pretty is the parent of wedding style and positively my most favorite wedding site ever!!

Check out today's feature and let me know what you think...and Cheers to Trees!

I'll post instructions to this project a bit later after the dust settles here and all the kids get situated with full bellies.

x's and o'sies,

sharon