best friends.

cafe au lait if you're fancy, or taupe.

french blue/robin's egg blue.

two great colors that go to the mountain of even greater together.

i had these thoughts of grandeur of re-doing my dark navy front room.

paint would be in these 2 colors. one for the ceiling, one for the walls. i hadn't yet decided which one was going to go where. but those grand plans involved painting a pretty large ceiling surface... and painting the ceiling in that large of a room can really put a damper in the way your neck feels, for days. so i'm kinda waiting for that spark of diy to hit again before i take on that large of a ceiling-paint-project :)

so i've stepped back.

and who knows, by the time that strikes, i may have changed my mind again.

this is one of my all time favorites. it was done by albert hadley. genius.

i'm in love. always have, always will be.

better homes and gardens. lighter colors than i'd go but still quite pretty.

domino. duh.

an actual french, french blue. so pretty with the natural stone.

from theonewholooks tumblr.

i just think it's the cat's meow.

thoughts?

and do you know what i mean about painting a ceiling? or am i a total wimp?

JILL

buried. 2013.

so i have been gone for a long time.

i didn't expect to be gone for so long.

and i don't even want to get into why on this little blog of mine.

just know that my little family has been dealt something that i don't wish on anyone. it was and still is sad, but there is light at the end of this tunnel. i am looking forward, not backwards. and honestly, i'm just sick of being sad.

so here i am. moving forward. onwards and upwards!!!!

anyway.....

i have also been buried in snow since last thursday!

with the first of 2 storms, we got 13" on snow at my house on thursday.

some of you up north are like, "so? that's what we get every 3 days... wimp."

but here in kansas city, that just doesn't happen.

our big snow storms are maybe 6". and then it melts and we move on.

this time we got 13" and it was a novelty.

kinda fun, kinda annoying.

kinda fun: snow day.

kinda annoying: spring? spring? bueller? bueller?

obviously i took an obnoxious amount of photos bc it was crazy to see for the first time.

up to my dog's belly. and she couldn't get enough.

whines to go outside all day, every day since.

we don't have a snow blower bc it really isn't that necessary here.

until this week and we'd pay a billion dollars for one.

then on sunday, we had a warm day so stuff was looking up and it was melting.

and after church i made my husband pull over so i could climb this mountain.

i'm telling you, i have never seen anything like such, in my whole life.

it was a monster!!

(dork)

then the news started talking about another storm that was brewing.

and i held my breathe and prayed for the best.

and then on monday night/tuesday morning, we got another 8-10" on top of all the other left over junk from last thursday.

we live across the street from a golf course, and it truly is beautiful.

especially at first.

but it's still snowing.

right now.

and it's very quickly losing its appeal.

i'm over this, too.

like above, that there on the left, is a bush.

on the right, that is just grass. that is now as tall as my car.

this was my view on the way to work today.

i want my sunshine and spring weather back.

i hope you're enjoying far better weather than i :)

JILL

(i'm resuming normal posting from here on out. honest.)

please excuse me.

i'm going to be stepping away for a few days.

just a few,

sorry for the silence.

be back shortly.

love.

JILL

{heartsies}

hey, sugar nuggets.

hope it's splendid no matter who you are or who you're with or where you'll be.

i wore hot pink shoes today to celebrate.

LOVE.

JILL

{images via pinterest}

the goodwill.

i love the goodwill.

do you have to dig through piles of junk that is kinda filthy? usually. do i find something every time i visit? not even close. is it the thrill of the hunt? is it the joy in paying almost nothing for something awesome? yep and yep.

people give away some really good stuff, you guys. and by shopping at the goodwill, you are in fact, giving your money to a good cause. so shop on. just don't go to mine and steal the good stuff!

its rare for me, but eddie ross finds amazing finds, worth alot of pennies, all the time. he's my inspiration.

i just got these on friday and i think he'd approve.

(i lunch at the goodwill sometimes... and then actually eat lunch at my desk.

just to see what they have.)

this time, i win.

i got 13 (odd number but i'm ok with it)

dainty fire king milkglass tea cups.

they all had a price tag on them for 0.00.

so when i got to the cute girl with amazing hair (not kidding) working at the front, i joked that they were free. she looked at me seriously, said, "no sorry. not free, but i can give them to you for .49 cents."

.49 cents a piece is kind of a joke.

if i have 59834 tea cups already (which, although i told you i hoard dishware, i don't. yet.).... i would still have purchased these for .49 cents.

then i picked up a cute set of 6 of these sorbet cups.

they were .99 cents each.

and i might drink champagne out of them, too.

they could pass for a cute little coupe... with glass balls around the bottom.

i love both of these things.

and my mom, who was with me, she gots tons of stuff, too.

it was by far the best luck i've ever had at the goodwill, ever.

dishes.

they're my sickness.

:)

JILL

little did i know...

this is a long winded post. sorry.

but house and garden magazine was my first love.

first magazine love.

i was in college and in love.

before domino came out.

then domino came out, still in college, and it was my second love... but more soul consuming. those 2 still rank at the very top of the magazine hoarding love list.

then they both died.

but this morning on pinterest, i saw this image and i almost died.

(not really).

i love it.

i love the hot pink tufts.

the black and white carpet.

the oatmeal walls.

that mirror.

the pale blue and white stripes.

i have decided i'm re-doing my front navy blue room and this is its inspiration:

(i've been "over" my navy walls for a couple of months now.)

so i had to find more.

i had to see the rest of this house.

luckily pinterest said jacques grange did the design bc the link was broken and i couldn't follow it back to anything. so i googled jacques grange pink tuft and came up with this post from habitually chic.

i love the internet, you only have to ask.

it's the paris apartment of prada's mathilde agostinelli,

from a long time ago when it was published in... house and garden!

(may 2006)

the colors are less saturated than the first image and i like the first image better so i'm going with it.

then i kept reading.

look at this girls room.

i posted about it along time ago, here on the blue house bc i loved those bubble gum tufts.

(june 2011)

and then this room!

i posted about it, too bc i obssess over the wallpaper.

(august 2012)

well, as it turns out.

i love the rest of her place, too.

(you know those pink walls and myself are friendly. you can find more pink walls here, here, here, here, and here.)

well, anyway.

happy monday.

it was for me. and this all happened before 6:30 this morning.

JILL

flowers for friday #132

tgif.

seriously.

my husband's fam is in town this weekend at our house and i'm so excited.

jay's sister's getting married and we're celebrating them :)

i'm also quite excited because i had one of my biggest scores at the goodwill yesterday. i haven't gotten the chance to clean them up but i am so in love. shocker, it involves dishware. ha. i'll share monday.

busy day at work today, otherwise.

gotta get to it, but i hope you have a great friday.

and weekend!

JILL

{flowers via wedding chicks}

polka dot glitter cookies

i feel like the last 8 things i've purchased have been polka dotted.

i'm kinda having a moment with them.

glad the rest of the world is, too.

don't look now, but i'd love to do this to our second bath:

love it in every way. very tempted.

moving on.

i wish i had more time. i'm sure you all feel that way, and i don't even have kids yet!

by the time i get home from work i feel like i'm just going to bed to get up and do it all over again. but if i had like 2 extra hours a day to get the stuff i have to get done, to then do the stuff that i want to get done....

i'd make these:

polka dot cookies!

in neon and neutrals!

with sparkles!

they're like little gems of all my current favorite things rolled into a sugar.

you can find the recipe here.

a random, yet happy thursday.

happy thursday, friends.

JILL

{bluebird}

i told you at the beginning of january that i was going to start posting more of my house projects. i was always a little hesitant to post them because 1- its my house and my project, and people on the internet can be mean little suckers. but 2- if i didn't have a huge whole kitchen gut-job reno to share, i wondered if my little one-afternoon-one-tube-of-acrylic-paint small project even mattered enough to share.

but i'm over all that :)

the blogs i like reading the most are the ones that share their projects, big or small.

so here's a very very small one i recently did.

but the little things add up, so one small project at a time is the way my house is becoming my home.

this is the walkway between my dining/living room and my den.

we spend 99% of our time in the den.

so we walk by this approx. 59 times a day.

this little parrot, my mom scored at home goods for $15.99.

it's resin but painted in a faux wood finish.

(don't mind the gatorade... i actually took this photo when i was stuck at home with the flu and i was re-hydrating. and don't mind my sewing machine, its permanently out on the dining room table because i've been making dolllllllllls!)

this bird wasn't as awesome as it could be, as is.

it was purchased to end up at our lake house.

so i was going to spray it high gloss white, sorta like the ones zgallerie was selling awhile back.

but it got placed on my bar cart, and i liked it there, and so i'm not going to let the lake house have it.

sorry, mom :)

for my house, the high gloss white... i wasn't sold.

so i lived with it for months with various different color ideas.

finally i was at joann fabric store and bought this:

martha stewart satin craft paint in "cloud".

i love this color so much, i'm contemplating having it color matched and re-painting my dark navy blue room. almost sold on the idea.

it's a great blue, but not baby-blue, with a little green and grey in it.

so i got to painting.

i painted the whole thing this shade of blue.

and when i was finished, it was cute but i liked it about as much as i did when it was 'wood'.

so i grabbed some black acrylic paint from my stash, i picked the flat finish, and painted the base.

now, i'm obsessed.

bluebird is better.

the bar cart is from a thrift store downtown, called good juju.

my mom also snagged that for me when i first moved in our house.

the polka dot paper was done on a whim 2 christmases ago.

its just wrapping paper under the glass.

and after christmas was over, i liked it so much i've kept it.

one project down.

one hundred million more to go.

JILL

is it spring, yet?

because i got my spring clean on.

and its just want you wanted to read about on monday morning, right?

how i clean?

prob not, but too bad.

because it made me feel very very good about myself and my house. well, so far, just my kitchen. but one room at a time.

and my house is officially "toxic-gross-cleaner" free.

i have used them up and will not purchase any more. ever.

i've scratched the surface about how i've been slowly kicking chemicals out of my house and my food and my morning routine before. you could read more here and here, and i have lots more changes/updates but that's another day.

this was the last phase and i'm never going back.

so what do you do? you ask.

i use baking soda, peroxide and vinegar.

that's it.

read about all you'll ever need to clean your house, here.

it's where i finally got the kick in the pants to get this done.

now or never.

and with just these two things, i got my kitchen cleaner than it ever has been.

(i used the vinegar on the hardwood floors.)

all done with minimal effort and time.

huh?

yep. and ZERO toxic chemical smell or health hazards for me. my husband. my dog.

(2/3 of those things are used in food!)

first i went to the grocery and bought all new bottles of all 3.

i had some of each, but i wanted these to be kept under the sink for the sole purpose of cleaning.

they were around $2 each, give or take.

then i stopped by the section where they have all the travel sized shampoo and toothpaste, etc.

they had empty spray bottles for $3, so i got 2 of those (making sure they'd fit on my vinegar and peroxide bottles.)

i also got a sponge, which i hate for their bacteria hosting skillz, but it was made of all plant products... and i used it in the kitchen for a deep clean, and now i'm going to use it to clean the bathrooms tonight and then toss.

when i got home, i got started.

i have quartz countertops and i just sprayed them down with peroxide and wiped them up with paper towels. sprayed the window with it. wiped with a paper towel, sparkling. on both the counters and the windows, not a streak to be found.

then i moved onto the kitchen sink.

its stainless steel and always feels a little dingey to me.

i sprayed it down with peroxide. let it sit for a few minutes.

then sprayed again and sprinkled some baking soda all around, on both sides.

i used an old kitchen scrubber to... scrub.

rinsed with water, and it shined like i haven't seen it in the 3.5 years we've been living there.

entirely gross and amazingly awesome at the very same time!

then i moved to the appliances.

they're all white thus they get a little dingey, too.

it happens when cooking grease and junk and hands and dirt combine and its inevitable.

clorox kitchen clean-up, which is what i used to use, never got that legit grime junk off.

this did:

i put a little baking soda on a plate.

then i sprayed it down with peroxide.

then i pre-sprayed the area i was focused on with peroxide, smooshed this stuff into my sponge and went at it... it doesn't even take serious scrubbing. just a mild to moderate rub.

your paste will get a little dry so each time you re-apply it to your sponge, just spray it down with more peroxide. you'll have to rinse everything with a clean, watered down sponge or run it under water like i did with the knobs, to get the baking soda off once clean.

but this mixture, it got it. all. off.

i am so happy. i had high hopes, but was seriously not expecting this.

and this is the only before/after photo i have for you because i was on a roll and didn't think about doing this until the very very end. i wish i would have sooner. just for that gallon of satisfaction that it brings.

the inside of my microwave.

the (now) white handles on my fridge and freezer.

the entire surface of my gas range/stove.

clean.

holler.

i dare you to try it.

JILL

flowers for friday #131

aren't these shmancy black pansies amazing?

i didn't know there were black pansies. it would make a dreamy wedding bouquet.

about yesterday,

i didn't mean to alarm anyone! i am going to make it, honest :)

i just feel like this blog of mine is all sparkles and rainbows and sometimes i'm not always feeling the rainbows, so in a vein of honesty, i couldn't blog about the sparkles and rainbows.... but life is good you guys. we're just playing a waiting game on a few issues that hopefully will turn out peachy and then i'll get to tell the world. i'm praying!

until then....

and honestly, thank you for your texts and emails.

i've said it before, you guys are the best.

you all put a smile on my face.

i hope you have a splendid weekend.

i have lots of painting and photography and crafty business to tend to this weekend. so it'll keep me busy.

love!

JILL

{pansies from martha stewart}