Tuesday Inspiration and a little tackling…

Pretty Living Room from Better Homes and Gardens

Hello my dear ones!

First I want to thank those of you who have been commenting and emailing to welcome me back!!!  Everyday I am continually amazed at the wonderful people I have been blessed to meet through my little blog and I want to take time right now to tell each of you how much I appreciate you…  With everything you see on TV and in the news most of the time, the world can seem like a big scary place full of bad people… but I can tell you for CERTAIN that there are still amazing, caring, wonderful people out there because I have had the opportunity to have my life blessed in so many ways over the past few months by “virtual” strangers.  I can’t ever repay or even express the full extent of my gratitude to any of you for that. 

Several of you encouraged me to use what I have to restyle my home, rather than starting over, and, on reflection, I realized that you are right.  I need to bloom where I’ve been planted rather than adding stress to myself trying to figure out how to completely start over.  I’m still collecting inspiration for that.  Now, however, I’m doing it with an eye for enhancing what I already have.  I don’t really need any large furniture pieces, but I am totally missing those little touches that make a home feel homey– you know, stuff like pictures on the walls, occasional tables, pillows, textiles, and knick-knacks…  That’s why today’s inspirational focus is accessories.

My favorite place for finding unique items is always ETSY.  And can you blame me when you can find awesome pieces like this?

Joom's Orange cardinal pillow

Isn’t this a great pillow from Joom’s shop?  Okay, so orange isn’t part of my color scheme any more, but this pillow is so fun, I couldn’t help mentioning it!  Handmade for $28!

This is more my color scheme:

Joom's hummingbird pillow in teal

But my absolutely favorite thing in her shop is actually this picture:

Joom's Framed Magic Tweetie Tree Print

Joom, do you make that as a pillow?  Cause that would be my ultimate first choice!    Everything in her shop is really fun, colorful, and charming, and put a big smile on my face today!

I was browsing by color when I stumbled across this beautiful photograph:

Lanita's Venice Your dream

Lana Dashevsky has some AMAZING photography in her shop.  Amazing.  As in, if I were dream shopping, I’d buy all of these:

Lanita's Breath of Spring

Lanita's I love NY

Plus quite a few more.  Actually, I could happily own one of every piece in her shop, but then I’d have to start a gallery for her cause I don’t have THAT much empty wall space.   She evidently also takes wedding photos… I can’t even imagine how beautiful those most turn out!

Well, that’s all the inspiration I can fit into my lunch hour…

Before I go, I have to direct ya’ll over to a great site for inspiration, Design for Mankind.  I have been meaning to send you there for ages, specifically because Erin publishes this wonderful e-zine, aptly named “Inspiration,” that you HAVE TO check out.  The theme changes each month and each one is wonderful… as in, I sit locked to my laptop screen, enraptured by each page for at least a good hour every month!  Yes, it’s a pdf, so you’ll have to do some downloading, but it’s sooooo worth it, and you can print it out if you have to have a physical product in your hand… Trust me, you know I wouldn’t steer you wrong, so go check out all the back issues here!

xoxo- Shauntelle

P.S.  I guess you might be wondering about the “small tackling” in the title, huh?  Well, after two months, my office at work still looks like it’s waiting for me to move it, so I actually started to decorate it a little!  So far, there’s a map on my wall, to inspire my world travels (or at least my travel daydreams), and my inspiration board finally went up as well.  I’ll be sure to snap a few pictures to share once it looks more lived in!