

Beach House Style
If you can’t find time to book a trip to the beach this summer (or would rather just enjoy the feel of the beach without all that sand) not to worry! We have a solution, and it involves putting up some festive stay-cation decorations.
Here are some fun ways to incorporate the beach into your home.
1. String lights
String lights aren’t just for dorm rooms. They’re a great way to add interesting lighting to your indoor and outdoor spaces. The Home Depot has lots of string light options to help you dress up your patio.
2. Beach textures – think unfinished stained wood and seagrass.
Unfinished rustic textures, like painted wood, have an inherently beachy feel. If you have any wooden surfaces in need of some love, staining is a great DIY project to undertake. Woven grass wallpapers, à la Philip Jeffries, are another way to incorporate raw textures into your space and mimic a beach landscape.
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Finally, pack a lunch and enjoy a couple of sand-free sandwiches as you take in your work. Happy stay-cation!
The ordinary story behind a bursting blue hue 💙
Tasked with fulfilling an order for a coffee shop, Kendall Davis went to the supply store in search of the perfect blue.
Once back at the studio with the multiple contenders, she swatched each shade, sent them into the kiln and was wow-ed by one obvious showstopper. What could the name of this mesmerizing shade be?! she thought.
Medium Blue.
Hm. Well that was anti-climactic.
“I never would have chosen such an average color– and it even looked average blue in the jar," said Davis. "But when it came out of the kiln. WOW.”
So maybe the lesson here is don’t judge a color by its label. 😊
Geodes and Disagreements
I stand in the kitchen, examining the innards of the plastic butter tub, the topographical cuts into the cold yellow landscape. There are a few crumbs here and there, my crumbs. And one unidentified, it has the look of Roommate 1’s gluten free, protein-rich ultra-packaged loaf sitting on the middle shelf of the fridge.
This butter is spreadable butter, and it was my splurge in the grocery haul. The simple white tub, the bright orange lid. No GMOs! The cow on the tub is holistic looking enough that I am convinced he has a happy life supplying the butter company with milk and cream.
This butter is a treat to myself, and I decide to stand my ground. The cow and I frown, thinking about the best way to confront my roommate without coming off as paranoid.
Autumnal Hymn
Just two days before today, it began to feel like Fall. The gentle cooling winds, swirling now-imaginary-but-soon-to-be-colorful deadlings from the trees. It’s a windows full down, not uncomfortable, smile at the man playing guitar on his porch, drive around beginning of the season.
I sit meditatively on my haunches outside, eyes closed, rubber mat and crunchy uneven ground underfoot. And I breathe the new air in and out of my lungs. As much as can be done with a sickly snuffly nose. My body sucks the air in, desperately wanting to settle the year-long craving. It feels like power and new energy and hope. I can feel the beginning of satiety.
I hardly hear the back door open, it’s a sound far behind me. My eyes intently closed; it takes focus welcoming the new season.