i need your help!

Ok, all you creative types out there. Now that I've finally finished my CD shelf, I need some tips on how to decorate. What should I put on top? What should go on the wall above? Should I put anything in the really skinny shelves? We can move things around on the shelves themselves some too, if we need to. Here are some pictures of the rest of the room, so you can get an idea of the style.

This is looking into the den from the living room.

This is standing on the fireplace looking back into the room.

And again, the shelf and wall above. The door to the right is the storage/laundry room.

do it yourself project

i bought this shelf at the flea market a while ago and just got around to finishing the project. when i bought it, it was 8 feet long!! I thought it would fit on this wall, but as you can see, it overlaps the storage room door. when the fam was here, helping build the studio, i had dad cut it in half for me. we shaved off about a foot, and now it fits perfectly! i drybrushed it with some golden yellow paint and viola! i still need to finish loading it up with all our CDs, but here's the finished project!

Justin's weekend

This weekend Justin is going to

and staying at

and playing with

at the

grandma, maggie and wynonna

I love them! Aren't they the cutest??

Totally met her last night.

i don't know the difference between lizards and frogs

we have a pond next to our deck in the back that we've been cleaning out. it's really really gross and it's covered in inches of poopy sludge at the bottom. (yummy mental picture, huh?) i bought a pond pump to get all the water out and we'll be using it to make a little waterfall when it's all nice and clean. anyway....in the process of cleaning it all out, we've discovered that we have one ginormous frog. it's at least as big as my fist. really grosses me out. so, when i saw a bunch of little guys swimming at the bottom of the pond, i assumed they were tadpoles and we would have little frogs jumping around every where soon. they were still in the long tail, little back legs stage. well, i'm dumb. they're actually newts! so we're saving them in a bucket and are going to dump most of them in the creek down the street. there are just too many for our little pond. so i feel really smart now!

newt on the left, tadpole on the right













here's our pond, mostly drained and still full of yucky sludge.

hard work

these pics aren't taken from the exact same angles, but I think you get the idea. Justin has helped some, mainly with the things I think are too gross, like fishing dead frogs out of the pond. But most of this clearing has been my blood, sweat and tears. Ok, maybe just sweat, but still. Eventually this will be a beautiful perennial flower bed. We are keeping the pond, but cleaning it out and eventually running a pump to a little waterfall feature that I found when I cleared out a bunch of the decorative grass (which I HATE!)

BEFORE




AFTER