pinspiration #7: tea tin magnets

i made another pinspiration today!  and i am so excited about it.  i've been wanting to do this for a while, because i have a ton of tea tins i've been saving.  my fave tea in the world is harney & sons, which come in these beautifully delicate brightly colored tea tins.  my love of these teas go all the way back to when i was living in prague.  during my 2nd semester while pi was living in la, we would catch up via skype in the afternoon for a bit after my classes and while he was just waking up in the morning.  there were a few internet cafes by my apartment, but my favorite [and the closest] served up harney's dragon pearl jasmine tea.  it's jasmine tea serve in little sachets filled with pearls of loose jasmine leaves, and they explode in your tea to look like flowers, smell like a garden and taste like heaven.

but come on - how adorable are those tins?

since i fell in love with the jasmine, i've come to love quite a few of their others, including paris.  it has the most enchanting aroma but a very subtle taste.  the tin for that tea is the gorgeous deep blue... i had been keeping the eye-pleasing tins for a while with no clue what to do with them.  then one day i saw this pin and thought i'd give it a shot.

pin from bippity boppity  boo, but i can't find where.

i love herbs, i love my tea tins.  what could go wrong?   if you have cats, you can guess where this story ended.  my cats, trying to eat the herbs and knocking them over.  no go.

so when i came across this pin, i knew it was for me.

thank you, martha stewart!

for these bad boys, all you need are the tea tins, magnets, and something magnetic.  done and done.  i did go the extra mile of hot gluing the magnets on to the back of the tins.  this way, if you take the tin off of the fridge, the magnets stay with the tin and not on the front of the refrigerator, which i found annoying.

my paris tea tin turned out lovely!

pen holder, front and center

since i am not a huge pink fan, i made my second tin out of an herbal peppermint tea with a green tin.

more storage on the side of the fridge

i love them and if i had more magnetic surfaces i'd make six more.

til next time! 

high high #21

my new crate & barrel bowls finally arrived!

i have been wanting these parker nesting bowls forever, but for a few years they stopped making the blues and greens that i wanted.  and then a week or so ago - they were back!  happy day for me!  bonus: it's a set of 5, and when i opened mine today the second smallest bowl was cracked.  so i called up customer service, and they are sending me a while new set for free!  thank you c & b!

i know that my last high high was also about something i bought, but hey.  it's been a slow month.  i'm in summer school, working like crazy, and philip is out of town for two weeks.  plus i can't drink.  so there isn't much going on around here except for some online shopping :) 

til my next purchase! 

saturday morning blanks

notice a trend here?  yeah, i'm too busy to blog on fridays.  that's the trend.  last night PI & i celebrated valentine's day, since my birthday is on the obnoxious holiday.  so we went to a fancy dinner and celebrated ourselves.  it was awesome :)  today is filled with - you guessed it! - homework, and then a fundraising dinner tonight.  should be lovely.  

but for now... blanks time!  lauren @ little things posts them every week, and these week they are home themed.  it makes me sad... i remember the days when i used to post about updating our bathroom, decorations, fun stuff like that.  now all i do is complain about politics and homework.  someday.  sigh.

1.  my favorite room in my home is   our living room  because   it's where everyone hangs out.  plus it's the most versatile room in the house, and it's the only one i feel like is done.

2.   my current decor style is   eclectic, mismatched and worldly but i wish it were more    cohesive & pulled together.  it's all over the place, just like me.

3.  i wish i could redecorate the kitchen in my house to make it more our style.  it was updated by the last owner, but it still isn't really my cup of tea.  there's a window over the sink that's too tall, so i stare at the base of it when i do dishes.  the green marble and natural wood just isn't my style either.  but that would be a fortune.

4. my dream house absolutely has to have a  history.  i don't like new houses, or houses that are so updated you can't feel the story of the house.

5. one house item i am willing to splurge on is   a couch. We practically live on our couch, so it's a good investment. We're currently on the hunt for something that is both modern and comfortable, which is surprisingly difficult - many times clean lines = hard lines and we definitely need a comfy couch .

6. a decor trend that i just don't "get" is the farmhouse look.  i like antiques, but i don't get why anyone would want to live in a space that's that rustic and not super comfortable.  i think a home should tell a story about the people who live in it.

7.  tons of candles and photographs  is a little touch that makes my house feel like home.

til next time (maybe even tomorrow!)... 

it's kind of a funny story...

so i was sick on tuesday.  i left work early, came home, was a good girl and after popping ibuprofen pm in the middle of the afternoon (after my blog post) i fell asleep.  not sure what time it was, probably 4-ish.  i could hear peggy talking to don in the background of my dream (i feel asleep to mad men), and water rushing.  fast.  then profanity.  a lot of it -- very loudly.  and opening my eyes, i realized that there isn't profanity on mad men.  and that the water sounded a little too close.

i heard philip's voice and assumed he put on the few fixtures and was testing out the new faucet.  yay!  i walked upstairs in my drug-induced stupor and immediately realized as my foot hit the last step that something was not right.

water was gushing out of the broken pipe where the faucet should be.   shooting out would be a better word, actually.  it was shooting out with such force that the water wasn't even hitting the tub (which isn't totally sealed yet, by the way), it was hitting the opposite wall, which is still just half-tile, half-cement board.

"what happened?" i screamed over the sound of the water.  i won't even bother typing what he said... but you can imagine it was bad.  i ran to the bathroom and grabbed all the towels i could find.  philip had a wrench out and was twisting as hard as he could, trying to turn off the water or lessen the flow even a bit.  no such luck.  i threw the towels to the floor, sopping up whatever i possibly could of the water that was mixing with the construction dirt-and-dust grime on the floor.  philip rushed downstairs, yelling all the while, on his way to the basement.  his hurried footsteps were nearly shaking the house.  as he looked for a way to turn the water off at the source, i realized the towels weren't cutting it.  my pajama bottoms were soaked, my long sleeved tee i borrowed from philip was dripping.  i grabbed the shower curtain liner from the old shower, still on the floor of the bathroom (i knew there was a reason i hadn't cleaned that crap up yet...), and flung it in front of me.

keeping the shower curtain in the tub, i was able to deflect most of the water flow to keep it in the new bathtub -- which was rapidly filling up.  after standing there for at least five minutes, the water slowed steadily until it stopped.  philip came back up stairs and unplugged the tub so the water could drain.  i felt like the whole thing was a dream, still in my drugged-up state.  after having cleaned up the mess as best we could for the moment being, we walked back downstairs.  i went into the kitchen to put the towels in the hamper when i heard the drip... drip... drip... coming from our kitchen light fixture and fan.

yes.  the water had leaked underneath the un-sealed tub and through our ancient ceiling in the kitchen.  as i grabbed the damp towels and a dining room chair to stop the water, philip ran outside to turn off the breakers.  we now are the new owners of a lovely hole above the refrigerator where the water came through and bubbles in the ceiling paint.  as for the light fixture... well, it drained out as best as it could.

we have survived, and so has our kitchen, and so has our bathroom.  but it was the first big disaster of the bathroom project and i couldn't not share it with you all.

as for me now, i have an unexpected weekend off (yay!) so lots more bathroom work will be happening.   the tile might even get finished this weekend.  it's possible!  with my mother-in-law, patrizia, planning a trip out in may we now have some good motivation to have the bathroom totally done for her.

until the next disaster -- i mean update :)