living with style and humor

Friday

Jul302010

I like piggy paintings, featuring artist Tom Souhlas

Friday, July 30, 2010 at 2:48PM

Portland, in the summer is surreal, it's basically heaven for anyone who reads Ready Made Magazine. Yesterday we skipped on over to Last Thursday on Alberta with kids in tow. Basically it's a street fair that takes over ALberta Blvd on the last thursday of every month and in the summer it's particularly fantastic. Every 1/2 block there is one incredible musician after another. The food carts are delicious and standing space is a commodity. Many of the crafters and vendors from Crafty Wonderland and Saturday Market are there and you can always find something to buy that is so unique that you're sure to get compliments in the future.

My favorite find last night was the artist Tom Souhlas. He was doing something I've never seen before; painting on the backside of salvaged windows and I fell in love with pig painting below. You can see more of his art at junkwithpaint.blogspot.com/ and frankly, at around $100 a piece, I think it's worth having it shipped if you're reading this from across the country. Hmm, that makes me think my girlfans at Country Living would drool over these...

click to enlargeclick to enlarge

Stacey K |

Vintage Foremost Bike on Ebay

Friday, July 23, 2010 at 12:10AM

In an attempt to distract myself from getting some work done, I have found myself obsessed with vintage bikes. I found this one on Ebay and I can't believe how beautiful the photography is.

Vintage Foremost Bike on Ebay
Written by the seller: This nice vintage Foremost cruiser is in good riding condition and would love to take you out for icecream on a warm summer evening! This tank bike originally had two lights at the snout of the tank, though it looks like the batteries etc. have been taken out. The bike rides well and looks good. It has some surface rust, some pitted chrome, and overall wear - apparently it's been ridden a fair amount over the years, but still has plenty to go.... The frame is a steel gray with a blue tank and blue back rack. The front chrome rack will expand to hold your packages (or beer, or what have you). This is a single speed bike with a coaster brake - nice and simple!

There is no shipping for this bike - LOCAL PICKUP ONLY. Please do not bid on this bike if you cannot pick it up. Our shop is located in downtown Bloomington, IL, about 2 hours south of Chicago and 2 hours north of St. Louis...

Formost Bike

Stacey K |

Retro Living

Sunday, May 30, 2010 at 6:39PM

OK I have been neglecting Nifty Living for a while. Run Like a Girl Design has been very busy and our family has been looking for a rental in Portland. We ALMOST moved to Northern California and now that we're not, and we pretty much got all packed up, we decided to rent out our pricey house and rent a less pricey house. The problem is that we have no-so-nifty credit (because we had to close a very nifty store in 2009) and pot head 20 year-olds with bean bags for furniture are smoking us out of all the good houses in Portland. Yikes. Drop us a line (stacey@niftyliving.com) if you have any leads.

click to enlarge (because this might no be PINK enough for you and you may need to see how pink your computer monitor can get!)Click to enlarge because this really DID say "make every room a gay room". Can you imaging having friends over in the eighth grade... "hey Sarah, want to go hang out in the gay room?" Sure your furniture is beautiful but you're going to have a really tough time if you're straight. I always love to impress my friends on Memorial Day. (War Veterans always love salad.) Mostly I provide only ridiculously healthy salads for my kids and this is one of them. The trick apparently is FRESH marshmallows, not those crappy non-organic marshmallows they sell at the grocery store.

I have been working on retro inspired website for a new client and I had the privilege of going through my collection of old magazines. Ok this is all I've got right now: A pink living room, a gay room and a healthy marshmallow salad for Memorial Day. Enjoy!

Stacey K |

I believe... in wonder women.

Sunday, May 9, 2010 at 6:17PM

The kids and I made this out of a matchbox a couple years ago.

I'll make this short and sweet; I'm not going to argue that being a Mom is any harder than being a Dad. It's all hard work and it comes with it sweet rewards. Mostly, I am just really appreciative of the wonderful Wonder Women who have influenced me and continue to keep me laughing and smiling.

A shout out to two Wonder Women, Kim and Michelle, who sat with me for two days at our yard sale and made me laugh. We looked at each other's boobs (ok just mine), and told each other some secrets and (of course) talked about our kids incessantly. We enjoyed having fake conversations with some our ruder patrons: "Why don't you want to buy the BLACK Groovy Girl?"... "you'd like to buy that Lilly Pulitzer dress for a quarter?... hmmm... I thing I'd rather rip up the dress and eat it in front of you."

Remember, not all Moms are the women who pushed us out. Some of them don't even have kids of their own. For instance, I have three "Moms" and even though I adore #2, I won't exchange calls with any of them. No big deal, we're just not that close. But today I called Scott's Aunt Joann and I owe another call to my Aunt Annie. Aunt Joann doesn't have kids but for 17 years she has loved our family unconditionally. She always remembers birthdays and always has some kind and practical words when we need them. She's like a Mom to me and Mr. Meathead and a Grandmother to my kids. My Aunt Annie, well she's a character just like me. She has been "mothering" me for 15 years now and I adore her. My best Mom was my Grandmother. She died two days before Piper was born and gave Pipey her personality and blue eyes. On Mother's Day I miss her so much, a golf ball swells up in my throat just thinking about her.

Happy Mother's Day to all my sweet friends and family. And thier friends, and their friends...

Stacey K |

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Thursday

Apr222010

How to make a Lego Iphone or Ipod Charger with a minimal amount of Cursing

Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 6:02PM

New Junior Editor arrives on "Take Your Kid to Work Day"

Hello! I'm Skyler, Stacey's son! It's take your Kid to Work Day and my mom asked me if I wanted to create a post and I said "yes." I thought about what I would do and LEGOS appeared in my brain because they're my favorite things. I've built Iphone chargers out of Legos before (for my mom and dad) but not for a blog, so this is new, sort of.

Ok, this part I made is 2 bricks high, 12 bricks long, and 8 bricks long. The studded base is 16x16 but you can use any size you want. Materials for the next step.

After the parts are put on.Materials. Afterwards.Well what do you know it's more materials.

The tall white brick and the multi colored tall brick go in the back.Even more materials.

The tall bricks in the back of the materials photo go inside the base. AAAAAHHH more materials!!! P.S. The next shot is a movie.

A few decorations can help show your personality.

Update on Friday, April 23, 2010 at 5:21PM by

Stacey K

It's me, Mom, and I found this picture today of an Iphone charger Skyler made for me last year. He used Piper's pink bricks. He also forgot to mention that we actually needed these chargers because the ones from Apple (that make your Iphone stand up) won't hold an Iphone that has a thick cover on it. Good job Sky Guy! You make me so proud!