I'm Conflicted

I am so torn right now.  I don't know what direction I want to go in.

I am in love with two ideas for Sweet Bee Cottage.

Two styles you might say.  

Two different directions I could start heading in with our little cottage.  

And because I am so stuck - I have made no progress.  

(Oh yeah - money might be a factor too!  LOL)

Sweet Be(e)ach Cottage is what I'm going to call what I'm thinking.  

(I know - corny - but I can't help it.  I think I was born corny.)

So I recently shared the apple green rug we bought for our living room....and I think....I'm slowly going beachy.

Come with me as I look for some inspiration...

Gorgeous whites, bleached woods, and shades of blue....but definitely not practical. 

Very cozy with reds and khaki which fits with what I have now (not counting the new apple green rug- LOL) but I want to have a different palette - less red I'm afraid. 

Love this cabinet, but there's no way I'm starting a coral or whatever collection.  However, I do have this jelly cabinet that we use as a game cabinet that I think would be adorable in this color.  

I found a wonderful blog/store with the sweetest cottage inspiration. I shamelessly pinned and pinned and pinned from The Distinctive Cottage.

I'm thinking about painting our heart shaped table a really soft buttery yellow - maybe not as bright as this yellow.  

And this inspiration board was what started the whole thing off!  

Here's my list of things to change....

1.  lampshades

2.  paint red heart table (in lower left foreground) a softer color - coral? raspberry? buttery yellow?

3.  change vintage floral pillows on two wicker chairs

4.  paint game cabinet aqua (no picture of that)

5.  paint mom's old dresser that's now my sofa table

6.  put shells or starfish or similar in wooden bowl

7.  paint back of bookshelves (red now - probably the same blue I painted the library bookshelves)

buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz - happy buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So....is it crazy to have a beachy cottagey look when you are about 150 miles from the beach?

And I did mention I have another look that I am being drawn to.  

I'll have to share that in another post.  

Please share your thoughts....

And thanks for buzzing along with me.  It's always a treat to see you've stopped by.

P.S. You can see more beach inspiration here.

More from the Best Little Beach Cottage Evah!

I promised you I would show you the inside of the charming beach cottage we rented this summer.

We last stayed here just over 3 years ago.  There have been a few changes and all to make it even cozier and more welcoming.  Now there were 8 of us staying there so I really only got pictures of my room, but as we were leaving the cottage, I snuck back in and took some video.  It isn't quite as cute as when we checked in, but you can get a good idea.

I'll start with the room I stayed in....

Such a sweet pink and I adore the apple green cabinet!

One of my windows had doors!  So cute!

Lovely huge window with a view of the lovely front garden.

Apple green!  Apple green!  Apple green!  (Can you hear me singing that?)

You may have noticed - no closet!  Not much floor space - but perfect for a little beach cottage getaway.  I used the peg rack to hang my pjs on and anything else I needed.  

And now........

for the tour of the inside of the cottage......

I hope you enjoyed our jaunt to the beach!

The weather here is turning a bit cooler (if you can call high 90s cool) but now I have jury duty next week.  So much to do before I head back to school. 

Baby Bee starts a whole week before me and she only has three weeks!  YIKES! She is starting middle school and it is such a huge change.  She is going to miss her elementary school a lot!  I will too!

I also have the Big County Fair to get ready for!  The More Creative Bee and I hope to meet up this week to plan our tables and trees.  And I have furniture I am really, really hoping to get painted.  It might be an awfully busy week for me!

Thanks for buzzing along with me!  I promise next time I go to Journey's End I will take pictures of the darling little beach town too.  We love it!

The Best Little Beach House.....

Evah!!!

My family just spent the most delightful relaxing week at the beach!

We discovered this sweet little beach cottage 3 years ago when we came over for my mom's 70th birthday.  Ever since then we've all been dreaming about going back for a summer visit and we were finally able to book it this year!  Yeah!  

It's just perfect for our extended family of 8 – my mom, my brother and his wife, his two girls, and my little family of 3.

The cottage is called Journey's End and I thought you might enjoy getting a little video tour of the outside.

Please forgive my bouncy camera work....

(edited to fix the video - you can now see it)

Glad you got to come with me just little bit.

Summer is just buzzing along.  Is yours going too fast?

Thanks for your visit!

P.S.  I'll have more video and pics of the inside on my next post.  

Whew! Etsy Buzziness!

I LOVE having my etsy shop!  I love hunting for things that I think others will like or finding things and keeping them for awhile and then listing them or even sending them off with one of our family's favorite recipes.  

However I don't always have time to take nice pictures, measure and describe, and weigh all those items for how much they would cost to ship to Maine.  (Okay, my one gripe about etsy is that you have to estimate the most expensive shipping because it doesn't adjust the shipping for different locations like ebay does.  At least I get to surprise people with a nice little refund.)  

But for the past couple mornings I have cataloged and photographed and weighed and measured several items.  

Wanna' see a sneak peek?  (I always want to spell that peak - always.  I have to make a special effort to NOT write sneak peak.  Worker Bee - my own grammar cop - would be proud.)

These flashcards are from the 50s!  Glad to see time hasn't changed in 60+ years.  

Love the style of this bread box and I'm tempted to keep it, but I really don't have a spot to put it.  

My mom had tons of this moon and stars stuff when I was a kid and I didn't appreciate it then and now I just like to find it for you but I'm not tempted to keep it, even though this is in one of my favorite colors.  Lucky you!  

A friend of mine recently retired from teaching and she gave me three paper boxes full of great vintage educational aids.  Love them but I can only keep so many.  These sets are from the 1960s.  They are in great shape.  Imagine all the little hands that used them to learn their addition and subtraction facts.

I was never a Brownie myself, but I was a Junior Girl Scout for a brief amount of time.  Adorable vintage uniform and beanie.  Troop 305?  Are you out there still?

Got this at the same sale I got the bread box.  I can't bring myself to take the sugar and scoop out.  I just think it looks right this way.  Is that crazy?  Does it gross you out?  I don't think I would use the sugar but it just would look - gasp - naked without it. (so hope that one word does not lead to a bunch of strange spam)

My retired friend said they used to have to trace and make their own borders for the bulletin boards.  I CAN NOT imagine doing that!  I'm so bad that I am not careful about saving my current bulletin board borders. (Try saying that ten times really fast!)

 My biggest problem?  I keep buying and then squirreling my finds away so it's not cluttered and I forget about some of them!  Really need to get a handle on that!  Does anyone else have the same problem?

my etsy shop

Apple Green Envy and a Spot of Aqualisciousness

Red....you used to be my favorite.  And before you blue.

But now....it's all about the aqua, and apple green.

You might remember how I spent my last Black Friday at an estate sale and how I literally....and I do mean literally....dreamed about all the aqua milk glass items at this sale.  Really.  I kept waking up the night before the sale worried there wouldn't be any aqualisciousness (yep - made that word up - maybe I can get it added to the OED next year) left before I got there.

I ended up keeping most of the pieces I bought, but the other day, I put this up in my etsy store.

Isn't it beautiful?  LURVE that color!  (I added the cloche just for fun.)

So...where is this all going Sweet Bee?

C'mon - buzz along with me - this is why Worker Bee calls me Sweet Bee - I'm always buzzing about something.   I'll get to the honey, don't you worry.

I just recently pinned this little collection of sweet colors

source

and I suddenly realized my living room is going in this exact same direction!

Love, love, love my new living room rug!

It's an indoor/outdoor rug from Home Decorator's Collection.

Read about it in HGTV magazine and I just knew I had to have it.

I changed the pillows on these wicker chairs to this apple green velvet.  Got them at World Market.

 Love the tall glass lantern (already had the blue and white candle  - got it at Target years ago) which was a great price at World Market!  Yes, I am totally obsessed with World Market.  Scary obsessed.  You can ask Worker Bee - or on second thought you better not.

Any advice here?  Baby Bee and I were doing manicures in the living room and some polish remover got on our coffee table.  Yikes!  It removed some finish.  How can I fix this?  (I won't tell you how much Worker Bee has buzzed and buzzed about us ruining the coffee table, but I bet you can guess how many times - uh yeah - it happens every time he sees it.)  

 Now I think I need to paint my red heart shaped table.  Any suggestions?  I want to use red as a tiny little accent now.  (I know, I know, how can I leave red?  It was just time dear ones, it was just time.)

So....lots of little projects to go.

Big estate sale this weekend to head out to and I am really hoping it is cool enough to paint some furniture.  I just can't find the energy to paint when it's over 100º.  

Thanks for buzzing by!

I am also dreaming of finding some sort of buffet and doing this with the TV in our living room...

source

TV on the wall and the globe collection on the buffet.

source

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........

And I'm linking up to My Romantic Home Show and Tell!

Another Bee Family Wedding...

and this one had me buzzing!

We were just down in Del Mar, California (near San Diego) for Worker Bee's nephew's wedding.

What a beautiful setting! (And it was 108º at home and 68º there so we loved the weather too.)

The wedding was on a balcony looking right out at the beach and then that area was quickly converted into the wedding dinner venue.

The tables were just spectacular!  Aren't those rosy textured tablecloths beautiful?  

The bride's aunt did all the flowers.  Aren't they gorgeous?

And my favorite thing about the wedding?  It had a BEE theme!

Worker Bee told me his brother offered me his bee pin and I didn't hear him!  An opportunity missed!

I snuck home our place card for the reception.  Sneaky, hunh? 

Okay, truth be told, it was not my favorite thing but I sure did love it!

 Happy Wedding Mr. and Mrs. Bee Family!

What are you buzzing about?

We're buzzing about the extreme heat we're having!  114º on Monday!

When You Least Expect It....

You can find the cutest things.

Had to run to Walmart tonight to pick up some craft supplies for the last few days of school and look what I found....

Now you just know I'm going to have to find some way to use that duct tape in my classroom next year!

It would fit right in!

Thanks for buzzing by!