Website Love

I just stumbled across these two websites and I can't seem to peel my eyes from them! Mothology.com is full of wonderful treasures of the rustic variety. There are so many unique items for home decor and their pictures are so dramatic and enticing!



Jayson Home and Garden is my other find for the day, with crisp, clean pictures and a fantastic flea market finds section. I love the decor styles each website carries and the multitude of eye candy items. Have fun looking!

What is your personal decor style?

I just discovered a fun website to help you find out where your own decor style lies thanks to fellow Etsy seller Fioretta. I've taken the quiz three times now and I think it's safe to say that I am mostly attracted to Rustic Revival, Cottage Chic, Nantucket Style, French Acclectic and Traditional decor styles. Whew! That's a lot! But the pictures are truly gorgeous and I actually had no idea there was a name for the Rustic Revival style (I've been fighting with what to call it for months!). Want to see where you fit in? Head over to Sproost.com to take the quiz and be sure to let me know!

Hirondelle Rustique is currently down

In case you've been wondering why my Etsy store is down, last week I opened up my laptop to find that the screen wouldn't turn on. According to beep code (which is very useful!) the video card failed. Unfortunately for me, the video card and motherboard are integrated, meaning I have to replace the whole shabang. Hopefully this will happen within the next few weeks, but until then the store will remain offline. I have my prints backed up on a thumb drive (thank goodness!) but I decided to take the opportunity to revamp the store and create some new items. We're also in our finals week at school which means this is the last stretch and I will soon be free to put all of my time into my Etsy store (yay!).

Since the only thing backed up on my thumb drive were my Etsy prints, I thought I would tell you about an awesome free backup program called TortoiseSVN. It allows you to manage files over time. You can download it here. I use it for school all the time and was going to get around to putting it on my home computers, but I procrastinated and it's bit me in the bum. Hard.

If you're like me and have half of your life in photos on your computer, this tool can really come in handy and give you piece of mind. You never know when the worst will happen: your home catches fire, someone breaks in, you spill a drink on your laptop, or your video card decides to stop working etc. SVN will keep your files safe in case one of these events should happen. Don't wind up pulling your hair out in huge chunks or kicking yourself like I did (ok not the hair part) when it all goes belly up.

I love Craigslist!

Craigslist.com is quickly becoming one of my favorite places to find decor items for cheap (and even free!). Living on a college budget definitely makes it difficult to be able to run off to a store on a whim and purchase anything that strikes my fancy and (dare I say it?) the state of "the economy" is also not helping. If you don't mind being patient enough to wait for that perfect item to roll around, you can find some killer deals on Craigslist. It's all about seeing the potential an item has. Maybe that old entertainment center or bookshelf looks like a hunk of junk, but with a little elbow grease you can turn it into something wonderful. Now I am no designer by any means, but I do want my apartment to feel cozy and relaxing and I want to fill it with things that inspire me. I'm slowly trying to turn it from a blah space to something a little more exciting. So with that said, here are my Craigslist finds thus far:

About a month ago I scored a coffee table for only $20. I love the style and how the glass reflects light into our apartment, which is key for giving that open and airy feel. I also felt it was slightly reminiscent of that "Pottery Barn" look I'm so inspired by.


Today I scored another one for $19 and it is fairly similar to the $20 table but I think it fits the space better. I'm moving the smaller table out to our balcony and will paint the current one black (it's a dark green). Oh by the way this is our dog, Dozer, checking out my newest purchase. He loves the camera!


I also got a woven outdoor rug for free last week. It will be joining the smaller coffee table out on the patio as soon as I clean it up a bit (it was pretty dusty, but it's the perfect color and hey, it's free!). I'm itching to see what turns up next!

Easter Cake

Hope everyone had a happy Easter yeseterday! I just wanted to share a cute cake my mom made. She based it off of McGregor's Garden from The Tale of Peter Rabbit. It's a spiced carrot cake with crushed oreos for the "dirt", green sugar sprinkles for the grass, dollhouse miniatures for the vegetables, animals,fence and other decorations, and a delicious cream cheese frosting.