roofin.

our front porch is in need of a new roof. so today our loving, HANDY parents came to Rochester to help us put on a new one. we really lucked out with gorgeous dry weather! here's a pic of McAllister's dad yanking off shingles. we can't thank everyone ENOUGH for all their help over the weekend.
remember last month when we turned our charcoal grill into a mini firepit?! well mcallister's dad saw it and told us he would whip us up a firepit, dirty-birdies style. he brought us down the and we enjoyed it ALL weekend. i couldn't stop smiling at this work of ART! it's made out of all recycled JUNK! how fun. he even included a removable grill grate in case the law comes to bust up our party. (hehe) since firepits are illegal, we can quickly transform it into a grill lickety split!

blowfish.

*attention sushi lovers*. i found a fun, hip place with AMAZING sushi while out in San Jose. it's called blowfish. the inside has a modern, Tokyo inspired architecture and design elements with lots of tvs on the walls playing Japanese animation cartoons. (we watched speedracer)

they played ambient music which made everyone upbeat and served both traditional and more modern sushi which was all EXCELLENT. we ordered LOTS and everything was so fresh and yummy. their presentation was so cool - our sashimi platter is pictured to the right (dry ice made it work). my water came with a thin slice of cool cucumber - such a nice hint of flavor. something I will be DEF trying at home. my plum sake cosmo was tasty too.

def recco to any sushi lover going to San Jose, San Fran, LA, or Hollywood!

lucy, the store.

while on santana row, i found a store named LUCY. I beelined across the street and was determined to find something to bring home as a souvenir.

LUCY is a fun, ORANGE, women's active-wear shop. think like comfy, yoga class outfits which are even cuter when worn on the street. the ORANGE color inside made me so happy, i love orange. their yoga pants are sold in LENGTHS to fit the long legged crowd like me. no more lounge pants turning into capris' from the dryer! i picked up lucy lip gloss and a few tees (which said LUCY). the tees were LONG and fit me perfect.

the sales lady even gave me some lucy decals, stickers and a bumper sticker. i told her how much I HEART my own lucy.

north winton arts festival.

the dirty birdies are setting up shop here at the local North Winton Arts Fest this Saturday. it's super-duper convenient since both of us live here in the North Winton Village.

Come one, come all! We'd love to have visitors, although buying visitors are the best kind! (no pressure though)

Have you heard the other great news?! The other dirty birdie set up an ETSY shop for our stuff!! What's not to love about etsy?! It's the handmade Ebay!

san jose.

and I'm OFF! to San Jose, California for work. I'll be here until Thursday. I hope it's not all work and no play. I should get out 2nite and get some pics of the area so stay tuned. McAllister is back home, holding down the fort with Lucy! I already miss them BUNCHES.

Anyone have ideas on where to go? I've heard about Santana Row which should be a fun stop for dinner. Let me know!

happy fall.

happy 1st day of FALL!

the dirty birdies went the Chili Craft show today to show off and sell some of our homemade TREASURES. we have quite the cute setup, just check out our pics! and if you need any of it for your home, just give us a holler!

1000words.

I'm not sure what I enjoy MORE. writing for the 1000words blog at Kodak or getting to read everyone else's stories over there. they really are these amazing short glimpses at how powerful imaging can be in everyday situations. photos truly can make everyday living richer!

today i'm on 1000words talking about CLOUDS. Remember when I talked about going to drop Lucy off? well all the photos I captured that day really were b/c of fond memories I had with my grandma staring up at the clouds over Niagara River. I'm thankful to be able to hold on to fond memories and relive them through experiences like the one we had that day.

Check it out and comment over there if you'd like! The blog just celebrated it's FIRST birthday too - yea for an excuse to eat CAKE!

lucy-goosey.

blog readers ask - I answer! what has miss lazy lucy-goosey been up too these days?

lucy is enjoying her new collar, spending her days sleeping in the basement to stay cool, chasing the squirrels that eat our veggie scraps, swimming at the park and playing with her friends. Here are a few pics:

recent fleafinds.

i haven't written about any of the FUN fleafinds I've been scoring on recent sailing trips. here are just a few and what i plan to use them for. best part is they all were $1.00 or less!

2 grocery bags full of wine corks. now that's flippin fleafind FATE if you ask me. I have no excuse NOT to finish my wine cork wreath! note the original price, I drive a hard bargain.

a hat box. who knows if it's really old - but I have this thing for polka dots. i'll use it in the office to store all the photos I use for projs & scrapping.

scrabble. the 1948 edition. will be used to actually play the game this weekend when reigning scrabble champ, allison, comes to town. then the letters will go to good crafting use to make jewelry & other projs. (u can't even buy the letters on ebay for that cheap!)

last up for today, a red checkered TV tray. super-duper CUTE! the tray pops off and so far is used to make sure my wine glass doesn't tumble off the uneven wicker coffee table on our front porch. then i'm hoping it gets some prime real estate in my vintage/junk office makeover plan.

sweet jessie.

i seem to be one of a few that doesn't have a list of blogs I'm reading on my blog. stay tuned. i'm wishing for spare time to give my blog an update. that aside - i just have to talk about one of my FAVES Sweet Jessie.

Sweet Jessie is like my match made in blog HEAVEN. we have many similar likes - just check her NIFTY brain profile. aside from black licorice and paint by numbers - we're matchy-matchy!

so why am I posting about her?! she's running a giveaway for a HEAPING pile of vintage sheets & OLD sewing patterns. remember my homemade apron?! well - i could make THIRTEEN MORE people! and the vintage sewing patterns? besides fun new sewing projects - mama needs a NEW bottle of modpodge for all the crafty projects I have in store for those.

to help me win you just need to comment over there with what u would do with the prize and tell her who sent u. you can be honest. tell her I pinned u to ur computer chair, tied ur hands behind ur back (u can still type, don't worry) and bribed u with FUN cute, crafty, XMAS presents with all the winnings. make sure to leave my name/URL http://niccunha.blogspot.com/ in your comment! (comments make the blogging world go round!)

hurry - u only have until sat sept 22nd!

monKEY sighting.

When I bought my monKEYS, I sent a spare chimp to my brother's girlfriend Lisa. Lisa LOVES monkeys. She even tried to be one for Halloween last year. (i recall from the pics that she looked more like a bear... but whatever)

The monKEY that set sail for Virgina was Nigel and he wrote her a nice letter when he was packaged up for the trip. (he was glad the post-office had a Sharpie b/c he was quite unprepared for his important introduction).


(for those who can't read, you'll have to click to make the letter larger)

I was delighted to have received a monKEY mail message from Nigel last week. It seems he is adjusting to his new climate nicely. Doesn't he look at home in Lisa's doorknob!?!

logo quiz.

i've been on a quiz BINGE lately. here's a fun way to waste 2 minutes and find out how well you can pick the correct COMPANY when shown just a teeny-weeny piece of their logo. being in marketing, i expected to do much better.

once you've mastered that one, sharpen your logo skills by taking this quiz where you have to pick the real logo out against 5 other imposters. VERY tricky. your eyes will play games with you.... I've played it 3 times in a row and still get the AMAZON logo wrong every time.

new table centerpiece.

i shamelessly stole another project from the JUNK ladies. using an old drawer I found at our local architectural salvage shop - I screwed on little wooden legs to turn it into a tray. The drawer was a perfect square and only $1! (I just love that store - it's near the Rochester Public Market)

during my junk outings - I'm always picking up fun, cheap, OLD bottles. I PACKED the drawer/new tray with bottles of all diff shapes, sizes, & colors and then stuck little blooms from the garden in a couple of them.

VOILA! A unique new table centerpiece! sorry the photo is so dark. you'll have to click on it to make it larger and really see it. note 2 self - need more SUNLIGHT.

ps. another reason why the drawer touched my re-purposing HEART is b/c it has HAWKEYE printed on it. Kodak bought the Hawkeye camera line back in 1907 which sold for many years. Then also named a major plant Hawkeye which focused on lens work. I can just picture this drawer sitting in that plant decades ago. I love finding an OLD piece that has a connection to me.

Does anyone have a great FIND in which you shared a connection? Share ur story please!

tomatoes.

remember how big our tomato plants were? well they are producing some monster OVERSIZED fruit! i don't think i've ever seen one so BIG!

homeade vintage apron.

recently I've had the urge to find my 'inner-seamstress'. no more passing on FUN projects that involve sewing b/c of fear of the sewing MACHINE. my mom is a whiz so I thought i'd be a natural. well i'm not. so i've resorted to taking videos of her so I can practice REPEATING!

i've been working on 2 projects, one of which is this apron I just finished. before I turned it into an apron - it had LIFE as a pillowcase. I got it from the VVA for 99 cents and YES - I did wash it before I started sewing!
i'm happy to report my biggest challenge was threading the darn machine each time my bobbin ran dry. i found myself wanting to buy several sewing machines... each to hold it's own color thread! i'm also proud of my first POCKET! I think it looks cute ;-)

Check out the project pics on my Kodak Gallery page. if I keep this up - perhaps I can launch my own table linen clothing line!

cupcake cones.

one of my reader's marisa recently made cupcakes in ice cream cones. i've never seen nor heard of such a thing. since they made me want to reach through the screen and eat one - I had to test them out.

i made them last night and they were TASTY. i stuck a treat in the bottom of the cones which made for a nice surprise at the end. if you check out the pic below - it'll give you a hint on what they are.

they were quite easy to make, just check out the pics. i brought some into work and everyone here has seen them before! many said they had them growing up as kids. was I deprived of this tasty treat when i was a munchkin?! did they not make them in massachusetts?! i think a certain someone should fess up!

btw - who KNEW hershey's got so SASSY with their sayings?!

gone sailin'.

gone sailin' is the phrase I normally use when I'm out and about scouring garage sales. well saturday, sondra and i went sailin' and hit the jackpot numerous times.

here's a tip for garage sale regulars. have you ever been to a sale where more than one person is working?! well always try to feel out which one of the workers is the 'softie' on the prices. sondra worked her mojo and found the poor soul at one sale who's go-to price happened to be a quarter! We liked her, minus her crazy hat.

Once we filled my Jeep and cleaned out the place for pennies - we passed on the good TIP to others looking for prices.

you can check out her blog for her itemized finds, she is much better at that than I. (that cute lampshade was 0.50!) we hit a couple FREE piles that served up plenty of supplies for upcoming projects. happiday!

the winner.

the other dirty birdie asked her blog readers 2 guess what one of her recent junk outing finds was and what she was going to use it for. it was an interesting item which I'd never seen before so I was shooting from the hip with my guess. u can check out her blog if you're curious.... but I won! I was the WINNER!

i got my HEAPING pile of super-duper cute prizes when I came home from work today. there was a bouquet of hydrangeas wrapped in burlap, a loaf of lemon poppyseed bread, a K with lovely paper, and a cute card. they all brought a big smile to my face! i mean come on, who doesn't love PRESENTS?!

then it occurred to me that she won my plumbing trivia question. (for which i haven't selected the prize... but i'm already feeling the pressure!) well - we are really going to need more COMPETITION in our contests folks - otherwise the dirty birdies will just be exchanging junk piles!

and since I'm feeling LUCKY - I threw myself into another contest! this one is a fave blog of mine that I like to read often - freshvintage. colleen is witty, sarcastic, fun 2 read, and she's having a mystery giveaway to boot! the prize makes me DROOL....

new 2 old.

i picked up a painting technique book at a garage sale for a QUARTER. then I read this month's country home magazine where they distressed an armoire using two coats of green paint. I already distressed our kitchen cabinets last fall, but this was a diff style - so I decided to give our old dresser a facelift!

it was the perfect project b/c I had ALL the supplies at home. paint, supplies and a dresser! the 'dry-brush' technique is where you put on a basecoat of paint (in this case dark green) and let it completely dry. then you paint your top coat on, but take off some of it off using a dry paintbrush while it is still wet, letting the base color show.

first I took off a lot of the topcoat paint using different stroke movements (like an X) but that was too distressed for me, so I put more on and took off less. the end result - a DISTRESSED dresser! (which is still in need of hardware)

Check out the pics!

eating.

even Lucy loves corn on the cob. 10 for $1 at the Rochester Public Market.

glo-dog.

last night we were reminiscing of having a bonfire in the orchard at McAllister's parents house, so we turned our grill into a mini fire-pit. we pulled up some chairs and enjoyed a couple beers after a nice bbq dinner.

when we have a fire or hang outside at night, we put GLOW STICKS on Lucy's neck. this allows us to see here in the dark while she roams off-leash. it's our best DOLLAR store purchase ever and works WONDERS!

where's Lucy? there she is by the garden. down below she was in the garage. i put on a few FUN bracelets too!

we had so much fun, i decided we need a firepit. our little charcoal grill can't take too much campfire wear and tear!