Pieces of Home: A Peek at Some Recent Re-Organization

I'm nesting.

Hard.

But nesting is kind of my thing and... I kind of nest year-round, pregnant or not so it's not really anything new. I really like simple change; a change of colour, a change of paint, a change of layout... Lately, we've been kicking it into high gear for Rowan's arrival; purging, cleaning, organizing, wash, rinse, repeat.

One thing that has been my goal lately has been to make little vignettes or little altars of items we love and actually use / want to use more often. These are a few of our little set-ups in the living room. I'll be sharing more soon; all depending on when Rowan makes his arrival.

Okay, let me preface this by saying that I have no idea why I have a thing for fire and hell. I don't even believe in hell. But oh man, Damned is one of my absolute favourite books. Ever. So... go read it. Beside my stack-o-Satan is the adorable Vampirina Ballerina sleepover book; I can't get over how adorable these books are. And then our little collection of Edgar Allan Poe books. Matthew and I are both huge fans of his work, independently of each other.

The little elephant beside the Poe books held tea; we never drank the tea inside because we got it at a thrift store, but isn't the elephant adorable?

The Andy Warhol things hanging came attached to purses I bought back in the day. I'm a huge Andy Warhol fan; his name in his mom's writing was my first tattoo. Fun story; When I was pregnant with Lennon, Matthew told me he would love to go to the Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh for my birthday. (We live in mid-Ohio so it was a few hour drive both ways.) I was so excited I threw up! Haha. It was a great time; I really enjoyed viewing all of the work. I was so overwhelmed but so, so excited. I want to go back, though, because we were short on time (thanks, Pittsburgh traffic and my husband's total lack of directional skills; though I was the one driving... I now know to go with *my* directional instinct...) and because I felt really sick half-way through. But maybe this summer we can take the boys...

The art in the frame is by Lolle; it's a custom family portrait. I'll post a better photo of it soon. We are going to commission her again because our family is going to look different here very soon! She was a total pleasure to work with and, despite being an Italy-based artist, she has fantastic English skills. She sent updates super frequently and asked our input on every last thing. And, for being such an amazing artist, the cost was definitely justifiable; she *is* one of my favourite artists after all. (Probably second right after Andy Warhol; and honestly, if he weren't part of the reason I fell in love with all things art-related in the first place, she'd likely be first.)

Links to Lolle: DeviantArt | Etsy | FaceBook | Tumblr | Blog

I got this fantastic jewelry box at a rummage sale last year for just a couple of dollars. It's got some scratches, some dents, but it is so perfect. My original plan was to paint it but I actually really like it how it is. Even the little windows are perfect! So, that holds mine and Pooh's jewelry. I keep my body jewelry in there (not organized.. that's something I'd like to do soon...) I don't really have anything at all in there that is worth anything; most of it is costume jewelry; but as long as the quality is good enough to not stain my skin (and I'm super sensitive to that, so I don't have much jewelry,) it's good enough for me.

On top of my jewelry box is a candle holder, a Ganesha incense holder and sticks, two cone incense holders, a Ganesha box and a fake plant. (All plants in our home are currently fake save for our two cacti; with cats and kiddos, I want to keep it safe while still having green around...) Inside the Ganesha box are cat whiskers; whenever I find them, I pick them up and save them. I've read that finding them by chance is good luck. We've found so many.

The books beside the jewelry box are Vegan, schooling and parenting related. As much as I love Vegan books, I only have a couple of favourites so there aren't many here. And beside the books is our little Himalayan salt candle holder.

All of our Wiccan, Pagan, religion and self-care books can be found on this little dresser. Beside those is a beautiful elephant statue I got a few years back. He's one of my favourite pieces. There's also a little leaf container with nothing currently in it (made to look like real leaves; it's ceramic;) and my cat-and-sun candle holder that I received as a gift last year from my friend Corrine.

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I love looking at peoples' homes and getting a peek into how they live their daily lives. I plan on sharing many more of these posts as time goes on. And with how often I change things up, I'm sure they'll be frequent.

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