Friday, December 26, 2014

New house stuff by local South Oak Park artists

Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas, all. I'm writing this post on my best, most useful Chanukah gift, a Chromebook that Josh got for me and the girls. The girls got mostly practical gifts--long underwear, slippers, bathrobes and board games. I managed to surprise Josh (a.k.a. the hardest person in the world to shop for) with a North Face jacket, America's Test Kitchen's Meat cookbook and a monthly sock subscription.

There are two new items in our house that weren't designated as holiday gifts, but that are giving us much joy. (Hint, I'm not talking about the strep and cold viruses.) Both were made by fellow moms from my daughters' elementary school.

Jen McNulty specializes in photo mosaics, and this one brought together 125 family photos along with tiles that pick up the color scheme from our living room. I don't display a ton of family pictures around the house, but now I have 4 generations from each of our families represented. Untitled

We also needed a dresser for our guest room. I'd been trolling consignment and thrift stores looking for the right one, but hadn't found the perfect dresser. Solution? Work with local mom Anne of Annie's Attic to custom-design a refinished second hand dresser. She'd found the piece; I picked the milk paint color and stencil design direction (with input from 7 year old Ada). Now Ada has a lovely new dresser and her IKEA dresser is in the guest room. Isn't it lovely?
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A post about the rich artistic talents among the parent body at Lincoln Elementary would be remiss if I didn't also mention a new vintage and upcycled furniture shop owned by Melody Kratz, Studio 8. It's right across from the post office on Garfield Avenue. I haven't bought anything there yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.