Repurposed Jewelry Stand

Here's a great way to use up your mismatched china collection from garage sales over the years. This project couldn't be simpler and makes a beautiful jewelry stand while displaying those pretty little plates.

Just use superglue or my personal favorite, E6000 (it's waterproof) with brandy snifters or cordial glasses. Alternate inverting them between the plates and voila! I would make a million of these with my kids for family gifts if only superglue and preschoolers mixed.

Post your creations in the comments below!

Ettorina's China

When you're in college, there is nothing less appealing than relatives trying to pawn off their housewares onto you, especially when they're family heirlooms from aging relatives. It's not that I didn't appreciate my Uncle Clarence thinking of me. It was more of a what does a 19-year-old girl need her great-aunt's wedding china for? A hope chest? A dowry?

Plus, the design was flowery and finished with silver edges. This was at the millenium, you know, when plates needed to white and from Ikea. Or chipped and from Goodwill, like any proper college house.

Needless to say, the china sat in a box in my father's garage for the next decade.

Two weeks ago, I worked at a catered wedding full of Etsy inspired touches. The couple had been collecting old china from thrift stores for years and the mismatched, flowery plates on the tables with vintage books and mason jars was exactly my style.

I am only now, at 31, just discovering my style with a recent move into my own studio. For the first time in my life, I'm putting pictures up on walls, unpacking boxes completely, and buying flowers for the coffee table. I've never been much of a nester, so it's been a fun new exploration into the world of design and creating a comforting space.

And it also means this lonely china finally has a home! Thank you, Ettorina and Clarence. I promise I will put it to use.

Mason Jar Chandelier

Walking around downtown Petaluma last weekend, I glimpsed in this antique store window and nearly kept on walking. Then, upon closer look ...

I saw a mason jar chandelier and my heart nearly stopped. And not only with mason jars, but blue mason jars!

I started looking around and found some more inspiration.

Here's a DIY version from Instructables. No wiring required.

What I really want are some tutorials from Boots N Gus on Etsy.

Come back when you're done window shopping, dear reader.

It's Fun to Be Fancy

I never imagined there was something better than champagne. There is. It's called champagne with a wild hibiscus flower.

For special nights with special people (and that can include just lovely old you), I highly recommend dropping one of these wild hibiscus flowers in a glass of bubbles. Don't worry, they're edible and come in a lovely syrup to add a blush of color and sweetness to your glass.

Your friends will be amazed and think you're real fancy. Don't worry. It's okay to be fancy sometimes.

An Afternoon at the Opera

When living in New York and constantly surrounded by people, I believe it's especially crucial to carve out time to do things reserved just for you. It might be going to a museum once a month or spending time in the morning doing a crossword at a neighborhood coffee shop. 

For me, that thing was always opera. I've tried taking family and close friends with me, but when I resented having to chit chat during intermission, or looking over to see my opera date falling asleep, I decided it was best to keep it to myself, since I love it so much I can't bear to be with anyone who loves it less.

I was thrilled, not only to have the time to squeeze one in this last trip, but to see one that rarely gets performed in the west. The piece was Khovanshchina, the unfinished masterpiece of Modest Mussorgsky, best known for Pictures at an Exhibition.

If I only get to go to the opera once this year, this was the one to see. Six acts and nearly five hours long, full of the usual Russian themes of political protest and bitter relationships, this was exactly what I was in the mood for to satisfy my opera fix. A melodramatic ending of the hundred plus chorus locking themselves in a church and setting it on fire was the icing on the cake. This piece was completed and revised in different versions by several composers, including Shostokovich, Ravel, Stravinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. This was the Shostokovich version, who was not known for cheerful themes.

When I lived in Brooklyn, tickets in the nosebleed section of the Met were so affordable, they were a few dollars more than going to see a movie. They're still reasonable now, given that any performance is going to be the best in the world, at the most exquisite opera house. I even saw a few operas in Europe during several months of travel, and nothing was quite like the Met.

Correction, nothing is quite like the Met.