we have been going to a family friend’s beach cottage at holden beach, nc since 1997. it is definitely one of our favorite places to visit! the cottage has belonged to our friend’s family for several generations. it still has a lot of the rustic antiques from when it was originally furnished. it is such a cozy, quiet little place. we love it; especially in off season.

ry and I were lucky enough to celebrate mom and jim’s 25th wedding anniversary at the cottage the first week of april. we enjoyed an amazing week of lounging, reading, cooking, eating seafood & goofing off at the beach. ryan even got a kite and some new sunglasses. yay!

holden beach is located midway between wilmington, nc and myrtle beach, sc — about 40 minutes from each. the town is situated on an atlantic coastal barrier island, facing south onto the long bay region of brunswick county.

holden beach also has an amazing turtle watch program. the site has a story about conjoined twin loggerheads hatching there in 2009!

check out the holden beach town hall web site!

– ryan & gub

what exactly is sea foam? we all know the shade of green, but what exactly is that stuff sitting on the beach as waves pull back to the sea?

basically, sea foam is impurities in the ocean such as salt, chemicals, dead plants or other material that are churned up by the currents and carried to the shore by waves. the bubbles stick together and create the foam you see on the beach.

– ryan

we set up a youtube page with various video projects. the videos are higher quality and larger than the ones we host on our site, so check it out!

– ryan

we went to a really great fabric store in atlanta yesterday called whipstitch. it just opened on the west side near octane coffee. it’s billed as atlanta’s only in-town sewing lounge and offers amazing fabrics, sewing supplies, books, and all types of classes from beginner to advanced.

we’re very excited about a hip in-town fabric store with a great selection of designs you can check out in person! no more looking at small pictures on reprodepot or etsy to decide if a fabric or its color will work. plus no shipping fees!

we’ve been wanting to recover our kitchen chairs for a while but haven’t found the right fabric. the selection at whipstitch is fabulous though and it didn’t take us long to find what we were looking for.

– ryan & gub

whipstitch

1000 marietta st, suite 102
atlanta, ga 30318
404.897.1114
info@whipstitchfabrics.com

an item on my things i should know list has come up numerous times while we plant our garden; what is the difference between an herb and a spice?

the answer boils down to herbs come from the leaves of plants while spices come from the seeds, roots, bark, flowers or fruits of plants.

examples of herbs are basil, rosemary, mint, chives, parsley, oregano, thyme, sage, etc. examples of spices are black pepper (seed), ginger (root), cinnamon (bark), cloves (flowers), mustard (seed), nutmeg (fruit), etc.

on a side note, salt is actually a mineral and not a spice.

– ryan

we recently tilled our garden! we rented a tiller from home depot for 4 hours, which was super easy, and got our backyard ready for spring planting. our garden plans are moving along and we hope to finish planting this week.

we realized our backyard was full of tons of random debris while tilling. we found rusty nails, roofing tiles, concrete, bricks, tools, and lots of other junk.

– ryan & gub

we noticed our horseshoe pits were looking rough recently, so we decided to give them a face-lift. we started by getting rid of the weeds and adding more sand. that alone made a huge difference. then we spray painted the poles bright colors, we went with blue and red, and topped it all off by adding our bottle cap collection.

we’ve been saving bottle caps for years, although we never really found the right use for them. gub has fond memories of her grandparents general store where they threw caps from soda bottles out front for gravel. the rusty gravel must have made an impression on her, we’ve been saving bottle caps since i’ve known her.

we’re excited to find a new use for our bottle caps! it’s gratifying to reuse something that could easily be thrown away. we plan on filling our pits a good bit more, our collection seemed a lot bigger inside the house. we are going to ask our local bartender to save bottle caps for us to help the cause.

– ryan

gub and i were able to get away for a few days and went to holden beach, nc. we took an afternoon and visited a few nearby lighthouses, which was a blast!. first we went to oak island lighthouse on caswell beach and then took a ferry to bald head island to explore old baldy lighthouse. the ferry departed from this cute little town called southport, nc, where a bunch of dawson’s creek episodes were filmed. the whole area had a new england feel, especially caswell beach and southport.

you could see what’s left of price’s creek lighthouse from the ferry ride, although that’s as close as we can could get. we weren’t able to see the inside of oak island lighthouse either, it required reservations, but we were able to climb to the top of old baldy lighthouse for a great view of bald head island!

we were very excited to learn bald head island and old baldy lighthouse were used for the beach scenes in weekend at bernies! we have since re-watched and confirmed that the beach scenes were in fact filmed there.

– ryan & gub

we celebrated easter by spending a fun morning drinking coffee and dyeing easter eggs in our new yellow kitchen. there will be a blog post on the kitchen re-do later, but here are the steps we took to create our colorful and recyclable eggs:

– hard boil eggs
– set up easter egg dye kit (we used a cheap grocery store paas kit)
– add stencils and resists to the eggs*
– stir dye bath and carefully place egg in the dye
– leave egg in the dye for 5 to 10 minutes (lighter colors take longer)
– remove from dye and remove stencil or resist
– place eggs in basket or nest (we used shredded paper scraps for our grass!)

*we created leaf stencils by picking small leaves from our yard and placing them on the egg. we then tightly wrapped panty hose around the egg and secured with a rubber band. small, thin leaves with few veins work best for the stencils. we also used electrical tape to add stripes and lines to the eggs.

yay easter!

deviled eggs for dinner!

– ryan & gub

spring is finally here! we’re excited about the warm weather and spring blooms. here are some photos of the japanese magnolia in our front lawn. it was a valentine’s day gift from gub a few years ago.

– ryan & gub