A Little Bit of Boho

Happy hump day! Over Labor Day weekend earlier this month, Walker and I took an amazing trip back to Nebraska to visit the Dale side of family. The majority of our trip consisted of some serious puppy playtime for Bo and his parents’ new dog (Pogo the cairn terrier!), delicious home-cooked meals, and wonderful quality family time.

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Pogo & Bo = instant buddies :)

Gorgeous Big Sky Country!

Gorgeous Big Sky Country!

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We even got a pretty amazing thunderstorm! :)

While we were there, Walker’s mom took us to one of her favorite stores in Lincoln, Ten Thousand Villages. I love visiting this shop every time we are in town because they have AMAZING fair trade home goods, gifts, apparel, art, accessories, etc. handmade by artisans all around the world. The company is a non-profit charitable organization, with many of its employees being local volunteers and all of its profits from sales going directly back into supporting the individual artisans with fair wages. Anyway, my point is that this place has gorgeous products AND you can feel great buying them from such an ethical, honest company doing great things for artisans all over the globe. Twist my arm to spend some dough… ;)

While I could have walked out of there with armfuls of goodies, I restrained myself to one item that fit into my carry-on. I fell in love with this $30 colorful, bohemian rag rug handmade in Egypt that I knew would be perfect for our kitchen. The best part of our shopping experience? I found out that Pasadena has its own Ten Thousand Villages shop just five minutes from our house! Eeeeeeeee! I know where I will be doing 100% of my Christmas shopping this year. When we got home, I paired it with a anti slip rug underlay from IKEA to make our kitchen a whole lot happier.

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We also recently added some DIY macrame hanging planters (the macrame tutorial I used is here) with some herbs and succulents to the kitchen window area, significantly giving the kitchen more life and color. (Side note: I can’t stop bringing plants into the house… the fig tree was like my gateway greenery.)

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We have a few more kitchen updates we would like to make, but it is otherwise probably the most complete room in the house! Yippeeeee!

Dear Blog…

*Warning: sappy, sentimental post ahead. Proceed with caution.*

Dear Blog,

I miss you. I spent some time recently rereading several months worth of posts, and it transported me back in the very best way. You were our journal, our photo album, and a connection to our friends and family for years. I feel like the time since has been undocumented and therefore in some ways seems further away from me than even some of the smallest moments from years ago that I just reread. I have been talking to several friends over the past few months about keeping a journal or reading their (grand)parent’s journals, all of which made me miss you. Although it is a public journal of sorts and not a place to share my most intimate feelings, I love that our lives during the times when I blog have been recorded to share and enjoy down the road.

The past couple years since I have posted regularly have flown by and have been beautiful beyond words. School was insanely busy, but amazingly fulfilling and productive towards achieving my occupational dreams. The 10 months of engagement was a blast celebrating and anticipating our upcoming nuptials. The wedding planning is a delightful but frenzied blur at this point… I still have no idea how it all came together! The wedding itself was the best day of our lives. Every single one of my wildest dreams came true when I said “I do!” to spending the rest of my life with the person I love with every bit of my heart. It was an absolute dream celebrating such a special day with the people we love. The honeymoon was stunningly unreal… Barbados stole our hearts. Every minute of blood, sweat, and tears shed at school was beyond worth it when I got the dream job working for Michael. Turns out, I had no idea even then how much I would absolutely LOVE this job. The move to our Pasadena cottage happened so fast, but almost a year later, I know in my heart this home was meant for us. We love our cottage and the little family inside!

The point of all of this blabbering is simply to say that I wish I had blogged all of those wonderful moments as well. Although they will always and forever live in my memory, there is something incredible reading about these memories in my own words and seeing them in photos years later. So, while I can’t promise by any means that this blog will be back in all of its original DIY and project-packed glory (ha!), I want to recommit myself to posting the occasional (or hopefully more-than-occasional) lifestyle (and cottage) updates. I miss you, and I miss what you bring to our lives. Let’s be friends again.

Love,

Erika

Friends and family, I miss you too! I hope you’ll come hang out with us here again on Our Cozy Cubbyhole. Happy Friday! xo

*Sappy post complete. If you’re still reading this, you survived. Here’s a picture of Bo as your reward.*

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The Dirt on Bob Vila

Okay, woah… don’t get too excited. I don’t have any juicy gossip on America’s favorite home improvement guru (though I HAVE heard he truly as delightful as he seems on TV!).

In fact, the only gossip I have for today is that WE WERE FEATURED! Blogging is a funny thing. I go away for over a year, and the first week I get back to it, I get not one but TWO emails asking to feature projects from Our Cozy Cubbyhole. YES and YES!!

Our first feature was for a really cool digital magazine called The Dirt on Organic Gardening. It dives into the growing movement of urban organic gardening… so obviously I was immediately excited (especially since it caters to practiced gardeners, as well as brownish-green thumbs like me). They loved our topsy-turvy DIY indoor herb planter and asked to feature it in their “Planting Outside of the Box” series in their 11th issue. SO FLATTERING! :)

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I ended up reading the entire magazine (you should too! Get a free copy by taking a quick survey on their website) and finished feeling incredibly inspired. I need to get my planting skills on in our yard! :)

The very same day we were featured in The Dirt, I got an email from Bobvila.com saying they loved our $14 DIY Basket & Twine Pendant Light and wanted to feature it in a round up, 9 DIYs to String Together with Twine, on their website. WHAAA!? How cool is that? I freakin’ LOVE Bob.

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Needless to say, it was exciting to have my work being shared out in the world. Now I just need to make some time to create some NEW projects to share… easier said than done! ;)

 

**NOTE: Though we were featured on both The Dirt and BobVila.com, my thoughts on both of these awesome publications are my own. I was in no way paid for my weird babbling! That’s all! **

Erika

I’m Erika, an interior designer with an aesthetic that is a mix of California Bohemian, Mid-Century, and Scandinavian influences with pops of fun color and loads of natural materials. Plus plants, plants, and more plants!

My sweet family (Walker, Juniper & Hank, as well as pups Arlo & Guillermo) just reloacted from Los Angeles, CA, to Lincoln, NE. We would love for you to follow along with us on this journey!

 
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