Home Wong Nga and Black Cty: November 2010

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

fretwork love

i am absolutely loving the cover of atlanta homes and lifestyles magazine this month because of the amazing fabric covered walls. my heart sang when this magazine came in the mail and i saw the lovely cover.

{image – atlanta homes and lifestyles}

the michael devine fretwork fabric that womack jowers used on the walls is to die for. don’t you love it too?!!!

LiveJournal Tags: atlanta homes and lifestyles,michael devine,womack jowers,fretwork

If you follow me on twitter you may have seen a late night post a while ago confessing to some late night Etsy Shopping and the impulse buy of some Brass Deer from Haven Vintage. So, it was $40 for the two deer + $30 shipping to Canada (they are brass, therefore expensive to ship) I thought it was actually quite well priced, and sucked up the shipping cost. A few days later (yes, it was that quick) I got a knock at the door and a HUGE box was on my porch. It couldn't be the deer. But it was. They were about 3 times bigger than I had anticipated. (Late night shopping = not reading the product description fully) And I was in loooove. I think some red bows around their necks will be next!

found

Look what I just recently found packed up that I had completely forgot I had...

Don't you think they would make such cute little appetizer trays?

Any other ideas?

Making your rounded models look better

When you're working with rounded objects whose edges have been smoothed, it's sometimes hard to make things look good. That's because curved surfaces don't automatically produce a profile edge that helps to differentiate them from the background. You can see what I'm talking about in the images that follow; notice the (what I consider to be) unsatisfying outline of each of the rounded objects below?

Without Profiles turned on, rounded objects don't stand out.

Turning on Profiles in the Styles dialog box produces a completely different result. At a Profiles setting of 2 pixels, perimeter edges become clearly visible. They're a little chunky, though—and that's not always the effect I'm aiming for.

Profiles that are 2 pixels thick often look too bold and cartoony.

Dialing down Profiles to 1 pixel solves the problem (see below).

Using a Profile thickness of 1 pixel makes rounded objects pop out from the background.

While this trick might seem obvious, it actually took eight years to soak into my brain. I never understood the benefit of setting my profile thickness to a single pixel. After all, edges are already that thickness—why spend the computer cycles to draw them again? Now I know. I thought others might benefit from my epiphany, embarrassingly late though it is.

It's worth mentioning that telling SketchUp to draw Profiles can slow things down considerably if your model's pushing the limits of your polygon budget. I only switch Profiles on when I need them.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

In honour of Movember (click here if you don't know about it) It seemed fitting that something happen with a moustache. And so, we pulled out Oscars Moustache from Whisker Works and tried to do another photo shoot (see first one here). Oscar is bit more opinionated so getting the perfect shot wasn't as easy. We love our moustache, and so the folks at Whisker Works where we got it, want to give one away to someone who reads our blog. Seriously, this is one of our favourite things in our house. No matter who picks it up, it brings a smile to their face.

ENTER TO WIN A MOUSTACHE!

HOW TO ENTER: Visit WhiskerWorks.com and browse their website. Post a Blog Reply and let me know what Whisker Set you adore.
GET A BONUS ENTRY: Follow Whisker Works on Facebook + Leave 2nd blog reply telling me that you do

PRIZE: Any Single Whisker Set + Shipping

DETAILS: Open To: Canadian & USA Residents. Check back to this blog post on December 6th to see if you won! I will try to contact you via e-mail but if I cannot find your e-mail address do make sure you check back here! Winner will be drawn via Random.org

Contest Closed ! Winner is Cynthia from Design Love! Cynthia, I'll try to find an e-mail address to contact you but if you don't gear from me e-mail aubreyandlindsay@hotmail.com

I'm Back!

Hi Everyone! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I did!

I spent the week in Naples, Florida with my sisters, in laws, nieces, nephews etc.

We went to the beach.....

......and watched the sunset.

I am saving the rest of the pictures for January or February when we could all use a little warmth and sunshine!

I will be around to visit everyone as soon as I catch up on laundry.

p.s. double click on the pictures to enlarge.

Welcome Home,

Penny

Hello everyone,

Can you believe it is December already? The time will go by so quickly from now until Christmas.

So I hope you will have time to enjoy some quiet time and a cup of tea.

I am slowly getting my Christmas decorating done.

A nice cup of hot tea is soothing to the soul don't you think?

Today, I am joining Sandi again for her lovely Tea Time Tuesday at Rose Chintz Cottage .So many lovely teas to enjoy!

Have a lovely day,

Carolyn

My family did not grow up eating sweet potatoes and we definitely did not have sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving. And quite frankly, I don't really care for them. But as many of you know, when you get married and start a family of your own, you adapt to new traditions. One of which, in my case, is sweet potatoes.

This past week, we spent Thanksgiving with my Mom and her new (as in just got married a week ago) hubby, Allen. Like I said before, Mom and I don't do sweet potatoes, but we wanted to make sure we kept our guys happy so we added sweet potatoes to the menu. Rather then doing a giant sweet potato casserole that would only be eaten by 2-3 people, we opted for another solution - Brown Sugar Baked Sweet Potatoes. And let me tell you, these were a big hit! If you are looking to add some sweet potatoes to your holiday entertaining menu, I highly recommend you give these a try!

Brown Sugar Baked Sweet Potatoes

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 medium-sized sweet potatoes

4 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons butter

Cinnamon, to sprinkle

32 small marshmallows or 16 large ones cut up

Directions:

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place sweet potatoes in a deep baking dish and poke several holes in each one. Place in oven and bake for 45 minutes or until tender.

Meanwhile, cut your two tablespoons of butter into four equal pieces.

Cut each sweet potato down the center (length-wise). Be careful not to cut all the way through the potato. Place one piece of butter inside each potato.

Next sprinkle each potato lightly with cinnamon (as much or as little as your family likes). Then sprinkle the inside of each potato with one tablespoon of brown sugar.

If using large marshmallows, cut them into pieces. If using mini-marshmallows, then just skip this step.

Divide marshmallows out and place 1/4 in each sweet potato. Place sweet potatoes back in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until tops are golden brown.

Remove sweet potatoes from oven and allow to cool slightly. Place sweet potatoes onto serving platter and enjoy!

If your family really enjoys sweet potato casserole, they will definitely enjoy this recipe. Try this easy recipe on a weeknight to go along with your family dinner. Super-easy and super-delicious!

mark your calendars

Friday, December 3rd. That is the day you want to highlight on your calendar. To start things off, The Willows is having our monthly first friday flea market. You definitely do not want to miss it this month, as it will be full of amazing gifts for everyone on your list. Perhaps we will have a few sneak peeks for you in the days to come... Then that evening while you are shopping at Crafeteria (remember when I told you about the New Times Best Indie Craft Fair? You don't want to miss that either... keep writing all this on your calendar), send your husbands, fathers, boyfriends, brothers or any man in your life to the Willows for our Mens' Night Out. From 4-7 this Friday night, our store will have all sorts of food and drinks for your men to enjoy while they buy you everything on your list. You are all invited to come in anytime before Friday to fill out a Willows' wish list, so anyone shopping for you knows exactly what you are hoping to find under the Christmas tree...

Hope to see lots of you at all these fun events this Friday!

Today is Oscar's 1/2 Birthday. Yup. We recognize half birthdays. As kids, we always got cake and a banner. You see, my Grandmother + Grandfather started the tradition with my Dad, who in turn did the same for us kids. And, Oscar will continue the tradition! Before you roll your eyes - consider this - isn't it great fun to have special days as a child? Any reason to celebrate happy moments is my philosophy.

{ Center Piece }

I thought I'd change things up a bit for the holidays.

I took down our chandelier for the Boutique

and kind of like this look for the

Christmas Season

it was simple, easy, & free!

I still have room for plates on either side of the sled, so I could also use the sled to place the food on.

I might even try to suspend the sled from the ceiling!

Wish me luck!

Introducing Google Earth 6—the next generation of realism

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Today we’re introducing the latest version of Google Earth, our interactive digital atlas. Now you can explore your childhood home, visit distant lands or scope out your next vacation spot with even more realistic tools.

In Google Earth 6, we’re taking realism in the virtual globe to the next level with two new features: a truly integrated Street View experience and 3D trees. We’ve also made it even easier to browse historical imagery. Over the next several days on our LatLong Blog, we’ll be digging deeper into these great new features, but here’s an overview to whet your appetite.

3D trees
I think we can all agree that our planet without trees would be a pretty desolate place. Besides the ever-important task of providing us with the oxygen we breathe, trees are an integral part of the landscape around us. In Google Earth, while we and our users have been busy populating the globe with many thousands of 3D building models, trees have been rather hard to come by. All that is changing with Google Earth 6, which includes beautifully detailed, 3D models for dozens of species of trees, from the Japanese Maple to the East African Cordia to my personal favorite, the cacao tree. While we’ve just gotten started planting trees in Google Earth, we already have more than 80 million trees in places such as Athens, Berlin, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Tokyo. Through our Google Earth Outreach program, we’ve also been working with organizations including the Green Belt Movement in Africa, the Amazon Conservation Team in Brazil and CONABIO in Mexico to model our planet’s threatened forests.

To enjoy these leafy additions to Google Earth, make sure you turn on the 3D buildings layer on the left side panel. As a starting point, try a search for “Palace of Fine Arts San Francisco.” Once you arrive at your destination, click the zoom slider. You’ll then be taken down to the ground where you can use our new ground-level navigation to walk among the trees.

3D trees in San Francisco, California

Integrated Street View
When Google Earth was first introduced, people were wowed by the ability to virtually fly from outer space right down to the roof of their house. While flying over rooftops gives you a super-human view of our world, the ground level is where we experience our daily lives. We took our first baby steps toward bringing the Google Earth experience to street level with our implementation of Street View in Google Earth in 2008, which enabled flying into Street View panoramas. In Google Earth 6, the Street View experience is now fully integrated, so you can journey from outer space right to your doorstep in one seamless flight.

Now, you’ll notice that Pegman is docked right alongside the navigation controls—an ever-present travel companion ready whenever you want to get your feet on the street and take a virtual walk around. Just pick up Pegman and drop him wherever you see a highlighted blue road to fly right down to the ground. Once there, you can use the navigation controls or your mouse to look around. And unlike our earlier Street View layer, you can now move seamlessly from one location to another as if you’re walking down the street by using the scroll-wheel on your mouse or the arrow keys on your keyboard. If you want to visit somewhere farther away, simply click the “exit” button and you’ll immediately return to an aerial view where you can easily fly to your next destination.

Drag and drop Pegman to enter Street View. The blue lines indicate where Street View imagery is available.

Easy-to-use historical imagery
One of the features people told us they liked best in Google Earth 5 was the availability of historical imagery, which enables you to visually go back in time to see such things as Warsaw in 1935, London in 1945, and Port-au-Prince Haiti before and after the devastating earthquake of January 2010. But it wasn’t always obvious when historical imagery was available for a particular place, making this feature one of Google Earth’s lesser-known gems.

So with this new version, we’ve made it very easy to discover historical imagery. When you fly to an area where historical imagery is available, the date of the oldest imagery will appear in the status bar at the bottom of the screen. If you click on this date, you’ll instantly be taken back in time to view imagery from that time period. You can then browse through all the historical imagery available for that location, or simply close the time control and return to the default view.

The site of Google's Mountain View campus in 1948

To download Google Earth 6, or to see videos of our newest features, visit http://earth.google.com.

Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager

Ponoko 3D Printing Challenge: Three weeks left

We’re one quarter of the way into the Ponoko 3D Printing Challenge; you’ve got three more weeks to enter. The salient points:

You produce an instructional media-thing (text, images, video) that teaches folks “How to use Google SketchUp for Ponoko 3D printing.”
You submit your creation to Instructables by December 17th.
A panel of judges from SketchUp and Ponoko (hopefully) picks your submission as a winner.
You receive a boatload of prizes.

More deets on the official Challenge web page. Happy instructabling!

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

For the last almost three+ years I have either been pregnant or nursing. Yes, that’s right. I had my daughter Savannah and then when she was 7 months old I found out I was pregnant with my younger daughter Matilda. Two weeks ago I finally got my body back. After 15-months of nursing my daughter Matilda, I finally decided it was time to wean. I’d definitely say weaning was a bittersweet time for me. But all and all, I think it’s a little bit more on the sweet side.

Click here to read more and enter to win a $100 Visa gift card.

TANTALIZING TICKING ..........

Isn't ticking lovely ? I haven't got any in our home, but I really must rectify that situation as it's such a fresh look.

I've got the white pillow with ties ..........

I've have the white shabby mirror ..........

I have the chest of drawers ..........

I have the straw shopper ..........

.......... the vintage cases ..........

.......... the luggage labels ..........

.......... the black and white framed photographs ..........

.......... and even the brass bed but, not a stitch of ticking has entered our house. I think that I shall make it my mission (if I choose to accept it ) to bring a little ticking into our home. How about you, or have you beaten me to it ?

images 1 & 12 - Peacock Blue, 2- Living etc, 3- Country Living, 4,5 & 7 - Jigsaw, 6, & 13 -Toast, 8 - Divine Interiors and Gifts, 9 & 10- Forest Bound, 11- Martha Stewart.