Austin in the summertime is hopping with things to do. By the time August rolls around, I am hopeful that it is indoors; that’s for sure. The heat in August baffles me every time! You would think after decades of living in Texas I would get used to it. Not only is August sizzling, but also when school starts again. I hang out with some fun youth gals outside of work, so I can’t help but still operate in semesters! August marked a lot of different emotions when I was back in school. Depressed because my days of laying by the pool and going to camp were done but also hopeful and excited for the new school year to come. In honor of summer starting to come to a close, I thought my inspiration for this week would be two of my favorite things: summer and movies. Here are a few of my favorite summer movies that I can watch over and over again.

Shag

This movie is one of those that you either have never heard of or have grown up watching. I fall in the latter category (as does Lizzie). The story involves four gals on the road trip of a lifetime where they “go to the beach and meet boys and go to wild parties and dance!” Each character is just too perfect for words, and the boys are all adorable as well. The title Shag comes from the dance style that is done in the beach town that they visit. One of the girls enters and wins the shag competition with Chip, the boy of her dreams (I always preferred Chip). If I told you the HOURS that my sister and I spent trying to learn how to shag, I would be embarrassed.

Dirty Dancing

This movie needs no explanation. You know how OBSESSED the Sprucettes are with Dirty Dancing! Keegan and Lizzie are still trying to master the finale dance. Once they do, you will be sure to see it via video. Patrick Swayze is a dream boat and the rebel every girl wants to be swept away by. We can all relate to Baby feeling like that girl who is so awkward and says ridiculous things like, “I carried a watermelon.” LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

Parent Trap

We are talkin’ about the original here people with the one-and-only Haley Mills. All the way from the claymation cupids at the beginning to the credits at the end, this movie is perfection. As a little girl, I LOVED to pretend like I was a twin with my friends at camp. We actually did wear swim caps and would stand on each others’ shoulders to reenact the scene in the lake. I think we had every line memorized. The characters, the clothes, the sets are all AMAZING. And who doesn’t love Verbena, the housekeeper, and Grandpa!?

Now that summer is ending, my last movie is one of my favorites to start the school year with. Anyone agree?

Footloose

Don’t you love that in this movie the greatest rebellion of a teenager was to dance!? Too funny. The soundtrack pretty much makes this movie and improves any playlist I ever put together. Kevin Bacon has some serious moves in that abandoned barn. Ren apparently turns the town on its head with his fancy feet. The sidekicks in this movie are too perfect. You have SJP and her frizzy hair and Chris Penn playing Willard, the good ol’ boy who can’t dance. Also, this may be a stretch, but I tended to have a crush on their friend Woody. He throws off his glasses at the end and dances like a mad man. This, my friends, cannot be topped.

Hope you guys watch these flicks one last time this summer. You know we will up here at Spruce!

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Describing furniture parts can be a mind-boggling and frustrating task if you don’t have the right descriptive terms.  Before I learned how to upholster, my descriptions sounded like, “You know, that dividing edge-thing by the front of the chair at the bottom with the cord-stuff…”  That would be a tack band with welt cord. Here are some diagrams that label the basic parts of furniture and will get you sounding like a pro in no time!  Not all pieces will have all the parts labeled in the photos and some pieces of furniture will have extras depending on the styling.

Front of furniture:

Side/back of furniture:

Extras:

Another handy term to know is “deck”.  If you pull your cushion(s) off your chair or sofa, you’ll see the base they sit on, which is called the deck.

Totally pro.

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For those of you who live in the Austin area, you are all too familiar with the mid-summer blues that creep up once the triple digits arrive. The Sprucettes are sweating it out for the third annual summer in the back workshop. Even Pixie is doing her best to stay cool with a new haircut and “Kool Collar.” So far, our record temperature is 94 degrees, which we have hit nearly every day since August 1, and we’re hoping that’s as high as it goes.

Here are some things I’ve been daydreaming about in the hot afternoons.

Striped Ice Cream Cake

I found this delicious recipe in the July 2010 issue of Martha Stewart.

Town Lake in the fall

There’s nothing like going for a run along the lake when it’s cool.

Scarves!

This is a must-have for this fall. Get it here!

The Abominable Snowman

And all of the other claymation characters from the classic Christmas movies.

Shiner Cheer

I’m buying cases of this next season, so good!

I hear there’s a cold-front coming in mid-week! Yay for mid-nineties!

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Hope everyone has had a great week! We have been busy busy as always. This week, we have put out a few new treats as well as received some ourselves! First, we have two new items for sale here at the shop. This week, we completed an amazingly adorable love seat. We used a new print from Skinny Laminx that we just fell in love with! Check out the before and after of this piece; it is pretty spectacular. If you remember, we found this guy in a bit of a pickle along with a Mid-Century sectional.

Next, this unbelievable table was a jewel we found in an old barn outside of town. When we first saw it, we thought it was a vanity/desk that extended into a four-person table. Well, as we looked further, we discovered the piece has an amazing telescopic contraption that allows it to extend to a full-sized dining table! We were shocked to say the least and thought it resembled the moving mechanisms to open the vaults at Gringotts’ Wizarding Bank in Harry Potter (I know I am a huge dork). We had a good friend and wood craftsman build a new, solid mahogany top and refinish the piece. It looks incredible! Check out the carved details and the various options for how to use it! We felt it appropriate to call this piece Dr. Jekyll’s Table, you agree?!

Last, you are all aware that we have purchased a VW bus that is going to be our Spruce-mobile. We are closing in on our estimated date of completion woohoo! The gentleman who is completing the transformation brought by the driver’s seat as well as the back bench. We chose a stunning Osborne & Little fabric for the upholstery, and boy does it look good! This is not going to be your typical VW bus; I will tell you that . We will be riding in style very soon. Take a look at Amanda giving the chair a test drive!

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Not to brag or anything, but our shop has been called a “beacon of light” in the neighborhood.  Our little shop is nestled among lots of auto shops, a day labor center, a strip club, and a couple sketchy motels where they like to film horror flix.  Don’t get me wrong, we LOVE our neighborhood.  The houses in the neighborhood are FANTASTIC, and I wish I could live there.  The neighborhood, really, is almost perfect.  However, as long as we’ve been in our space, we’ve been talking about how we really need a few good places to eat and drink within walking distance, and it looks like we’re finally about to get our wish!

First, just two doors south on Lamar, Elsi’s is putting in a smaller restaurant featuring their cuisine from El Salvador.  I’m looking forward to the day I can walk a couple doors down and pick up tacos and fresh empanadas!  Yum!

Directly across the street, in the space you may know as the Emporium from Dazed and Confused, it’s rumored (so don’t quote us on this) that Threadgill’s is opening a diner  that will be called Hiney’s Tiny Diner.  I hope that we’ll be having Sprucette morning meetings there!  I love diner food.  They’ve started building some diner-looking additions to the building.

And, once the day is done, we’ll have a place for our favorite time: beer-thirty!  Black Star Co-op is opening at the Crestview Metro Station.  I’m interested to see how this plays out.  As they say, “Why shouldn’t you own the pub you drink at?!”

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