LONG TiME NO SEE

Wow, where did the year go? I didn't plan on taking such a long break from my blog but I blinked and most of the year had passed. So to get anyone who might read this up to speed, I moved last year across the country and since then have been setting up our home, organizing my collections, and doing home improvements when I have the time. I meant to share photos on here of our progress but it all just became too overwhelming.

Things are starting to finally slow down a bit so I will slowly be adding posts on here but plan to do a full blog makeover soon. Since my favorite holiday, Halloween, is coming up I'm starting to get really motivated to create and decorate. I will be sharing Halloween inspired products and art I find over the next couple of months both here and on Pinterest. I will also be sharing home improvement photos along with how we display our collections. I hope they can inspire in some way. Have a wonderful rest of your week!

Here are a few photos from last year right after we moved in. Halloween was the first holiday I decorated here and I can't wait to do it this year.

xoxo

Sara

TOYS!

Somehow it's been almost a year since I boxed up all my possessions and moved across the country! Where did the time go? Last Halloween Doug and I shared a short video we made of some of my home and collections. We have shelves being delivered this week hopefully so I may have a video up this Halloween of the toy wall going back up! Fingers crossed! Until then, here is our video again from last Halloween <3

 
Sara Harvey's Toy Sideshow from Doug Smith Media on Vimeo.

Have a wonderful week!

xoxo

Sara

SO WHAT'S NEW WITH YOU?

Oh man, so we moved at the start of July and up until now, I mean literally as I'm typing this, our floors are going in at our new home. They look good y'all! Long story short, previous people had a dog that used the carpet as it's restroom -_- so needless to say it was pretty stinky in here. It unfortunately all couldn't be replaced until now so we have been living on a rug and a mattress and no other furniture out but we do have a tv! Got to watch my cartoons and home remodeling shows! Because of this I'm still not back to a regular schedule for posting on my blog or any of my social media. It's starting to get to me. I need to have a place to work since I work from home and it's been difficult. On the bright side I should be up and running soon now that we can actually settle in. It's been almost 8 months since I've even seen most of my things so I'm excited to unpack boxes. We will post lots of before and after home photos as we decorate but I thought I would share some in progress photos of the floors because I can't leave my room right now while they are working and couldn't think of anything better to do, ha! 

If you're wondering about that weird blue behind the tv, it's a light from Ikea that showed up really crazy in the photos but doesn't really look like that.

So that's our front rooms so far. They are looking a lot better than before but we still have a lot of work to do. I'm ready to get my toys out already. I'm impatient :)

Have a great week!

xo

Sara

APARTMENT THERAPY HOME TOUR 2011

HOME TOUR FROM 2011

A few years ago my home was on Apartment Therapy with a little interview and a house tour. I had totally forgotten about it until today when a few people noticed my home on Apartment Therapy's Instagram. No idea why it was posted today after so many years but it was a nice walk down memory lane. There are some differences in some of the rooms but nothing too dramatic. It's fun to see the changes overtime. I thought I would share that here on my blog today since I haven't had time to post much lately. I hope you enjoy it! Have a great night and I hope you have a wonderful weekend! It will be snowing here so I will be not be leaving my warm home that actually looks like a huge disaster area right now.

xoxo

-Sara

SARA HARVEY'S TOY SIDESHOW

HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!!! I hope you have a great day full of tricks and treats! This day for me is like Christmas for most kids where you can't really sleep the night before because you're too excited! I have always loved Halloween and getting dress up as anything you want to be. Usually my costumes are horror related because I'm a horror blood and guts kind of lady, ha! This year I didn't really have much of a costume planned out so I'm putting together something for later today with things I already own.

My amazing boyfriend thankfully gets me and put this awesome video together. He's super busy with normal work so I am truly grateful he took time out to make this for me so we could share it today. I really don't even have the proper words to express how much it means to me that he made this. It's not my entire collection or my entire home but the film would have been way too long and I'm sure no one wants to sit through that. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I think he captures my personality and my home perfectly. We had some fun with a little stop animation so I hope you like it! If you're curious, the music is by Danny Elfman, whom I've loved since I was a wee little child. So...here it is!!! I'm so excited! I will get to cherish this forever since my home no longer looks like this.

Sara Harvey's Toy Sideshow from Doug Smith Media on Vimeo.

Have an amazing day and eat lots of candy!

xoxo

-Sara

TOY SIDESHOW TEASER

Something I wanted to do for a long time was make a video of my house before I move. Lucky for me I have a boyfriend that's amazing at photography and video so last week while he was in town, he filmed some things around my house. I cannot wait to see what he does for the final piece. I'm letting him do his thing and make it special. We decided Halloween would be a good time to post the entire video once it's done so a short sneak video was make for it. I hope you like it! I'm really excited about this project. I know he will make this amazing! 

Have a wonderful Monday!

xoxo

-Sara

SAY GOODBY TO THE RAINBOW // MOVING FORWARD

Some people know my past and I've shared a bit here on my blog. I moved to Kansas City, MO to attend college back in 1998! Man I feel old right now. I had decided to stay here because it was very difficult for my partner at the time to move and I had a really great job as an artist and designer so there was no reason not to stay. We had purchased this house back in 2008 I believe, and I have spent years making it my home. I've shared photos on Flickr and Facebook and anywhere I could. I love to decorate and style a space and hopefully inspire others. I've been able to share the designer toy world with people that may not have normally ever seen a collection like this and how you can have it in your home in a nicely designed way. 

What some people may not realize is that my home and toys were therapy for me. I haven't left my home much in many years other than when I would go to work but then I came back home to be a caregiver. My home is a reflection of who I am and what gives me joy and I will always love it and have a special place in my heart for it. Unfortunately it does not hold the best of memories for me and as hard as I've tried I can no longer continue to stay here anymore. It had become my personal paradise and my personal prison. Every other aspect of my life has changed within the past year and this is the last step for me to make. 

In the next couple of weeks, after I have some photos and a video taken of my house, I will be boxing up all of my toys and art and getting my home prepared to sale. It will be an emotional experience I'm sure but also a very exciting one. I will get to start over and create something new in a new space. I'm going to miss you rainbow wall but maybe you will be new and improved someday. I'm not sure what it will be like to live here for awhile with no toys displayed. I'm sure it will be incredibly weird for me. I'm going to be sharing photos and the process of everything coming down and what the end result will look like. I will probably not be selling any toys, I know, I know, I'm sorry ;) I will be selling other things though because I need to downsize what I have and let go of some of my past. I will be having another Instagram account up with things I'm parting with soon if anyone is interesting because I would love for my things to go to people who will appreciate them. 

Thank you for listening...reading. This is an adventure I'm more than ready for and I'm excited to share my new life with you. 

XOXO

-Sara

THANK YOU

Just a little thank you to everyone that follows me on whatever you follow me on :) Means a lot to me. I will be a little slow over the next few months with posting things because BIG THINGS will be happening in the future with me and this toy house of mine. Stay tuned! I'll share more as time goes on.

XOXO

-Sara

ARTIST // JAMES JEAN

I want to start sharing artist that inspire me on a regular basis. I am very passionate about all kinds of art and love to share artist I grew up with and new people I find. I've been lucky enough to become friends with a lot of these talented people through collecting their art and toys. The world is a crazy wonderful place.

(Fables Covers by James Jean)

James Jean has been a long time favorite artist. I discovered his work in college around 2001 from the Fables comic book series that he did covers for. Comics and graphic novels were one of the ways I had discovered a lot of my favorite artists before the internet was more easily accessible. I also purchased every art magazines and art book I could get my hands on.

As someone who has probably an unhealthy love affair with color, Jean's use of color, subject matter, line work, composition, always amazes me and is a huge source of inspiration. I've loved watching his styles change and grow and seeing his work transformed into other forms like jewelry and clothing. I get really excited when my love of fashion and art come together with my favorite artist. 

Someday I would like to own an original of his work but until that's a possibility, prints will always be my best friend. I have a few in my house which came from a book of prints that came out awhile ago. I wanted to share some of those and where they are in my home. I also pulled a few of my favorite pieces with links to see more of his work.

(Kindling by James Jean)

JAMES JEAN'S PERSONAL WEB SITE

Puppet

Hint Mint

Grid

Lotus War Day

BTRFLY | Swarm BW Necklace

I just discovered, thanks to the boyfriend, that James has a print for sale today only. After 24 hours it will come down and not be re printed. 

Tiger III

I hope everyone has a great rest of your Monday!
-Sara

BREATHE

Hello, my name is Sara and I'm a workaholic. I guess it's at least good I know this about myself. I have a lot of self imposed projects on my plate along with work and daily life tasks. Figuring out how to keep up with a blog is something I'm learning as the days go by but it can be a frustrating process when you have other responsibilities that need to get done. Working from home is wonderful to me but the work I do never seems like work so I have a hard time doing everything else. I can get so carried away with projects that I eat and sleep at really odd times. Not the best for your health. I purchased this "breathe" sign from Etsy years ago from Oh Dier Living. Its good to remind myself to just breathe. 

Top photo © Sara Harvey, bottom three photos property of Oh Dier Living 

I hope you had a great weekend! 

-Sara

DOLL HOUSE : PART 1

I've shared photos of my home for many years since I purchased it back in 2008. I didn't have a blog or website to really document the things I did so I used my Flickr to share photos as my home progressed. I spend a lot of time in my house and wanted to make it someplace I wanted to be, someplace that made me happy. I've always loved interior design and love to decorate with things I've collected over the years. Here are some photos of the front rooms of my home the living room and dining room. I've always wanted one huge wall that I could display my toy collection on and my dining room just became the place to do that and have it visible but not too intrusive. I collect a lot of things but I also get claustrophobic easily so I have to organize everything! 

There are more photos on my Flickr if you want to check them out. The photos here and on Flickr are unfortunately a few years old and things have moved and changed, so I will be taking some new photos soon to share. I will also be adding more detailed photos that share who all the artists are in each photo. 

In 2011 I did a little interview for Apartment Therapy that you can see here if interested as well as one for Etsy. 

Thanks for looking!

Have a great day!

-Sara