We all love living with beautiful things.  Throughout my life I have subscribed and pored over shelter magazines. The range of extravagance and the dramatic spaces photographed in those pages enthralled me, as did the craft of preparing one's surroundings as an art form.  

I am outside of a TJ Maxx right now.

It's that extravagance and penchant for big gestures that inspires me today - but it's tempered by a limited budget and a refusal to pay too much for something that doesn't serve a function. I've set out to achieve a crafted, artful, low-anxiety home using materials I find, projects I make myself, low-cost-high-impact solutions, the low-cost-high-design rare find (when you find an ikat-covered cube at Target that looks like the one in Elle Decor), and yes, the TJ Maxx knock-off.

I set up this website to host my offerings for sale and so I could share how I use the projects and graphics I sell to decorate my home and other strategies I use to live the "Rhine & Stone" life. Because I like to say, for me anyway, "It's the sparkle that counts."  

Why all the fuss over rhinestones?

It's the old ones that get me, covered in patina, set in old tin bezels, the more worn the better.  They sparkle like diamonds, but of course they are worth so much less.

In working to achieve a life of openness, vulnerability, charity and guilelessness, I have come to value patina - nothing makes me giggle like pawing through a button show bin to find that old, rusted and encrusted gem (except maybe bumper cars). Life hands you sparkling moments, natural wonders, cast-aside treasures and family heirlooms to treasure more than diamonds. And you can spend your money on making those moments and wonders, and still have a warm, inviting and stylish home.