To twee, or not to twee...

It’s time, boxes are 90% unpacked, furniture is in its prime placement, and the neighbors have waved out their car windows as they drive by.  I guess this means we’re moved in and can begin decorating (she types as her grill slowly widens to reveal an even row of enormous teeth.) 

Numero uno, our entry is a dis-ASS-ster.  Your first impression as you enter is established by a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-esque hallway and an office area in much need of organization.  But today’s story focuses on our barren, never ending, entry hall. 

It does not invite, surprise, or give an Annie impression in any way. The entry won’t be completed before our first neighborhood party, so I’ll just live with the vanilla reputation its bound to earn me for a while.

Let me take you back to Echo the Librarian’s birthday party.  A lovely evening complete with dinner, cake, presents, and google-chatting Liz.  Then I tried to get Echo’s advice on the creepity entry.  “Hey girl, I gotta do something with this entry, come see.”  “Okee.”  “I saw this thing on Pinterest, I was thinking of putting the kids’ pictures with a clock stopped at their birth time.”  Silence.  “Don’t you think it would be cute.”  Silence.  Finally, “Uhgh, it’s kind of twee.”  Then I had to get some kind of definition of this discouragement, so I could process the insult, and decide whether it was justified.  It was.

I still can’t tell you exactly what it means, but I think it’s something like country cutesy, which I am definitely not going for.  I think the current location of the kids’ pics is twee.  The family vinyl is admittedly not cool, and not me. 

But I love my family and was peer-pressured into making it at a crafting women’s organization meeting.  If you belong to a crafting women’s organization, you know what I’m talking about.  Participating is optional, but if you don’t, then it’s like “I hate your stupid crafts, they are silly.”  And who really wants to go around insulting people?  So you craft.  But now I have 2 signs that say Neilson and a family sign, and if I don’t put them up, does that mean I don’t love my family?  “I spit on your family sign,” is not really what I’m going for either.

The problem is twee things are super cute.  Subway kitchen signs, things personalized with special years, it’s all so precious.  But I guess that’s what makes Echo gag.

So Echo is 100% correct to deter me.  What I really want is something interesting with age and a practical use that invites people to come in, take off your shoes, and put your socked feet up on the couch.  How about these shoe hidey deals, also found on Pinterest? 

But how do I make them look like they are not from Ikea and ultra modern?  How do I layer interesting things?

Those are my problems to sort out, but what I want to know from our readers is, do you twee?  And what about me?  To twee, or not to twee…