Bring In The Spring

I love everything about the spring. Fresh flowers make me smile. I gush over blossoming trees. The spring smell of grass, rain and even dirt makes me giddy. And the sunshine, oh how I love the days of warm sunshine.

Spring came early here (and around the rest of the country it seems) and I couldn't help but bring the fresh feeling of the season into our home too.

A bright green carnation bouquet, blingy pear and yellow forsythia adorn our toy/storage dresser. For the first time I broke down and bought fake forsythia from AC Moore instead of cutting it off of rogue bushes on the side of the road. The real thing is lovely, but the flowers shed quickly. I wanted some yellow staying power this year. I anchored them in a block of floral foam that I covered with faux moss from Dollar Tree.
 

I added a few springy touches to my little white cabinet. Four faux spring books that I made by wrapping leftover conversation heart boxes in packaging paper are held in place by my votive bookend. A chalkboard paint clothespin tag I ordered in bulk from GroopDealz fits perfectly. I bought a $.50 pick at Michaels for St. Patrick's Day and dismantled it. I tied the green ribbon on our gold coin candy jar and put the shamrock in the cabinet.
 

I bought 3 bags of green paper grass from Target for $.49 a bag. I used it in several places like this trifle dish that I filled with fresh yellow tulips.  They were on their last legs in this picture, but they were lovely for almost two weeks.

I filled my lovely Lucketts planter with more Target grass and plastic eggs and moved it to our buffet turned cable box and PS3 holder under the wall mounted TV. It took me a while to decide what to write on my clothespin tags so they are still blank in this photo, but I finally settled on "He Is Risen".

My new hutch got an update too with more pops of green and a few Easter eggs.  I filled the basket on top with some fake hydrangea clusters from AC Moore.  They were half off and I had a coupon.  Score.  

My egg candles on my "fancy" candlesticks always make me grin.  I think they are fun.  The lovely no polish silver platter was a gift from Gigi and Papa for Christmas.  The Longaberger egg basket was a gift from my Mom.  I got the plastic plate from Target for $1.99  and my trendy chevron boxes were $4.99 a piece.


Looking at these pictures I feel like my desire to bring a little Spring to our home was accomplished.  Do you change your decor seasonally?  Obviously I do and while it does make more work for me, it's the perfect creative outlet.

It's Beginning

to look a lot like Christmas!

Okay, maybe it looks a little like Christmas threw up in my house. I just couldn't help myself. I haven't been able to go crazy decorating since I married TG.

But now we have our own home, we'll be here for the holiday, and we have two sweet children. It's like unleashing an OTC Martha Stewart into a cardboard box armed with trees, ornaments, angels, lights, snowmen and more.

So without further ado, I present our home for Christmas 2010.

Our tree. I do not have a matchy matchy work of art tree. Our ornaments are a collection of memories from our first Christmas as a married couple to our cruise last year.



Tree twinkling at night.



Our stockings are hung on the bannister with care. (Sadly no fireplace)



My buffet. It's a mash up of my Jim Shore angels, OTC coffee filter tree, OTC "Noel" banner, some tree trimmings and a mix of candles. You can see the reflection of my snowflakes hanging from our light fixture in the mirror. If you look closely you can also see the reflection of my OTC card holder hanging on the wall at the top of my stairs.



My dining table centerpiece. It's already undergone a redo since the first time I had a large glass hurricane sitting up on a cylinder. Riley was "jumping rope" one day and the whole thing came crashing down.



From the other side. I love my reindeer.



My little tree. All of the ornaments are Winnie the Pooh. My mom has been collecting them for me for years.



And that's only my main floor. :)

Have you decorated your home for Christmas? I'd love for you to comment and leave me a link so I can visit!

Big Girl Bed

Riley's first big girl bed experience was almost a year ago, when she was just shy of 2 years old. We went to my parents house for Thanksgiving and she slept in my old bed. It was like she'd never slept anywhere else.

I've heard lots of stories about kids getting out of their bed, playing in their room, or even leaving their room. But for one reason or another Riley just intuitively knows or maybe even assumes that she is not to get out of bed until someone comes for her. Most mornings when TG goes to get her she's sitting quietly, playing with her dolls or watching the massive construction happening outside her window.

Doesn't matter where we are either. She's slept in a sofa bed on a cruise ship, a twin bed on a sleepover away from TG and I, a pull out couch in a hotel in Corolla, and of course her very own beautiful big girl bed Gigi and Papa got for her here in our home.

Trust me, we are very thankful that she transitioned so smoothly. We're hoping we can enlist her help in training her little brother on this someday. Looks like she's already starting to fill him in on how it's supposed to happen.

"Someday brudder you going to have you own big boy bed."


"Lay in it. Love it. BUT DON'T LEAVE IT until one of these yahoos comes for you. Or else."


"Now smile for Mommy liddle guddy!"

One Month

Today marks the first month that we have been in our home!

Yesterday I wrote about my need for a decorating break.

You probably thought I was done for a while and that the novelty of putting together my home had finally worn off.

You thought wrong.

After a good night's sleep I was feeling much better and we headed back to as Riley says, "Home Deco" this morning so we could pick up the final things needed to finish our dining room set. We also bought the supplies to build my DIY valances, but that's another post.

So, to celebrate our first month in our home we SAT DOWN in our chairs and PULLED UP to our table and ate dinner, "Alllll togedder!".

For memories sake, I would like to note that we ate one of our favorite family dinners of cheeseburger chili mac and fresh watermelon. Riley said grace with us, complete with her "Haymen!" at the end. You might have noticed in the picture that one of the place settings was empty, but the seat wasn't.

We couldn't have dinner at our table together for the first time in our new house without him!

Decorating Hangover

I woke up this morning wanting a plate of greasy fries and feeling like I had been hit by a Mack truck.

I've been going 200% since we moved into this house getting things painted, decorated, unpacked, purchased at various home improvement stores and generally organized. All my friends have been asking me where I was getting the energy from since I have two small kids to boot, but I wasn't questioning it's origin, I was just going with it.

Newsflash. The decorating energy has left the building. I've been staying up too late, working too hard, and today for the first time I really felt it. My exhaustion combined with what might be Camden's teething (yes he's only 2 1/2 months old) led me to succumb to a day of doing ab-so-lute-ly nothing in our house.

I felt semi guilty about it until TG reminded me that I've completed numerous projects in less than a month's time. Then I let him get me a Mcd's mocha frappe and take Riley while I took a nap with Camden.

Besides custom painting 5 rooms in our house here's a peek at some of the other projects I've done.

Refinishing our "new" dining room set

We've been on the hunt for a second hand table and chairs that will work in our small dining space. I have a gorgeous set that I purchased when we were first married that sadly just won't fit here. This was the perfect opportunity for me to customize something. So far I've sanded, primed, painted, glazed, glossed and reupholstered seat cushions. Only two of the chairs are done and the table, it's legs and the other two chairs are in between stages.

Window mistreatments for the kitchen

Using this gorgeous home decor fabric from Joann's that was 50% off and a little piece of magic called stitch witchery I made these awesome drapes for our kitchen with some scissors and an iron. Completely no sew.

DIY Roman Shades

There are no words for how happy this little shade made me. It took me two tries (mostly because I chose the wrong type of fabric for the first go round), but with a little patience and persistence I ended up with a one of a kind window treatment.

My bestie told me the other day that it was like my inner Martha Stewart had been unleashed and she's right. I LOVE this stuff! I have so many ideas floating around in my head, but even Martha needs a break every now and then.

Labor of Love

We've been in our new house for almost two weeks.

And I've been painting approximately 12 of those 14 days.

I do it all myself and if you came over and looked you would probably be able to find lots of flaws and mistakes. You might think to yourself you would never hire me to come paint at your house.

But that's okay. Because this was a labor of love.

I'm hoping that the little people that I did this for won't care or notice my mistakes. And I'm hoping you won't either.

So here's a sneak peek of how I've been spending my days.





Sorry for the blurry photos. I've misplaced my camera amongst our boxes and things so cell phone pics will have to do for now.