In Transition...Need a little Organization

We have started the transition into toddler beds. It's going so much better than I expected at night and about what I expected at nap time. We'll get through it, I know. In the process, it's time to get rid of the baby monkey nursery and give the boys a room for toddlers. I didn't want to do a character room but I still want it to be fun and playful and intriguing to a toddler. My original thought was airplanes, but guess what. They are nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find. Trains was the next best thing. They boys love choo choo trains and love Thomas and so it seemed like a good choice. I did get them a Thomas blanket but that will be the only character item in their room. The dresser I got from the yard sale is in the garage waiting and longing to be painted. I have the paint, it's just finding the time. I've narrowed the room color down to 3 choices and I think it's going to require samples on the wall to determine what's the best choice in their room. I'm making tiny tiny progress but I'm starting to get ideas now and before I was roadblocked. What's the crafter's version of writer's block? That's what I had. It seems to be fading, thankfully!!!

I am craving organization! Is that something that you can really crave? I don't know, but I definitely need it right now. In a house with twin boys and people in and out helping, my house never feels de-cluttered. My basement is the worst. I need to get the basement organized first and I feel like other things will fall into place. Our basement looks like three daycares crashed into each other. It's truly sad. I need to go through and pack up baby and infant toys and then organize what's left. The beautiful bookcase my dad built for the nursery will soon be taking it's place in the basement to help with that. It actually makes me a bit excited to know that there is a light at the end of the cluttered tunnel :)

Yard Sales

This past Saturday was perfect weather to have a yard sale. Many people agreed because there were yard sales all over the place. A girlfriend of mine, who also has twins, met up with me and we went yard saling together. She was great in helping me decide which pieces I could or couldn't live without. I got a $10 dresser for the boys room and a $15 desk for my art room. A super successful day!!!

Since Ethan has been climbing out of his crib, we have ordered toddler beds. When they arrive, we are going to give them a big boy room. The monkeys are on their way out and I think we are going with a touch of aviation in their big boy room. We've looked at some colors and I'm compiling ideas so we'll see where it takes us :)

Bathroom Reveal

Our half bath on the main living floor is a very awkwardly shaped space. It's a mustard color, although you can't really tell from the pictures. There was never much thought put into that room. It had a rod iron cross hanging on the wall over the toilet and a candle thing on the wall next to the sink. BORING. There were so many beautiful colors in Hawaii it was hard not to be inspired there. I knew I wanted to decorate with that in mind but didn't want a tacky bathroom. There is a fine line sometimes. I wanted to go vintage so I edited some of the pictures we took in Picnik to make the colors more vibrant then put a 1960's haze over them to make them feel more vintage. I eventually plan to get a vintage poster but for now, I'm happy with how it looks!

The cross previously hung over the toilet

Blank boring walls

The candle thing, I guess you'd call it a sconce? (not sure why the color looks booger green)

More blank space (can you see how oddly shaped it is?)

An almost black and white picture of a lighthouse and palm trees

All 3 walls as best I could get

Love the turquoise towel!!

The pictures look straight on the wall, but not here. Odd!!

Over the toilet and the wall next to it

On top of the toilet. That's a real Hawaiian Hula Girl (at least purchased in HI, probably not made in HI)

A recycled picture from our old house. It's finally found a home!

So there you have it. Our half bath. It looks so much better in person. The colors are so vibrant that it makes you feel so happy!!

Finished Bedroom Projects!!

I love the feeling of satisfaction you get when you finish something you're proud of. I got that this weekend!! There are two projects that I finished for our master bedroom that I am super excited about them!! We have lived in our house 2.5 years and have never had anything over our bed. I guess it's not that big of a deal but our bedroom feels so unfinished because of it. There's no design at all in our bedroom and it irritates me. So I started developing ideas. I really wanted to do a vinyl phrase over our bed. There is a phrase from one of my favorite songs by BarlowGirl's "Beautiful Ending" that I wanted to have written in vinyl but it was long and was going to be expensive. "At the end of it all, I want to be in your arms". LOVE that song and those lyrics!!

In the mean time, I was invited to an UpperCase Living party. They had the Bible verse we used for our wedding, "I have found the one whom my soul loves" Song of Solomon 3:4. So I went with that. The main problem with that they aren't transferable so if you take them down, they are gone forever-and your money is wasted. So I decided to put them on the glass of a picture frame. Ok, so what do I put behind the glass to give it some spunk. One thing I am unsatisfied with about our house is that it lacks color. It's tan in most areas except bedrooms, bathrooms, and dining room. I know that sounds like a lot but we have a wide open living room/kitchen and all hallways, office, and stairwell are all tan. It's A LOT of tan. To remedy this, I've been trying to add as much color as I can whether it be painting or with decor & accents.

Our room is a grayish teal. At least that's the best way I can describe it. I thought yellow would be the perfect accent color. My two favorite colors right now are turquoise and yellow so why not use yellow! I spray painted the frame with the vinyl letters yellow. I found some tealish fabric to go behind the glass and got to work.

Here's the frame.

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I flipped the matte over and used masking tape to hold the fabric in place. (don't you love that awesome fabric?!?!?!)

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This is what it looked like after I "secured" the fabric and flipped it back over. LOVE!

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The final product. I love how bright the yellow is. It's a great punch of color!!! Such a happy color. Definitely not boring!!

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This is how it looks over our bed. Now I just need to do something with that headboard!!! :) It also needs something to go with it, maybe on either side. We'll see.

I'm going to save the second project for another time. I have way too much I should be doing right now!!

Hawaiian Inspired

We got back from a fantastic trip to Hawaii yesterday. It was so beautiful!! Needless to say, everywhere you look you find inspiration. The half bath on our main level is blah. It's the only room in our house that we didn't paint when we bought it. I do like the color, a mustardy color, but it is so boring because I haven't found anything to really go on the walls. Well folks, I have found my inspiration. Thank you Hawaii!!! All it took was a Mod-Podge Hawaiian paper light switch plate and I realized what I wanted to do. It might stay the same color, it might go a cool bluey-green. Either way, it's going to be vintage Hawaiian. Vintage like Elvis Blue Hawaii vintage. Why not have a fun half bath. If you gotta go, you might as well go in style, right?? I think so! I have the ideas, now it's time to shop & implement! (and also plan a 2nd birthday party!)

Fabric

For whatever reason, there aren't a lot of fabric stores in the Louisville area. I was told there used to be more, but they are no longer. It's sad, really. It's easy to spend hours in a fabric store dreaming up all the projects you could to do use all of the fabric.

My big project this summer is my dining room. It is orange. That's right. I said orange. I will take a before picture, but as of right now, I just don't have a picture of it. When we bought the house, it was the fall and I think I allowed myself to get caught up in the season when picking the paint color. Two and a half years later, we are saying goodbye to that orange and hello to green! I found a great Behr green that I'm very happy with. I have a vision for my dining room and I'm slowly starting to obtain pieces to complete that vision.

My first task: finding fabric to make curtains. I wanted to make sure I was able to pull turquoise in the room somehow. I LOVE LOVE LOVE turquoise and would have it in every room of my house somehow, if I could make it work. My original though for the fabric was a white backdrop to help the room feel lighter with different color flowers on it. I definitely couldn't find anything remotely close to that locally so I took to the internet. I popped on etsy and was super surprised at how many awesome fabrics there were. I was immediately drawn to Mimi's shop and there it was. The fabric that would become my curtains!!! It was paired up with a mate within the designer's collection. I just had to have that too. It's going to be the fabric backdrop inside of my china cabinet! You can't tell me that these aren't fantastic!! The damask is classy and will be perfect as my curtains. The sparrow has purple as it's pop of color and I LOVE that!!! I've never ordered fabric from the internet but she shipped it this morning so I'll soon get to see it in person and I'm SO EXCITED!!! It's the little things in life :)

Craigslist...My New BFF

Craigslist & I have been like this. I realize you can't see me crossing my fingers, but that's what I'm doing. I have been on Craigslists every day, sometimes multiple times a day looking for a bargain. My main objective: find an entertainment center that will allow me to do my best to create something like THIS! Of course while I'm on there, I also look to see if I can find any other can't pass up deals. I haven't used it yet to buy anything, so I guess I haven't found any can't pass up deals. That is, my friends, until last night!!

One of my dream projects is to find a china cabinet and remake it to make my dining room. Good news for me, I'm getting ready to paint my dining room so I'm starting with a blank slate really. I came across the ad while waiting for the hubs to get home so we could do our bi-weekly trip to the Mexican restaurant to listen to a local southern rock & blues singer do his thang. It was then that I saw these words:

NICE LARGE WHITE CHINA CABINET W/ GLASS DOORS - $60

As any smart girl would, I clicked on the add. For $60 it was worth at least looking at even though I knew it wouldn't be anything special. It was too good of a price. This is what I saw.

Look at that beauty. The turquoise just makes it! No, I'm kidding. But still, it was perfect for what I wanted to do with it. I called Jean (my craft partner in crime and college roommate and art teacher(so you know she's filled with all kinds of artsy knowledge)) and told her I needed her husband's truck. She's a former Peddler's Mall junky so I knew she's fully understand the steal that was this price. I then remembered my dad gets off much earlier than she does and the shop closed at 6 so I called him and asked if he'd be my delivery boy. I then called the shop and they still had it! YES! I told her I'd be coming tomorrow to pick it up.

Guess what. I did! I met my dad at the shop this afternoon and I bought it. It sits in my garage right now waiting to be turned into something beautiful. I can't tell you how excited I was and still am. The hubs doesn't share my excitement but he'll come around, eventually. He will once he sees how awesome it turns out-yes it will be awesome.