Fall Decorations

I am decorating the outside of my house for fall. I like what I have, but I need some input. Here's what I had done first:

And I really like it...but....I think the basket hanging on the door is a little too much going on.

Here's what it looks like without:

What do you think? I think I like it better without the basket on the door.

Here's where I think I'm going to put it:

What do you think about it here? I think it looks fab! I spraypainted this whole lightpole. It was ugly brass before. Now it's a nice oil rubbed bronze. Hurray! I love fall!

Happy Crafting!

A long story...

So, a lot has happened to me in the last couple of weeks. I won't go into too many details right now, but I will say that in the last month I've lost my job and found another one. As a consequence (in addition to taking a pay cut), I am now commuting about 2 hours each day to my new job. My husband commutes about 1 hour each day. We may have to eventually sell our house and move closer to both our jobs.

I'm not looking forward to this. I love our house. I finally feel like this is my home. I feel like this town is my town. I'm slightly angry about the whole thing, but I realize that I am lucky that I found another position so quickly. It's just that after 7 years of schooling and always knowing that the place I lived was not permanent, I thought I had finally found that permanence I craved in this community. Growing up, I lived in one house my whole life. My parents live in the same community they grew up in. I come from an environment of always knowing that family is a couple of miles away. I thought I was starting to make that environment for my daughter.

I am thankful that I have a job in this economy. Eventually I'll get over any move and make the next house feel like home, and the next community my community. In the meantime, I'm not putting any of my plans for this home on hold. My husband and I decided to wait with any decision on the house until spring. I'm still planning on decorating how I want and making (albeit small) improvements. I'm not going to make any of those decisions based on staging the house for sale (at least not yet).

I'm sharing this information with you because I know the economy is bad. I know I'm not the only one in a position like this. I know that there are far more people who are in a position much worse than mine. I don't have any answers on what happened or any innovative solutions but I do know that any time I hear or read someone's story, I feel a little bit better to know that I'm not the only one.

Cold Beer on a Friday Night

Happiness is enjoying a cold one on the deck on a lovely Friday night while your hubby serenades you with the guitar.

Don't forget to light a torch to keep the bugs at bay!

*Sigh* I love weekends at home. They rarely happen for us. It's so nice to relax. Too bad it was back to work today!

Happy Crafting!

House Tour: Bathroom

In a continuation of the house tour (nursery here, kitchen here) next up is the bathroom. It's done in a brown, green and white color scheme. Towel, shower curtain and rug are all from Walmart's Home Trend's Marmon collection (hey it was cheap and available in my town. I needed a shower curtain stat!). This is the only room we repainted in the house so far. Ironically, it was the only room not brown and the one I wanted that way! We painted it with leftover paint the previous owners left in the basement (there are seriously at least 15 cans of paint down there!) I apologize for the pics, the light is not the greatest in here with only one window.

View from the doorway:Closeup of the art (bought for $1 at Target on clearance):

Picture behind the door (frame with insert from Menards, pics of Maddy):

Shower curtain and rug:

Better view of the shower curtain:

The window (the only one!) towel hanger and shelf above the toilet:


A head-on pic of the shelf (shelf from Hobby Lobby (had it for years) fabric lined baskets are from Joanne's):

Mirror and vanity (was like this when we moved in):

Bottom of vanity:

Sorry it looks pretty yellow in this pic. Finally, the view looking out the door (here you can see the door to the storage closet:


So, that's the bathroom! Hopefully, I can get my living room and bedroom in order to show you soon. (The third bedroom/office is a lost cause for now, as well as the basement). I am planning on showing off the outside of the house as well.

Happy Crafting!

House Tour: Kitchen

I'm attempting to give you a tour of my home as I get rooms put together. Which is going slower than I want, but oh well. I've already posted the nursery. Today I'm showing off my kitchen. It looks okay for now, but in the future, we plan on redoing it. Just a warning, this post is picture and word heavy!My kitchen has red, white and hints of turquoise in it. The walls were actually all painted these colors by the previous owners. It happens to work with our stuff, so we left it for now.

Here's the view coming in from the living room:The table is covered in a vintage table cloth. I recovered the chairs right before we moved.

Closeup of the centerpiece:
Footed cake plate is part of the china we got for our wedding (The Sophie Conran for Portmeirion Collection). Red and turquoise plates are melamine from Walmart. The vase is something I've had forever and is a nice blue green color. Gerber daisy is from my garden.

The cupboard in the corner:

My mom added the paintable wallpaper to the door panels. I use it to store liquor on the top shelf and various seldom used appliances in the rest (like the blender!). On top is an Eiffel tower statue my mom got me a long time ago. The turquoise urn I got a A & W Furniture here in town. I put some red candles with it to complete the vignette.

Here's the wall next to the table:

I got the red rattan shelf at a garage sale. It was already painted that color. The Paris sign is from Hobby Lobby. My mom gave me the stars. The candles actually light up, but the plug ins aren't in the right spot, so I just tucked the cords behind for now. I need to put more blue ball jars like the one on top in here.

This picture shows the view from the windows:

That is our deck. Eventually, we would like to put french doors in here so you don't have to go all the way through the garage to get to the deck and yard.

Here's the view opposite the brown wall (which is mostly just the back of the cupboards):

The words are metal from Hobby Lobby.

Here's the side of the cupboards and the stove:

Please ignore the dishwasher hanging out here. It's a new stainless steel one that we are getting put in this Thursday. I hung the canvas of Big Ben here to make it more interesting and to cover up the outdated cupboards. You can also see the bottles I have hanging in the window pretty good in this picture.

A more direct view of the cupboards and stove:

Eventually, we are going to rip out this upper cupboard and move the stove against the wall to make more room in here. I am thinking one of these days that I'm going to paint the cupboards. I'm not sure what color yet. I don't think I can go white or off white, as the counter top is white. What do you think? I do need to change the hardware out for sure!

Here's the sink:

You might remember the book page frame. I thought it looked nice here.

Here's more counter space and cupboards:

A few appliances (mixer and toaster), knife block and misc. veggies! You can see the dishwasher (old one) is below. I got the cookbook stand at Crafts Direct (love that store!).

Opposite the sink is a wall of cupboards and my fridge (sorry for the blurry pic!):

The fridge is a mess from my nieces and nephew (Maddy is too young for the alphabet magnets!). The Casablanca canvas is from Gordman's.

Here's the corner by the doorway to the living room:

Please ignore the mess in the living room! We made a little wine corner here with the wine fridge and bottle/glass display. When we finish the basement, all bar related stuff will go down there.

Above the doorway:

The shelf used to be that gaudy 70's gold color (yay spray paint!).

An extra:


I plan on incorporating this blue-green hobnail lampshade (garage sale find, 75 cents!) somewhere. I'm just not sure where yet.

So that's my kitchen. If I get any more rooms cleaned this week, I'll be showing them off.

Happy Crafting!

Funky Find Friday: Chairs

Today's Funky Find Friday is all about chairs! I thought I would show you some great chair redo's that would be easy for even the most beginner DIYer to do.
Found a chair that doesn't have a seat? That's no problem! Just weave a seat using webbing. Get the instructions here.

A fresh coat of bright paint and a rub on make this chair pop! Find it here.


Have several old chairs you're not sure what to do with? Put them together and make a bench. How-to here.


Plain modern chairs can be a bit boring. Add some scrapbooking paper to the back for a color punch. Found here.

Hope you find these chairs inspiring!

Happy Crafting!

Nursery Revealed!

Today is the day I am revealing the nursery. Be prepared for lots of pictures. If you have any questions about anything, please ask! I wanted to do a color scheme of yellow and gray. There are some hints of pink and green for contrast.

The walls were painted with Kilz in Castle. The stripe around the walls is Valspar, but I'm not sure the exact name of the color as it got painted over on the can. I cut the design out of stencil material with a cricut and stenciled over the yellow with leftover Castle.

Closeup of the wall detail:

Here's the view from the doorway. I recovered the rocker with new fabric, but otherwise left it as is (It still needs trim around the edges of the upholstery fabric, I haven't found anything that matches yet!) The rug is not part of the room scheme. I just threw something I had down to protect the floor until I find one (or make one) that I like.
Closeup of the rocker:

Here's the corner with the crib. The window art I made is hanging in this corner. The quilt I made from various yellow, gray and black fabrics I collected. I made the crib sheet as well. The skirt underneath the crib is a thrift store find. I bought two sets of large curains, valances and a bedspread made of yellow eyelet lace all for $2.50! One of the curtains fit perfectly just draped on the springs under the mattress. Easiest no sew project ever! The one thing I did not make was the bumper. That my Mom purchased for us.

This banner hangs on the wall above the crib. My mom made the pennants from scrapbook paper. Maddy's name is made from vinyl letters cut on the cricut. Mom used it for a decoration at the shower. I just glued each pennant on a yellow grossgrain ribbon and stretched it between two nails in the wall. I thought it added a nice pop of accent colors to the room.

This is the side of the room opposite the crib. My mom refinished the dresser and added bird and branch vinyl cutouts to each drawer. I purchased a changing pad for the top and sewed a cover using some leftover quilt fabric and some super soft fuzzy pink material I had in my stash. Next to the dresser is a cheap bookcase for storage. I'm using another thrift store find (a really big square scarf/shawl) to cover the ugliness for now. On top, sits the lamp I redid.


Above the changing station area, I used these cute drawer knobs I found in Michaels for a $1 each as a way to hang up more artwork. Each knob is slightly different. So far, I only have something on the middle knob. I've had this Creative Memories frame since we got married. I am planning on making a cute layout with some pics of all three of us, but haven't gotten that far yet.

My mom found this super cute owl night light at an auction. The outside was originally brown, but I just spraypainted it black. The moon lights up. How cute is that!

There are still a few more things I want to do in here yet. I have a large shelf I want to paint to put up in the corner above the rocker to put picture frames and knickknacks on. I want to find some kind of large toy chest for when she actually starts to play with toys that I can put in the bottom of the closet. And I think the closet needs another shelf.

Other than that, this has been a great project and I'm so happy with how everything turned out! It's a great room for Maddy to grow up in. Hopefully, I won't have to paint it again for quite awhile! I hope you enjoyed the tour! I will be bringing you some more crafting projects this week. I am planning on giving tours of more rooms in the new house as they get "finished." Next up will probably be the living room.

Happy Crafting!

Nursery Project #2: I love lamp

Today, I'm gonna show you a lamp I made over. I found this lamp at the thrift store for $2. It had a wicker base that matched my wicker rocker (another project I'll show you). The only problem was it was painted 80's mauve and had a hideous floral fabric colored shade. I've been bad about remembering to take before pictures lately. I finally remembered on this project when I had already started spray painting.

The before (or in this case, in the middle):

You can still see some of the mauve color. In the background is the earlier mentioned shade. I started by spray painting the base with a white primer/paint (whatever I had laying around- not sure the exact brand).

Next, I ripped off the yucky floral fabric (and some of the shade). The shade is old, so it cracked a little, but I recovered it anyway.
Then I used the highly scientific pattern drafting method of rolling the shade over some paper while tracing with a pencil. This gave me an approximate shape to cut the fabric out of. I tested the pattern size by rolling the paper around the shade to make sure it would fit. I cut it a little bigger at the top and bottom.

I used some fabric left over from making Maddy's quilt and cut my pattern out from that.
All cut out and ready to glue:

(The fabric is mustard martini from Amy Butler's Midwest Modern line in case you were wondering).

I didn't manage to take a pic of the gluing process, but I just used a hot glue gun and rolled the fabric around the shade, gluing as I went.

Then I glued some yellow ruffle trim I had in my stash around the bottom to finish that edge.


Tada! A brand new lamp that matches the nursery decor perfectly. (In the background, you can see a sneak peak of the walls in the nursery.)

Happy Crafting!

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Nursery Project # 1 Window to your soul

This week, I'm going to show you a series of projects I did in the nursery. The grand finale of the series will be on Friday, when I reveal the entire finished nursery. The color scheme of the nursery is yellow and gray. First, I'm going to show you a wall hanging my I made from an old window. I found this window in my former neighbor's dumpster. I think he was a contractor.

I've been bad about remembering to take before pictures lately, but here's one of finish on the back. The whole window looked like this until it was painted.

I painted the window frame yellow. Then I used Mom's cricut and some vinyl to make words and die cuts for each of the three panes. I didn't take any photos of that process, but here's the finished product:I thought the green and pink made for some nice contrasting colors. More projects to come this week!

Happy Crafting!

I posting this at this week's CSI project challenge: