Our Baby Nursery

As I promised, I am finally posting pictures of our baby boy's nursery!  It took a lot of compromising with my husband, he thought everything I was picking out was just too girly.  Once he talked to a friend of his who also just had a baby boy and he said, "just let her do what she wants, he's a baby, it's all free game" it became easier to compromise....or not have to anymore!  haha  Well, he'll be here in about 7 weeks and I think he's just going to adore his new room.

It took us about 2-3 days to paint the room and that included the accent wall, which was pretty easy to paint...just required lots of tape!  I also created 4 pieces of custom artwork and bought a few pieces that I fell in love with.

Austin's Room

I met Austin's mom at the Overland Park Fall Festival last October and she hired me to make a couple of custom art pieces for his bedroom.  His dad was pretty adamant that it not be too girly, so I felt like I was really under pressure, haha!  I did keep checking with my husband, just to make sure I was keeping it very boyish...I mean, Austin is only 3!  :)  Here's what I came up with, I really LOVE both pieces!

Nursery Gifts

Wow!  It has been a long time since I have posted, I have good reason though....I am 7 1/2 months pregnant!!  We are SO excited and have been really busy preparing for a while now.  I will post some pictures of our nursery in another post, it looks AWESOME!!!

This post is actually to show off some artwork I created for a lady at work to give to her nieces for their nurseries.  They are both having girls, one has a sock monkey theme and the other flowers/birds.  Here's what I created for them, I think they turned out very cute!

Sweet find turned LOVE!

So, it seems like forever ago I posted this blog about my sweet find at my local Goodwill store.  It was this dresser, it was rundown and gross....but I could see the potential!

Well, with a LOT of help from my amazing husband it is finally refinished and placed into it's new home in our house!  After a lot of Pinterest searching, I decided I wanted to go 2 tone with it.  I think it turned out totally AMAZING and I am so happy with it!!

Dining Room Art

I finally found the perfect art to hang on the wall in my dining room!  I have only been looking for 9 months and I finally found it!  I found the small frames at a garage sale yesterday, the large frame is from Ikea and the flowers are from an artist I found on etsy.

Here's the before:

And the after: 

Diane von Furstenberg

Not sure if anyone else has seen this yet, but I'm in LOVE!! Diane von Furstenberg has designed bedding and bath items for sale at Bed Bath and Beyond!  This one is my favorite!

Oh Boy, Part II

Here's a few pictures from the baby shower we hosted!  It was a really fun night!

Happy New Year! Happy New Room!

Happy 2012 to Everyone!!  My husband and I spent our first New Years Eve at home this year since we have been together, it was really nice to not have to worry about making any big plans.  We invited my sister and her family to stay over and all the kids had a fun time together, it was great.

Now as promised, here are some pictures of our new bedroom....new curtains are up, new pillows fluffed,  barn door hanging and new ombre painting complete!  I'm in love with the room and just so pleased with how it turned out.  Here's some pictures:

A Splash of Color

After talking about it for what seems like forever, I am finally 99% done with my kitchen in the new house.  We finally got our Ikea island on Tuesday night, it's all put together and installed in the kitchen.  I have to oil the butcher block top for 2 months and just got the first coat on today....it's definitely going to be worth it as we were already seeing marks from drinks, etc after only using it for a day!

I painted the kitchen an awesome turquoise blue color and I'm accenting it with bright yellow and red accessories.  I'm not afraid of color in any way, but my husband took a few days to adjust to the new colors.

All I have left now is to find the perfect accent pieces to add to my new white Ikea shelf!

Here's a before picture, blah:

And here are some after pictures, yeah!

Candy Buffet

I finally have some better pictures of the candy buffet I set up for my sister in law's wedding!  I wish the photographer had taken some pictures of the buffet as a whole, but alas, she did not.  These are definitely better than the pictures I took with my iPhone and posted here.  :)

The Wreath Project - Final Edition

I finally made my burlap wreath yesterday!  I have been talking about it for a couple of months now and posted the link to the tutorial I used in this blog posting.  But, I am going to list out detailed instructions with pictures below!  It was SUPER easy and didn't take any time at all! 

Step 1:  Find old wire hangers and shape them into circles

Step 2: Cut burlap into 3 inch wide strips.  I just eyeballed mine so some were 3 inches, some were 2 and some might have been 4!  (I bought 3 yards of burlap and made 2 wreaths out of it)

 

Step 3: Put burlap strips onto the circle wire form, fold it like an accordion onto the wire.  I found it was better to keep them tight rather than loose folds.

Step 4: Continue adding burlap until you think your wreath is full enough and then use a pliers to attach the wire together to hold your circle.  And here's your final product!

I installed the wreath onto the wreath holder and then added the bow.  I'm not very good at tying fancy bows, so this is what I got....it doesn't look too bad.  Anyways, here's a picture with my 2 wreaths on our front doors.  I'm really pleased with the results and the total cost was really cheap.  My burlap was about $7 (with a 50% off coupon), my mom gave me the wire hangers and I had the ribbon...and it only took me about 30 minutes to complete both wreaths!  Yeah!

Smell that paint!

I painted my bedroom and bathroom this past weekend, with a little help from my husband.  I started the bedroom on Saturday and decided to prime....for some reason I let the Lowe's guy talk me into using oil based primer.  WOW, did I make a mistake listening to him!  It stank SO bad, I had a headache all day and had to sit outside for like 2 hours after only spending about 20 minutes painting! 

Anyways, I finished up the room on Sunday after letting the primer air out all day Saturday.  Here's a picture of the new bathroom and I'll post pictures of the bedroom once I have new new curtains made and installed!  By the way...I have been looking for a place to hang my capiz shell lampshade since we moved in and I finally found a place, as you'll see in the pic.  It really makes our bathroom seem fancy!

Seeing Yellow!

I'm gearing up to start working on my bedroom project and I'm VERY excited!  If you remember back to an earlier post I described how I was going to paint our room.  Starting this Saturday, I start painting and my dad is working on the barn door already!  I have my white and gray paints bought, but don't have a yellow picked out just yet.  I ordered some fabric samples for curtains and pillows and they just came in, so now I can pick out my yellow paint color!!  Here's the swatches I ordered.....I think the gray, white and yellow will be the curtains and then 2 of the other patterns will be pillows.  I'm SO excited to get started now!!

I Heart Spray Paint

Spray paint is really one of my best friends.....I love how easily it can change any object!  I bought this old magazine rack at a garage sale for $3 and spray painted it for my family room.  LOVE it!

Vintage Lumber

We rebuilt our deck in August at the new house and ever since I have been searching for things to make with the old vintage(salvage) lumber.  I was looking on esty one day and found the most awesome dog bowl holder!!  I just fell in love and had to get it for my super sweet doggie!  We couldn't have made it ourselves because we didn't have lumber the correct size, so I bought it.....it was a ridiculously expensive purchase. (not something I would normally do and my husband is in shock!)  Here it is:

But, how could I resist when I have the cutest dog in the world who LOVES it!!

Have you made an outrageous purchase for your pet?  Make me feel better and tell me about it!  :)

Got Some Art

I posted back in August about how I needed some artwork for my house.  Well, we ordered one of those photos from Society6.  Here's the finished product:

 

Before framing

After framing hung in the family room

Fall is Upon Us

It's cold here in Kansas City today and I realized fall is upon us!!  I LOVE fall...love, love.  I mostly LOVE making pumpkin flavored snacks...but I also love the weather, going to the pumpkin patch, Halloween, etc. 

Now that I have a new house, I've realized that I need a fall wreath for the front door!  Here's a few options that I found, I'll probably end up making my own....I'm thinking burlap needs to be the main component.

Do you have a wreath for every season for your house?

Need more Art...

After moving into our new house, I realize we need a lot more art to decorate our new rooms.  It's hard for me to pick out artwork because as an artist myself, I always think "I could do that myself really easily."  But then, I never find time to actually do it!

I'm trying to find different work and support artists that don't sell to big retail chain stores.  More people like me who are just trying to make a few bucks doing something they love.  Here's a few pieces that I found that I think are pretty unique.