Bathroom Wall Decor Update

It's amazing what small changes can do to improve spaces.  I was so sick of beachy things in our bathroom and was wanting to add more scripture around the house.  After a little searching on the web and a few trial and errors with what size to print...I have new pictures on the bathroom walls!  :)

Blue Mason Jar

I love mason jars.  Not sure why.  They just make me happy.  Blue ones are especially fun!  I picked up 2 last fall in Berkeley Springs for $3/each and they've been getting lots of use this summer.  Look at how cute it looks with my clearance carnations from Giant Eagle.  These mini carns were $1.50/bunch. I bought two, trimmed the stems, and put them in water.  They perked up in no time!

So pretty!

Back Porch Dinners

Last year we barely used our back porch.  If this weekend is any indication, then this year will definitely be different.  We enjoyed dinner with friends tonight and last night on our porch.  The only downside is that once it's dark, the one lonely candle I had out wasn't enough light and then our spotlight kicked on.  Oops!  So I just need to invest in a lamp or something for when we're out there...or just light more candles.  :)

Basement and Garage Cleaning

Our basement and garage have been in desperate need of cleaning up.  We continue to just put things down there to get them out of the way.  We also never cleared out some of what the previous owners left behind.  Now that we've basically got our living spaces under control, we want to focus on fixing up our basement and garage area.  

Step 1 is cleaning out!  We spent 3 hours and got a ton accomplished!  We got rid of old junk, organized what we wanted to keep, and even swept out both areas.  Last month we had new glass block windows installed and the crumbling concrete wall under our basement steps fixed.  When they were done, Peter and I spent 30 minutes in the basement putting things back and cleaning up a bit.  So that helped, too.  

Check out these before and afters!  

Step 2 is going to be dry locking all of the walls, ripping the carpet up and putting leftover kitchen floor materials on the steps, and possible painting or cleaning the floors somehow.  But that's for another day!

New Wreath

I come from a family that always has something on their front door. Naked doors are just something we don't do. I have a few seasonal wreaths and plaques. Problem is leaving a Christmas wreath with a snowman on your door until spring doesn't fly. Especially when we have had an unseasonably warm winter with barely any snow. So what's a girl to do when the next thing to put on her door is too "springy"?

Thanks to pinterest, I've become a huge fan of rag wreaths. I bought a wire wreath frame, a few bucks worth of white/beige fabrics, and cut up old linen pants and used burlap ribbon I had to make this wreath.

About $10, a bit of a mess, and a few hours later it was done! I love the way it looks with the different color tones and textures.

My new "winter" wreath:

Christmas Decorations 2011

Every few years I like to take pictures of our house and decorations.  I change things up and like to remember where I put things in previous years.  It's also fun to put dates/places on things so that in years to come, I can look back and remember where they came from.  Here's our Christmas decorations for 2011.  I kept the planter on my front porch this year and put poinsettias and things in it, but totally forgot to take a picture!  Doh!  Next year I'll have to.

Every year our dining room changes a bit.  Mostly the same decorations, but just in different places.   Next year I'm thinking of putting the Christmas village on the big hutch and spread it all throughout the shelves.  We'll see.  

I love this fat snowman cookie jar, but Peter thinks it's silly.  I made the hurricane with the Merry Christmas sign last year.  I'm also thinking for next year to change the tablecloth to something different. 

This is our small hutch.  I was never quite satisfied with the look - thought it was a bit crowded.  But I didn't end up changing anything so maybe I did like it.  :)

This is our big hutch.  The top looks a little shabby.  It usually has more baskets on it, but I was using them elsewhere.  I need to come up with something for the top, not just for Christmas, but all year.  

Curio in the living room.  I just got this crooked, little tree from my aunt Paula this year.  I love the way it looks with my curio and wooden Santa.  Peter doesn't really care for it too much haha.  He likes the curio and Santa, but just not the tree.  

Bookshelf in the living room with my new Willow Tree Nativity - thanks mom!  The base of the creche was too big - it was the same size as the bookshelf so I only used part of it. 

I added a random Willow Tree Angel that I already had to the top.  She has a garland on her head so I thought she worked well with the scene.  I also added lights and burlap for a personal touch.  I like the candles in the background, too.  Next year I hope to add the wiremen.  For now, Peter's bowl for his keys and wallet sits beside it haha.

The end table gets switched to the other side of the couch during Christmas to make room for the tree.  I lost some space on top of the tv this year since we bought a new tv and stand in the spring with our tax return.  So the "joy" hurricane moved to the end table.

A shot of one side of the living room.  I added my childhood stocking this year.  Maybe next year we'll ask Peter's parents for his since he said it's similar in style.  I love old memory items :)

The back of our door and my free nativity hanging that I just love!

Our lopsided tree.  Good thing you can't really tell from this angle!  It's basically flat on one side and bulgy on the other haha.  Somehow we didn't notice that when we were choosing to cut it down.  I also love my tree skirt which was my grandma's old tablecloth.  :)

Now for some special ornaments. The red tear drop ones were some that Peter and I picked out together a few years back when we didn't have anything but solid colored balls. The small, ceramic bird was a quarter last year at Target. Love it and the jute string it hangs from!

I bought this ornament at the festival we went to in Berkeley Springs this year. I wrote the location and date on the back of it.

This big, fat snowman was given to me by my aunt a few years ago.

Another ceramic bird. They came in 3 colors so of course I got all 3!

The last color is white.  I got 4 of each of the 3 colors for 12 birds total.  I love the way they look on my the and am kicking myself for not getting more since they were only 25 cents each!

This ornament is from a Christmas home tour we took in Cape May in 1995.

This is the best shot that I could get of the whole living room.  

This is basically how we have it all the time, though.  Only the Christmas lights on.  :)

Randomness

I love crafts. Possibly a little too much because I see great ideas online and want to make everything haha.

I recently saw ideas for appliques for onesies and whipped up these 2 as gifts for friends. The birdie was for baby girl Marando, now known as Laney.

The elephant was for Eli. Cute and pretty simple to do!

I now have a small stockpile of white onesies that I've gotten at Walmart and Babies R Us for pretty cheap. Now I just need to find some more ideas for appliques! I'm thinking a pumpkin and Christmas tree may be fun for the holidays!

Is there a limit on free samples for paint colors? I hope not! I got a nice stack to use my paper punches on for gift tags, etc.

Is this post random enough? No, not yet?

How about 2 random pictures of our dining room to add to the mix. I have the linens we got while in Italy out and have been enjoying them and thinking fondly of our trip last year.

A new centerpiece arrangement that I came up with a few weeks ago:

Well that about does it for what's going on here, haha.

A little switch-a-roo

Our beloved "West Wing" is officially gone. After getting my craft desk all ready for its new space, we did a little switching of rooms upstairs. Here's my new crafting space. I just love it! As you can see, I already made some adjustments to the stuff on the desk. I didn't like how the 3 drawer organizer was see through, so I cut some craft paper for the front and like the way it looks much better! I'm debating painting my sewing machine cabinet and the little wooden cabinet next to it white as well. I could fill with green instead of tan on the bins, but that might be a little too matchy matchy. Thoughts? I have a love/hate relationship with the wrapping box in the corner. I also need to do a little more organizing of the stuff on the bookshelf. All in good time...


This is the other corner with my closet and dresser as well as the hampers. Exciting, I know.


This side of the room is less fun. Maybe in time it'll get fixed up some way all pretty-like.


My desk. Love it!


And what became of the West Wing? Oh, just our adorable new little guest room. Sorry, 1 guest at a time, please. Unless you don't mind sleeping on an air mattress, pullout couch, or couch.


I love these room layouts muuuuuuch better than before!

My New Craft Desk

I finally found a great desk to add to my "craft room". It's really a spare room that has my closet/dresser in it as well as all of my crafty stuff and exercise stuff. It's now just referred to as "Mal's room" haha. It used to be our "guest room", but we finally did some cleaning out of our beloved "West Wing". (Beauty and the Beast, anyone?) So now we have "Mal's room" and the "guest room/office".

For $30 on Craiglist, this desk was a great find. It actually has a drop in area for a sewing machine and a drop leaf on the back that you can wheel out (yes it has hidden wheels!) for double the work space. Perfect in so many ways! :) But it needed a little sprucing up...

After a tedious weekend of cleaning, sanding, and painting, I had the main part of the desk with drawers/door done. Because I have the attention span and patience of a 5 year old, I wanted to get the desk in the room ASAP. I'll do the drop leaf later.

I also added new drawer pulls for $1 each. So for a total of less than $45 (I had to also buy a new hinge for the drop leaf part), I have a great new desk!

I also won a $25 gift card at Michaels from Allison's awesome giveway so I bought myself a new self-healing cutting mat to use with my rotary cutter. :)

Dining Room Decor Changes

Do you ever get bored with your home decor? I do. Probably more often than the average person. When I was a kid, I used to change the furniture in my room around all the time. My sister and I would make it into a huge project and draw layouts of where things are going to go and then would move all of the furniture into the hall and back in again. We would do this over and over - each time being as fun as the last.

While I don't necessarily move furniture around like that anymore, it is not uncommon for me to move decorations around. Our house is set up in a way that furniture really only works certain ways.

Before Christmas I found some great blue table linens. I thought they'd be good in our yellow dining room, but waited until after we took the Christmas decorations down to try them out. I loved the tablecloth, but it was rectangle. So I had to cut it up and sew it into an oval tablecloth. Then that was the only blue in the room so it spiraled into changing up a bunch of things. 2 or 3 weeks ago I finally had all of the changes done and had something on the buffet that I liked. So, of course, I took pictures!

I wish I could somehow get a picture of the whole dining room, but the angles are just too odd.

This is looking in from the living room. I thought the blue was a nice "winter" tablecloth.

The buffet is really what held me up. I couldn't get something going that I liked. In the end, Peter ended up helping me a lot and we came up with this. The "runner" is just three napkins laid out. The vase used to be on the floor beside our big hutch. The love plate was new from Kohl's back in February. The candlesticks were $3 at TJ Maxx. There were 3 in the set, but one was broken so it was on clearance - love that! The little basket has some of our wine corks in it next to our wine rack.

I also rearranged the decorations on our hutches. I decided to hang our Italian plates and put up a new candle holder on the bottom shelf. The top shelf got grouped together in different ways. The middle shelf is all new. The sugar bowl and creamer we found in Italy last July. We actually found just one of the pieces and had them specially make the match to it. Aunt Grace was kind enough to pick it up for us when she went back in September and we picked it up at Christmas at Mima's. We also received the sunflower watercolor picture as a picture from Aunt Grace and Uncle Michael for Christmas. It's from a shop that we visited while in Italy and looks great with our creamer and sugar bowl. The little sachet is filled with lavender, purchased in Assisi. As you can see, we've been getting great Italian pieces to add to our collection. I also added the white pedestal bowl from a flea market with more wine corks. I love how it all turned out.

The small hutch also got a re-group. Many things are the same, but grouped differently instead of in a straight line type thing. If that even makes sense? New additions are the pear trivet which was a Christmas present a few years ago. I've had it stored away because I couldn't find a good display spot for it. I added a trinket from Orvieto, a candle, and a bird figure from my Aunt Pat to the shelf as well. The tope shelf are all items that were already on the hutch, but were previously on different shelves. The candlestick and book that Peter made me for our wedding got moved from the bottom shelf to the top. I thought they went well with our wedding guest book and my dried bridal bouquet. The bottom shelf is the same, but the candle got moved to the middle and I added a plate that I recently found at Marshalls for $3 and bought with my gift card. I love that little plate!

Well that was a long post about my dining room. I like to write these things for my own benefit though so that I remember where I got things and how I've decorated in the past. I know, I'm weird!

Kitchen Shelf Rearranging

This evening I was at Ikea and picked up two more jars for the shelf in our kitchen. I've had this one for my chai mix for a few months and wanted to swap out the tin canisters for some clear jars.

Cute, no? For now they house my chai mix, pumpkin creamer, and hot chocolate. :)

I used up the rest of an Ikea gift card that I had. I'm so sad they aren't doing "Social Media Saturday" each month anymore! How am I going to score great freebies at Ikea now??

Poppy Plate

I've got so many gift cards in my wallet. For so many different places. It actually makes shopping fun since I don't have to spend my own money! haha

While in Marshalls this morning, I saw this cute plate. I love the colors on it and the scalloped edges.

I also love the price tag - $2.99!

I've been rearranging some things in our dining room and think this plate will make an awesome addition. :)

Photo Dump: Christmas Decorations 2010

Christmas decorations make my house feel cozy and my heart feel happy.

The view into our dining room. This extra-wide arch is so cute.


Dining room:


Not much has changed from last year to this year with this hutch.


I think the only change may in fact be this little ornament that I got at Cracker Barrel after Christmas last year for a buck. I love the scripture on it. I popped it in a dollar tree easel and it looks great with the rest of my decor.


There were minimal changes to this hutch. The wine rack was new since last Christmas and needed a place to go since it got the boot from the buffet for the Christmas village. I also found a Christmas tree plate that matches the sugar bowl, creamer, etc. that I already have. $5 at Ross!


I made this dollar tree hurricane with some red cranberry garland (that I took off the garland) and a $1 ornament from Target. Total cost was just under $7.


I don't like how the flash makes it look, but was trying to show a picture that wasn't so terribly dark.


And my beloved Christmas village has made another appearance. Each year it changes slightly with how things are laid out. I just love the light it provides when it gets dark out.






Looking into the living room from the dining room:


Our beautiful tree with our crazy cat next to it:


We got this Santa ornament from our trip to Hozak Farms to get our tree this year. Paula got a matching one and put location/date on the back. Love fun mementos like this!


I like this shot because you can see the reflection of me and Cadi in it.


I picked up these awesome swirly ornament hooks at the dollar tree this year. I replaced all the old paperclippy ones and love the small added touch. So cute! I saw them at Target in different colors too, but more expensive for less. Plus I think the silver pops better with the tree!


I've had this old tablecloth from NeeNee and Pat's that I've been laying under the tree as a skirt and this year Paula helped me make it into a real tree skirt. It lays better, has a tie to keep it in place, and will surely be used in years to come.


The tree again. Can you tell Cadi loves it? haha


Look at her cute face!


This picture is a bit dark, but as you can see (hopefully), Cadi was all tuckered out after all the picture taking.


I added a few touches to this corner to Christmassy it up a bit.


This is a new space this year. I wanted to add some lights since this corner is so dark compared to the side with the tree. I put lights around our advent "wreath" that I made a few years ago and added a few things around/behind it. Love the way it turned out!


Another dollar tree hurricane with cranberries and a $1 Target ornament. This one is actually my favorite. I love, love, love that joy ornament. So rustic and so my style!


My freebie nativity hanging that I love so much!


The nativity usually is on the tv, but with the change up, it got moved to the bookshelf. I actually like it here much better. I also added the star from some craft store foam, a small dowel rod, and a wooden heart. Cute, right?


My snowman coasters - new craft this year!


More Christmas decoration goodness:


I love this view as you come down the steps. I've been looking for a picture that I could put above the couch for this time of year that will be more Christmassy, but haven't found anything I love yet.


Living room:


The pillow covers I made! I am in the process of trying to talk Peter into letting me find fabric or tablecloths (since these were napkins) and make curtains. He hasn't gone for it yet though.


Another $1 ornament from Cracker Barrel. I love decorating with snowmen and santas, but I love more to use scripture and nativity scenes. It's a great reminder of the real meaning of Christmas.