O for Olivia

This is a stuffed letter "O" I made for my baby cousin Olivia back in August. It was a challenge to make something with no corners! It is hand stitched with felt and ribbon.

Deck the Halls

We finally got our Christmas decorations up. We are going minimal this year because I want to get some stuff on sale after Christmas. =) That's when I'll get the garland for the banister. Outside decorations aren't up yet due to wet weather.

My husband really wanted a real tree this year and I am so glad we got one. It is a 6' tree and it was only $40 at Lowe's! I love the way it turned out.

Pardon the bare window. We haven't gotten new blinds to replace all of the shades the previous owners put up, nor have we gotten our curtains up in this room. That is going to take some rigging because it's a bay window.

We walked into JoAnn to get some beads for a project I was working on and my husband spotted this great houndstooth suiting material that was 50% off. We got a yard-and-a-half of the red and black to use as our tree skirt. Love it!

I love the set of light-up gifts I got in Canton this year! They look very sweet in the corner of the room by our bookshelf. They will need a new home next year when we have more bookshelves in this room. Maybe on top of one of the shelves.

Our kitchen table got a little dressing up. The placemat is from Anthropologie, the platter is from Target, the candle bowl is from a garage sale (cha ching!) and the ornaments are from Target's after Christmas sale last year.

Now is a good time to not have kids with these beads on the table. It would drive me crazy if they got messed up.

Rockapella Rocks!

My husband and I got a chance to see one of our favorite singing groups this past Friday. They are Rockapella and they are amazing.

Here is a video of them in 2000 - two of the members are different. One of the tenors and the Bass. Jeff, the vocal percussionist is unbelievable. Yes, he is doing all of that with his voice.

New Hobby: Headbands

So I was out shopping recently and this store, not to be named, had an abundance of accessories. The one accessory I saw that I really fell for was headbands. They were so cute and I looked at them and thought, "I could make that." Luckily they had some plain satin headbands in packs of 2 or 3 for cheap so I bought them up. I have made two so far out of felt and tulle. More materials and methods to come. =)

Grey, black, and white felt/tulle with feathers at the bottom (hard to see b/c of the dark hair)
Black and white felt and tulle.

Thank you to my best friend for modeling them for me!! xoxo

Baby and Christmas Wreaths

This is a Cottage-Chic wreath I made for a friend at work. Her baby girl is due in January. She told me the colors of her room and bedding and I went by that. I hope it looks good in her room! It's hard to see, but there is sage green tulle throughout the roses. Sorry about the color of the photograph. I took it in the morning and it was quite hazy out. I take pictures of my wreaths outside now. I bought this coat hook in Canton and I nailed it to my fence in the backyard. =)

This is the Pinecones and Holly Berry wreath I made for my best friend Michelle. She used to sing that at Christmas time in college so of course this is the wreath I make for her. =)

LOVE This Wrapping!

Ok, so last year after Christmas I found this awesome red and cream houndstooth wrapping paper at Hallmark. Of course, as a houndstooth lover, I had to buy it. I was a little aprehensive because it was adhesive wrap and I've never used it before. I recently got it out to wrap a gift for my cousin's baby shower. Turns out, the adhesive wrap makes for a perfectly wrapped gift! It really helps when folding in the sides that never turn out flat with regular paper. The adhesive is just like a post it note. Love it. My cousin is having a boy so I paired it with a fun swirly, colorful paper. Luckily I had two boxes to wrap so I could present this awesomely wrapped gift. I love how it turned out. I love adding grosgrain ribbon to a package. It's so nice. =)

So the day of this shower, I woke up coughing at 5:00. It turns out I was developing bronchitis. So I woke up with all these ideas running through my head about a wreath to make for my cousin. At that point, sleep was not going to happen so I got up and got to work. Here is the wreath I made for my newest little cousin Tate who will be here on December 4th!!

A Touch of Fall

Kitty in the window!
Ghosts in the dining room!

Leaves on the banister and a spooky sign to greet you.

I just love fall. =)

Candy Corn

This is another one of my mom's awesome creations. She loves making witches for Halloween. I just love them!! They are so cute. This is her favorite. What a clever hat she made. =)

A Wild Wreath

A Girly Wreath

I love the yarn I used for this wreath. I thought it was so cool how it just turned out looking striped as I wrapped it around the wreath.

I thought I had a great way to sell my wreaths without having to post them online and ship them out, but the place I was looking at was just too expensive. I'm thinking my Etsy shop will be opening very soon!

More to come soon. I'm working on a new way to photograph them. =)

A Saturday Treat

This is Holly Brook singing her song "Saturdays."

I love her!

Yarn Wreaths

I have been working on a new obsession. Yarn Wreaths! They are so fun. I make little mini stuffies and glue them onto the wreath. Probably opening an Etsy shop soon!

Pumpkins and Vampires and Ghosts, Oh My!

Being a fan of Twilight and the Sookie Stackhouse books, I had to make some little vampires this summer. To be perfectly honest, I saw a how-to article that was extremely un-impressive and decided that I could and would make much cuter vampires. Does that ever happen to you? Sometimes I just see things published that look like a child made them. It irks me.

Well, here they are!

These are my three little vamps. The lady in pink is unnamed, and then there's Bill the Vampire and Alice.
They are the perfect size dollies for my mom's fashion dolls. Each one has a pipe-cleaner skeleton so they can bend easily and sit with their friends.

This is a wreath I made today. I'm ready for October!

I took a styrofoam wreath (from a dollar store), wrapped it in thick, black yarn (hot gluing only on the back as I went. You don't want those stringy things and clumps of rogue glue to be seen.) and then wrapped it in the purple eyelash yarn every inch or so (again only gluing on the back). I made the pumpkins and ghost out of felt, blanket stitched them and put green grosgrain ribbon as stems for the pumpkins. After everything was stitched and stuffed I hot-glued them onto the wreath. The "Boo" is made of vintage anagram tiles I found on Etsy. Yay!

Pretty Pink

A few projects from this summer for my cousin who is expecting a girl. As if you couldn't tell from all the pink!

Kaylee should be joining us any day now! We are hoping for Monday.

This is the first time I've made a block letter. It was really fun and a challenge for my mind with all the measuring. I wanted it to flare on the ends, so it took maticulous measuring and cutting.

I hand stitched the stretch fabric onto the top cutout of the K and folded the edges over. I added ric-rac to the side panels. I love how it stands up by itself! It sure did require a great deal of stuffing to get it that firm.

These are burp cloths for my cousin's baby shower. The embroidery was done on a machine and I sewed the ribbon on with the sewing machine. I thought they turned out great. Which is your favorite?

My Best Friend's Wedding

My best friend Michelle just got married in New Orleans last Saturday. I am so happy for her that I can't even truly express it. She and Klint have been together for 5 1/2 years and their wedding was definitely worth the wait. It was perfect in every way. They live in Baton Rouge finishing their masters degrees in music. My husband and I are crossing our fingers that they will be closer to us after this year passes. We love them dearly and miss them terribly. They are our perfect match.
The St. Louis Cathedral where the wedding took place.

I took some portraits of her while we waited to walk from the hotel to the church. She wanted to keep busy. =)

Curtains

I found these curtains at Pier 1 and fell in love. They are our orange and paisley. Two of our favorite things! We got them home and realized we needed them to be longer in order to hang them high and have them touch the ground. I remembered they had the same print in green, so I went back and bought one panel of green to add to the bottom. I am in no way a sewing expert, so my mom helped me rip the seams out and add a foot of green to each curtain. They ended up looking very professional because my mom insists on doing things to look good wether you can see them from the front or not. She had me cut the lining and add lining to each one as well. I guarantee that if I had done this project on my own it would not have turned out as nice. Thanks mom. =)

We found the fleur de lis brackets at a garage sale for like $10 and they were originally around $60. It was my husband's idea to put the black finnials on the white rod. I love the contrast.

We are going to hang our black letter "B" between the windows. Any suggestions on how to organize all those dvds? I have two shelves in the garage that need to be painted. I can't decide on black v. white or where to put them in our cramped living room.

FINALLY

It has been way too long since updated this silly blog! It has been driving me crazy. =) We have been hard at work on the house finishing a few things at a time. The dining room is the closest to being complete. It lacks an orange shag rug and some wall decor. We still have nothing hanging on our walls because we want to make sure we put things in the right place.

This is our orange front room that my husband likes to call the parlor. Since I took this photo we have added an organ to the left of the bookshelf. One of my husband's childhood friends gave it to us. We still need some chairs for the right side of the room to make it a true parlor. =)

I am very excited about what we did in the dining room. We had painted two of the walls asparagus green and couldn't decide what to do with this front window wall because it connected all the way up to the second story. There was just no good place to draw a straight line of paint. I had an idea of something I could do to blend the two walls, but I wasn't sure if I was brave enough to try it. We do not have the beige paint the previous owners used to paint the entire house. There is no room for error.Well, I decided I was brave. Here is the wall with my chalk sketch of how to blend the two walls.And here is the completed room with the curtains, table and chairs. You may remember this room from my previous post. I just love the way it turned out and I'm so happy I was brave enough to try it! Our dining table has black legs and we love the way it looks with the traditional brown chairs my mom gave us. I can't wait to get a rug!

Bookshelf-Ikea, Curtains-Pier One, Curtain Rod-Lowes

Coming Soon:

Breakfast Table Light
Completed Powder Bath
And some non-house projects I've been working on!

Finished Floors!!

This is a photo of the finished floors in our dining room. I also finished the chandellier seen in this post. Two cans of white spray paint can do wonders!

Here is a shot of our living room. It's still a work in progress, but at least it finally looks and feels like a place to live! We still want to replace the blue shades with faux wood blinds, buy the chair that matches our love seat, and of course hang up art! We will eventually move the cable around and mount the TV over the fireplace. I love to see the TV from the kitchen.

I can't wait to get the library/piano room set up and posted!!

(Living room furniture and lamp from are from Rooms to Go, rug is from Lowes)

Home Renovation Update - Sub-floor

The Floor guys started yesterday at our house. They got all the tile and carpet ripped up and the ply-wood sub-floor installed! Yay for progress! They may even finish it tonight. That would be wonderful!! Above is a lovely view of the huge pile of boxes that contain our beautiful wood planks. The funny thing about the ply-wood is that I actually think it looks better than the carpet and tile looked. haha

Here is a shot of the green dining room with the sub-floor. I can't wait to see that dark wood in there! Oh, and my newly-improved chandelier. =)

Art Room Ideas

I know I want a splatter paint rug in my art room to protect the carpet, act as a colorful element to the room, and blend with any spills I might have. I think I am going to have to recreate this splatter paint rug from this website. It is too cool, but I don't think I want to spend $400 on a rug. =/ I doubt mine will have splotches this big.


Mine will probably be more 80s neon color splatters like these shorts.

Art Room Needs

I have decided not to paint my art room in our new house. I am too afraid that a color on the walls will reflect off of my paintings and change the way I see the colors in them. Therefore, I need some fun and colorful accessories to brighten up the room. This chandelier from Chandeliera would be wonderful if I had a corner to put it in, but I'm afraid the room is too small to have a ceiling fan and a chandelier. Sad day.

I'll just get some brightly colored curtains and let my creations add color to the room. My husband said he would make me some customized shelving for my stuffed things and paintings. I'm thinking of getting a plain black rug and splatter painting it with neon colors. I'd like to protect the carpet in a fun way from my clumsiness when I paint. =)

Progress!

The wood for the floors is in! All 42 boxes and nine buckets of heavy stuff...glue, etc. Now we just have to let them acclimate before they are installed. We pulled out one of the boards to look at it and confirmed that we LOVE the color! They are really dark brown, almost black.

Living Room

Front Room (Reading/Piano Room)

We also started painting the dining room asparagus green! We love the way the three colors look together. I can't wait to get the furniture in and the art on the walls!

The stairs will eventually have white risers and tread to match the floors. We will stain the banister darker as well

I need to find some fun fabric to make curtains for the green and orange rooms. I would love to find a sale to save some money. Any suggestions? I live in the Dallas area. Something like these from Anthropologie would be great.