Shutters turned Head Board

These fabulous shutters were hidden the back corner of an antique store behind some other furniture. We got them uncovered and got to look at them and fell in love! They were exactly what I had been looking for for a headboard for our bed! 

Because the paint was chipping off and very weathered, I wanted to seal them somehow without losing the look that I loved! After a little research, we decided on this Rust-olium spray. We did two coats and it really sealed the paint off, it has not really chipped at all since we hung them several months ago! 

This was before! (After seeing this old post, I see how even this was a HUGE improvement-I had forgotten how bland it was before we painted)

J figured out where the studs on the wall were and drilled some 1x2's on the back to align with the studs!

We got them both hung!

And I love the final outcome!!! We ordered some new pillow cases with some Anthropologie gift cards we had left over from the wedding and our bed was finally complete! 

Fall

I don't know anyone who doesn't love fall and really look forward to that first day where it feels like fall outside - when pumpkin spice makes its return, all the yummy fall scents hit the candle isles and of course football!! 

My fall decorating started with a trip to Hobby Lobby, only to return home and realize I had bought almost all the same stuff last year in the after season clearance sale. I returned the items and went to Dollar Tree to see if they had anything different and found a lot of stuff to compliment what I already had! 

A few of the details: 

• A cupcake holder with a sparkly pumpkin on dry beans. 
• The vase and all the decor came from Dollar Tree, I just added a little gold paint to the leaves to make them stand out a little more! 

This frame came from a flea market and I had been looking for the perfect place to use it! I started to make a wreath for the front door and decided the frame would be more fun! I bought the sign at Hobby Lobby for .99 and painted it with some paint I had at the house!  I had saved the yellow yarn from an Anthro gift I had received and drilled two holes in the sign and there it was! I used floral wire to attach the flower pieces and then just added the burlap ribbon bow! It was so much fun and ubber simple to make! 

The vases on this table came from Dollar Tree as well as the pumpkins! I cut up an old coffee bag on some books to set the center piece on! Again, super cheap and a lot of fun! {I will admit that the first bag of candy corns ended up all eaten and I had to buy another bag, but goodness they were delicious}

I got this chair for free at a garage sale last fall and decided to use it as part of my fall decorations this year! I had this small canvas with a eurpoean painting on it but had never used it so decided to just paint over it! I also wanted a burlap pumpkin so I decided to try to make one! 
I took a small bucket we had left over from our wedding and put newspaper all round it! I used the other side of the coffee bag and bunched it up around the newspaper! I took safety pins and pinned, from the inside, so that it stayed bunched up then put a rubberband around the top! I found a piece of bark out of our yard and used it for the 'stem'! 

I got this shutter at a garage sale last year and decided to paint it using Annie Sloan chalk paint! (this was my first experiment with the paint and I fell in love) I had it as my centerpiece on the table, but once the table got a facelift for fall, I decided to use it here! I have been collecting acorns from our yard and adding them to the small floaral arrangement! I had found the green and orange mini gourds at Dollar Tree, but adding the acorns makes it look a lot richer! 

These branches came from Dollar Tree and I wrapped part of a coffee bean bag around an oatmeal container! 

I have almost completely burned through 2 candles since I got it all decorated. I just love the smell of fall!

guest room

All of our family lives out of town, so we have guests often, but this just wasn't cutting it:

We added some color and got rid of the brown tapestry curtain::

This window is a fun place to write 'welcome' to whoever is staying with us, using dry erase! Ive had a lot of fun with that! 

This pic is super blurry, but you can see how just adding a shelf (from a garage sale - $1.00 & spray painted black), and a few other things to the wall really made a difference.

Now this room is becoming a nursery and we are turning our office into a guest bedroom! I am so excited for our nursery and cannot wait to see it all come together! 

COLOR IN THE KITCHEN

Once these two projects were done (bar, cabinets), I was again ready for another! Ready to get some color on the walls! But I had a really hard time deciding on what color. After MULTIPLE samples, we finally decided on a good neutral color that complimented the dining room well, was simple, and looked really pretty with the cabinets!

The thing we learned in the long search for color was to think outside the box. I knew I wanted something in the green family (to compliment the color of the dining room) but after a long day of frustrating samples realized that was not working. We started looking in the grey/brown family and finally found Clay Pebble by Behr - a very earthy color with just a slight green undertone. It wound up being the perfect color - FINALLY!!!

Just a small example of the amount of samples we tried - eeks! 

Before

During

And after 

Because of the lighting in the kitchen, it is hard to get a good picture, but you get the idea! 

Adding color always makes things feel a lot more cozy and more like home! 

and because I cannot just stop after one project, next will be making curtains for that window :)

A simple jewelry [box]

I've always wanted to keep my jewelry in a place where I can see it all and have never been too fond of the idea of a 'jewelry box'

I saw an idea online and decided to give it a try...I found an old pepsi box and added a few nails

 I had bought this little jewelry holder (the one to the right of the pepsi box) at a clearance sale, but it was too tall to fit on this shelf, so I cut off the top of it and used the pieces to make hooks for my necklaces. I literally just stuffed them in the cracks of the box and there it was! 

Used the drawers out of the little holder on the right to organize rings and other small pieces and used the empty drawer slots for bangles! (In one of the drawers I put small pieces of foam to use for ring organization - it worked really well and was something I had laying around the house!)

 I love organization so seeing everything have a place makes me very happy....and it makes life a lot more simple :)

making our house a home

I just moved back from a year in Guatemala and a month later got married! I was blessed to get to move back to Texas to a wonderful home that my husband had bought for us while I was gone. I love our house, but was ready to start making it home. A few simple touches have helped to make it home! We will start re-doing a room at a time, but I wanted to be able to enjoy it for today until then!! 

Our room was really killing me - needed some color!!! 

So we got some white curtains and added a few pops of color from things that I found at liquidation sales and antique sales

these were the curtains that came with the house, but we found these burlap curtains on sale at World Market and it totally changed the feel of our dining room :) (even though John can't wait to get them ironed)

We also added this beauty from an antique sale to our dining room...isn't it yummy!

its all still a work in progress, but we've made it a home we can enjoy for today...will keep you posted as we keep working!