Domino Effect

  Isn't it funny how when you start to update a space it turns into a domino effect?...  Inevitably by doing one thing to update a space it will reveal yet another thing in that space that needs a little help.  ;)
  We painted our dining room and living room a little over a month ago.  We are so glad to have it finished and to not have khaki/gold everywhere, though I have to say that certain things look a little shabby now.  Gold door knobs just don't look quite so nice or homey anymore, tan outlets don't really go with yellow walls and don't even get me started on the light fixtures.
  The one that bugged us absolutely the most, and didn't take long to motivate us to get to the hardware store, was the dining room light...  Let's just say it wasn't our favorite before and once the walls were yellow it really had to go.

  This was our beautiful dining room light.  The yellow on the walls and gold fixture just didn't seem to quite complement each other.  So the gold had to go...
  The funniest part is the light was out on the curb for about 20 minutes when someone came and got it off our trash pile.  I guess one mans trash is another mans treasure.  ;)

  This is the new fixture.  We like it so, so much better.  Now we just need to get to those gold door knobs.  ;)

It turned into a monster.....

  "It's no big deal!"  "Just a little paint and all will be well."  "We've done this tons of times, this time won't be any different."

  These are the things Layton and I said to each other before we started the big painting project... not knowing how big of a deal it would turn into.  =P

  It was a little bit of a last minute project.  Layton hated the paint color that was through the entire house and the living room had bugged him the most.  Not only was it a terrible khaki/gold/sometimes-looked-green color, but we had brown walls, brown carpet, and brown flooring through the dining room.  Everything was this weird khaki/brown!  So finally we decided to do something about it.

  I have to admit early on in this post that I was so afraid of getting anywhere near the color that was already on the walls that I swung a little bit too far in the other direction.  I have now learned my lesson... a lesson that all first time home owners and self fixer-uppers need to learn... the paint WILL look brighter when it is all over the walls.  :)  All of that to say it is brighter than what I wanted, but Layton loves it and it is better that khaki/green/gold.  ;)

  So here is our painting journey that turned into a monster...

  This is the before color... it's kind of hard to see in the weird lighting.  

  And here is Layton cutting in way up high.  :)  I did not want anything to do with the high stuff.  Usually I wouldn't care, but pregnant I didn't trust myself and my clumsiness.  The yellow looks really yellow next to the khaki which made me really nervous at first.

  So, we got the first coat of paint on and realized that we were going to need 3 coats, not 2.  It wouldn't have been a huge deal, but I was almost in my third trimester of pregnancy and just don't move very fast, Layton had some work and then on top of that we both came down with a stomach bug.  So this "small" painting project took about 3 weeks from beginning to end.  ;)

  And here it is... This isn't the best photo of color, but it's the same spot I took the other one so I figured why not.  ;)

  

  This is my house almost back in order.  I was so very glad once everything was put back where it went and everything was clean once again!  I get easily stressed out in a messy house.  :)  (this is probably the best picture of the color)

  And a preggo picture against the newly painted wall.  Third Trimester!!!  Glad to have this big project out of the way before this little one gets here!  :)

DIY Fireplace White Wash

  We are slowly, but surely, remodeling our house.  Trying to take our time and really figure out what we want before getting our hands dirty.  ;)  We finally got to our fireplace and got step 1 done: White washing.

  It is a super simple process, though a little time consuming because of the steps.  We love how it turned out though and are super thrilled with the new look.

  BEFORE:

  I do love the look of brick, but am pretty picky about the color of the brick I like.  Layton is not a huge fan of brick and so he didn't like this brick at all.  We knew we wanted to change it up and we went with white washing over painting completely.

IN THE PROCESS:

  In the midst of it... It was definitely a longer project then we thought it would be.  All the sites I researched it on made it sound so simple, but it definitely doesn't get done in an hour.  Don't get me wrong though... the outcome was definitely worth the time put into it.

AFTER:

  It's done...!  At least for now.  We might go back and put another coat on, but for now we like it the way it is.  We are in the process of painting out living room/dining room and are waiting to see what it looks like with the new paint color on the wall.

  So what do you think?  White washing a success?

My Latest Project

  Life has been crazy and hectic, as I'm sure it has been for more people.  God has been teaching and molding, life has continued to move quickly, change has happened....
  I have finally gotten out of the "I'm so sick I can't function" stage of pregnancy.  Slowly my energy returns and with it the urgency of wanting to get things done better this baby gets here.  :)  So, I have slowly begun to work on projects I have been wanting to do for a while.
  The latest one is this earring rack...

  I love the way it turned out.  Layton helped me put it together using precut frame pieces from Hobby Lobby, Gorilla glue, and chicken wire from Home Depot.  It was super easy and then I painted it and distressed it with an ink pad.  :)
  Not a huge or glorious project, but it is a small step to getting everything done before June!  Only 20 weeks till this baby gets here and I am going to be as ready as I can be.  ;)

Pallet, Signs and Paint

  Okay. Here it is... The latest project. :)

  I really enjoyed working on this one and I had been looking forward to it for quite a while.

  Layton helped out a little. ;) He tore the pallet apart, cut the wood for me, and made sure I didn't mess it up while putting it together. :)

  And I took it from there... The sanding, painting, and hanging. So are you ready to see it?

  I worked on it for an evening and a day... It really didn't take very long at all and I absolutely love how it turned out.  So in case you want to do this sign or something like this, here is what I did step by step.

  First Layton brought home a pallet from work... He broke down the pallet so that I had 5 boards. I knew what size I wanted and just got enough boards to make the size. If you didn't have a pallet I would buy fence slats. He cut the length down to what I wanted. My sign was 16x20.

  Then I sanded each board down a little, just so that you wouldn't get any splinters by working with the wood. I wanted my wood very rustic, do I didn't sand much. I left all the nail holes and dents in the wood because I like what they add. :)

  Then come painting... I painted each slat with 1 coat of paint/primer. Make sure you get in all the crevices. I thought about sanding mine a little after this to make it even more rustic, but decided against it.  Then we bought baskets and 3/8 in. screws and put the boards together. At that point you should have this....

  Make sure you decide what side of the slat you want in front! These brackets were my favorite, but you could use hinges too.

  After that things get time consuming. ;) You either need a cricut or some stencils for this next part. I used my cricut to cut out my letters in the size I needed. I also used two different fonts, but you wouldn't have to. After that you place them in the board and see if you need to make any changes. At this point you should have this...

At this point I made sure I liked the spacing between the lines and all of that. Then I took a pen (you could use a pencil) and outlined the letters. This takes a while since the wood is so ruff. After that you start filling in all your letters with a very small paint brush. I bought the sample size paints at home depot. Sometimes you can find these on sale for 50 cents, but they might not be the color you like. I put the coats of orange on and one coat of charcoal grey. The nice thing about doing a rustic sign is you can't rally mess this part up... If you're painting isn't perfect it just adds more character. ;)

  And here it is, all hanging and beautiful. :)  I used the teeth hangers, but you could do wire too.  I love how it looks next to our wedding pictures. 

  So there you have it. A homemade sign that you couldn't buy that cheap! Change it up, make it your own, that's the fun in it. :)

~ God bless and happy crafting!

Study Makeover--Part 3

  Okay, third and last part of our study makeover. :)  It has been done for a while, I just haven't made time to take pictures.
  So, now.... I made curtains, got our bookshelves put together, and hung some things on the walls. :) I'm sure we will do some moving around, but for now I am enjoying a beautiful, tidy study.

  The curtains!  I so enjoyed getting to make them with my sweet mother. :) And I love how they look in the study with my yellow desk. Now Layton wants to paint his desk grey. Hehe...

 My desk with decor in/on it. And the clock That I love!  I originally had this yellow desk in mind For crafting projects, but it has soon become my favorite place in the mornings, with my Bible, journal and iced coffee.  It is a place to put the rest of the world at rest for a few moments.

  Our bookshelves... I finally got them all put together again. I absolutely love our bookshelves.  A family we go to church with was getting rid if them and gave them to us for free. All we had to do was stain them!

  As you can see we don't have a lot of books yet, so they are mostly filled with picture frames. :)  When I was putting the books up this time I decided to try something a little different... I organized our religious books by color instead of author.  I really like how it turned out.  I think it ended up looking a little better since we don't have very many books.

 

  And lastly, the rest of our wall decor that is in the study for now. Both wedding presents... The painting on the right was done by a friend of ours. It has all the meanings of Layton and my's names combined To make the painting. We love it!
  So there you have it. Our study!  The one completed/updated room in our house. :)

~ Have a blessed day!

Study Makeover--Part 2

  Okay... So this next project we did was a really fun one.  I had been looking forward to it ever since we decided to work on the study first.
  Before we get into the beautiful pictures let me give some background.
Last spring, mom, Tori, Rhiannon, Norah and I went up to Kansas to see family. My great-great aunt was getting rid of some furniture and asked if I wanted her desk. This desk had originally been my grandmothers and so I was pretty excited about owning something that had been handed down.
  So we put it in the truck and brought it back to TX with us.
  It was pretty old and needed some help. It was really wobbly. So Layton put a few screws in it and covered a few holes. Then began the days and days of working on it...

  

This is the before picture. We had already started on it so there is no old hardware in this picture. It was falling apart needless to say. ;)

  I know this doesn't seem like it would be important, but it is, trust me. Here is the before picture of the inside.

 This is the after picture. Yellow is of my new favorite accent colors. It turned out really good and looks great with the wall color, don't you think?  We also got some new knobs.  It took for coats of paint/primer to cover this desk... I thought it would never be finished. Haha...

And the after picture of the inside. I love the grey on the yellow and the tile will make for easy craft clean up. :)  And hopefully the yellow will make for many crafty ideas.
  Now I finally have my own space to work instead of the floor or the kitchen table. Hopefully now the kitchen table will stay clean and cleared off.  I have already started to fill the desk with my things and hopefully soon I will have pictures of the study as a whole for you. :)
  ~ Have a blessed day and go do something crafty!

Study Makeover--Part 1

  Okay, so we are in our new house!! It has been absolutely wonderful so far. :) We love it all and we are greatly enjoying being able to be hands on and make this house our own.
  We decided to concur the study first. We already had paint for it (I will explain this later) and it was probably going to be the easiest room in the house.  At least that's what we thought at the time. ;)
  We painted first. I have been wanting to paint since we got married, but our apartment wouldn't let us, so it was a joy to my heart top be able to have some color on the walls.

  

This is the before color. It is all over the house. It's a darker khaki. It is really not a bad color except we hadabout five different shades of khaki all over our apartment before, so w are both a little tired of browns. ;)

  Thus is the after color. It is more blue than the picture shows. I really like how it turned out... Finally some color on the walls. :)

  Next we attempted to switch the ceiling fan... Thus was a little harder changed than we thought. The new fan is up and beautiful, but for some reason the lights won't work, so we are still in the process of trying to figure that out.

  The before fan.... Pretty sure it was original. It definitely needed some replacing. = P

  Our new fan!!! It is so much better and doesn't wobble. I like how it turned out as well. Hopefully soon we will get the lights working. :)

  And last, but definitely not last, we put more shelving in the closet.  It wad just this one shelf and now....

  We have five shelves. It is so much better and going to be a lot easier to store things. 
  That is all for now... We are about to start isbnon one last thing for the study, but it will be a surprise. Hopefully I will be praying about it fairly soon, but it is kind of a big one. :)
  Hope you are all having good Mondays and getting lots done!  I am trying to get out if boxes. ;)

DIY Recipe Box

  So, I thought I should post about the recipe box I did before I get lost in house decorating and remodeling posts. ;) 
  There were a few projects I was pushing to get done before the move and this was one of them.  Since I was to cook from stratch almost all the time an organized recipe box means a lot to me, and a cute one is definitely a perk. :)
  I now have two recipe boxes... one is full of the recipes I love but can no longer eat, and the other is full of the recipes I can eat and some of which I love.

  So here it is. I love how it turned out, though it took me a while to get here through a lot of clumsy mistakes, like spilling super-glue all over my kitchen table. =P

  It was pretty simple... I bought this box at JoAnns. They sell them in the wood section.  Used some leftover paint from another project that had primer in it (cuts out a step!). After the paint had dried I sanded down the edges and some other parts (it takes a little practice because you want to sand enough that it is noticable, but it is easy to do too much).

  Then we move on to the fun part of decorating! :)  I used mostly scrap paper.  I decided not to do an "H" because I have that on my other recipe box, so I got the creative juices flowing.  :)  I'm a huge fan of straight lines, combined with flowers and a little sparkle.  Nothing too fancy.  And then to add a little rustic edge I used stamps to do the title.

  This is the inside... You can do whatever dividers you want.  I go pretty basic. Appetizers--Beverages--Breakfasts--Sauces--Entrees--Pastas--Soups--Sides--and Desserts.  I did patterned papers that coordinated, but I have done just solids before which is really cute too.  I used the same stamps on the inside as on the outside.

  So, proof that you can be practical and organized, while still keeping things cute.  That is how you get to this girls heart.  ;)

  On a slightly different note... I have joined pinterest this week.  I told myself I wouldn't get sucked in, but we don't have internet at our house for now, so I figured I have limited access so I hopefully won't spend hours on end on there. But I have found a lot of great things so far and I am really excited since we are now in a place of our very own.  Lots of great things I look forward to doing.  For now we are working on our study... we picked it first because it should be the shortest and easiest project.  Pictures to come soon hopefully.  :)

~Have a wonderful day and a blessed weekend!

DIY Projects {Coasters}

  So, I have been wanting to make some coasters for quite a while now.  I kept putting it off because we don't have a coffee table yet, so it seemed like we could get by okay for now.
  Well, then when my mom and dad moved into their new house my mom found some plain tiles left over from the house and gave them to Tori and I so we could make some coasters.  I decided on a more rustic coaster to match our decor better...

  You can not tear and distress the edges to make a "cleaner" coaster.  I just like how this turned out.  They are super simple though.  You just buy your tile, pick out some cute scrapbook paper, cut the paper the same size as the tile, then rip the paper and distress it, and then decoupage the paper onto the tile.

  Then I put these little rubber stickers on the bottom to make sure the rough tile doesn't scratch up my wooden furniture.  Now I can't wait to get my coffee table and start using these... super excited!!!

  Layton's favorite is the one on the back right... I personally love them all.  Especially when they are together.  :)

~Happy Monday and Happy House Projects!

Another House Project-{table}-

  Well, remember that pinkish-purple, pepto bismol colored table?  It is finally finished being re-made.  It is made anew!  And I have to say, that I think I like it very much.  :)
  I found this table in Canton when I went with my mother and sister... my brother was taking pictures for one of the booths there so we decided to make a shopping day of it.  The table was $15, the paint was technically free (I got it from my mother.  But she got it for 50 cents.), and the labor was free ;).  Not bad for a new table.
  I had been looking for a small table just like this one everywhere.  I looked at Home Goods, World Market, and on the world wide web, but had no success.  There aren't very many tall, little tables out there I found, and the ones that are out there are around $100.  So you can imagine how happy I was to find this bargain.

  Here is the pepto bismol pink! How glad I was to be rid of it.  haha... I'm not a fan of pink and especially not this shade of pink.
  The funniest part about it is, the other day Layton and I were in Target and I saw a table this exact color on clearance... I understood why it was on clearance right away.  ;)

  To those of you that might like this shade of pink... I do not mean to offend.  We all have our colors we like.  I just tend to be an orange, blue, red, green, yellow person.

  And I have found that those that like the color orange the best tend to not like pink at all.  They just aren't very good friends. :)

Here is the new color... I also am a fan of the distressed style.

I love the look and what all you can do with it.

The casual, rustic, and practical aspects of it also appeal.

  We use the table now in our living room.  It sits in the corner by our stairs with the key bowl on it.  It also has the picture frame Joe gave us for Christmas on it with photos he took at our family vacation last October.

  I think the thing I liked best about this table was that it was so versatile.  For now it will go in our living room, but I don't really like furniture that can only be used for one purpose (or at least for the most part).

  I like that this table could eventually go in a bathroom, entry way, kitchen, or nursery.  Since we do not know what our future house will look like, it is hard for me to buy furniture for specific spots right now.  Though I do look forward to those days when you know exactly what you want for a certain spot and you go hunting for it.  :)

  This is the other project I worked on today.  My sweet sister Stephanie found this tack board for $4!

  I have it in my kitchen right now with aprons hanging on it and recently it has collected coupons and other odd papers, but now it will be a wonderful picture board.

~Enjoy your Wednesday.  Only two days till the weekend!

Bathroom Decor

   So, I had felt like our apartment was getting more and more put together, but the room that bothered me the most was our bathroom... it was very plain with nothing on the walls and no cuteness to be found.  ;)
   My wonderful sister Stephanie found a bargain on some glassware and that laid the foundation for what is now our bathroom decor.

This is by far my favorite part... I bought these little letters at JoAnns, painted them and then sanded them to make them look a little distressed.

Our wonderful shower curtain.  It took me quite a while to find a shower curtain that I liked... I'm a little picky and we have kind of a weird blue as our colors, which made it even harder.  But I am definitely satisfied with what we ended up with!

These little shelves are above the toilet and by the shower...

I thought we need to personalize the room a little.  :)

And lastly, what is in the little glass jars?...

The most wonderful bath salts from Central Market.

They have been soaked in Essential Oils, so they smell wonderful and some of them are really strong.  They probably have about fifteen different scents.

   That is all... I hope you are all enjoying this fine Texas weather.

~Merry Christmas

Primed, Painted, and Perfect!

   Sorry it has been so long... I have been struggling with yet another sickness. But I think I am almost on the other side, and just in time for my birthday.  :)

   Anyways, Layton and I went garage sailing a few weekends ago and found a great bargain!  We found two bar stools for $5 each.  All wood and wonderful!  Only problem... they were hideous!  haha... So, we had a home depot gift card, went out and bought some paint and a-painting we went.  :)

before

Yes, those are paint splatters.  Yes, I did sand them for a long time.  And yes, they are still not perfect.  :)

after

And this is how they are now.  Much better, right?  I am excited at how they turned out.

   So, this is what I have been doing recently.  I took a break from knitting my dress and now I am taking another break and knitting Christmas stockings.  :)  I will blog about them as soon as they are done!

  In the mean time, enjoy your evening, drink lots of mint hot cocoa, and have fun with your family.  And of course, don't forget to thank God for all of those things and many, many more.