I don’t actually own a Cricut, but my mom left hers here two years ago and never has asked for it back. Erin and I have been having fun with it the past two evenings.
I made this for the little table that sits by the front door:
Welcome
And this is now in the hall bathroom:
Birdie in the bathroom
One of these days I’ll learn how to use my camera. No really, I will. Promise. Seriously.
This has been a week for decorating! Yay!
First, I changed out the curtains. We purchased simple, black curtains from IKEA years ago…like 10 years ago. We’ve used them in three houses now. I was feeling like the black curtains were pretty blah here. There was no color on that side of the house. I had my heart set on red curtains, or at least some curtains with red in them. Hancock Fabrics is having a sale so I loaded up the boys and headed over. Even with the fabric half off, once I calculated the cost of the fabric, the grommets, and fabric glue I was just under $100. Then I found some ready-made curtains for just $45. I brought them home only to realize that the satin nickel grommets clashed badly with my bronzed curtain rods. Rats. A quick peek on Craigslist and I found 4 panels, new in the package, for just $30! I had to chuckle at the fact that they were IKEA curtains. Oh well. I put them up and they definitely add some much needed color – and you can’t beat that price.
No before pic, but here’s the after:
New curtains
Here are the pillows I recovered. The chenille fabric was coming apart and looked horrible.
And here’s the three I covered:
Blue ruffles
Faux bunny fur
Bunny fur and patterned pillow
Last, but not least, Ben hung two of the IKEA ledges we purchased in Indiana in September. I couldn’t decide where I wanted them so I got some feedback from my TX friend, Erin, who’s visiting. Then she went to work and decorated them while I cleaned and prepped for our New Year’s Eve party.
IKEA ledges, decorated by Erin
So, there you have it! I feel like we are a little closer to the house feeling like it’s our own!
I’ve been drooling over some faux wainscoating for a couple of months now. I first saw this blog post and fell hard. I love the dark gray on the walls – the exact color I want throughout our house (aside from the few rooms I’ve painted and the red in the kitchen). Then I saw this blog post and was finally inspired to plow ahead. Our total came out to be much more than the $35 she posted, but it was still under a hundred dollars and made a lot of impact.
Here’s the before:
Boooooring.
And here’s the after:
Yay!
The picture will eventually be replaced by some other, homemade, artwork, but at least there’s some color.
We love how this turned out because we have a small home, with a very open floor plan. Walls would really make everything cramped, but there’s also not much definition of each space. Now I feel like the dining “room” stands on it’s own a bit.
Since I’m stuck with taking all my photos with my cell phone camera, I’ll just post about one room at a time.
Here’s the boy’s room. I still have big plans for this room including paint, curtains, ledges for displaying Lego creations, a table and stools, and a central lighting fixture. Until then…
Bunk beds made by hubby
These are the bunkbeds that Ben made. The plans can be found on Ana White’s blog. Ben attached them straight to the wall on two sides and came up with the ladder on his own. They are STURDY and will probably last a lifetime. And they cost about $200. I don’t know of any other high-quality bunk beds that cost that little.
View from the doorway
The shelves are from IKEA – as are the bedding, the rug, and the curtains (that we have yet to hang). Perfect for their industrial-style bedroom. Do you like the lamp on the chair? Yeah, this old house doesn’t have a ceiling light and their little lamp just isn’t enough. Can’t wait for that to change!
Wall opposite their beds
My step dad made those simple shelves for me when I was a kid. They’ve held up really well and go perfectly in the boy’s room. The table and ledges are going in that spot as soon as they are done…
Doorway to left, closet to right.
Here’s our current Lego bin. I see a second one in our near future. Luke is Lego crazy. Eventually, the bookshelves will go in this spot, with some neat shelves hanging above them. The Lego bin and clothes hamper will fit under the table we’re going to add.
Closet
Years ago, when we were preparing the nursery for baby number two, we realized we needed to buy another dresser for Luke. I was too cheap and didn’t want to buy something flimsy/ugly so we decided to just trick out the closet and keep all of his clothes in there. That was two houses ago and we feel like we’ve struck gold in that department. Dressers just take up room. If you can add shelves and drawers to a closet, instead of using a dresser, you open up so much space! We have 2 wire shelves and 6 drawers in the closet and we fit all of their clothes and a LOT of their toys in that small space. Dressers are overrated!
So that’s the boy’s room, for now. Aside from paint and a light fixture, we have everything else – just need to get it finished. Then we’ll at least have one done room in the house! 
There have been many variations of this craft circulating among blogs. I typed this up in Word, trimmed the edges a bit, and slapped it into a black frame I had in my stash. Easy Peasy Christmas artwork. I want to do another with a Christmas verse or song lyrics on it. Maybe I’ll get to that later today!
King of Kings
I love holiday decorations, but I hate spending money on them. I always mean to buy them on sale, after Christmas, but I never feel like trying to beat the crowds so I end up missing out. It doesn’t help that I like decor that has a sleek look to it – which usually costs more. Target had some cute trees that cost $25, but I was able to make something similar for only $4. I brushed some silver paint on, spread some glue, covered in silver glitter, dotted with pearl and silver beads, draped in a strand of tiny pearls, and then topped with a silver star. Fun!
Plain tree....
...pretty tree.
I had my last final and first Christmas party of the season yesterday. With school off of my mind, I feel like I can finally focus on the holidays! My ambitious plans for today include grocery shopping, getting a tree, getting the tree up and decorated, some craft buying at Hobby Lobby….and some major house cleaning. Can’t wait to get posting about all the treats and crafts I have planned!
I have so many items I’ve kept from my boy’s baby and toddler years. The little knitted caps they wore in the hospital, the little I.D. bracelets, cards, extra ultrasound pictures, so on and so forth. I also have a mountain of these cute, sturdy white boxes that my husband receives computer parts in. And I also have a partial collection of old, old, old, alphabet flash cards. I found them while raiding my mom’s homeschooling stash and couldn’t bring myself to throw them out. Well those things have all come together to make this:
Keepsake boxes for the boys.
‘L’ for Luke and ‘G’ for Gabe, of course. I Mod-Podged some scrapbook paper to the tops and sides of the boxes. Then I Mod-Podged the cards on top. Took me no time at all and these are cute enough for me to put on display!
Lots of keepsakes!
You could go crazy and decorate the insides, as well. But we all know I’m much too lazy for that!
(sorry, I love the Black Eyed Peas).
I took this quiz and my results were:
Hollywood Couture and Modern Elegance are me to a ‘T’! Here are a few rooms that I would LOVE to have in my house. This, this, and this.
Normally, I love all things IKEA, but this tool told me my style is Scandinavian. Uh, okay. Okay, did it a second time and it gave me Modern Classic as the result. Ahhh, much better!
If you have a hard time getting a pulled-together look, I encourage you to take the quiz and browse the site a little!
Last weekend, Home Depot offered a $5 rebate on various paints which was all the motivation I needed to paint the downstairs basement. I asked Ben what he thought and he said that he was surprised I’d gone 3 years without painting a room. I took that as a yes.
Here’s the bathroom before. The only thing I liked about it was the shower curtain and the mirror above the sink (not pictured).
Blah Basement Bathroom
I picked a color called Spring Cactus and am really happy with that choice, but I’m a sucker for greens anyway. The accent colors are black, dark gray, and ivory. The only things I purchased new for this bathroom are the paint, the towels, a spool of black ribbon, and some gray velvety fabric. Everything else I already had or found at the thrift store.
Here it is after:
Finished Basement Bathroom
I replaced the shell and starfish shower curtain rings with black ribbon:
Shower curtain ring ribbons
I took an empty frame (thrift store salvage) and hot glued some foam and gray fabric to it. Then I hot glued an embroidered ‘N’ in the middle, and attached a bunch of my great-grandmother’s vintage pins to it. I love vintage things and am trying to be more creative in displaying them, versus letting them sit, unnoticed, in storage somewhere.
Vintage Pins
Years and years and years ago, my Great Grandmother made a large tree out of some of her old jewelry. It sat in her livingroom for years. My mom and her cousins grew up looking at it and so did I and mine. It was very large and not something I would have really had a place for in my house, but I thought this was a bit of a nod to Great Grandma and her crafty-ness.
