Springtime and Birdcages!

As we are approaching March, I'm slowly but surely getting out my spring decorations. This past year we found a way to utilize the birdcage we had from our wedding in a very unique way!  It makes me happy that it's not in storage anymore…just sitting and collecting dust!

 

As you can see this is how we had it decorated for winter:

We like to keep things just a bit simple, just a snow covered wreath on the bottom of the cage with an antique jar holding flowers.

  

For springtime with Easter in mind, I decided to put our family nest into the birdcage, and add some eggs all around.  At the bottom of the cage is crafting moss!  

Such a quick and simple update for our sofa table!  Here is the before and after:

 

Hope you enjoy!!!

Wine Bottle Fun!

On Valentine’s Day my husband finally finished a bottle of his wine, so now I can do what I had anticipated on doing for months on end…decorate a wine bottle!!! 

 

The first step was to take the labels off of the bottle.  Thanks to my trusty ‘Goo Gone’ it didn’t take too much time.  I advise letting the bottle soak in hot water before trying to remove any of the labels to make it very easy. 

I know there is a cork rolling around in there but *sigh* I guess that happens sometimes…

I chose this aqua color because that is one of the colors we decorate heavily with in our kitchen!  I painted a decent first coat on just to make sure everything was covered, and then let it dry for the day.

Once I gave it the second coat, it really started to look nice!

To top it off I made a quick rosette burlap flower and tied it on with a ribbon!

I am still tossing the idea around to perhaps sand it in different areas to give it a rustic look.  We shall see!

 

This is going to look awesome on the window sill, especially if we stick a single flower in there.  Hopefully I can get my hands on some more wine bottles...I guess I will have to encourage my husband to have more wine (I don't drink since I'm not fond of the taste).  All in all this was a quick, fun, and inexpensive DIY craft!

Hope you enjoy!!!

Light and Airy Bathroom...Together Finally!

This new post is long, l-o-n-g overdue.  So here it goes…A few years back we painted our bathroom vanity and gave it a new faucet.  I believe this was early 2010.  Well this past weekend we got rid of one of those horrendous ‘over the toilet’ shelving systems…for in favor of floating wooden shelves.   

I absolutely love them.  The install was not as bad as it could have been…my husband is learning!   I have not officially decided what I will do on the top shelf so for now I just put my jar of sea shells up there.  

 

Since putting the shelves up and finally hanging up our new towel holder (a peg for each family member), I decided it was time to take photos of the bathroom and share it all!

 

For our bathroom window, I love our wooden blinds that we have.  They remind me of the beach (and I have them installed in all the other rooms throughout the house).  

The shell wind chime that we have hanging, I hung that up almost 10…yes 10…years ago!  

Our shower curtain and shower hooks were sort of an ‘investment’.  They are Lenox and I am so glad we splurged to buy them a few years back (almost 4 years).  

The quality of the curtain and the hooks has me very impressed.  I liked the pattern so much, I tried talking my husband into the matching china set…needless to say he declined and we got a china set that is a bit more formal but one of the nicest Lenox sets I’ve seen! 

Looking at the bathroom as a whole…I am very content with our ‘smaller’ bathroom and the outcome of the decorating! 

Here are some of the vanity photos and of the faucet.  

I am trying to save it for a different post on my passion...love for Method cleaning products.  

I hope you enjoy!!!

A Window of Delight

We have been working real hard to finish up and get some photos of our redecorated office.  This office is now cheery and you have the vibe energy of wanting to get work done in it! ;)

Yesterday we decided to make a ‘new’ valance.  We have been seeing all different colors of this on Pinterest and decided to give it a shot, since it isn’t too hard.  You can use scraps of fabric or just go to the craft store and get one of those rolls of coordinating fabric (like we did since there was a 40% off one item coupon this week).  We then looped them around the rod and it looked like this:

A close up of the valance we made!

 

Quick, easy, and a fun new look for the window!

The whole window in the office

The jars next to the window were bought off of Etsy from Beach Blues.  These match our window valance and the wall color perfectly.  Amazing!

Jars from BeachBlues on Etsy

 

The floor in the office just ended up being painted a glossy floor paint.  The color was Cancun Sand, which appears to be a nice, warm cream color.  

  

The view into our office

We will probably be putting the foam mat that we had on the floor next to the train table for the kids to sit on while playing with it.  I also want to change what I currently have on the shelves…not quite sure exactly what I want but will figure it out!  At this moment I am very satisfied with our hard work and just in total bliss over the turnout of our redecorating of the office!

Hope you enjoy!!!

A Fresh, New Office to Work in

Here is a quick peek as to what we have been busy with lately...

A quick phone picture...

This photo was just taken on the phone and before we decided to put our new trim down.  Hopefully by the end of the week I will have finished photos of our newly redecorated and half reno’d office!

Hope you enjoy!!!

Snippets of our Office Redo!

Today I am going to start giving some preview of the things we have done in our office for our mini-reno!  These hanging folders on the wall were a really great idea!  

2 of the hanging wall folders

I had bought these a few months back, when in almost all my home magazines that I receive had a 40% off one MS product at Staples.  I figured I would try them and they are pretty cool.  I just love the color of them and how convenient they are for me.  I can give each person in the household a dedicated slot to put papers in. This really is handy for my husband since he is always misplacing papers.  The smaller folder is being used to put bills in that need to be mailed out.  I still have another package of the bigger folders and will hang them near these ones soon. 

While shopping at Target the other day, my daughter spotted this lamp that had a shade that was entirely covered with feathers.  This lamp was approximately $40.  I knew I still had some white feather strands still left so we just went and bought a lamp that she liked!  When we got home we sat down and hot glued the feather strand around and around until we got this:

 

Feather Lamp

It looks awesome and we DIY'd it together!

Hope you enjoy!!!

All of our Decorated Porch and Garden

Okay…I finally sat down and got a great roundup of our porch and garden photos for on here! While watching the Olympics I have been sitting on my computer getting some of the ‘best’ photos that showcase our hard work on the porch and outside the best! I hope everyone is enjoy the Olympics as much as we are!

Our flower garden mid-summer

Back in April, our family constructed another garden but this one is right below our porch.

Close up of some of our flowers

Now for the main showcase: our porch. We kept our bistro table a bit spaced from our new ottoman bench that we built, so we have 2 different ‘sections’ on the porch. Everything just seems to go together and compliment one another. As pictured is our painted rug.  Here is the DIY post for the painted rug that we did.

Ottoman that we built and our painted rug

Bistro table set and our 'Love' sign we made

As for our house door, we have our Moss Covered Letter, which ended up being added to an unused spray painted picture frame. Here is the post from when I made the Moss Covered Letter. The ‘welcome’ sign was one of our best purchases off of etsy! This sign is just so simple but neat looking that we just had to buy it.

Moss Covered Letter on our front door

Welcome sign we bought off Etsy

Now on to our collection of old looking things. Our Pepsi-Cola wooden crate was a yard sale find (my first yard sale experience I have ever been to). The silver star on the top is something my oldest daughter and I basically just threw together. We gathered some sticks up and hot glued them together, then spray painted them. The mason jars are still a work in progress but I am sure you get the picture.

Pepsi-Cola crate we got at yard sale, and the DIY star

Mason Jars that aren't quite done yet!

Finally we have our plants that sit on the porch. During cold months these plants do find a way into our home, but for now while it is really nice out they can stay there! The hats hanging on the wall were an cute idea that my mil told me to do a few weeks back.  The lights that we have strung all over the porch are my favorite outdoor lights ever.

Plants and the hanging hats

Outdoor lights that we l-o-v-e!

This week is flying on by and it is August already which means Back-2-School time is rapidly approaching. On the next post I will show off my Household Binder that for months I have been trying to get together and finally finished it! I will also little by little start to show off our office reno!

 

Just wanted to also include we were featured in a treasury on Etsy and just wanted to include the link to see our 'Teacups' Flower Girl Ivory Tutu Dress' in it!!!

To send this post off, here is a photo of our cat "Cupcake", while we were taking the photos of the porch!  

A sleeping "Cupcake"

Hope you enjoy!!!

Spring 2012 in a Recap!

 Well since I have been very busy making lots of orders, and summer is surely flying right by, I will finally post some of my favorite crafts and DIY that I have been up to lately! 

First I had done a tiny “redo” in my kitchen where I went and added awesome glass tiles for the backsplash!  When I had taken these photos it was before I did the outlet covers, so I will add a newer one soon!  I am also contemplating on adding some type of under cabinet lighting- perhaps those battery ones (and yes I will use rechargeable batteries) - I hate cords hanging or lying around!!

I also gave my moss covered letter a little update.  I added it to a spray painted picture frame that I am never going to use again.  I officially s it!  On the outside door we also gave it a fresh coat of red paint and touched the trim up with some bright white paint.  I am still trying to persuade my husband that we need a gold colored kick-plate at the bottom of the door!

My favorite thing from this past spring was when we went to my daughter’s Bridging Ceremony for Girl Scouts.  I made a dessert “Bridging from Daisies to Brownies”. 

Aside from rearranging all of the children’s bedrooms to make more room (which I will post photos of that later on), we have decided to purchase hardwood flooring for a few areas of our house.  Originally this past fall my husband promised me after taxes were over we would go a buy new flooring to try to brighten up a lot of the house by getting rid of our dark green carpet!  Well it’s midsummer and we are now getting to that.  At least he is keeping his word on buying it! 

This past spring, as in April, May, and early June, we have gone an array of places with our family and extended family.  Some of these include the zoo, ice skating,  NYC, museums, the Crayon Factory, beaches, amusement parks, and just this past weekend the waterpark!  We are so blessed that we have family to partake in these activities with us!  We are a busy, busy family. 

NYC

Hershey Park

I will post about my oldest child's DIY Flower Garden on the next post along with other crafts we have been up to.  

Hope you enjoy!!