Sneak Peek

I am finally seeing the finish line at the "new" house. I have lots of little projects to write about. Looking at this picture, you can see a few of the projects: the orange stripes in the hallway, the mod-podged lampshade (with a cocktail napkin from Target), the DIY art above the sofa, the chevron striped coffee table, the "side-of-the road" bar cart turned side table, the thrift store chair in the left of the pic, and the DIY free chair printable on the wall (hard to see in this pic!). I've been super busy, but like I told my husband, "If I die tomorrow, I had a blast on my last day!"

Stay tuned....

I won! I won!!

A couple of weeks before Christmas, Simply Seleta hosted a giveaway. Because I never win anything, it's amazing that I even entered the giveaway. But lo and behold, I won the darn thing!! Exciting stuff!!

In my comment on the giveaway, I said that I would use the table in my bathroom next to the bathtub and that I'd put a candle and a book on it. However, it was WAAAAY too cute to hide it in my bathroom. I decided that it needed a little more attention, so I put it in our family room and it's perfect there!!

Thank you, Seleta, for such a generous giveaway and such a precious table/stool!!

Free Gallery Wall Art thanks to Pinterest

Thanks to Pinterest, most of the "art" in the "Orange and Blue House" was free. I searched "Free Printables" and all sorts of fun printables popped up! They were all super easy to download and print from my home computer. I used cheap frames from Target (some were even in the Dollar Spot) to display the printables. And voila - more inexpensive, easy, fun art. Thanks, Pinterest!





Below - art in the bathroom Below - art in the kids' room

And a close-up:

I'm linking to Frugal Fridays at The Shabby Nest.

and Suzy's House Party

and Someday Crafts

Inexpensive, Easy Art

Where has the time gone?! Lot's of happenings around here that I haven't told you about yet. In fact, the whole reason I haven't been blogging much lately is because of what I haven't even told you yet!! We have been super busy with a fixer-upper that we bought at the end of this past summer. It has been SO MUCH FUN fixing this little house and making her our very own. We won't be living in the house, but we'll be renting it out for Game Day weekends and such. Since we'll be renting it out, we needed to furnish it. That's where the real fun began!! We live in Auburn, Alabama and I decided to have a little fun with this house - I've decorated the entire house orange and blue. I can't wait to show it to you over the course of the next few weeks.

Y'all know by now that I love a good thrift store score and I love some DIY art. One of the blogs that I stalk daily for style inspiration is Simply Seleta. Love her style! She had a great post the other day on an easy DIY art project. Using her tutorial, I made my own art for the "Orange and Blue on Drake" house. Because Auburn fans are Auburn Tigers and their battle cry is "war Eagle", I chose a tiger and an eagle for my silhouette. I thought it turned out great and it was FREE because I used what I had as far as frames and background paper. For the background of the tiger, I tore out the page of the dictionary that had the word "tiger" on it. I think every word on that page began with tiger!

The picture below is an EAGLE (not a crow, as my eleven year old questioned!).

Rather than printing out the image as Seleta suggested, I just enlarged the image on my computer screen and traced it with a piece of typing paper over the image on the screen. I then put my black sheet of paper under the white paper and cut out both images (the white and black) at the same time. Super easy. And pretty cute, too. Can't wait to show you more of this house. Pinterest and blogs have been a HUGE source of inspiration for this house!!

Linking to Suzy's House Party

and Someday Crafts

#0 Days of Before and Afters - Day 2 - Hunting/Camo themed room

I adore this room! This room was an attic space that my friend turned into a bedroom. Because it was attic space, it has a cool sloped room and an area that we made into a fort. Mark and I installed green metal roofing from Lowe's to the slope of the ceiling to help achieve the look of a hunter's camp. I used burlap on the windows and doors of the fort/camp, as well as on the bedskirt. Here's a BEFORE shot of the space.

I used a camo canopy from Academy Sports to make a canopy. This was CHEAP and EASY. I hung two cup hooks on the ceiling, then two nails at the top of the wall (where it meets the ceiling). I cut the canopy - didn't measure, just eye-balled it - and hooked it on the hooks and nails. So cute and really simple to do. I covered a piece of plywood (that was measured and cut at Home Depot) in a foam mattress cover and burlap. I attached a wire to the back of the plywood and hung it on the wall (like a picture) to make the headboard.

The burlap pillow was made with the freezer paper tutorial from earlier. Also super cheap and easy. I self-fringed the burlap so no money was spent on fringe.I love saving money!

The shadow box is waiting to be filled with outdoor goodies like rocks and junk! We arranged some of the little boy's old boots on the shelf, and he hung his pheasant feather thingy all by himself because I apparently forgot to do it! :)

This was an easy and inexpensive room to pull together. Hope you're inspired to try something similar!

30 Days of Before and Afters - AU/war Eagle room

Wow! I'm looooong overdue for a post! So I'm going to make it up to you by posting 30 Days of Before and Afters starting today! I've had lots of projects going on over the last few months. Hopefully you'll see that my lack of posting hasn't been because I haven't been working on projects! It's had more to do with the fact that I've had so many projects going on that I haven't had time to blog about them!

I've been helping a friend decorate her children's bedrooms. It's a win/win situation for both of us. She's a photographer and has taken my kid's pictures in exchange for decorating her kid's bedrooms. Perfect!

I'll be honest. When she first mentioned that her 4 year old wanted an Auburn/War Eagle room, I felt a little sick. :) Not only am I not an Auburn football fan, but there colors are navy blue and bright orange and, well, I felt challenged. However, shortly after that conversation, I was eating in Zaxby's (yes, the fried chicken finger place), and I couldn't keep my eyes off their decor, which is basically vintage sports memorabilia. Lightbulb moment for me. Right then and there I decided that we'd decorate her son's room with a vintage Auburn football theme.

The first thing I did was to paint the walls in a faux finish to give them a slightly worn/vintagey feel. Then I found some blue and white quilted coverlets for the bed. But the stark white in the coverlets was too crisp against the worn walls. SO I dyed the coverlets and matching shams with RIT dye. I had never used Rit dye before, but my mother had some success in dying a coverlet before, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Not only was it super easy, it was super cheap and provided just the look that I needed!

Then the real fun began as I started scouring flea markets, thrifts stores, and yard sales looking for vintage sports stuff. The "WAR EAGLE" letters were the gold ones at Hobby Lobby that I simply spray-painted black. The lamps and shades were from Target. I spray painted the base of the lamps blue and added an ornage grosgrain ribbon to the bottom of the shade. I'll tell you about the chalkboard wall in the dormer window space in just a minute.

The lockers below were found on ebay and spray painted black. LOVE them! Bewtweent he "WAR EAGLE" on the wall and the lockers, the room is adorable! I had a ton of fun scouring flea markets, thrigt stores, and yard sales looking for vintage sports memorabilia! The old megaphone and awesome old football were found at a local flea market. $10 for the megaphone and just a few dollars for the football! I fould several old folding stadium cuchions and hung one on the wall as a shelf.Those cute little football boys were a few dollars at the thrift store. They're from the early seventies, I think, and remind me so much of the Holly Hobby figurines that I had hanging on my wall as a child. LOVE!

A place for all of his AU caps!
This is the small dormer window space. I decided to paint the entire space with black chalkboard paint. I hired a friend (who has awesome handwriting!) to write the 2011-2012 football schedule on the wall. The four year old has strict instructions to NOT draw on this side of the wall, but he has complete freedom to "chalk it up" on the opposing chalkboard wall!

I know I just said that the "War Eagle" letters anf the lockers " make" the room, but the chalkboard wall "makes" it, too!

Here are some BEFORE shots. It was already a cute "Fireman" room, but he was ready to move on.

Stay tuned for more!

Past Valentine Day Ideas

I haven't had a whole lot of time this year to work on creative Valentine ideas (although I have a few in my mind!), so I thought I'd share some of last year's projects.
If you're interesting in making these Valentine Owls, click here. I have thought of some other cute Valentine quotes that would be cute with these: "Valentine, you're a hoot!" , "Owl be your Valentine!" "Whooooo loves you?! I do!!" These Cotton Candy Ice Cream Cones are still one of my favorites. Click HERE if you're interested.