Made by Me, curtains! (SO EASY!)

I love to make my own window treatments and pillows. Mostly because I have a vision in my head of what I want and can never find it! These are my versions of Roman Shades. Super Easy (if you do it my way :)

Parlor

I bought the panels at Target about 5 years ago. I cut them to fit the shape of my window, ADDING an extra inch for the seam on one side. By cutting store bought panels I only had to do a seam on ONE side! I found I could get 2 windows out of each panel.

Next, the trickiest part was sewing the ribbon on each side, making sure the needle caught the ribbons on both sides. It worked pretty will! I sewed down from the top about 1/3 of the length of the curtain and let the ribbon just hang the rest of the way down so I could tie up my curtain where I wanted!

Viola! So easy!

Baby's room

Chalk-a-latte

While they hubby was out of town, I went to town on the laundry room.  This time painting on a chalkboard wall. 

Before:

 This was so easy.  I taped off the square, following a line I traced on the wall using my T-square and a level.  I bought this chalkboard paint that you can tint into any of 12 colors at Home Dpt, $11/quart.  I chose the color "coffee."  

During:

This was after 1 or 2 coats, it took me 4 coats, and my chalkboard is about 5'x6'.  I used almost the whole can.  

After:

The bottom half will be for the kids, and the top half will be for me to get organized, write things like the kids school day schedule (ie: daughter needs gym shoes Wednesday), weekly dinner, etc.  I also got these great Chalk Ink Markers, (like restaurants use) for me to write on the top, which won't be nearly as messy as reg chalk the kids and keep some things on there all the time, like the days of the week.   

I'd say it was a hit.

I got some cool organizers to hang on the wall too, to keep the kids school things in order, more to come!

Before and After Teen Girls room

One day my neighbor came to me and wanted to hire me to help her re-do her 15 year old daughters room while she was gone to EFY camp for a week.

It was a surprise for her, a kind of a "While you were out" We had 4 days to do it..... here it is!

Before: Kind of "little girlish" (she told her mom)
Before (putting up the green tape for the stripes)
The daughter's (K) favorite colors are purple and green, the mom wanted to incorporate those on the walls so I picked a silver grey for the bottom half, then an 8" band of green around the middle and purple for the top.
A new bed and bedding! (Any Twilight fans will notice the bedding is the same as Bella's from the movies) I saw it online at Target.com by Dwell Studios and thought it would be perfect! Then went to the movie a few days later and noticed it in Bella's room. Of course my sister in law said "only you would notice bedding in a movie". Little does she know that half the reason I watch any TV is to see what's in the homes!
Traded out the yellow dresser for a white one and painted a white shelf and hung above so the teen could display all her "teen" stuff! Her mom also made all those cute nic nacs during the week to go on top!
I wanted to do something fun in the little bay window so I went to D.I. and found these picture frames (.50 to $2) took out the glass and sprayed them white.
Hung then on the wall like so....
Then tied a ribbon at the top and let it hang through, for a bulletin board effect and it's easy to change out or add a new picture (similar to the other frame project posted earlier on). Mom also made the curtains by gluing little flowers to sheer drapes.
When you first walk in the room there is a little wall so I hung this cute "K" that her mom made inside an empty frame! I wanted it to be the first thing she saw for her little surprise!

Next, Words that best describe this cute Teenager! Silver and black vinyl lettering under the shelf, inside the green stripe as a bold statement.
A close up of the flowers done by the mom!
This is "K"'s FAVORITE quote. So her mom bought a frame and we painted it green and had the quote made of Vinyl and put it on the back of the glass. Then hung it on the same green stripe to add some dimension.
There is limited wall space in the room, but by moving the bed in front of a window it opened the room a bit more and the sheer curtain over the window softens the light.

SO fun!! Unfortunately I couldn't be there for the big revel! Bummer! But I heard she loved it and was so excited. Maybe now Edward will climb through her window!

Vinyl lettering was all made by Crystal White.

Paint colors are Marta Stewart from Home Depot.

Laundry Room -Sneak Peek-

Recently I have felt drawn to the color blue.  I redid my guest room in powder blue, which my husband approved of.  However, since I must confess I LOVE painting while he is out of town, I painted the laundry room, aqua blue. Which he feels might be slightly more appropriate if we moved to Puerto Rico:-)

As I mentioned before, I like yellow, but this particular shade of yellow was not doing anything for my white cabinets. Blah city.  Enter aqua blue (reluctantly using an "it" word) and they really "pop."
Here's the old washboard I got at goodwill for $12, before I painted it and mod podged on some fabric.

Here it is redone, on one wall in my laundry room, to give you an idea of the "fun-ness" going on in there:

Before:

After:

  More laundry room photos/projects to come.

Anyhoo, here's to FUN laundry rooms!!

A do it yourself Frame

I've played around with this frames for a few months and I think I finally like where they landed!

I started with these frames that were falling apart so I took out the inside.
Spray painted the edges
Decoupaged some of my favorite paper.
Then I tied a ribbon into a bow and let one side of tail hang way down....
I then took a second frame from a craft store and hung it in middle, like so.
I used a pin and pinned a cute little picture to the ribbon. I happen to have a secret love for vintage hot air balloons.
I actually have the bigger frame hanging on the wall now too. But it's leaning on the matle here.
I had a smaller frame like the big one and I also modepodged strips of paper to a thin matte board and stuck the matte to the frame, that way I can change it out if I want!! Then I did the same ribbon and picture technique.

By Stacey

Welcome Friends!

There's something about flowers on the front porch that make me feel cozy before I even walk in the door.  I want to share my front porch pots.  I went with a red/white color scheme, but the sweet potato vine have overgrown my white mounding petunias that are in there somewhere.  Next year I think I will be doing pink and white, and a smaller leafed vine. Here's one just planted around Memorial Day,

 Here they are today (after watering...)

Totally worth waiting a few weeks for the growth than buying the pricey pre-potted arrangements. Not counting the smothered white petunias, I put in one spike, 1 sweet potato vine and 2 wave petunias. Next year when my baby is older I'm going to start my petunias from seed again, and save some dough!   My plan is to use pink and white next year, I think those colors will stand out better against the brick house.

I got these 16" fiberglass urns from Home Depot for ONLY $40 ea!  Similar ones were $80 at Wally-World.  That's why I shop around.   You do have to drill a small drainage hole in them yourself, but that takes about 5 minutes.   The flowers were a little pricey, since I got them at a Pettiti's, so each arrangement cost me $20 (less had I left out the white petunias).  Can't say enough about starting your seed indoors, could've cost me more like $10 ea if I had home grown the petunias.  There's always next year....

Welcome!

Hi, welcome to our new (some what improved) Design Blog. This should be good since there's 2 of us now so more time and more design inspiration to spread around!

To introduce myself I thought I'd show a little bit of what I like and what I've done.
Give me a good parlor and I can spend hours in there reading a good book!

my old house
Always looking for old typewritters. This one is my favorite.
I own way too many bowls.I can't pass up a cute bowl at a store, it's my weakness.
I love to decorate with vintage cameras.

My favorite snack to make is White chocolate popcorn.

I have a love affair with tile


And I need to tile my current kitchen backsplash....I'm always looking for a new project to do! It's really never ending, ask my husband.

Hope you like what you see and get inspired!