Living Room Wall Take 3

Ever since we moved in to our house, one of the main walls that has stumped me decorating-wise has been in my living room.

Here it is after the first time we painted it.  The entire house was originally this horrible shade of yellowish beige and I've been on a campaign to get rid of it, room by room.  I love the blue, but that's a lot of blank space that needed to be filled!

My first attempt to decorate was a supposed to be collage of family photos.  However, I couldn't find enough frames that I liked to fill it out and the ones I did have weren't big enough.

Bleh.  Just wasn't working, but I had no idea what else to do.  Then I found this pin on Pinterest:

Lightbulb!  Take away the yellow colors, and they might be on to something here.

First, I started searching for fabric.  Fabric.com is one of my favorite sites for browsing fabric.  I could spend hours there!  Then it was off to Home Depot for the shelves.

I'm much happier with this!  It fills the space way more than the picture frames did and I love how the gray ties in with the gray walls of the rest of the room.  I plan on stitching up some embroidered art to put in the medium sized frames.  I'm still looking for just the right pieces, though, and then it's going to take some time to get them finished!  I can live with the pictures of the random family for a bit until then ;)

Give Me a Can of Spray Paint

If you've been following me here or on Facebook, you'll know that I've been revamping my craft room.  My husband and rightly dubbed it "The Pretty Room".  The major parts are done (furniture, counter, walls painted) and now I'm just done to tweaking the little things.

Over the last week I've been plotting some of these little details.  The plotting resulted in a trip to the hardware store for spray paint and to Jo-Anne's for some fabric.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to the fabric part over the weekend, but I did do a bunch of painting!  First, the before pics:

The new thread rack I purchased.  Boring!

An old lamp (the plain white shade has been removed).

Generic cork board.

I forgot to get a clear picture, but the record albums on the wall have black frames.

Before we bought our house, I had never spray painted anything.  Now I'm just looking for excuses to spray paint anything I can get my hands my!  It's so amazing what a color change can do.

The thread rack, the lamp, and frames were all pretty straight forward.  The cork board, however, was a little tricky.  I had originally planned to remove the frame, paint it, cover the board in fabric and put it all back together.  Upon closer inspection, I discovered there was no way of taking it apart in a manner that left it in a state to get it back together.  So on to plan B!  My solution to the painting part was to place paper over the cork board and tape it down.

I have a plan for the fabric part, but as I said, I didn't make it that far this weekend.  While Rowan played in the sandbox, I took to the back yard with spray paint in hand.  The thread rack and cork board frame turned pink, the lamp silver, and the frames white.

God bless tarps.

After everything dried, I excitedly brought it all in to put back into place.  The thread rack and lamp I instantly loved.

Thread rack up close

Thread rack a little further away

silver lamp with new PINK shade

I adore the pink shade I got for the lamp and plan to put some white pom trim on the bottom of it.  I'll try to take some pictures at a different time of day to get the colors to look better.  The pink really pops against the blue wall.

The cork board frame looks a little blah against the brown of the cork board, but I think once I cover it with my pretty fabric it will look pretty stellar.

What I'm not sold on are the frames.  I painted them white because I didn't the pink would look right with all 3 of the album covers they surround.  Once I got them on the wall, though, they just don't pop enough.  

I'm considering painting the two on the ends the same teal as the cabinets and the middle one pink.  What do you think?  My second thought would be to make them silver, but I don't think that would be much better than the white.  On the up side, the white is way better than the black!

Here's a little peek at the fabric I'm planning on using for the curtains and the cork board:

It's so perfect!  A white background with lots of pink and just a smidge of blue to match the walls.  I can't wait to see it all done.  That's my goal for the next week!  What's yours?

Weekend Pinterest Update

Even though I've been busy sewing towels and puttering in my craft room (or as my husband refers to it, "the pretty room"), I always have time for pinterest!  Here's a few of this weeks favorites!




I have a little niece or nephew on the way and he or she will be just about this size come Halloween. Aunt Lisa would love to help make an Ewok costume!



My silver sparkly TOMS will be needing a little facelift before too long and this would be perfect! Now to pick some fabric…



Rowan's baby school usually does a Valentine exchange and I think this might fun, and definitely unique! Surely making 25 wouldn't be too hard?

Don't forget, you can follow on Pinterest here and can track my progress on the Pretty Room here on Facebook!

Craft Room Fix-Up

When my in-laws came to visit over the holidays they rather unexpectedly decided to help us give my craft room / guest room a make-over. Here's a couple of before pictures:

Note the futon from college, the old, tiny desk, my mom's old sewing table, and a spare TV stand complete with tube TV.  Oh, and the hideous beige paint.  When we first moved in, that paint is all over the house and I'm on a mission to irradiate it.

My in-laws decided to help us buy a double bed and install a counter along one wall.  So out with all the hodgepodge furniture!  

Funny side story, we put all the furniture in the triangle, a.k.a the curb, a mysterious place where things magically disappear!  & yes, it did all disappear!

After the in-laws headed home and the holidays died down, I also went in and painted the entire room.

The old light had to go as well.  It's amazing what a difference a new light makes!

I am sooooo in love with this blue color!  It's Silent Breeze by Behr Ultra.  I want to paint those LP frames white.  The wall behind the counter needs something on it and I have a few ideas rolling around in my head.

Here's my little crafty corner with lots of storage!

My fabric is stored in mini bolts in that book case.

There's not only a lot more work space, but the whole room is bright and happy now :)  I have a bunch of little projects I'd like to work on to finish off the room  Stay tuned for more updates!

Also, check out my Facebook page to see more before pics and to stay up to date with my room make over!

Weekend Pinterest Update

I've been pretty busy getting my craft room painted this week, but there's always time for Pinterest!




I've been thinking about making Rowan a holiday/season themed quiet book one of these days. Wouldn't this guy be cute for Thanksgiving?



Directions for a sunflower house?! There's a corner of my yard that may need one of these this spring for me…I mean for Rowan!



If this doesn't give you baby fever, I don't know what will.

Stay tuned for post about the newly painted craft room. The paint made an epic change! I just need to wait until morning to get some good pictures. Meanwhile, don't forget to follow me here on Pinterest!

Better Late Than Never

The past few years my neighbor and I have exchanged Christmas presents, not just for ourselves, but also for our kids.  I really like to make (and receive!) hand-made gifts and this year I stumbled across a super cute pattern from Wild Olive.

It's a felt ginger bread house!  How adorable is this thing?  I hand sewed all of the pieces, but the real time sucker was the cutting.  The pictures don't show a big pile of little candies.  Actually, you can see some of them in the little baggy to the right of the house.  My little neighbor girls are little young for the tiny pieces this year, but in another year or two I think they'll have a good time decorating the house to the nines.  And mom will appreciate this gift because this way her girls can get the gingerbread house experience without all the sticky, crumbly mess.

I'd really love to make one of these for Rowan, but he's not really in that type of thing.  If I could somehow add gears and/or wheels, though, he'd be all over it!

Oh, I don't' think I mentioned that I just finished it today.  December 30.  Oops.  I also have a stack of tea towels to embroider for some other friends.  Maybe they will turn in to New Years gifts.  Or Valentines gifts….

What's the latest you've ever given/received a Christmas gift?

My First Real Tree!

Squeeee!  Ever since I've had Rowan, I've gotten extra excited about the holidays.  Having a little one just adds a whole new dimension to the fun.  

One of the traditions that my family always did every year was to go to a little local Christmas tree farm and cut down our own tree.  I really wanted to continue that tradition this year.  This is the first year that we're actually staying home for Christmas and now that Rowan is 2 1/2, I figured it would be a good time to start.

Sadly, the really nice trees aren't native to Southern California, so even though we went to a Christmas tree farm where you can cut your own tree, we decided to go with a pre-cut.  Here's what the native trees look like:

Pretty, but not ideal for hanging ornaments on.

Here's the one that we picked out:

It really didn't look that big.  Until we got it inside.  It just barely fit!

More importantly, though, (or at least the point of this blog) was how I decorated it.  I started my making a tree skirt.  Good ol' Pinterest to the rescue!  I found this awesome idea, bought a bunch of felt,  and then packed it all up with me when I went to visit the family in Kansas back in October.  I'm in LOVE with how it turned out!

I think after this year I might add some bling to it.  Maybe some sequins or some gems….

The other thing I made was a garland from hemp twine and matching felt circles.  I cut the circles out with my Cricut to save on time.  Then, since you have to have Heat 'n Bond on the felt in order to cut it with the Cricut, I just ironed two circles together with the twine in-between.  

The garland is a little hard to see here, and of course my camera seemed to have eaten the picture I took of just the garland, but you can still see it peaking through in places.  Same as the skirt, I think I want to bling it out a little bit for next year to make it pop more.  I was originally thinking sequins, but there are sooooo many circles.  It would take me clear until next Christmas to finish it!  I'm making maybe a big sparkly gem in the middle of each one.  

I also have a Barbie tree I put up every year.  Once it's all finished I'll take some pics and make another post!