Friday, August 19, 2016

Striped Canvas Artwork

This striped canvas is one of the easiest pieces of art you may ever create yourself.  But it's pretty enough you could sell it at Home Goods for 5x what it actually took to make it! Make it as big or as small as you want, just pick whatever size canvas you want!


 Spray paint the canvas gold, be sure to get the edges. Create a straight line to start taping.
 Tape, tape, tape, making the spaces any size you want.  For sanity (and no math) purposes, I just make every stripe the same width.  Be sure they're nice and stuck.
 Then paint away!  I actually changed the colors of the stripes a few times, so don't be afraid to 
paint over a color that just doesn't look right. Let it dry before you take the tape off.
I settled on mustard yellow, off-white, sage, light grey, teal, light pink, bright purple, light blue, & one dark strip of navy. I repeated some of the colors. Look at that metallic shine! And when people ask where you got your gorgeous canvas from, you can yell "I MADE IT!"...I mean quietly, humbly tell them that you whipped it up yourself.




Wednesday, August 17, 2016

School Desk Makeover


A few weeks...maybe even months ago...I jumped on a desk & chair that was being sold by a local interior designer on instagram.  I knew it would fit perfectly as my nightstand and little work area in our bedroom.  Here's a quick before picture:

And plenty of afters.... I chose a bright royal blue for the upper portion and a slightly matte gold for the legs.  I repainted the chair white and gave it a new cushion cover.


The top is my favorite part and it was one of those, "I-really-hope-this-works" experiments & it turned out even better than I imagined.  The faux-wood metal top makes me heart sing! I still want to replace the lamp, but I'm still waiting for the perfect one to pop out at me.


Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Snapshots of Summer


This summer seemed to fly by!  We were lucky to be able to go up to the mountains  a few times, thanks to wonderful family & friends who graciously opened their homes to us.  And a fun family retreat that we already can't wait to do again!  In between those trips we spent lots of time on the lake with family & thanks to my awesome brother, my son got to surf for the first time!






  We had swimming, birthdays, family time, my Air Force brother visit, and overall a great summer!  I hope you all had some relaxation time, as well & are ready to get back to school!

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Back To School Decor

It's the most wonderful time of the year! No, not Christmas....BACK TO SCHOOL!  It's been an amazing summer packed full of trips, lots of family time making memories, escaping to cooler mountain weather, and late nights.  But now we have to get back into early mornings and this year my little one is starting kindergarten!  I can hardly believe it.

I created a mantle to get me back in the mindset of learning and so we can hopefully ALL get excited about our new "big boy school" that I've been talking up all summer long.




 This table came together easily with things I already had in the house, and of course the giant ceramic apple from Target's dollar spot...which I may be planning on turning into a teacher's gift.


Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Favorite Things Birthday Party

I wanted to share a few details from the little birthday party that I threw for my son's 5th birthday.  I had 2 ideas for it...simple & swim party.  I came up with the idea to do a "favorite things" party, but mostly just adapted that to the favor bags.  
Since the party was small & would be mostly in the pool, I kept myself from doing anything else extravagant or not worth the effort for 5 year olds!  For our invitations, I wrote on some french fry containers from Hobby Lobby, to share the details of the party.
I threw in some favorite color blue paper & stuffed it full of french fries...another favorite!
So we swam, ate ice cream sandwiches, opened presents & swam some more!  Easy, the kids loved it & I was stress free!  The favor bag items were handpicked by the birthday boy himself.
The blue paper bags had a tag attached that read, "Blue paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of Clayton's favorite things".  I threw on some tickets & bakers twine for cute decor purposes!

Picking out the items was a fun event in itself, and made my son even more excited for his party.  A whoopee cushion, a coloring book pack (each one was different), slinky, Lego packs (from Target), M&M's, Z-bar, and of course blue bubbles.
This may have been the simplest party I've ever thrown and I did have to control myself a LOT, but I think it turned out awesome!