Update: New Sofa!

Alright, i know i'm bad at this, but what's a girl to do right?? So funny story, Chris a couple weeks ago says to me, "the next time we get a new couch, it's going to be big, leather, and have arms!" Well, he should know better than to bring up buying things up because since he never does, i jump right on it. Especially since i bring up buying things ALL the time. Anyway, so i had been seeing different posts on sofas and even though it wasn't leather, told him i wanted to go look at the EKTORP white slipcover sofa at ikea.

I just thought it had great lines and every girl loves a white sofa right?? I mean, compared to the white sofa we were looking to replace, this one looked more comfortable and it had arms, so why not go check it out right?? Wrong! Chris hated it! The one thing he always says he hates about ikea is that since he's 6'2" he feels like he's free falling for 10 seconds before he hits the couch. And, it wasn't leather! Which i wasn't too stoked about looking for in the first place. I know i had seen pretty leather couches, but WAY over my desired price range. So after about 15 minutes of being in ikea (shortest time i've ever been in there) we headed to the car, my full intention to head home. Chris on the other hand saw the furniture row across the way and suggested we go into SofaMart. Well two hours, one ivory barcelona chair, and one 8' brown leather sofa later, we headed home! That's right, we made an unexpected purchase that i don't think Chris has ever been more excited about! Him being the sweet husband he is bought me this sofa before we got married and i really have loved it, i did pick it out after all. But i have to say, since this is probably the only say i'll ever let him have in our home decor, that i'm very excited and think it's great! So in about 13 months we went from this beauty....

to this gorgeous piece of furniture....

okay so no i didn't get this one from restoration hardware exactly, but it was the closest pic i could find. These are actual pics from my instagram...

So we're on our way home totally happy with our purchase, and so anxious for 2 weeks to just fly by, when chris says he wants to now change our coffee table. So not only are we selling a couch and an ottoman to make room, we're doing a new coffee table. We decided to make a custom wood top table with hairpin legs. The legs haven't come yet, but Chris finished the table top and it looks amazing!

Also added to the family....

Love Candy Print Mint & Gold by jenniferramos at MadeByGirl $35.00

West Elm Pinstripe Pillow Cover , $14.99 on sale!

And then the nice table top chris made that we propped on 2 chairs to see how it would look....

ignore our rental rug and the lighting coming in from the window. Chris took this pic since he just couldn't wait. Hoping to replace that rug with one of these.

Well, until next time....

DIY: Master Bedroom Gallery Wall

Okay i know i'm the worst blogger in the world! One because i haven't blogged in a week, and two because when i do blog, i take pictures at night and i know it's ridiculous! I promise i will get better, as soon as my work slows down a little bit, which to be honest won't be until the end of April, but the day will come....

Okay, so this isn't really a DIY but it was another step in the right direction for our master bedroom. I decided that on the wall opposite of the sunburst above our dresser that i love, that i would make a gallery wall. All i did was take pictures and frames that we already have and arrange them on our kitchen floor and hang it on the wall....

Sorry that there are a million pictures, and i haven't figured out at all how i'm going to style our dresser, but i did buy that cute little gem this weekend at TJMaxx for $9.99 and i think it is so adorable!

Be looking out this week for my first guest blogger to post on Lucy Schwartz, and if you don't already, i know you'll love her.....

FREE Printable & Gift for the Sunbeams

Almost immediately after Chris and I got married, we were called to teach sunbeams, which for those of you who don't know is the group of kids in our Church who are 2 yrs. turning 3. At the end of the year when they were about to move up to another class, we were debating what we should give them. We didn't want it to be too expensive (they are 3 after all) and didn't want it to be something that they weren't old enough to understand. The age group they were graduating to are called sunbeams so we came up with this as a gift for them...

Pink for the girls, orange for the boys. Then we got these 4x6" TOLSBY frames from ikea for $0.99 a piece and it made the perfect gift.

They're a thick plastic and in my opinion not cheap feeling or looking, so i loved it. If you like the print you can right click and save the image and print is as a 5x7" or a 4x6".

I designed it the same way i did this invitation for a friend's baby shower. And if you're asking if i will ever get sick of chevron or over it, the answer is NO!

Enjoy!

*if you want me to change the color of the letters on the "sunbeam" print to match your child's room, just let me know and i'll email it to you!

DIY: Anthropologie Inspired Zinc Letters

I love these letters (and everything else) from Anthropologie, but with a $98.00 price, it just wasn't the right time to order one. So i know i'm not the first one to try this, and i also know that this isn't the one-and-only tutorial on how to do this, but i tried it with the silvery paints and it did not turn out the way i planned. Then i stumbled across this tutorial on Sugar and Charm. As much as i love that she chose to spell out 'EAT', i decided to buy 2 different sized 'M's (for Middleton) and do that!

SUPPLIES
Black acrylic paint, Folk Art pearl paint, cardboard letters (you can use wood if you want) and a foam paint brush.

DIRECTIONS
Paint the letters all black and let them dry. Acryllic paint dries really fast as long as you don't load it on too thick, which you won't need to do. Then, dip your brush into the pearl paint and use long strokes to paint over the black. This silver coat will give it the texture and depth it needs to look like a matte metal. If it looks to white, just keep spreading the paint from that spot. The less paint and the longer the strokes on this the better. My sister who has never painted anything in her life got it right away!

The top one is about 12" tall and the bottom one is at least double that tall! I really promise i will take better pictures tonight and update this tomorrow, but this really is a project that i love. I honestly think this is the first one i did after we got married, and i haven't gotten sick of them. I keep moving them around to different places of course, but they're so versatile they can really go anywhere. I hope it's as successful for everyone else as it was for me.

Re-Styling Inspiration

So i was looking at Clementine + Olive today, and came across such a good idea that i love and i'm totally going to try when i get home....

The second picture would be easier to do like now/tonight since i don't have a darling little stool like the first one, but since i have convinced Chris that it's a good idea to save up and get a new bed and new bedding, i think a little stool like that has to make it into the design scheme somehow, don't you?? Plus, i already have the faux version of this from ikea....

This one is $29.99 which is a good price for sure, but i wasn't sure if i was going to like it or not so i was really wishy-washy about buying it. Then one day i went with my mom to look for something completely different, and they now have a faux version for $9.99!!! You can tell it's fake by the back of it, but i honestly like the faux one better...they don't have it online for some reason, but i promise it is in the Draper ikea and will not disappoint. Especially if you want one for a DIY like this, or just as a little accent. So perfect!

DIY: Better Homes and Gardens Terrarium Tutorial

I am a total sucker for TJMaxx!! I go there all the time to try and find whatever i can to make our house even more beautiful! There and HomeGoods will be the end of me, or the end of my access to our bank account maybe...

So this project began at TJMaxx and was ALL Chris. I cannot grow anything, like, anything. He is the one who buys and waters and cares for our plants. So we went into the TJMaxx in Santa Maria, CA while on vacation to see what it had to offer that the ones here in Utah just don't. I couldn't find anything that was perfect, but lo and behold Chris found this x-large apothecary jar that we couldn't leave the store without buying. We had both read the article by Tovah Martin in BHG about terrariums, and he had been pretty set on the idea since then. So the directions are the exact same ones we used. Even though i'm not the one who cares for it, it is the easiest plant we have to care for. Hers a really pretty, but i'm happy with our TJMaxx compared to her Crate & Barrel's.

HOW TO Plant a Terrarium:
All you need; a clear container, soil, and a plant says Tovah Martin

PROVIDE DRAINAGE
Put an inch of 3/8 inch pebbles in the bottom of the container. Mix in a handful of horticultural charcoal to keep moist soil smelling sweet.

POUR IN POTTING SOIL
Add 2-3 inches of light potting soil that contains lots of peat, such as African violet medium. Tamp it down to remove air pockets.

DIG A LITTLE HOLE
No trowel needed! Make a planting pocket with your finger. Set the plant in and firm the soil around it. Make sure no roots are exposed.

WATER LIGHTLY
Dampen the soil until water drips into the stones. Don't use the misters or sprayers, Tovah says: "They make more of a mess than they moisten the soil."

KEEP IT GROWING
Water an open terrarium when the soil looks dry or you can no longer see water in the stones - every 7-10 days or so. A closed one can go for two weeks or more between waterings. Remove spent flowers and leaves as soon as they appear. Wipe the glass, inside and out, occasionally with a clean cloth.

This is how Chris' turned out and it looks really awesome! It's pretty tall and it's a really good natural decoration that not even someone like me could kill!

DIY: Gold Leaf Zig-zag Tray

So I pinned this tray forever ago on Pinterest knowing that I wanted to redo the tray I already had, when I had the time of course. So while i was finishing up Christmas presents and Chris was bored without having to study, he offered to help. I wish I had taken pictures of the step by step process, but if there are questions, just feel free to ask...

This is the tray that i fell in love with from upintheairsomewhere.com, but with a $98.00 price tag, and also already owning a perfectly good tray, the only way i could justify it was as a Christmas list item or a DIY. DIY it was.

All we did was buy FolkArt Gold Acryllic paint and painted over the entire tray. Now i was a little nervous about this. We looked at the gold-leafing option so it could be more like the original, but with never doing it we didn't want to ruin the tray. The other problem was, i wasn't sure how acryllic paint would do after putting painters tape over it, but that was the easier thing to fix if it didn't go well. I taped the stripes as closely as i could to replicate the original. Chris rolled over the Behr Ultra White Matte indoor house paint. And then came the hiccup...

When we excitedly peeled up the paint, there were a few spots where the gold acryllic came with it. We quickly got more gold paint and some touch-up brushes and Chris used his skills and touched it up. We also got come clear coat sealant to spray over the top to hopefully make it more durable. Was it everything i thought it would be??

I seriously could not have been happier! Especially for less than $10.00 total compared to $98.00...um, hello?!? Of course this was the better option. It's obviously not as shiny as it is with the gold-leafing, but it again satisfied my gold fix.