Happy Autumn!

Alright, so money is, well I hate to say tight because thats not entirely true. I know what its like to have money be tight. Lets just say money isn't currently as abundant or comfortable as we would like it to be, so we're trying to save and penny pinch where we can. I suppose it has a lot to do with our big list of dreams, like fencing in 1/4 of an acre on our property so our dogs can run around (fences are way more expensive than I thought!), ripping up all our carpeting and laying new hardwood floors (about half the house), painting (again), then the usual things like slowly chipping away at car payments and student loans. Car payments and student loans are not as bad as they could be, though I still hate considering them 'debt' and I just wish to be debt free. It seems sometimes you have to dig yourself in a bit further before you can dig yourself out. Hopefully soon enough I'll be working a real grown up job (excited!) instead of my usual holiday part time (not that I don't love that either).

But just because we like to pinch pennies doesn't mean I want to live in the saddest least festive house in the neighborhood, so armed with coupons and a strict budget of $20 I went to Michaels with the determination of making a wreath... and I totally won. Made this cute little guy, for around $11!!!

Wreath: $4.99 + 40% off coupon
Felt: 2 sheets @ $0.29 each.
(I actually bought 4 ivory, 3 gold, and 3 purple but only used 1 ivory and 1 gold)
Needles: Around $2
Thread: Around $2
I already had a hot glue gun so all I had to do was follow the simple instructions to make the flowers that I found here. I added a step though!

When I finished looping on the 5th petal I put the needle and thread back through the first petal (to secure it, then I tugged it tight, lay the thread across the back of the flower diagonally, hot glued it down, then snipped off the end of the thread. I just wanted to make sure the flowers stayed tight and I wasn't taking it down and fixing it all fall.

When I finished doing that to all the flowers I rearranged them a million times and finally glued them onto the wreath. I think it looks a lot better than a naked door.

Happy Autumn! I think I like the asymmetry of it, but should I add a few scattered flowers on the other side?

Someday Maybe...

Welp, it's been a few weeks ... so that means its time to redo our bedroom!

Sadly, I'm quite serious. Can't stick to just one thing. I had done it over with a beautiful quilt from target, really soft teal sheets, and light seafoam walls. Very relaxy and such. Hubby says its too bright. Black and white it is! I know that can be very bright but he seems the like the idea better. More masculine, though he claims he doesn't care.

Right now I'm just looking for inspiration, it will be a while til we can get that done because our little fur-baby had a suprise $1,500 trip to the vet for emergency surgery. He's fine now but that set us back quite a bit.

Do you have any rooms in your house/bookmarked favorite inspiration in black and white? Even with some neutrals mixed in! If anyone can leave me with comments of images or ideas I'd really appreciate it. Thank you!

It's Been Months! ... Not Much Has Changed

So I feel awful logging in this morning and seeing I haven't updated on here in over 2 months. Not that many people will notice but I feel like that is a terribly long time. Even so I'm going to update now. Not much in the house has changed. Still floundering on paint colors, can't make a decision on window treatments, currently not working, but did buy a new car. Go figure!

My most recent change would have to be this.

My husband's first reaction was 'it looks like a kids table' (he did like it though when I asked him yes or no, his favorite color is green!) but I like the pop of color, and if we have kids it will be fun. I considered changing either the table or the chairs to white but for the time being I like it a lot better than it was. The legs were black and the table top and chair top were a brown wood grain. Only problem was the finish was completely ruined. But let me back up my decision on the bold colors here. The entire room is going to be inspired off of this small kitchen rug my husband found.

The colors are much more vibrant in person. Darn iphones. The walls of the room are neutral and I want to do fairly neutral curtains because I change my mind too often, but I really wanted to get lots of blues and greens into the room. We live in a new subdivision where every house is more or less the same inside. I want mine to look as different as possible from the cookie cutter that everyone fills in. DH and I love blues and greens so why not!

The only other thing I've really done since then was yesterday was my friend's son's first birthday! I made him cupcakes, that was interesting.

Mickey Mouse themed party! He liked them, that was all I needed.

What has everyone else been up to these past few months?

My Living Room Disaster Area

I desperately need to find stuff to finish my living room. If you saw it now you'd probably have a decorators heart attack and die. I will post a quick picture just so you can see how badly I'm suffering.

Now this is a good news bad news thing. Good news, it looks way better in the picture than it does in person! Bad news, it looks way better in the picture than it does in person!

Lets splain. I do everything at the same time, or nothing at all. Example. Didn't date for 19 years. At all. What so ever. Met, Drew. "Dated" (long distance, emails, skype dates while he was deployed with no official relationship status), dated in person: 3 hours, got engaged, 2 months later moved, 1 month later married. BAM. Thats how I get things done.

And that is how things end up like this. Messy. (Not our marriage, our marriage is awesome! I found the only guy in the world who can handle me for long periods of time, can make me laugh even when I'm super grumpy, shares my appreciation for the ninja turtles, and loves egg salad sandwiches. eHarmony can't give you that kind of chemistry!)

So what happened hear is kitchen table (bottom left corner). Shortly after moving in (like an hour) mover lady knocked over one of my scented wall things and I didn't notice til the next day. Finish on the table was ruined in a few ugly blobs. We still blame me for this and I'm okay with it. in the old house I bought a runner to cover it, in this house the runner isn't good enough so I grab a bucket of white paint and paint the top of the table. I don't like it. Haven't finished yet, either painting it black and adding a few coats of poly or getting rid of it. Can't decide, need to decide on colors for the rest of the room first. Also Drew kindly sanded down the chairs a bit for me so I could paint them, so I have super smooth chairs that look awful because th finish is gone, and a table that doesn't look good.

Giant blue thing. Started like this.

Ugly. So I painted it. Blue. Took it outside and happily doused it in paint while getting a sunburn. I decided to start this project at 2 in the afternoon. It was 96 degrees out and according to the weather 'felt like 102'. I ran back and forth a lot. Unfortunately we do not have a garage we can do this in. As I continue to paint, and am about to put on a coat of poly.... here come rainclouds. We hadn't had rain for about 2... 2 and a half weeks. Grabbed Drew and we ran it back inside and put it on trash bags in the middle of our kitchen floor so it wouldn't get ruined. I would put the poly on inside to just get it done and deal with the suffocation, but my fur babies would totally rub against it, ruin it, and their fur.

Since then... as of some sort of miracle... we have not had a SINGLE day where it hasn't been predicted not to rain. Good news! Thursday looks like my day! Then I just have to buy new drawer pulls!

Now addressing, giant cardboard boxes (yes, there are 2... its Wheres Waldo! Can you find them both?) Couch (grey couch, who has its back facing us) just got here from O.co the other day (yeaaa $2.95 shipping!) and I'm in loooove. We just set it up and its awesome. Of course, our trash/recycle day was yesterday, and my husband does the breaking down of boxes, because he came home one day right before our real wedding and he saw me breaking down boxes of wedding gifts with an old dull kitchen knife and I almost sliced my wrist open. Well, he didn't break down these boxes... and now he will say that they won't pick it up until Monday so he will break them down on Sunday. I disagree. This needs to get done now...so we don't look so trashy.

Small ugly carpet. $20 at Walmart. It was brown, on sale, and it helps muffle some of the sound. Giant golden fluffy retriever has already eaten a corner. Good thing I didn't get that awesome West Elm rug first!

Very masculine leather couch in front of the windows. Is on its way out. Husbands couch from before we were married, super comfy... except for the bottomless pit corner where his old dog ate through the leather and a lot of the stuffing, then yellow fluffy dog helped the process and ripped out more stuffing when he was a baby. So super comfy, but destroyed. Also much too masculine for what I want in the main room... and its too big to fit down the hall into the man-cave as it barely fit in our front door.

Ugly red curtains on tension rods. Well, those windows behind them are 24'' wide, we will have to attach blinds to the top because they don't have sides unless I can find an 84'' blind... we have 3 of those windows, 84'' blinds are approx $350 per window... $350 * 3 = WAAAAY TOO MUCH MONEY ($1050 before tax) though if we get them at Lowes I think we can get the auto 10% discount on custom blinds and 10% military discount. Which should bring it to $850.50... but thats only if we get both discounts and then add tax. Still too expensive. So we're trying to figure out how to make 27'' blinds work (they sort of will?) and then add a non-obtrusive curtain rod and find pannels that I like. Red curtains are up there only because you can see in our front windows to our bedroom at night and we don't like that, there is a glare on the tv without them because its super sunny, tension rods are only $5 at target and I already have had those red curtains for about 10 years, and Husband likes to live in a cave.

Things you can see in the room? Giant dog fur dust bunnies that could eat small children (even though I groomed the dogs outside 2 days ago and vacuumed yesterday), the fact that my sink is full of dishes because I made popcorn last night after running the dishwasher and didn't feel like emptying it (stove top popcorn is the best), my pretty white table (from my first post) with all of Husband's work hats (because apparently thats what its for... now that I made it pretty), and the large paint sample we painted on the wall. But that last part is good, because now I don't think it's going to work!

Phew! That took a while. Well, I'm still planning different ideas for the room. I think we're leaning towards green and blue accents but I want to keep the room bright! I found all this black furniture I love, I just wish it came in white. It seems silly to buy $80 end tables just to paint them.

I'll be posting some ideas up soon and I could really use some options and advice, so please check back!!

Paint It White!

I have this problem where I so desperately want my house to look bright and clean that I just want to paint everything WHITE! Problem is.. well a few things. 1. I have 2 dogs... 2 dogs who like to shed.

Cute, right? No. There is SO MUCH EVIL packed into these two dogs. But I love them. Sorry for the bad quality photos, these were taken on my phone. My Golden Retriever is about to turn 1 in a few weeks, and my Corgi turns 7 in August. Corgi was born and raised in New England, now that we live in NC hes having a hard time adapting to the heat, he has a double coat (blessed with a thick head of hair like his mama) which already shed a lot, now I do marathon brushings every day, vacuum every other day, and I still look like I have dust bunnies that could eat small children.

So I had to say no to white furniture, and pretty much everything clean looking. The Golden sheds hairs longer than my hair. He also likes to run around and whip up all the fur he can into the air, and roll around on my bed... a lot.

2. My husband can get dirty at work and his boots come in the house and his uniforms get tossed aside and sometimes they are dirty too. I don't want them ruining everything!

I'd love to have a fuzzy white rug in our living area but that seems to just be asking for trouble with the dogs, the husband, and in the future children...

So now I'm stumped on how to make my living room look bright. I have a gray sofa we just bought, I'm in love with it because fur just brushes right off. I figured I could add a white throw pillow to brighten in, but I can't decide on colors for the rest of the room. I like blues and greens but I want it to stay bright. If anyone has any inspiration photos please let me know! My living room is a disaster at the moment.

My Menagerie

So, you all probably don't know, but might have received a hint from previous posts that I have an obsession with white ceramic/glass animals. So much so that my best friend and I designed an entire kitchen and living room around a ceramic glass owl pitcher that she bought (for $40 and it was SO worth it) before I got married. We never got our apartment together because things started to move a bit faster with Drew and I, but I miss her, and that pitcher.

Then recently I bought my white giraffe lamp (you can see it in 'The Deals' tab, or in my older TJ Maxx post!) which I am in love with, and trying to be good I passed over a white ceramic owl the other day at TJ Maxx. Woke up at 5 am the next day, regretting it, and was at TJ Maxx for when they opened to find out that someone else bought it!!! (I trolled the aisles for over an hour.. and my TJ Maxx is small).

Well, I am crippled here because we only have 1 small TJ Maxx and nothing else. No Marshalls, no HomeGoods. Rarely does my TJ Maxx have good stuff. Though I did find a ton of furniture I LOVED the other day, my couch isn't here yet so I don't know what will go. I found a gray nail head bench that would make an adorable window seat but the bottom is a bit flimsy, as in I sit on it and I feel like my butt is going to fall through the other side. I would pay $40-50 for it, but not $80 because my Golden Retriever will probably hop on it and break it.

I've had to expand my search for awesome ceramic animals to online. I have found a few things I love and I thought I would share it with you. (Also, I am very picky about type of animal, go figure.)

Elephant Teapot : Amazon.com $15.99. 

If Drew asks this is what I want for our 1 year anniversary!

Large Owl Pitcher: $25.43 from amazon.com

This is the same pitcher she bought for $40 a year ago!

Owl Umbrella Stand/Vase: $134.41 from amazon.com

I've seen this in person... and its awesome!!

Ceramic Giraffe Sculplture: Jonathan Adler $120 

This giraffe also comes in lamps and wall sconces!

Elephant Salt and Pepper Shakers: Jonathan Adler $48 

SO CUTE!!

Whale Pitcher: Jonathan Adler $95

This is so so so so so cute!

Jonathan Adler's website has so may cute animals its really worth it to go check it out! That and lots of other lovely things!!!

Hope you're all having a great day! 

If I Could Do It All Again: Wedding

I would still marry the same guy. Hands down, the best man I've ever known (next to my daddy!) and I'm so lucky to have him, but my wedding day wasn't what I expected it to be. I had dreams of a grand wedding, and dreams of an adorable backyard wedding. My wedding fell in between, and not a good in between. I had fun, but I wish I had spent so much less on it doing what I wanted rather than what it seemed like my family was pushing and pulling for.

Drew and I were married in October in the courthouse, my family pushed for a 'wedding' within 6 months. I wanted a wedding in April or May but his parents were busy and wouldn't have been able to come. I would have been happy to keep waiting for any time during the summer. I'm glad it's done and that we can move on, but in the house we are in now it would have been perfect. We would have been married on the front steps. And I've already picked out clothes again!

Wedding Dress: $150 on Modcloth.com
My dress was $1,600 Paloma Blanca

 Maid Of Honor Dress: JCrew $168
My sister is a redhead so would object to wearing coral, but would wear coral accents. Besides, I like pattern and shes special so I would have wanted her to stand out if it wasn't just her.

Bridesmaids would have worn a bright red coral. This dress is from Modcloth as well. $137.99  My sisters dress as my maid of honor was less expensive than this, but still. I could have also had my best friend be a bridesmaid instead of just my sister at my side.

My wedding was lovely, but I wanted to carry big red gerber daisies, wear coral heels with white polka dots, have a big bbq with my family in my backyard and dance under the stars. If I could do it all again I would. And spend only a fraction of what I spent, and I think everyone would have had more fun too!