decorating Archives - Page 12 of 13

Falling for My Mantle

September 30, 2011 By Shannah 2 Comments

Our house doesn’t present too many challenges (despite my usual complaining to the contrary). It has a great open floor plan with very few things that really need “fixing”. I always struggle with decorating our family room mantle though. It presents so many challenges for me.

Challenge 1: The height. One of the things I loved/love most about our house is the 2 story family room. But with the two story family room comes a very tall space to fill above the fireplace.

Challenge 2: The framing. The builders of our house didn’t choose to put in the gorgeous stone above the fireplace but, instead put up moulding that created frames up to the ceiling. It kind of puts an end to hanging anything above the mantle.

Those challenges caused me to quake in fear at the thought of decorating my mantle. Seriously, I would practically break out in hives from the “stress”. When we first moved in, I shoved some bamboo filler into a plain glass vase and it has lived there ever since.

Exciting, right? Yeah, not really. It’s ok…I know.
Inspired by all of the beautiful fall decorations I’ve seen while cruising (and partying) around the web, I decided to take action. Like a lot of my projects, I didn’t really have a plan in mind but knew I wanted to do something.
I carved out about 30 minutes of shopping time on the way home one day and hit my usual trifecta of places

I pretty much went in and grabbed anything that looked like it might work. Then, I went home and “shopped” what I already owned too.
Supplies gathered; I started putting random things on the mantle and giving them a 15 minute grace period. If I still liked it after 15 minutes, it stayed. If not, it went into the reject pile.

My first attempt didn’t feel like it was tall enough OR filled up the mantle quite like I wanted. More changes.

I changed and changed and changed until I was satisfied. I added a taller mirror (already owned) and, even though it isn’t 100% the style I wanted, it fills up the space better.

I also added an additional candle holder and candle thanks to a suggestion by Junior.

I switched out one of the pumpkins for a larger one.

Finally, I was done tweaking (at least for now) and stayed with

And yes, that is the same bamboo that was there before but changed up a little. Oh, and you can see how much of a hurry I was in when trying to get this together (it was a “while dinner cooks project”) because I forgot a tag on one of the pumpkins. Oops!
A few details of some of the items up there for fun:

How is your mantle looking these days? Have a lot of fall decorating happening? My next room to tackle for fall will be the dining room!

Partying at:
The Fall Ya’ll Link Party at The Lettered Cottage

Scrapping It

September 29, 2011 By Shannah 2 Comments

Did you hear? We are redecorating our bedroom! That means new paint, new art and new a lot of other things. Knowing that Mathlete is indulging me in this because he knows I will try to do it as budget friendly as possible, I’ve been playing around with different things for accents in the room. The first thing I did was frame some scrapbook paper to make “art”. Nothing fancy but it would look good on a dresser or bookcase.
I bought some solid blue and printed green scrapbook paper from Michael’s. Using the frame mat from my Ribba frame, I measured out the paper. I wanted the blue paper to be the large piece so I used the outer edge of the mat as my guide for cutting.

For the green printed paper, I just cut the paper the inner edges of the frame mat.

I put them both together and into the frame.

A quick and easy decorative item for our new bedroom! Total cost: $5.32 ($4.99 frame + $.33 scrapbook paper (2 pieces on sale for $.16 each))

Have you done any quick and easy art lately? Undertaking a major bedroom redo?

Guest Room Art

September 26, 2011 By Shannah 18 Comments

Awhile back, I was reading one of my favorite blogs and she had done some linen artwork as a ‘look for less’ post.
Her finished product was gorgeous. I thought that something alongs those lines would be a simple solution for the artwork in our guest room.

Unfortunately, the paper that she was used was sold out. So, I went on the hunt for other neat paper that I could for the project. I ended up purchasing two handcut sheets from Etsy.

On one of my recent shopping trips to the fabric store, I picked up some burlap. I chose it over linen simply because of the price tag. The burlap was 3.99/yard and the linen was $12.99/yard.

I had Mathlete pick up two Ribba frames from Ikea in the 20 x 20 size since that is what best accomodated my paper.

Then, I measured and marked the fabric for my frames.

Because the 20×20 frames have a floating mat, I also had to cut that down because I wanted to use its weight to keep my fabric in place.

Once I had everything cut, I used fabric glue and glued my paper down to each piece of fabric.

I left it there to dry for awhile. I put the fabric into the frames and closed them up.

Now I just need to get Mathlete to hang them in the bedroom (along with about a million other items around the house!) and that room will be almost complete!

This post is partying at the following locations:

Making Monday Marvelous at C.R.A.F.T., I Made the World Cuter Today at Making the World Cuter, Motivate Me Monday at Keeping it Simple, Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch, Get Your Craft on Tuesday at Today’s Creative Blog, Tutorial Tuesday at With Hope Studios, Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays at Coastal Charm, Anything Related at All Thingz Related, Take a Look Tuesday at Sugar Bee Crafts, Tip Me Tuesday at Tip Junkie, Hoo’s Got Talent at Nightowl Crafting, Show & Share at Southern Lovely, Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts, Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Designs, Penny Pinching Party at The Thrifty Home, Fall in Love with Your Home at Décor to Adore, We’re Organized Wednesday at Organize and Decorate Everything, 100 Ideas Under $100 at Beyond the Picket Fence, Coffee and Conversation Thursday at With a Shot of Brandy, Strut Your Stuff at Somewhat Simple, Hooking up with HoH at House of Hepworths, Doggone Dirty Craftin at Rhinestone Beagle, Look at Me, I’m so Crafty at It’s Fun to Craft, Craft, Scrappy Happy Me Thursday at Craft, Scappy Happy, Feature Yourself Friday at Fingerprints on the Fridge, Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous, Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring Decorating, The Pity Party at 30 Days, the Weekend Wrap-up Party at Tatertots and Jello, The Exodus Creativity Party at Let Birds Fly, Show and Tell Saturday at Be Different, Act Normal, and the Before and After Party at Thrifty Décor Chick.

Halloween Spider Wreath – Going on a CraDat

September 22, 2011 By Shannah 76 Comments

Like how I just created a new word up there? I know you do! Here is another one for you: Shaliz. Look at that one like you do celebrity couples where they smash their two names together to make one ridiculous name. No, I didn’t drink a bottle of wine and (surprisingly) have gotten a decent amount of sleep so I’m not dilirious either. So, what am I talking about? A Halloween spider wreath of course.

On Friday, I had a Craft Date with Liz! See Cra + dat = CraDat. (Sorry but crate would have been too easy and would have ruined my word making up mojo!) Shannah (me!) + Liz = Shaliz. So, now that you’ve been entrusted with a handy, dandy Just Us Four decoder ring (keep it handy, you never know when I might throw out a new word), I can get into the details of our cradat.

Like all good (and bad) things, the idea for this sprung from Pinterest.

Liz and I are both pretty addicted and constantly repin each others’ finds. So, Liz decided we needed to get together and make some of our pins. Dozens of emails and texts (you’re welcome, Verizon, for all the money you got from those texts) later, our cradat was born and a project was chosen. A halloween wreath. What? Are you surprised we are making a wreath? Do you even read this blog? 🙂
We started with a few inspiration pictures:

[Etsy], [The Speckled Dog], [Tater Tots and Jello], [Indie Fixx] via Pinterest

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A new place to sleep

September 15, 2011 By Shannah 1 Comment

My husband loves me. I mean really really loves me. How do I know this? He indulges my whims (on most occasions) and barely flinches when I say the words: Completely redo the master bedroom and bathroom. Now, to be honest, I said barely flinches because there was some brief complaining on his part. But then, he agreed and even went so far as to return the 1000 fabric swatches I had borrowed from Joann’s on his way home one afternoon.
Let’s go back though so you might see why I want to repaint two rooms that we just painted about 1.5 years ago. When we moved into our house, I planned to paint every room. I prefer to have the house painted when I move in. There are pros and cons to that plan but it does save a TON of furniture moving. I got stuck when it came to our bedroom/bathroom. My solution: just paint it what it was in our old house. All our stuff matched and we liked the colors. So, up went the paint.
Long ago, we started bed shopping and finally settled on the Sumatra Bed from PB even though it didn’t really solve our window problem.

Mathlete prefers to have the box spring too so that pretty much ruled out any of the lower, platform style beds that I was considering.
While wasting time on Pinterest (looking for beds!), I saw some pictures that immediately grabbed my attention. Navy bedrooms with green, yellow and white accents. I.fell.in.love!

[Lavender and Lilies]

[M.D.Esquare]

I had already scored a duvet set similar to this one from Home Goods so I had the white bedding!

[Pottery Barn]

Then, I scooped up the pleated pillow in navy from West Elm figuring if we changed our minds, I could always move it to the guest room or resell it. Sadly, they were out of the other colors when I purchased.

Then, it came time to really think about paint and other details in the room. The concept of a navy bedroom with some coordinating color bathroom was great but I needed to find the colors I was seeing in my head. Knowing I would be overwhelmed by starting at the paint aisle, I started in the fabric store! Then, I took my fabric samples to the paint store to search for colors.
Right now, we are still in the planning phase but here is what we have finalized so far:

The curtains are going to the fabric on the left – PKaufman Linked/Circa Dawn

[Joann Fabric]

The bedroom walls are going to Glidden Rich Navy

[Glidden]

We are still debating the bathroom walls. Mathlete would prefer we do the green color found in the drapes (shown above) but I was leaning towards a softer white tone.
Another topic of discussion are the drapes in the bathroom. At one point, we thought we would have all of the window coverings in both rooms the same. But, I am leaning towards having them different but coordinating. The fabric up for consideration is Waverly Lovely Lattice (this picture reads much more teal than the fabric does in person!)

[Joann Fabric]

So there you have our bedroom update as it currently stands. I ordered the fabric during the 50% sale and am excited to get started (once ~~my seamstress~~ Mom2 gets back in town!).

Are you planning any major room redos? Have any tips on redecorating a room while you are simultaneously trying to live in it?

It is getting spooky in here…

September 12, 2011 By Shannah 11 Comments

I’ve always been a Christmas decorator. Christmas is my favorite holiday and I like to decorate every corner of our house and yard. Seriously, I have to give a courtesy call to the power company the day before I turn on my lights so I don’t black out the neighborhood!
Other holidays tend to fall by the wayside when it comes to decorations; especially Halloween. That is until we moved into our new neighborhood where everyone decorates. Last year, we had the excuse that we were new and blah blah blah. I quickly went out the day after Halloween and snagged some half price decorations so we could participate this year. I also figured I would add to them a little bit this year.
Have I mentioned that I went to Ikea recently? Oh, I did? Sorry for the repeat mention.
I’ve been searching around for some reasonably priced lanterns and Ikea was happy to help.

I picked up two sizes of the lanterns and brought them home with grand plans to decorate them. So far, only the little ones have decorations in them because my ~~cheapness~~ thriftiness is preventing me from paying the $30 it costs for the candles I need to finish the larger lanterns.
To fill the smaller lanterns, I stopped at Michaels, coupons in hand, and grabbed a bunch of random Halloween related items and brought them home. Then, I selected some pumpkins and sparkly leaves to go in the lanterns.

The lanterns have this nice, large metal pick in the center to hold whatever you put in there in place. I shoved a metallic pumpkin on it.
Then, I used my favorite new tool (for today anyways) to cut the glittery pumpkins and leaves off of their stalks. <Dad, if you are reading this, sorry but Mathlete wouldn’t tell me where his were>

I casually tossed in two glittery pumpkins and some leaves to finish off the lanterns.

Front view…oooh, glittery

Side view – the leaves are behind the pumpkins

So, there you have my little lantern project. All told, the entire project cost me less than $25 and I’ll get to re-use the lanterns for other holidays. Since I know I love to see what people paid for things, I’ll share a breakdown of this project:
Lanterns:                                 $7.99 x 2 = $15.98
Metallic Pumpkins:       ($3.99 – 40%) x 2 = $4.79
Glitter Pumpkin Stalks: ($1.99 – 40%) x 2 = $2.39
Grand Total:                                              $23.16

So, do you decorate for Halloween? Getting started this early?

Edited: Linked to Tater Tots and Jello Weekend Wrap up Party, the Marvelous Monday party at C.R.A.F.T., the Primp Your Stuff Link Party at Primp, Whatever Goes Wednesday on Someday Crafts, Show & Share on Southern Lovely, Show Me What You Got at Not Just a Housewife, Get Your Craft On Link Party at Today’s Creative Blog, the Unwasted Homemaking Party on Don’t Waste Your Homemaking, the Fall in Love Link Party on Decor to Adore, Coffee and Conversation at With a Shot of Brandy, Craft, Scrappy, Happy Me Thursday at Craft, Scrappy, Happy, and the Under $100 Linky Party at Beyond the Picket Fence.

Let’s Go Shopping…

September 8, 2011 By Shannah 1 Comment

Are you addicted to thrift stores, Goodwill locations and the like? Honestly, I’m not. Or at least, until recently, I wasn’t. I’ve spent countless hours (semi) making fun of my mom and (sort of) rolling my eyes at every mention of her thrifting.
Since I started spiraling down into the blogging world, I’ve found that these places I’ve mocked for so long could actually be (wait for it)…useful! So, what is a girl who has been so painfully avoiding thrift stores and Goodwill to do? Go on a shopping trip!First stop: Habitat for Humanity ReStore

On my way there, I was actually embarassed by how close it was to my house and that I didn’t know it was there until very recently. The treasures it held for someone who was really doing a bunch of DIY projects were incredible. Rows and rows of cabinetry, fixtures, furniture and even paint!

I picked up a few quarts of paint and primer for only $1 per quart. Um, where else can you get high quality (names like Benjamin Moore, Dupont and Behr) paint for only $1 per quart. They were having a sale while I was there but I wasn’t in need of any furniture at that point.

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Knee Deep in Yarn!

September 5, 2011 By Shannah 9 Comments

I was clicking around to my favorite blogs and stumbled upon The Nester’s wreath link party. I’ve never made a wreath before (remember that lack of craftiness thing I suffer from) but figured the link party would be the perfect inspiration to give it try. Link parties have a way of ~~forcing me~~ spurring me into action.
So, then came the question: what to make my wreath out of? Where do you go to find inspiration…Pinterest of course! It was there that I saw

Coincidentally, also from The Nester!

I’m not quite that ambitious being a first timer but I did drive on over to A.C. Moore and pick out some yarn and a wreath form. I probably should have done more than just look at the picture because I would have gained some valuable tips but reading is hard when you are distracted by all the pretty pictures (i’m seriously like a barbie doll distracted by all the shiny, sparkly things when on pinterest)!
Well, the yarn sat and sat until finally I decided that I should probably get started if I had any intention of joining the party. So, I grabbed the computer and decided to the read the “instructions”…at 9pm…the night I planned to start. It was then that I realized that I didn’t have half of the stuff that I was supposed to for the wreath. Yarn…check. Floral form…check. Batting…nope. Pins…nope. Glue gun…you’re getting the idea, right? I would not be discouraged at this point though because I was going to make this wreath. I mean I had to the make the wreath because I’d already ~~bragged~~ told all my friends about my crafty endeavor.
Me + Yarn + Floral form + glass of wine all went to the dining room table. I wrapped and wrapped and wrapped for over an hour. Well, let me back up a little because I did some prep work before wrapping.
First, I grabbed my handy tape measure and marked off the sections. I was planning on two colors in wide sections and one color in a smaller separator style section (sort of like my inspiration picture)

I marked off my sections in black marker and then started wrapping.

Once the first section was done, I started with the second color. My guide said to tie each color to the previous but I just knotted off each color and started a new tied piece with each color. So, mine aren’t connected in any way.

I got so busy wrapping that I kind of forgot to look for my black marker guides and ended up wrapping right past of one them. Oops. I just stopped at that point and started the next color figuring I’d work out the spacing going forward.
In my finished product, you can definitely see where all the sections aren’t exactly the same width. Do I care? Not really. I figured that I’m pretty imperfect when it comes to crafts and home projects so the finished products should probably reflect that in some way right? It looks more homemade and less store made in my mind. Yep, that is what I keep telling myself so I don’t cut all the yarn off and start over 🙂
Once the wreath was all wrapped up tight with yarn, I grabbed my two little scarecrow men and attempted to stick them in the wreath. They came apart from all the pretty leaves and other items that were taped to them. So, I pulled them the rest of the way apart and chose just the pieces I wanted.

Even though it isn’t “technically” fall, I was pretty excited about the finished product so out it went to the front door.

Edited: Linked to Thrifty Décor Chick’s Before and After Party, Nesting Place’s You Made a Wreath Out of What Link Party, Tater Tots and Jello Weekend Wrap up Party, Coffee and Conversation Thursday at With a Shot of Brandy, the Fall in Love link party at Decor to Adore, the Pity Party, Link Party at Thirty Handmade Days, the Marvelous Monday party at C.R.A.F.T., Fall Door Decor at Southern Hospitality and the Frugalicious Friday party at Finding Fabulous.

Extreme Furniture Makeover!

August 11, 2011 By Shannah 2 Comments

Ok, some of the makeovers in the works won’t necessarily be extreme but I like a little drama now and then.

Recently, we had the fortune/unfortune to inherit some furniture belonging to Mathlete’s uncle as he we was downsizing his home. A good bit of it is still sitting in our basement because I haven’t really considered what to do with it yet. I’ve already got plans for some of them though…want to see my treasures? (most of these pics were taken mid-move so apologies for the quality/backdrops!)

Neat coffee table!

This guy has a twin too!

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A chest: finished

July 28, 2011 By Shannah Leave a Comment

I mentioned here that I was working on changing up a chest of drawers that I purchased on Craigslist. I had it primed and ready for paint.

Over the past week, I was able to get several coats of paint onto the frame and drawers.

Once I had 2 coats of paint on each piece, I added a coat of acrylic. I used Minwax Polycrylic in Semi-gloss.

I let it sitting in the garage for about 48 hours before taking it upstairs. It was pretty humid outside so I wanted to make sure the paint and acrylic really hardened before putting it in its home. Mathlete still insisted on keeping the cardboard underneath so we are doing it up super fancy in the guest room right now.

I had breifly thought about painting the hardware that came with the chest but then I saw the hardware you see in the pictures above on the clearance rack at Target. I just couldn’t resist.
Here is the before/after:

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