Wedding Present

So, this is the first thing I've actually made by myself and I am so proud !! I was recently Matron of Honor in one of my oldest friends wedding. I've been trying to think of fun, imaginative presents to give recently and I finally thought of something I felt was appropriate as a wedding present. I absolutely love quotes, I have a whole notebook dedicated to them, and I know my friend, Bethany, likes them as well. I found one that would go really well in someones bedroom here on my pinterest page, and asked her what their colors were.

I ran to the store and grabbed yellow and white acrylic paint and a 12x18 inch canvas and went ahead and painted the entire canvas yellow.

When I had gone to the store, I had planned on getting a pretty stencil but I couldn't find anything I liked enough to get. I remembered something I learned from The House of Smiths that involved stickers, so off I went hunting for stickers ! Lucky me, I found them for 30 % off at Joann's and also in a cute font. I put the stickers down exactly where I wanted them after the paint dried.

Such a cute quote !! I'm totally using it one day. Well, I mixed some paint to make the perfect shade of grey and painted over everything, stickers and all. Just be careful around the edges of the stickers cause they had a tendency to come up. After painting a couple coats, I let it sit for just a couple minutes before trying to pull up the stickers. For that, you'll need tweezers.

Ta da !! I had gotten a little paint under some stickers so I had to do a few touch ups and add punctuation, of course :) After letting it sit for awhile, the more I looked at it, I felt like it wasn't finished. It needed something else on the right side to complete it. I'm not a painter at all. I've taken a couple of classes and I managed to learn a couple of things. The number one thing I took from it was, don't worry, its just paint. It can be painted over ! I decided to just to a couple little swirls and see where it went from there.

I actually love how it came out. I told Bethany that my feelings wouldn't be hurt if she didn't like it, I'd get to keep it for myself hee hee ! Unfortunately, she liked it and it will look great in their room.

Congrats, Mitch and Bethany !

My home

Hey guys ! Sorry its been soooo long ! I've been working on a couple things and been busy with the hubby. I wanted to kinda put down on paper (or website) what I want my home to feel like.

I've always always always wanted my own place. As long as I can remember I had always wanted a place to call mine, and to decorate how I want. I remember moving my room around all the time trying to find the best way to have everything. I would change my mind constantly !! Something as simple as those cheap foam stencils on the wall would make me feel like it was my own space.

Now that I have my own place with a very sweet husband that (almost) let me do just about anything with it, I'm trying to figure out exactly what I want it to say when someone walks in the door. The first thing I want is cozy. When someone walks in the door, I want them to feel like this is a place they could walk in, take off their shoes, and curl up on the couch. I've never understood why anyone would have a room that no one would be allowed in !

The second thing I want is for everything to have a purpose. I mean like when you go somewhere and they have this fancy pants dining room that is only used at Christmas or Thanksgiving. I just don't see the point ! I also don't see the point in fancy china but that's a whole 'nother story. I want anything in my home to be for a purpose, and not just sit there for 362 days of the year.

Next, I want my house to be exciting. I live a crazy, fun, exciting life and I want my home to reflect that. The decorative pillows on my couch are the queen of hearts and king of diamonds :) They're probably one of my favorite things in the house :) I just love anything that can reflect the fun life my husband and I have chosen to lead.

That's all I can think of at the moment, but I'm sure there's lots I'm leaving out. No pictured in this post, but I promise, I'll hopefully be done working on my project soon so I can show it off :)

Phantom Scarf

Hello all ! I'm excited about this post, its my first accessory ! I originally saw this on pinterest here and I fell in love ! I adore all things covered in writing or script. Here's what I started out with.

I went to Walmart and found a plain white scarf for $5 and a black paint pen for $3

Then came time to decide what to write on it. I went through all the quotes I like, some lyrics and couldn't find anything I really liked. I started walking around the house looking at books and things around the house and I found it ! Phantom of the Opera lyrics ! I'm crazy for not thinking of it earlier ! I picked "All I ask of you" just because its awesome and romantic and I love it :)

I wrote out the lyrics just because knowing me I'd forget where I was and repeat a line.

Make sure you shake that paint pen like a shake weight cause it will not write without it. Also, bear down on it a lot. I had some left over cardboard so I did some practice runs.

Don't make fun of my cursive... Its been many a year since it was required in school. Besides when I've got the scarf on, you can't even tell I have not so pretty handwriting.

Tada !!!!! I was genuinely pleased with how it all turned out. Make sure though when you're writing on something like a table or something you don't want messed up, you put something between the scarf and the table. The paint did bleed through.

Super cute :) I like it and I've already gotten several complements on it already.

I hope everyone has a lovely day !

Birthday finds

My birthday was this week, and I turned 23 years old. It feels weird !! Before I get too nostalgic, I'll continue with the reason for this post. I got some birthday money from some family, and I immediately knew where I'd go shop... the thrift store !! Haha, every girl's dream huh ? I went to my favorite one on Dayton blvd. I think its just called the Red Bank Thrift store. I like it because the entire basement is always filled with furniture ! I went down there and hunted for anything I could use for a coffee table to no avail. When I was heading up the stairs though, I happened to spot this little beauty sitting all alone.

I've been dying for a birdcage, but every time I see one they are way more than I want to spend. Guess how much I paid for this little guy... $1 !!! When I brought it up to the register, I think the guy maybe felt sorry that I'd want something so ugly, haha !

I took it home immediately and started the clean up process. This thing was nasty !! It took me so long that I gave up on the bottom. I didn't really need it anyways. I had just enough red paint to go ahead and get it all cute. I think my neighbors think I'm crazy because I'm quite positive I'm outside painting something all the time hee hee. Anyways, it turned out really cute !!

It took me awhile to decide what to put inside it. I tried books but all the ones I had were too big. I'll eventually get flameless candles so I can can have the look like they're lit. Cute huh ? I also went out earlier that day to an antique store and found the lock attached to it.

I'm in love !! I have an obsession with keys so when I saw it, I flipped !

I also made some hearts out of book pages. It was really simple, I just cut strips and hot glued them together in the shape of hearts.

Now I just happen to have a kind of Valentines Day set up and I didn't even mean to haha. I"m not the biggest fan of Valentines day, but I am a fan of February 15th since all the candy goes on sale :)

I hope everyone has had a wonderful New Years. I know we did ! I've also made a couple goals for the year. I think everyone knows by now my hubby will be leaving for his 2nd deployment this year so I've jam packed this year to make sure I'll be extra busy :) The one thing I'm very excited about doing is redoing our bedroom. When we first got married, our furniture was a big mix of hand-me-downs and things from my first apartment. Its taken us this long to finally figure out our own style and fix up the part of the house everyone sees. We're finally to the point we can focus on another room, and I don't have a clue as to what to do ! I'll be researching and shopping for all kinds of inspiration for this new beautiful room. I'll keep you guys updated !

My favorite Christmas stuff !

So, I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas season. I know I have !! I've been so busy with crafting, shopping, working, and celebrating I completely forgot about my blog for a bit ! So, here comes an overload of what I've worked on and gotten recently :)

We'll start with my new tree topper ! I won't try to give any step by step directions because I kinda free handed it and I wouldn't wish for anyone to go through all of that haha ! I will tell ya that its made out of black felt, the sparkliest red ribbon I could find, and lots of hot glue ! (I can't sew a thing !) I love it ! I've probably been looking for the perfect tree topper for 4 years, and just like that, problem solved !

Second, we have my beautiful (finally finished) window. I had originally planned on keeping the original glass in there after the frame was finished, but during the move, the glass was broken :( But, what did mommy always teach you ?? When one door closes, God opens a window... or something along those lines and a window was opened !! I had seen something kinda similar in an old frame where someone had put wire through it and just hung pictures from clothes pins so that's what I did ! I found the cutest itty bitty clothes pins from Joanns and painted them red to match the rest of the living room. Currently I have "Merry Christmas" (courtesy of my mother in law's cricut) and then some Christmas cards. It may be my favorite thing in the house.

This is my new Scentsy warmer ! Eric's Aunt got it for me for Christmas and I was thrilled !! I've felt for awhile that all the cool kids had scentsy and I was just out of the loop :( I just figured that it was a little luxury I didn't really need... candles are just fine ! Nope !! I don't know what I did before scentsy came along. I currently have "Eskimo Kiss" in there and my apartment smells lovely !

Here is my last picture I promise. This is my new media storage cabinet. I have been dying for one for months ! I finally found the perfect one on overstock.com and asked for it for Christmas. I'm pretty sure it took Eric and I two hours and several four lettered words to put it together. What is it with these directions that use one sentence to describe 8 steps !! Anyways, I'm really excited about this big guy. I want to treat it like the mantle I've never had. The house is still a bit of a mess just because we're still trying to find a home for all our new stuff. Stay tuned for more fun stuff !



Tie Dye Cupcakes !

My dear friend, Angela, is quite the baker. She invited me over for a fun night of making some awesome cupcakes !

(Thats us)

We started out with just regular cake mix batter. After following the directions on the box, we then separated the batter into 6 different bowls so we could start the coloring process !

Boom ! 6 awesome colors !! Then we started to spoon in a little of each color into the cupcake liners until they were each about 3/4 of the way full. They ended up looking soooo cool ! This is before we put them in the oven

Here they are looking scrumptious !!

Now all cooled and ready to go ! I will warn you now, I am the worst cupcake decorater ever !! We also dyed the frosting (from a can) to pretty colors too :)

Here's the inside of one of the cupcakes (I put so much icing on it, it wouldn't stand up ha!)

This was so much fun ! I'm so glad to have fun friends to do stuff like this with :)

~'Til the next time



Burlap Wreath

So, this is the cutest wreath I've ever seen in real life, so I'm pretty proud its mine haha. I saw this on pinterest initially and it looked like this



I love it ! However, its sold on Etsy for about $40.00 so I figured I could make it myself for much cheaper. Off I went to Joann's ! (Which is probably my favorite store as of late) I found a wreath, some pins and burlap for $3.99 per yard. I kinda fiddled around online for a little bit looking for a way to make it look good and eventually found a how-to saying to use 4x4 little squares. I'll try to show what they need to look like cause I'm not really good at explaining things.

So, you fold 2 opposite corners together so it looks like a triangle.

Then, fold in a 3rd corner. Make sure that you keep all the corners kinda flat so it'll be easier to pin it into the foam.

Finally, fold down the last corner. I think it kinda ends up looking like a fortune cookie maybe ? No ? Ok ! Now using the pins, I just pinned one "bubble" at a time each one covering the previous pin. I may have gotten yellow pins so they reeeally stood out haha. So now, Tada !

Super cute wreath ! I origionally put a red bow on there, but it was too small, so I'll show ya whenever I decide what to add to it. As of right now, it looks too cute not to be anywhere else but on my front door :) I ended up spending about $17 bucks ! Pretty great compared to the origional price tag ! I hope this makes you feel inspired !