Is that Art I see?

So I mentioned earlier (yesterday) that I actually did get a lot of house stuff done this weekend.  It's not quite warm enough here in WI to do yard work, so we're still plugging away at crap inside the house.  But boy does are yard need some attention.  I can't wait for it to be warm enough to start my garden and plant some flowers.  As well as replace the doors, redo the front steps, okay, that's enough, you get the picture.  There's a lot of outside projects on our list.

But back to this last weekend.  So I have slowly but surely started decorating.  It's still a little difficult to do because we don't have all of our furniture, but I had to start or I'd go crazy.  Big blank barren walls just staring at me, begging me to dress them up a bit.  So I did.

A few weeks ago when we went to Hobby Lobby for the first time (it's seriously 5 min away from our house) J found a little bird stencil he really liked.  So we bought it not really knowing what we were going to do with it. I mean I hadn't really stenciled anything since I was a kid.  But we thought maybe we'd think of a use for it later.     

And of course we did!  We stopped by JoAnn's and picked up some nice heavy scrap booking paper on sale.  Five pieces for $1, that's awesome.  We picked out a few different ones that matched our living room and dining room.  Two of the pieces have sparkles, guess which one of use picked those out (I'll give you a hint, it was me).

Then we swung by Micheal's and picked up some frames (those were 40% off).  We got two matching ones for our homemade art project and two others that were only $4!!!!  And of course I picked up some pre-cut mat board, luckily as of right now I can use the pre-cut stuff.

Fast forward to when we got home.  I used some of my free sample of black paint (thank you velspar) and some drywall primer for this project.  I lightly stenciled each little bird; one on the red and one on the cream.  Threw them each in their frames and hung those suckers up.     

Now you may have noticed that one of the pictures looks like it's missing the glass and well it is.  I may or may not have broken it while I was putting the frame together.  It sucks, but luckily it's a standard size glass, so I'll just have to pick up a new piece the next time I'm at Micheal's.

But look at them, aren't they cute?  I'm loving them.  They were so cute and so cheap and easy to make.  The most expensive part were the frames (at $15 ea), and I'm sure I could have found some at a thrift store for a lot cheaper.  This isn't where they will be staying because that cabinet will be taken down soon, but for now they add a nice touch to an otherwise blank space.

And before I go I'll share with you the dining room table I'm in love with. It's clean and modern, but not overly modern, and it's small.  And I love how beautiful the chairs are.  I have been looking at dining room tables and my biggest problem is the chair design.  I want something modern, not curvy and ornate.  But I don't want something too modern or cheap looking.  So these beautiful chairs are pretty much what I had in mind.  And J seems to be down with it as well.  Plus the price is super nice, $396 on overstock.com.  You can't beat that (and it only has great reviews, so I know it's well made).  Now I just have to get this baby ordered.  It's gonna look so nice in our dining room.            

You will look so nice in my dining room!!!

Stop by tomorrow to see my thrift store finds this week. Oh I was so excited to with my what I got.  I got a pretty good deal if you ask me.  

Can you say productive???

So J and I are nearing that time of year where we are the busiest.  A ton of shows (art and music), a ton of birthdays and anniversaries, a ton of bike riding to do, a ton of new projects, and a house warming party to plan.  Usually as April and warmer weather creeps up on us, we're not sure how our schedules get so jam packed.  The holidays are always busy for us, but there is something about spring and summer that send us into overdrive.  Just this week J has two shows he will be playing at and one that we're going to support friends.  Then two more next week and one after that and of course the dirty thirty birthday party for J and his friends.  Then my birthday, our anniversary, and his birthday.  Well you get the pictures, just pure craziness here.

Luckily before all the chaos starts, I actually got a few things done this weekend.  And what am I most proud of you ask?  Well it's the fantastic pillows I made to replace the Cosby sweater pillows we had.  Here's a quick recap of the old pillows.  Not really our style at all.

They remind me of a Cosby sweater

And here is some of the fabric we picked out.  Oh so pretty.  I love the orange and red one.  It's so soft and silky.  It was pricey, very pricey.  Lets just say I've never been so happy to use a 50% off coupon.  But it was worth it.

Sooooo Pretty

And after what I'm pretty sure was a thousand hours, three finished pillows.  They have hidden zippers and brown pipping around the edges.  Hell yeah, I'm pretty awesome, especially since I hate sewing.  Absolutely hate it.  But now that we own a house, I better get use to sewing all the time.  Blah.

Soooo Much Better!

I'm planning on maybe making a few more pillows in red and then a few in a cream color to tie in the rug and accents.  That's the nice thing about this couch, it's huge, so I have plenty of room to fill with wonderful throw pillows.      

Looks better already (ignore the ridiculous mess)!

I got a lot more done this weekend, but I'm going to save that until tomorrow.  Now you have to come back :-)

No more peeping toms!

We finally got blinds up in the kitchen.  I am so happy, not that I was really all that worried about peeping toms, but I don't really want our neighbors looking into the kitchen and watching everything we do.  I like a little bit of privacy.

Hi neighbors!!!!

Since our house is an open concept, I'm going to continue the latte color into the kitchen as well, but I don't want to use the same color scheme as the living room and dining room.  I want a more natural looking kitchen.  We use to have these great bamboo rugs I got from Ikea.  They were so nice and if need be, I could just take them outside and hose them off.  Then we got Toonces, the cat from hell.  And she decided that they looked tasty and started chewing on them.  Long story short, I had to toss them out.  And I can't find them at Ikea anymore :(.

This one's blurry, but you get the idea

So I compromised and got some bamboo blinds.  They have that natural feel I was going for as well as a nice subtle green tint.  Now I can bring more of an fresh natural color pallet to the kitchen.  Don't those look nice.  They look so much better then the lace curtains that were up there before.  You know the ones, those lace doily looking things that I'm pretty sure everyone puts up when they are selling their house.  Every house my mom has purchased has had these up and now our first house.  I think the bamboo blinds win. 

Much better!

I can't wait for spring to roll around so I can start working on this room (J told me I had to wait until spring for my next major project).  I am just so sick of the blue walls (and ceiling).  It's time for a change.  The kitchen project will include the following; paint the walls, paint the ceiling, take down the built in cabinet and put up usable space, take down the "breakfast bar" and put in counter tops, replace the tile, stain the cabinets cherry, replace the lights, put up my pot/pan rack (gotta show off those beautiful pans I bought), add some arts, and I think that might be it.  Then someday add beautiful stainless appliances (someday).  So you know, a little project.  It's J's idea to stain the cabinets, and trust me, he won't budge from this decision.  I guess you win some and you loose some, I just have to pick my battles.

Babies are scary!!!

We also discovered that Yoda is deathly afraid of babies.  Yup, babies.  Our friends came over on Saturday for a bit and Yoda wouldn't go near their 8 month old.  She loves kids, but I guess tiny babies are too scary for her.  She would sneak over to him and as soon as he tried to touch her, she'd run to the next room.  Oh, our dog truly is the most intimidating dog on the block.             

Lets Look Back

So I'm still getting over a very annoying cold, the second one in less then two months.  It's annoying, very annoying.  So last night I was super lame and went to bed at 9:00.  Hey I couldn't help it, I felt like crap.  The only things I accomplished was getting a second coat of paint on one of my projects (more on that later) and eating some crackers for dinner.  I don't really have any pictures to share, so I thought it would be fun to look back and see what small progress we've made in the last three months.

 Here is that pesky half wall as you walked in the front door.  That had to go.  It was in the way and annoying (wow, I'm using that word a lot today).  I understand it was to block the wind form blowing through the house when the front door was open, but we seriously didn't have a problem with that after we took it down.  I never ever thought to myself, boy sure wish there was something to block all that wind.  And we have a fair amount of people over.

Here's what our living room looked like sans the wall, but still without paint, lights, furniture, etc, etc.  And the front door will be replaced as soon as it gets warm enough out.  I can't wait to have a nice front door with a window in it.  It will make it just that much brighter in this room.  And look at that cute boy's butt.  Yeah that's why I keep him around, hehehehe.

And here's what it looks like after we painted, got some furniture, put up blinds, etc. etc.  It's come a long way baby.  And the room is so warm and inviting with the Latte walls and big comfy couch.  Now to replace those pillows (that's my project for this weekend).

And here's the picture of the room from a different angle (I posted this the other day).  So different from when we moved in.  And I can't wait to add some arts and accents.  And our accent lights above the top cabinets so it doesn't resemble a dark lonely cave, making us wonder if something is hiding up there (like Toonces).

And here's our bedroom before I attacked it with some paint.  Those walls were just screaming for some color; a lovely light turquoise color.

And here are those same walls and windows all painted.  Now I just have to get some arts up in here too.  As well as the roman shades I want to make.  Plus, my mom knows how to make roman shades, that's fantastic.  Here I thought I would just be winging it.  There is always a plus side to having a seamstress and just all around awesome mom.  

So that's sort of a recap of everything we've accomplished in the last three months.  Not a whole lot, but I think it's a pretty good start.  And J has been busy with the studio downstairs.  I really wish I would have gotten pictures of the demo, it looks so different now.

Tonight J has a gig, so we won't be doing much.  Hopefully this weekend I'll pick up the rest of the fabric for the pillows and get those done.  I'm also hoping to do a little thrifting.  I really want to find some more picture frames so I can get started on our gallery wall in the living room.  And we're going to pick up some mat board so we can get mats cut (yeah, sometimes it does pay to be an artistic background, we can cut our own mat board).  So lets hope I have some awesome pictures to show you soon.  Have a great weekend everyone.

A Couple Small Projects

So I'm sure most of you are like me, you're sick of winter and spring can't get here soon enough.  I know everyday that I look out side and see the snow I think that.  And every morning as I walk to the bus stop in freezing weather, I think about warmer days.  So I guess I've been thinking about spring and summer a lot lately.  Most of us in WI are normally dreaming of spring about this time of year.  It's just how it works here.

Most of my projects right now are pretty small.  First, because we made the decision to wait until spring to take on any large projects.  Second, I have another cold (seriously, could I go just one month without getting sick).

I spruced up my coffee filter wreath the other day with some flowers.  I just needed something that wasn't dreary and dark.  I needed to bring warmer weather into the house somehow.  So I went and raided my fake flower stash.  I just added a few of the fake flowers to give it a little different feel.  I used my U-pins to hold the flowers on, so when I get sick of these flowers, I can take them off and add something else.  It's great.  I use the U-pins for displaying my jewelry at art shows, but they really came in handy here.  I'm sure if you don't have hundreds (no seriously) U-pins around, you could use normal pins.   
  

It's a simple change, but I like it. The picture doesn't really show how pretty it really looks. I took it last night while it was dark with limited light sources. Maybe I'll try to get a picture when I get home tonight.

I got this idea from Thrify Decorating the other day while blog hopping (swing on over there to see how she made them).  It's such a cute easy idea, I couldn't pass it up.  I took Yoda outside with me to find a few sticks (which she's always up for finding sticks), grabbed my hot glue gun, and raided my fake flowers again.

It took me maybe 5 minutes to make these.  Unfortunately I have no idea where the box of vases is, so I had to compromise and use a Pom jar filled with rocks for now.  We'll see if when I get home tonight if they are still there; Toonces feels the need to eat anything that even slightly resembles a plant.  The best part about these, J actually likes them (sometimes engineers don't like things that aren't "clean"  That's the stupid term J likes to use all the time). And don't worry all that electronic crap (except the wireless router) will be put out of sight.  

Wordless Wednesday - Goat Pug

I'm trying some new things out with the blog, you know spruce it up for spring a bit. Let me know what you all think. It's kinda a work in progress, so any suggestions are welcome. :-)

I'm Back Baby!

I know, I've been gone for a long time.  Did you miss me?  Probably not, but I'm going to tell myself you did.

Apologies for the dark picture and fuzziness, I'm working on that. :-D

So what's new here at the casa?  Well, I guess not that many exciting things.  I finally have all the paint up in the living room.  That's exciting.  I painted the red wall last week and I'm in love (I know it's hard to see in this picture, you'll just have to take my word for it).  I had to take a day and a half of vacation to do it, but it was oh so worth it.  And I have to say, painting a wall deep red is not an easy task.  I started with two coats of gray primer, to help make the red bright and reduce the number of coats I had to do.  Then it was two coats of red, waiting for each one to dry, and then a third touch up coat on any areas I may have missed the first two times around.  Then I had to wait for that last coat to dry, just to make sure I still didn't have any areas that needed more paint.  Then there was clean up, boo clean up.  But that's okay.  It's done and oh so pretty.  Now we just need to find a dining room table we like so people stop running into our hanging light.

We also got the entertainment center put together and up.  It's nice and it will hold oh so many things.  Perfect, everything can be out of sight and not just piled up on a book case.  It's not completely done.  We need to figure out how to hide the wires from all of our electronic crap.  I went back and forth on the glass wall behind the TV, but I've decided I do like it.  Now J and I just need to start agreeing on how to decorate.  Doesn't he know that I'm the all knowing woman, and he should just accept the knowledge I'm giving him.

I also need to show off that wonderful drywall job we did.  I got it all mudded, sanded, primed, and started the texture.  Then J swooped in and finished up the texturing, which I'm convinced was his plan all along.  Let the girl do all the hard crap and then I'll take the glory for how good it looks.  Stupid boys.  I will give it to him, he did a great job finishing up the texture.  It's extremely hard to see where the old ends and the new starts.  Too bad he didn't stick around long enough to paint the wall!

Why is this picture so crooked, was I drunk?  I don't remember!

And last but not least, our arts.  I know amazing.  It's the only thing we have up on the walls at this moment in time.  I know, I'm getting there.  I needed to get all the walls painted before I could start decorating.  I also needed all the parts to the entertainment center off the floor.  So now I'm on to the fun part.  Thrifting!!!!  Love it.  And I even think J might be getting the hang of thrifting, sort of.  And before I leave you, I have to let you know, J picked out the arts above.  He does have a good eye at times, I just wish he'd drop the only child attitude at times.  But it's okay, I still love my boy!!

Wordless Wednesday!

High Noon, Madison, WI - 9:00, Wednesday March 9, 2011 (TONIGHT) - Be There!

Can I start decorating yet?

Remember these bottles?  I got them from a lab across the hall that was being decommissioned.  They had a "come grab anything you can" day, and this was my only score.  Really it was because I was afraid of the crazies that came.  Boy you say the word FREE and everyone is there scratching and biting to get anything they can (they ripped things off the wall).  It reminded me of one of those bridal sales where women go crazy and grab any dress they can.  Only this was with lab supplies.  But I guess when money's tight (and it is for almost all of us), free lab supplies are heaven sent.

But that's enough about the back story of these bottles.  The point is I thought they were interesting and since they aren't too useful in the lab (hence the reason they were left over after everyone had left).  Of course we can use them, but we have media bottles already that we like better.  I grabbed these bottles because I thought they were interesting, not necessarily useful in our lab.  I wanted to use them at home somewhere, but didn't know what to do with them.  So last night I tried idea number one; I filled one with little black rocks.  Just to see what it would look like.  What do you think?  I have a few other ideas I'm going to try.  I'll get some pictures up soon, maybe I'll have a vote or something.  

I also made my coffee filter wreath last night.  I stained the filters the other day with tea (just plain black tea) and have been waiting for them to dry.  I picked up the foam wreath in the floral section at Joann's, using my 50% off coupon as well as my 10% on my total purchase coupon.  So that cost me less then $2.00.  The coffee filters cost me $1.00 (picked those up at the last 10 for 10 sale at the grocery store) and the tea I already had.  So this project cost me a total of $3.00.  Pretty good if I do say so myself.  I am going to get different ribbon, but that can wait for my next trip to the craft store, which will be soon (I have so many coupons right now).  So in all, this project is going to cost me well under $10, awesome.  Now I just have to find a place to hang it.

As you can see I have it hanging on the ugly ass door for now, but that's just because I haven't decided where I'm going to put it.  I might put it up above the bay window.  Maybe I'll try that tonight and see what it looks like.  I'll get some pictures of it in different places and post some later, then I'll see what you guys think for this too! :-)

I'm really happy with how it looks.  I wasn't sure, I've seen a bunch of them, and liked them, but wasn't sure if it would go with our stuff.  But it does.  The color is great.  It goes really well with the wall color and I think it will go great with the red paint (which will be going up this weekend).  And it was so easy to make.  The hardest part was waiting for all the coffee filters to dry (because I'm impatient).  I think it literally took me 20 min to make.  I made it in between priming and painting picture frames (with my free paint sample from Valspar.  Free is awesome).    

I was thinking of making another one and dying the coffee filters a color; like green for St. Patty's day or lavender for spring.  Hmmm, so many possibilities.  

Worldess Wednesday!

So busy and flustered, I forgot to add a title the first time around!!

So I feel like I've accomplished nothing here as of late.  Well nothing house related.  I've been busy with my beads and have gotten a lot of done with that.  I'm still waiting on getting my torch set up, but J told me I had to be patient and wait till spring for that.  So I'm waiting patiently.  I've also been swept up with all the political and civics related things going on here in WI, especially Madison.  I won't share my personal opinion on the subject here or how it effects me personally (and it does effect me), but I will say it's quite a sight to be downtown.  It's all we do lately, read and watch the news.  No matter what side you're on, or where you live, I feel it's always important to know what's going on, especially when it's so close to home.  Okay, enough with my lecturing about keeping up with current events :-)

I have been working on a few things.  We have all the drywall done in the living room (I got that baby finished on my furlough day this month) and we've started painting.  Just have the primer (and texture to match the rest of the walls) up, but paint is next.  We have half of the entertainment center up and as soon as we get the brackets, we'll have the rest of it up.  I've even started a few decorating projects.  I'm dying to start decorating.  We just need more furniture, but J seems to be lacking the drive to go our and find out.  So I've recruited my mom and one of my friends to help out.  I can't wait to start thrifting, it's one of my favorite pass times.  Ooooooh, I'm excited.  

I did pick up these interesting looking bottles a lab across the hall was getting rid of.  I'm not sure what to do with them, but I thought they looked interesting.  I though about filling them with something (rocks, sand, shells, etc.) but I'm not sure.  Maybe I'll just leave them empty.  Maybe I'll just bring them back to work and use them there.  Who knows, but you know me, I can't pass up something that looks neat and is FREE.  I'll find a use for them.

I also picked up some fun black rocks this past weekend for my square candle holders.  I think they look like m&ms from a distance.  Then if just makes me want some candy.  But I like them and I like how they look in the candle holders, now I just need a place to put these guys.  See what I mean, I need to finish buying furniture so I have places to put these.  ;-)

I'm working on a few other projects right now as well.  Well I'm not really working on it yet, I'm waiting for my tea stained coffee filters to dry.  But as soon as those babies are dry, I'll start working on my latest crafting project.