Our Home: Master Bedroom Redo!

I redid our master bedroom a few months ago but never got a chance to post about it! Both Peter and I have pretty much despised our bedroom decor from day one.. it was just always the last thing to work on since we were really the only ones to spend time in there. I finally couldn't take it anymore though & decided one weekend that it was time for a fresh start... on a budget of course!

Here are some pics of our bedroom before:

And here is the after! We love it and actually enjoy being in there now! 

Quilt from Tuesday Morning. Two small pillows are new from West Elm. Rugs from Urban Outfitters (mine is teal chevron and his is light gray chevron). Lamp on the left from Marshalls. Lamp on the right from Target. My bedside table is the same as before, just with a new pink knob :) and Peter's is a bedside table that I switched out from another bedroom.

I did frame collages on each of our respective sides using old frames I had (spray painting some and leaving some as is). On my side is my grandparents wedding invitation, a baby pic of my grandpa, a rhodesian ridgeback art print my mom & I bought in Austin, and some other fun stuff! 

And this is Peters side... his favorite thing is the black & white lonesome dove pic, duhh.

I love these wooden butterflies.. I bought them at Paper Source a long time ago and found them during the redo. I just sticky tacked them to the wall.

I added the curtain to the bathroom door for a little privacy! Also put up a map made of cool patterns that I got on sale at Urban Outfitters. I got the frame for that at a thrift store and spray painted it a metallic goldish color. I repainted the chest of drawers on the right (it used to be black), distressed it a little bit, and changed the hardware.

I repainted this dresser (actually using just one sample jar of paint from home depot, which I'm sort of proud of, haha)... it used to be black. I also repainted the knobs in the same metallic goldish color as above. The white rattan thing above the dresser is actually a twin headboard. I got it at a thrift store and love it! Also you can see on the far right side of the pic one of the new curtains I hung up. I found them in the clearance bin at West Elm! 

Benson loves the new bedroom too! 

Valentines Decor - Dollar Tree Style!

I ran into the dollar tree recently (I'm sure to buy some necessary items like cute ankle socks and 500 various tubs to organize with) & noticed that they had some suuuper cute valentines items! Although I have a very love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with valentines day, I still couldnt resist!

First up, the picnic table in our kitchen eating area:

The mason jar in the middle is filled with red hots and then I stuck a few cute, soft little hearts on sticks in the red hots. Oh and then I cut the hearts off some extra sticks I had and filled the side mason jars with those. woohoo DT rules! I wish they carried mason jars though. Someone work on that for me!

Felt table runner and heart plates below are from Target - compliments of Anna. thanks mom!

I printed out these little L-O-V-E letter cards to put on each plate around the table.. corny but again, I just cant help myself! ahh

Now for the dining room table... (yes there's more - cupid threw up on my house for real)

Wooden candle holder filled with red hots and more hearts on sticks! I sure do get a lot of use out of my wooden candle holders. And for some reason I have like 4 of them in various lengths...  why? I think every time I went to Canton over the course of a few years I'd forget I already had 1 (or 3) at home and would make Anna buy me a new one. oops, thanks again mom! :) 

And last but not least, an easy vday garland! 

I bought a pack of foam hearts at DT and strung them together with a needle and some red thread. Might sound time consuming, but I promise it only took me like 5 minutes to do! 

Oook I think thats all the valentines decor that anyone can handle... I apologize to all you vday haters out there & will blame all of the above on my love for the dollar tree, budget decorating, and anything and everything holiday related.  hah try to still love me! :) 

Junk Cabinet Organizing on a Budget!

Sooo its time for another post where I embarrass myself with a "before" photo that shows off just how disgusting I really am deep down. This time its our junk cabinet -- the cabinet in between our kitchen and tv room that contains pretty much 2 types of items -- weird, rarely used home items or benson's belongings. Feel free to judge me, cause I'm judging me just looking at the picture again...

For some reason January has become organizing month in my head, so when it rolled around, I decided this grosssss cabinet was first priority, but knew I couldnt really spend more than a few dollars to get this baby organized. Challenge acceppptedddd. (how i met your mother reference.. anyone get it? no? im the only one who still loves that show?? oh well).

So to start, I took everything out of the cabinet & got rid of what i could & categorized what was left over. Then I gathered some bins I had around the house that weren't being used and made a beloved trip to the Dollar Tree to get whatever else I needed. (love you $tree!).

I gave everything that needed to be in the cabinet a home of sort in either a bin, basket, or tupperware container & after adding some perhaps over-the-top homemade labels to the mix, my lovely little organized masterpiece was complete!  

You can actually see whats in there now, wahooo! Just hoping it stays this way! 

Oh & here are a couple of pics of the countertop below the cabinet.. I cleaned it off & made it a little cuter at some point during the cabinet organizing process! 

Alright thats all for now... hope you are inspired to do some January organizing!! 

Crafty Christmas Idea - Displaying Vintage Ornaments

Lately I've had an obsession with finding & buying vintage Shiny Brite ornaments... I've found boxes of them for as little as $2 at thrift stores near my house and have bought really cute tiny ones in the shapes of bells on Etsy - I love them all!
That being said, I kind of have a lot -- even my Christmas tree couldn't handle any more of them, so I had to find other ways to display my beloved Shiny Brites. :) Here are a couple ideas I tried out using things around my house..

Wooden Candle Holder

Perfect for our windowsill!

 (with my $1 poinsetta, thank youuu home depot black friday)

Cupcake Stand

Fall Wreath with Felt and Burlap Fringe Flowers

Our new fall wreath made with felt and burlap flowers! yay fall! 

Here's how to make the fringe flowers (use felt, burlap or whatever):

1. Cut out long strips of felt or burlap (I used my cutting board and did lots of strips at a time)

2. Stack a few strips of felt and using some sharp scissors, cut fringe on one edge all the way down. To this to all of your strips. 

3. To make a flower that has 2 colors all mixed together, stack 2 different colored felt strips on top of each other and start to roll. When you begin rolling, fold the first 2 fringes over to make the inside of your flower. (For a flower with the middle fringe one color & the outside fringe another color, attach the 2 strips together with a dab of hot glue to make one long strip... then roll.)

4. Use a dab of hot glue to hold the end of the strip to the rolled flower. 

5. Cut a circle of felt or burlap out and hot glue it to the bottom of your flower to keep it together.

6. Spread out the fringes to reveal your beautiiiful flower!

7. Put the flower on your dog's head. I suppose you can skip that step if you want though.

'

Hope you like our new fall wreath! 

Pretty Fall Flowers!

Last night Peter came home from work with some flowers for me... but not just any flowers, FALL FLOWERS! yayyy! This man knows the key to my heart... seasonal gifts. hahaa But really, its true. Especially when its not quite the season yet but i really want it to be... man oh mannn is he smart!

So pretty! Thanks again smart, sweet husband of mine!

Armoire Redo - Before & After!

Peter's parents gave us their old armoire when we moved into our house & the plan from day one was to paint it, but for some reason I didn't get around to it until now (aka 2  years later). haha oops! 
Anyway, here is the before & after..

And here's a closeup of the new handles & the lacy paper I added to the panels to spiiice things up.

The "new" handles were taken off of something else a while back & I printed the lacy paper myself, so the only cost for the project was the paint (mosaic tile by behr), about $14. Yay!

File Cabinet Coffee Table!

I saw this old file cabinet in my garage the other day & an idea popped itself into my random head.. what if I turned this babyyy on its side and made a coffee table out of it? 

I had seen it every day since we moved in (the people who lived here before us left it in the garage) but I hadn't noticed its true beeeauty until now! I loved its rusty worn look & loved the color too! Soo inch by inch I drug that 500 pound hunk of lovely junk out of the garage and with the help of my buff & manlyyy husband, carried it into the living room.

After a good & thorough cleaning (years spent in a garage = nasty) I think she looks quite lovely in her new home!