Decorate

Wow!

March 28, 2013

Hello! I hope you are having a wonderful week so far!

Do you remember this picture of Little Miss E & Carolina Girl walking hand-in-hand in Colonial Williamsburg that I originally posted here?

Well, I have a wonderful girlfriend from college. Her name is Christine, and in case you are wondering, she looks just like Gwyneth Paltrow. As in, eerily similar to Gwyneth. But that’s not why we are friends. Nope, we are friends because on one fateful day, when I was a freshman in college, I stumbled in late to my first 8 a.m. Geology 101 class . . . and the only seat left was the one at the two-person table in the very front & center of the classroom. Oy.

I’m fairly certain that Christine was one of the very first students to arrive at that 8 a.m. class. And, she picked the front & center table. Not only was she very prompt for 8 a.m. Geology, but she also always came prepared with breakfast – usually granola bars {or “brain bars” as she called them} and grapes. It wasn’t long before we started bonding over topography reports & brain bars. By the next semester, we were sorority sisters and we have been good friends ever since. As of about a week ago, her title officially changed to “Doc” – clearly those good habits that she developed early on paid off!

Christine’s momma, Deb, is super sweet, super fun, and super duper creative. A package recently arrived from Deb and the girls and I couldn’t believe what was inside!

I love everything about this painting of the girls! For starters, it brings back a wonderful memory of when the girls first started holding hands – something that I hope I never forget, but am certain now that I won’t. The colors are so vibrant and beautiful. And the detail is perfect – right down to the shadows.

As I was taking pictures, I had a little lady in “piggies” come checkout what I was up to.

It was a super gloomy day, but I wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to snap a few pictures of my little lady in piggies next to her surprise from Deb!

Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, Deb! We are all in love with the painting!

Have a happy Thursday, everyone!

Filed Under: Decorate Tagged With: Carolina Girl, Little Miss E By Alli 5 Comments

A Few Touches of Spring in Our Family Room

March 22, 2013

Hello! We added just a few touches of Spring in our family room . . . and rearranged the furniture once again.

My mom is a compulsive furniture re-arranger, and apparently that has rubbed off onto me. Additionally, renting poses many new decorating challenges. In our first home, which we built, we were just starting out and didn’t have much furniture. Decorating was quite easy in the sense that we purchased items over time that worked well in that particular home. Now – while we are renting – our decorating mentality is to use what we already own and make it work. We are still trying to figure out how best to use the pieces that we have in this space.

Thus, I have grown to love moving things around and trying them in new places. You have nothing to lose! If things don’t look quite right, you just move it back.

Up until recently, both the desk and cabinet were in our master bedroom. However, neither of them were getting much use there (we have plenty of other storage), so I thought it would be fun to place them in a location where we might use them and enjoy them more.

The cabinet houses my camera equipment and some craft items that I like to have on hand, but that need to be up high away from little curious hands. I love having my camera in a central location so that I can quickly grab it to capture day-to-day moments of the girls! I added a larger boxwood wreath for a little added color and interest.

The desk & chair around the corner were my great grandmothers. Both paintings above the desk are scenes from Hilton Head. The top one is of Harbour Town, and the bottom is of shrimp boats outside of Hudson’s, which is one of our favorite restaurants on the island. I can stare at these paintings and my mind drifts away to summer evenings at the beach with my family. Needless to say, they make me super happy!

I added a preserved boxwood ball to our urn. I can’t get enough of preserved boxwood! I have quite a few fleur-de-lies throughout our home – they are my college sorority symbol. Plus they’re just pretty, so it’s fun to decorate with them!

I placed the other white pot with flowing branches that was originally in our dining room on the opposite side of the room. I like how the branches tie in with our $5 pillow (!), which you can learn more about here.

You can learn more about the DIY awning striped picture frames here.

Behind the couch, I just added a wreath that we’ve had for years and a few hydrangeas in the urn.

I was so sad to see that a small piece broke off of our urn during the move, but now the imperfection is one of my favorite things about it!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Filed Under: Decorate Tagged With: Decorate, family room, Spring decorating By Alli 1 Comment

Our Spring Dining Room

March 20, 2013

Hello! I hope you are having a great week so far! Ours seems to be flying by.

In honor of the official first day of Spring, I thought I’d share with you our Spring dining room.

Here is the view from our kitchen:

As you can see in the picture below, our dining room flows into our family room.

I am in love with preserved boxwood! I added these little preserved boxwood wreaths to our hutch.

On the opposite wall, I added a pop of color with fresh fruit and flowering branches.

The flowering branches brought some much-needed height to this sideboard. I originally had two identical pots on either end of the sideboard, but it looked a bit too cluttered. I ended up moving one pot into our family room around the corner, which I will share later in the week.

To arrange the flowing branches, I placed them inside a tall drinking glass filled with water and placed it toward the back of the larger white pot. Then I used Spanish moss (from the floral section at Jo-Ann’s) to cover the drinking glass.

I love natural bird nests!

This “baby doves” painting was a sweet gift from hubby for my birthday last summer. It was done by a local artist & it represents me and my two little birdies!

On our table, I just added a bunch of hydrangeas, green apples, and a couple of nests to tie in with the sideboard.

Happy first day of Spring!

~Linking up to It’s A Spring Thing Link Party~

Filed Under: Decorate Tagged With: Decorate, Dining Room, Preserved boxwood, Preserved boxwood wreaths, Spring decorating, Spring dining room By Alli 4 Comments

A Touch of Spring in Carolina Girl’s Room

March 5, 2013

Shew – we made it! Through the dreaded month of February, that is.

One trick to get me through – which I will also be using this month seeing how the weather is still pretty cold – is to add fresh flowers throughout the house. I don’t go too crazy – just a couple of bunches usually do the trick. I figure the mood-boosting effects of colorful tulips far outweigh the few extra dollars tacked onto the grocery bill!

BlogCG Dresser

Carolina Girl’s room is so colorful – especially with pink tulips – it makes me happy!

The little orange butterfly was one of my favorite things in my room when I was a kid!

And here are a few candid shots of Carolina Girl. I love how she curls up in her little chair for snack time. On this particular day, she was extra giddy because mommy added a few chocolate chips into her snack!

Happy Monday!

Filed Under: Decorate Tagged With: Carolina Girl, Carolina Girl's Room, Decorate By Alli 6 Comments

Ahh – It Flows So Much Better Now!

November 21, 2012

Hello! Yesterday I shared some pictures of our Autumn dining room, and today I thought I’d share some before pictures. Brace yourselves!

Our main motivation behind the three dining room projects was to improve the overall flow of our house.

When we first built our house in Ohio, I was more concerned with how well each room looked, and less concerned about the overall feel and flow of the entire house. But that was our first home, and we had a. lot. to. learn. After several years of living there though, we took a step back, grabbed some paint brushes, and worked to improve the overall flow of our home. We were able to achieve our goals mainly with a paint brush and neutral paint. Luckily, we had done a lot of things right – without even really knowing it at the time. It helped that white is my favorite color.

While I was much more in tune with how to achieve an overall look and flow of a home that really suits us when we moved into this home, I also had to be realistic. This is a temporary home for us, which means we need to make what we have work. Lucky for us, this home has uniform hardwood flooring and neutral paint colors throughout. So, our main issue has been how to make our furniture work in such a way that our home is functional and visually attractive.

I have a few pictures below so that you can see how poorly the family room flowed into the dining room.

In the picture below, you can see what our family room looked like at the time that we decided to make some changes.

Generally, our furniture and decor is neutral – and our family room is no exception. But as you rounded the corner into the dining room, it was color overload! Ha – it sort of wreaked havoc on my brain, I have to admit.

Suddenly, everything that once looked fine together (at our old house), no longer jived. I first shared our dining room woes with you last February.

Check out the madness.

I should note that the black console table was never actually used in the dining room, and I had just decided to move it in there before taking these pictures. So, luckily, we didn’t live with it like this for long at all. Previously, we had a white antique baker’s table there, but I have to say, it didn’t look much better.

Fast forward to today. We simplified our family room. We rearranged the furniture and moved the leather chair into the play room. The current arrangement is much more pleasing to the eye.

And look! As you round the corner, you don’t have 1,000 colors popping out at you! Ahh!

Wow! Look at how much better it flows. I swear I breathe easier just looking at these last three pictures. What about you?

That’s it for today! I hope your week is off to a great start!

Filed Under: Decorate, DIY Tagged With: Autumn Dining Room, Dining Room By Alli Leave a Comment

Our Autumn Dining Room

November 20, 2012

Hello! Carolina Girl and I have returned from a fun trip to Ohio. We were there just over a week, and she did great on her first couple of flights. I was so proud of my little traveler! The primary reason for our trip was so that I could get in my continuing legal education classes before the end of the year. I had three full days of classes, and it was the most I’ve ever been away from Carolina Girl. The good news is: we both survived! In fact, we did better than survive, she had fun with family and friends while I saw a glimpse of what it may be like to get back into the swing of things with work . . . and enjoyed big girl lunches out at some of my old favorite restaurants. We also had so much fun with my family. It was interesting to see Carolina Girl out on her own without big sister. She had a word explosion that week, and seems to be a a roll ever since. And in case you are wondering, Little Miss E was back home in good hands with hubby and my mother-in-law who flew into town to help out. It truly takes a village, doesn’t it?

Is everyone ready for Thanksgiving? Our pretty little town is already all decked out for Christmas and it looks beautiful. I’m so happy the holidays are here!

I thought I’d show you our Autumn dining room seeing how I will be changing things up this weekend. I had really wanted to share it before now, but my schedule with the girls right now doesn’t leave me with much time to blog.

Little Miss E’s birthday party encouraged us to kick it into high gear and tackle three dining room projects that have been on our list for quite some time. Today, I’ll show you all of the “after” pictures, and then I hope to be back soon to share some before shots and more details about the projects.

One of the projects we did was we gave our existing dining table a farmhouse look by adding planks to the top. It was an easy way to get the look we were wanting without launching off and buying a brand new dining table. A new table may be in our future at some point, but certainly not anytime soon.

Our next project was to paint every single bench and chair in the house white. I love that we gave different style benches and chairs a uniform look! It really helped with the overall flow of our house.

For our last project, we gave our black Pottery Barn console table a makeover. We moved it out from behind our couch when we were “shopping the house” one day, and here’s where it landed for now.

The “Harvest” sign is from Dear Lillie. They have beautiful holiday items, which you can checkout by clicking here.

The urn and boxwood are from Home Depot. It was on my list of places to go one day and as I was reading My Sweet Savannah, I noticed this same urn and boxwood, which had both come from Home Depot. As soon as I saw it, I knew that’s what I wanted for our dining room. Just one of many reasons that I love the blog world! I enjoy seeing how real people decorate with inexpensive items from easily accessible stores. The urn that I found was the last one, and it didn’t have a price tag, so the gentleman checking me out sold it for $5. Sounded good to me!

On the opposite side of the room, we have our cabinet that came from a favorite antique store in Granville, Ohio.

I love white dishes so much, and I think they look great year round, so I don’t actually change this cabinet up much from season-to-season.

And there you have it! I hope to be back soon with some lovely “before” shots (I think you might be surprised!) and more project details!

Filed Under: Decorate Tagged With: Autumn Dining Room, Dining Room By Alli Leave a Comment

Ombre, Ombre, Ombre

July 26, 2012

Hi! So, are you loving the ombre look as much as I am?

It’s everywhere: clothes, nails, hair, home decor . . . you name it.

In case you aren’t familiar, ombre refers to a gradual change in shade from light to dark.

We are slowly but surely make changes in Little Miss E’s bedroom, and I wanted to paint something with the ombre effect.

As you might recall, I was determined to get her settled as quickly as we could when we moved, and therefore, her room was the first room that we decorated. You can checkout her “tea time” room here.

Well, it wasn’t long after we decorated her room when she realized that all of her buddies didn’t fit in a twin bed with her, and therefore we swapped out the twin beds for a queen {which we already had}. Funny thing is, now all she sleeps with is her lovey. Oh well.

Well, shortly after that, we moved her pink kitchen out into the play room. The girls love playing with the kitchen, and they have gotten a lot more use out of it now that it is in a common area.

After the kitchen {and tea set, etc.} was gone, the whole tea thing didn’t make much sense. And while I’m not much for a “themey” room, I did like her little tea time room. The best part was, we used what we had to pull it together, and that I liked.

Well, here we are today, slowly changing things around and making her room more “her.”

The room I envision for her will just have to wait because it requires a lot of changes to the room itself – hardwood floors, bead board, a light rough-in for a pretty chandy, etc. But, we are making progress without any major home improvements.

Here’s a peak at a little ombre action in E’s room:

I didn’t intentionally take a crummy “before” picture. It looks so terrible because I remembered to snap the picture at night {read: no natural light} before I had planned to paint the “E.”

So, the letter is just one of those cardboard letters that you can find at most craft stores. We’ve had it forever, and set it out at E’s 3rd birthday, which she loved.

We recently added the ledge shelves to give her a place to put some of her favorite books. She always comments, “it’s just like the library & bookstore.” We had to hang them pretty high so that baby sister didn’t pull them down. She can reach the books on the bottom shelf with no problem, yet they are out of baby sister’s reach.

I think a pouf would look super cute below the shelves. I have my eye on this one:

Source

I’m still deciding, but it’s cute, isn’t it?

I added a few paper poms to help tie-in the pink & turquoise accents in the room. I still have a pillow {or two, or three} to make.

I also made her an awning striped frame at the same time that I made the two in our family room.

And here’s Little Miss E herself loving her new ombre “E”!

I owe hubby a big thank you for tackling this little project while I worked on a few others. I loved our craft night – ha! Babe, we should do that more often!

Have a great day!

Filed Under: Decorate, DIY Tagged With: Little Miss E, Ombre, Ombre E, Ombre Home Decor By Alli 4 Comments

$6 Napkin Pillows & Our Cozy Couch Corner

July 13, 2012

Hello! Remember those $5 pillows that I made? Well, I made a couple more pillows . . . only these cost me a little more – a whopping dollar more!

I found navy & white striped napkins at Pier One for $3 each. I knew they would fit-in with the overall look that I am trying to achieve this Summer in our family room, and that they would tie-in nicely with a couple other navy accents that we already had in the room – like these picture frames that I shared with you on Monday. Yes, I mix stripes – I really like them.

A couple of months ago, we rearranged our family room to make it a bit more functional and cozy.

You can click here to see how this room was arranged this past Winter.

While the Winter arrangement is the way you would probably expect this room to be arranged, we much prefer the current arrangement from a functional/practical perspective. Plus, it’s kind of fun to have it arranged in a way that’s not too predictable.

Although we don’t watch too much television, when we do, it’s nice to be across from the t.v., and not perpendicular to it. I lost you, didn’t I? I’m sorry – I know – who says “perpendicular”?

Anyhoo, I absolutely love the corner where our couch is now – it is so cozy and comfortable. When you walk into our family room, the couch sits to the right . . .

Here’s a closer look at this corner. Warning: Despite being opposite a wall of windows, the room is large, and this far corner doesn’t get much natural light. Therefore, it is a little tough to photograph. I wanted to share it with you anyway, but you’ll just have to bear with me and these not-so-great pictures.

We already had the middle pillow and the two white ones on the end. Our couch is fairly deep, so it works fine to have five square pillows on it. You can still sit on it comfortably despite hubby’s initial concerns otherwise. Eventually, I’d like to find a big lumbar pillow that I love for the middle of this couch, but until then, these $6 pillows thrown in with our existing ones work great!

Some days I crave all things cozy and like to keep a throw on the back of our couch – the added color & texture is nice. Other days, I remind myself that it’s July down South, and you can’t go wrong with light, bright, and white, and the throw finds its way back into our linen closet.

Here’s a close-up of our $6 pillow:

Here’s another angle. Oh and in case you are wondering “what’s with all of these angles?” . . . my zoom lens has been broken for a couple of months now – so I couldn’t take any good straight-on/wide-angle pictures. Mental note: Order a replacement lens. Oh, and keep the replacement out of Carolina Girl’s reach. Check.

That’s it for me today. I hope you are having a great week! I will be back soon with some Summer pictures from my iphone.

Filed Under: Decorate, DIY Tagged With: $6 DIY Napkin Pillow, DIY Napkin Pillows By Alli Leave a Comment

Awning Striped Picture Frames {DIY}

July 11, 2012

Hello! I hope everyone had a great holiday!

We stayed in town & enjoyed a nice, laid-back fourth. We enjoyed a lot of pool time & impromptu gatherings with friends. Also, as you might have noticed, I took some time away from the computer & my phone, which is always a great way to recharge.

So, Centsational Girl, Young House Love, Bower Power, & Ten June are hosting a fun Pinterest Challenge Party, and I thought it would be fun to link up with one of the projects that I recently completed.

Ever since Melissa at The Inspired Room shared with us her striped wall {way back in January}, I’ve been dying to add some stripes to our house. Immediately, I could think of a handful of walls where I could pull off stripes in our Ohio house. But, I really couldn’t come up with a good place in our current home. Not to mention, we are currently renting, and so I wasn’t real excited about spending much time laboring over a striped wall . . . only to turn around and have to paint over it when we move.

Later, as I was perusing Pinterest, I came across this picture frame . . .

. . . and it occurred to me that this was the perfect solution. Large striped picture frames would have a similar effect, and when we move, we can take them with us – perfect!

So, once the newborn fog lifted, I added the stripes that I’ve been daydreaming about since January.

C’mon in . . . I’ll show you how they turned out!

When you walk through our front door, we have a navy & cream awning striped rug. It’s from Pottery Barn circa 2008 {although I think they still carry it or at least something very similar}. We originally purchased it for Little Miss E’s gender-neutral nursery. I love this rug – it has worked in a nursery, a family room, and now a foyer.

Our family room is straight ahead and that’s the room that was shouting “add stripes, please!”.

The frames allowed me to carry the navy & cream stripes right on into this room, and make an even bigger statement.

To make the frames, I just used 24 x 24″ boards from Lowe’s. The boards are located in the lumber section and are already cut to size. They cost around $11 each. I painted the entire board Benjamin Moore Bone White. I then taped off 6″ stripes using Melissa’s tips for painting stripes. Her tips worked perfectly – the two main tips – using Frog Tape & sealing your stripes are key. Next, I painted the blue stripes {using Benjamin Moore Champion Cobalt}.

Finally, you just hammer a small nail into the center of the board, and hang any 8 x 10″ picture frame from the nail. I used old frames that I painted the same BM Bone White. Pop in your pictures, and that’s it.

I originally planned to add black & white pictures, but I ended up doing color prints because my goal this summer was to add pops of color to our otherwise neutral family room. I’m so glad I used color prints – the colors make me so happy! And it just so happens that Carolina Girl’s and Little Miss E’s outfits coordinate with our pillows, so it all works {okay, so perhaps that wasn’t a total coincidence }.

A little project with a big punch!

Linking up with the Pinterest Challenge Party!

Filed Under: Decorate, DIY Tagged With: awning striped picture frames, Pinterest Challenge, striped picture frames By Alli 6 Comments

$5 Pillows {DIY}

June 28, 2012

Hello!

I’ve actually completed a few projects that have been on my list for months now.

My baby must be one!

Ha! The newborn fog lifted much earlier for me with Little Miss E . . . and this time around, it hung around until Carolina Girl was about 11 months – ugh! But the good news is – I feel completely back to myself again – with energy and desire to accomplish creative projects.

I love the idea of creating pillow covers out of napkins – found here at Centsational Girl’s blog.

When I first saw the tutorial, I immediately liked it because it was the perfect solution to my inability to cut a straight line. Seriously. That’s my biggest struggle with sewing projects – sad, I know. I tend to rush through things.

I really liked these yellow lattice napkins that I found at Target.

They come in packs of 4 for $10! Awesome.

To sew the covers, I actually used two tutorials: (1) Centsational Girl’s tutorial; and (2) Sparkle Power’s tutorial.

For some reason, Sparkle Power’s tutorial clicked for me a little better. Both tutorials are great, I am just a total newbie when it comes to sewing, so I tend to have to read through a couple of similar tutorials, and then just figure things out as I go.

Here’s how they turned out:

The pillow on the right was purchased from a local home decor shop – it was one of those things that I hadn’t intended to purchase, but knew that I couldn’t leave the store without, so I scrapped what I had originally planned to purchase so that I could bring this pillow home with me. I absolutely love it. I love the neutral background with pops of color. The turquoise embroidered butterfly sealed the deal for me.

It is the first summer pillow that I started with, and now I am in the process of adding coordinating pillows in our family room.

I love how the yellow lattice pillows (I made two) bring out the yellow in the center of the flower in my new favorite pillow.

You can see the envelope closure back in the picture below. It’s not straight, or perfect, but it’s done. And I’ll take done over perfect any day.

A little added sunshine to our family room! Also, earlier in the week, I found four more coordinating napkins that I plan to sew up soon. Our summer family room is coming together – yay!

Oh, and speaking of Centsational Girl {I love her blog, by the way!}, she just visited Hilton Head Island and had amazing things to say about it. You can read about her trip down South here. And that “magical moment” that she describes that she experienced on Hilton Head is something that we experience every trip. I can’t wait to head down there again!

Have a great day!

Filed Under: Decorate, DIY Tagged With: $5 DIY Pillows, family room, Napkin Pillows, Pillows By Alli 6 Comments

Wow!

A Few Touches of Spring in Our Family Room

Our Spring Dining Room

A Touch of Spring in Carolina Girl’s Room

Ahh – It Flows So Much Better Now!

Our Autumn Dining Room

Ombre, Ombre, Ombre

$6 Napkin Pillows & Our Cozy Couch Corner

Awning Striped Picture Frames {DIY}

$5 Pillows {DIY}

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