Kitchen shelf...

We don't have a lot of storage space in our kitchen and we've had to get creative to find places to put everything. There is a strange empty space behind the kitchen door that I had been thinking about putting a shelve in for a while, but this was back when I was super pregnant and dreaming more than doing.

I mentioned this to my husband just before we had the baby. Then one day when I was laying in bed with Baby Gray I heard some loud banging in the kitchen.

Trent said he had found a shelve at the DI that was perfect for this spot in the kitchen. "Oh no..." I thought. You see, Trent and I have very different ideas about decorating and furniture. I try not to be too big of a pain about it, but I really like things to look nice. I'm really picky about what shade of wood we have in the house (it has to be dark or painted white) and I had something really specific in mind that I wanted to do, which I hadn't talked to him about yet.... So I was pretty sure that this perfect shelf was going to be interesting.

I wandered out to see the shelf when he was done and when I first saw it I burst into tears...

Yes, the "perfect" shelf he found was one of those 1990 heart cutout shelves. Oh man! I felt bad for crying, but hello! I had just had a baby and was super emotional/not feeling well yet. And it was on the wall, all set up before I could even say anything about it. (I'm sorry if I have offended anyone who loves the heart shelf... it's just not my style, and you are welcome to have it, but you have to come before garbage day on Tuesday). I love how sweet and thoughtful Trent was to do this for me, and it has been super great to have a place to put these things. I'm not trying to sound like an ungrateful wife here (though I'm sure I sort of do), but I just didn't love the style.

Just for the record the next time I walked past the shelf I burst out laughing hysterically. I mean come on... those hearts! Talk about mood swings...

So we have lived with the lovely heart shelf for six months now, and I feel like I gave it a good try. But I really do cringe a little when I see it. I spend so much time in the kitchen, I want it to look nice (or my style of nice at least). Part of  my purpose this year is to live, not just exist. So I no longer wanted to "live" with the heart shelf.

One trip to IKEA later, here is my new shelf...

 

More modern, and clean lines. I really love it! It has been so handy to have somewhere to put the pots and pans as well as some of our pantry items. I swoon over the whole open shelf idea... maybe I'll add another on top for the flour and stuff. Anyway, maybe it's not that big of a deal or makes that big of a difference, but I love the way this looks so much better.

Someday I will make sure Trent has a wooden/heart shelf in his man cave...

Baby G's nursery...

 In the most beloved story of a baby’s birth, there was no decorated nursery or designer crib—

only a manger for the Savior of the world.

 - Neil L. Andersen October 2011 General Conference

 

 

I love this quote by Elder Andersen. This talk really spoke to me two years ago when we were trying to bring a new baby to our family. We were about to move in with my in law's while my husband was trying to find a job, and I knew that wherever we ended up living was not going to be a big luxurious place. I also knew that it was most likely going to be a hard few years financially while my husband started and settled into his career, and there was not going to be a designer crib in our future.

 

We live in a very small house. Super small. But we love it and it has been a comfortable place for our little family of three. When we found out we were pregnant, we really didn't want to leave! But I knew that meant that there would be no room for this little baby. There really would be no decorated nursery... at all. So the title of this post is a little misleading because Baby G does not have a nursery, or a room of his own, or even a room shared with his brother (yet...). Baby G lives in our living room, and all of his stuff is in a lovely dresser.

 

It's tricky for sure, but it works for us right now. It honestly was a little nice to only have to worry about getting the dresser done before he was born and not having to decorate a whole nursery. We have plans of making a loft bed for Blue that we will put the crib under, but not until the baby starts sleeping through the night (meaning 12 hours) and who knows when that will be. So for now, he sleeps out in the living room and it is working surprisingly well.

 

Part of me feels a little humbled to share this, but the rest of me just feels grateful for what we have. I've thought a lot about the woman who first lived in this home with her FIVE children. Holy smokes! Surely I can make it work for our two children right?

 

So without further adieu... here is Baby G's humble nursery...

 

Before I talk about the dresser, I want to talk about this bed! It's a Fisher Price Rock and Play Sleeper, and I love it. It was an impulse buy when he was waking up every 2-3 hours at night and I was so exhausted!! He really wasn't sleeping well laying on his back in the pack and play, so I needed to figure something else out for my own sanity. I'd heard about this bed and read the hundreds of reviews on Amazon before driving over to Target and picking one up. I'm not usually an impulse buyer, but man was it worth it! The first night he slept in this he did a 6 hour stretch. He now does a 6-9 hour stretch in there every night. I like how little it is and that it's easy to move around, it works so well with our "baby doesn't really have a room" situation. It's hard to see it's full beauty in this picture because I have a big blanket in there, but I really love it.

 

I talked in this post about my plans to redecorate the living room and how I wasn't sure what color we were going to paint the dresser. Well, yellow won out and I love it! The color is Behr's Sweet Maple and I love looking at this bright and cheery dresser everyday. It makes me smile! And someday when Baby G does have a room to call his own I can work this into his room better than I could teal. So yellow it was.

 

I did something that I had never done before when I refinished it which was make my own chalk paint. IT WAS AMAZING!!! I have painted a lot of furniture before and let me tell you, this is the way to go! I followed this tutorial and was so happy with how it turned out. I wanted to distress it a little, so I sanded the dresser before hand and then stained all the edges with a dark brown stain. Then I rubbed a white candle over all the places that I wanted to distress and painted two coats of yellow over the dresser. This chalk paint goes on so smooth and thick, that's all it took! I only used 2 cups of paint for the whole dresser. Then when the paint was dry I went over the edges with some fine grit sand paper and got just the right amount of dark wood showing through.

 

 

I bought the hardware off of Ebay because it was so much cheaper than the exact same drawer pulls from both Home Depot and Lowes. They were just the right touch.

 

 

I'm still needing to make a cover for the changing pad when I get around to it. I love the way the yellow looks with my pallet art on the wall above. Baby G loves looking at this while he's getting changed. I think it's the contrast between the dark wood and the white.

And inside are all of the baby clothes, extra wipes and diapers, blankets, burp cloths, shoes, toys, everything!

In the little basket on top I have easy access diapers and wipes, plus a little metal bucket that holds my small baby accessories. Nail clippers, binkies, bulb syringe, and plastic bags for stinky diapers.

There you have it! My super easy, low key, nursery solution for the time being. I like the simplicity of it. It has really helped me to not go overboard on baby stuff because we can really only fit what will fit in the dresser.

Pallet flag...

I've been itching to work on another pallet wood project lately. I just love taking a pile of old wood like this...

And turning it into something pretty like this...

Here is my new July decoration! I've decided to make at least one new decoration for each holiday a year. That way it's not over kill but I can build up my holiday décor slowly but surely. It was pretty simple, paint the boards, nail them to a frame,  put some stars on, simple right?

Sheesh... those stars were nearly the end of this project. Lets just take a moment and look at these perfectly circular and evenly spaced stars shall we?

I had the hardest time figuring out how to do the stars like this. That Betsy Ross... she's my new hero for sewing those 13 stars on the first flag. I wanted to do it like the first original flag but almost gave up.

After thinking about it for a few weeks I decided that I really needed to find a projector so that I could just project the image and trace it on. As fate would have it, one Sunday afternoon we were taking a walk and our neighbor up the street had an old projector out on the curb. So I knocked on her door and asked about the projector. She said that they had never been able to get it to work and I was welcome to have it to see if we had better luck. So we took it home and Trent changed all the connections in it, and we ordered a new light bulb. We got it to turn on but it wouldn't focus on anything at all... so I was stumped.

Then one day I came home and found this lovely box sitting on my front steps.

Turns out this same neighbor had a son who had a projector that he was going to take to the DI and they brought it down to me. They said that it worked just fine but there was a mirror inside that had fallen off and needed to be put back in place. We put the mirror back where it belonged and now I have a beautiful, functional projector!!!

Look at this beautiful thing! I love this projector... oh the projects I could do with this thing. I love that it folds up nice and small to be put away, and that it's not too heavy to move around.

This projector was the answer to my Betsy Ross wanna be star problem. I just printed off the star template onto a transparency and projected it onto the flag and traced the stars with a paint pen. Then I hand painted in all the stars. I'm super happy with how it turned out! If anyone wants to make some pallet art (or a Betsy Ross flag...) let me know! Cause I have a projector!!

So here is a bit of a sad crafting story. My whole idea about making one new craft for each holiday a year went bad in a bad way.

Remember this wreath I made last year? Well, here is a picture of it last year...

And here it is this year...

I'm calling this one a Pinterest fail. I had read somewhere (on Pinterest of course) that you could take a pool noodle and duct tape it in a circle and use it for a wreath form. So that's what I did for the wreath, and as you can see it now looks like a saggy old bag. It's awful. I still totally hung it up on my door... because this was my July craft for last year dangit! But I need to fix it... it's bad. I just don't know if I really want to spend the time again.

So just a word of warning... plastic pool noodles sag and do not make good wreath forms! Just buy a real wreath okay!

Livingroom progress...

 I have this belief... call it what you will... the laws of the universe, the secret, whatever.  But I believe that if you take a thought in your head and you say it out loud,  write it down, blog about it, it is no longer a thought or idea but it becomes real. It becomes a tangible thing that you can see, and it can grow and evolve from there. But if it's left as a thought in your head there it will stay.

Which is why I wrote a post about what I wanted to do in my living room to spruce things up. I also wrote a nice long to do list on all the things I hope to get done for this room. We've been here for a year and almost nothing has gotten accomplished in this room. But within the last week things have happened, moved along, and we are well on our way!

First, after three days of looking at fabric at the store for some throw pillows that would match my green/brown rug I decided that I didn't want this rug anymore. I love it, it's a great rug... but it is getting old, and it's stained, and I just wasn't loving how limited it made me in my decorating options. Basically, I couldn't do what I wanted to do and match the rug. So I told my husband what I really wanted was to get rid of it and get a jute rug... I was totally dreaming! But he said, "Sure, lets get a new rug! That's fine!" AHHHH!!! I was so excited!! I've been doing some extra typing work for his job and had some extra money that we could get the rug with... so that's what we did (we got it from IKEA). I can't believe that Trent agreed to let me get a jute rug. You see, he could care less about style and goes more for comfort. I was worried that he would hate it because of the texture.

Turns out the rough texture is like a good foot massage on these pregnant feet. It's perfect!

So with that I had a clean slate to do whatever I wanted with this room! Here is where the whole "laws of the universe" come in. I've been wanting to find a long dresser that I could re-paint and put in the living room to house all of the baby's stuff in. I had been searching Craigslist and KSL for something that would work for a  few weeks. Then one day last week I got an e-mail (from the lady in our ward that sends out the mass e-mails) that said FREE DRESSER. Huh? Someone in my ward was giving away a 9 drawer dresser for free! So I jumped on it, called up the man who had it, and now we have a nice long dresser that I can paint and fix up the way I want it!

It's not exactly the style that I was looking for... but it's free! And I think that once I get it all re-done it will look just fine.

I've been trying to decide if I should go teal or yellow. I love yellow. That's what I'm leaning towards now. But I just don't want there to be too much yellow going on in the room. So maybe teal? Not sure still...

Here are some yellows that I love...

 yellow 1, 2, 3

 

And some teal...

 



 

 

teal 1, 2

 

I think that I'm just going to have to pick one and hope that I like it. And if not, I can always re-do it. I like the teal, but I worry that I just like it because it's trendy now... and I'm not a very trendy person. So we'll see (... and now that I've re-read this post I'm loving the teal! Oh help! Maybe it's just the cute baby in the picture that is swaying me to teal).

 

I did however sew up some cute yellow pillows out of the old yellow curtains that were in our Las Vegas condo... they make me happy!

 



 

 

It feels good to be making some progress! My list is already getting checked off and things are getting accomplished... it feels good!

 



Pioneer House - The livingroom...

 Tomorrow marks one year since we moved into this little ole' pioneer house. It's been a good year! We love it here. It's tiny, but it's good for us. It's taken us a full year to get our furniture where we like it and settle in a little. I'm pretty slow at this stuff. I love crafting and making things, but when it comes to decorating, I'm super indecisive as to what I like to do.

One thing I have a hard time with is color. I don't like a lot of color, which can make for a boring space, that's for sure. One thing I know that I do love is wood + white together. I have a whole pinterest board dedicated to my love of wood and white.... but as a result I have a whole lot of brown and white in the living room and not a lot of color. So I think that I need to add some color in here! I want to get my living room all put together before the baby comes, so the nesting has started! But just for fun, here is what our main living space looks like right now.

I love this rug that I bought a few years ago. But I feel like it sort of limits my color choices to green. I've tried putting some yellow pillows on the couch but it just looks wrong with the green on the rug. So I don't know... but I really need some colorful pillows on the couch.

Like I said, lots of brown... and lots of white.

One thing that drives me crazy is the red/blue/green flannel blanket that we have under the coffee table. It clashes with everything! It drives me nuts when the blanket is spread out on the couch and doesn't match anything in the room. So on the short list is to make a comfy quilt that matches this room. I'm thinking I want to do a herringbone quilt (like on the bottom of this picture)... I think it would be awesome!

And then there is this poor boring corner. I really need something on the wall there above the computer and printer. I have an idea in my head of a cool new family tree that I want to make, so maybe I will get that going and put that on the wall there. Also, I re-did this desk a while ago and painted it... brown and white! You guessed it! There are yellow knobs on there but it is so subtle... I think I need to re-paint to bring some good color into the room. Any suggestions?

I have a big open wall here. I think I'm going to find a long dresser to put here and refinish. This is going to be where I keep the babies stuff. You have to be creative when you live in a small space!

Here is my attempt at a gallery wall! It needs a little help! I'm going to trade out some of the black frames for white ones and most of the black and white pictures are going to be replaced with new colored ones, and add a few new things to the wall. Also, this two drawer night stand is going to be moved into our room. We don't use it in here and it's too big for the space. I'm on the hunt for a tree round that I can make into a little side table for this space. I'm thinking something like this. Ahhhh... wouldn't that just be amazing!

So there is a little sneak peek into our living area! It needs some help... but I've got a list made and I've started working on some projects to make it a little more bright and lively.

Here are some color combo's that I like that I'm going to try and work with...

+

 



+

 

 

Any ideas on what colors would look good in here? Hopefully I can get it pulled together soon!

Halloween fail...

I pretty much failed at decorating for Halloween this year. I had good intentions, but I've been so busy canning and harvesting the food we grew around here that I really did not put much effort into decorating.

The only new decoration I was able to make was my awesome wreath for the front door. I did this in mid September with my friend on a girls day and I love it!

We sprayed the branch wreath black and added some black birds (with red eyes) and a pretty bow. I looked around on Pinterest for a wreath that I wanted to make but didn't find any that I loved, so we came up with this! Take that Pinterest (just kidding... I really do love you).

I pulled out the bat garland that I made about 4 years ago...

Trent's aunt brought over some pumpkins that she grew in her garden this year.

And... that's it! I feel bad. I wish that I would have tried a little harder. Maybe in March or April I can work on some Halloween crafts since Fall seems to be super busy for me.

My little dude tried to help out. He colored several pictures that he hung around with magnets on anything metal. Here is one that I though was super cute.

Maybe next year I will be better...

Stacked Coins Quilt...

I finally got the quilt done for my little boys bed. It's been in the makings for almost a year... but I did the finishing touches on it last week and I'm so in love with it.


When I started it my son was still in his crib and I figured that we would buy a twin bed for him. But somehow my husband talked me into getting a queen. So the quilt sat in the closet for a while, until I decided what I was going to do. I ended up just cutting some of the bottom off and adding the cream borders around the whole thing. And for the record... I'm glad that my husband talked me into a queen bed. Some of our funnest times are at night when all three of us lie in bed and read stories.

Then once I had the top done I took forever to decide how to quilt it. I really didn't want to tie it, I wanted it machine quilted. But I couldn't bring myself to paying someone $200ish dollars to have it done. So after some pep talks from friends/sister in laws and watching lots of You Tube videos, I decided to go ahead and do it myself.

HOLY COW!!! Why didn't anyone tell me that machine quilting was so much fun! It was amazing. I had a blast doing it. And it turned out pretty good. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm so happy with how it turned out.

I love the binding that I made for it. It adds just the right cuteness on the edges. I know that this fancy quilt (well, fancy for me) is just for a three year old boy and that it's probably going to be filthy dirty in a week... but I am so glad that I did it. I started this when I was going through chemo and I would work on it during the times that I was too sick to have my son with me. It was heartbreaking to send him away for a few weeks each time I did, and so to me working on something for him while I wasn't with him was good therapy for me.

I really love his room. Most of the art work/things in there are things that I have made for him. I love making things for my family!! It makes me feel like my boy is always surrounded with his mom's love.

Favorite Corner...

This is my favorite corner in our house. It's in my sons bedroom and this is often where the most precious moments of our day take place. We love to sit and read books in this chair and I like to rock him and sing him songs before bedtime.

The chair was found on Craigslist for super cheap. A few coats of Ivy Pasture from Valspar is all it needed. The basket on the floor has his books in it, while the shelves hold the books I don't want him to touch all the time and his library books.

The shelves were made out of wine crates from Costco (they were free). I stained the outside and painted the inside. Sock monkey was made by my sister in law and was a gift for his first birthday.

I love this picture. It's a page from the book Welcome to the Zoo, which is a darling picture book that my son has loved to death and totally fell apart. This is one of the only pages left that was not ripped so I kept it and threw the rest of the book away. I glued some of his little animals inside of an IKEA frame. I love it. I got the idea from here.

My bedroom...

... is boring... period! I was going to do a before shot today but my camera wont even turn on... I think that it died. Lucky you!



I have never in the seven years that I've been married tried to decorate my bedroom... okay, that's a small lie. Last year my husband tried to help me decorate our bedroom and pressured me into buying this silver bedspread... which didn't help the problem. Then we painted the wall behind the bed a dark purple that was short lived because it just looked like mud brown... sigh... it's been struggling for a while now but I think that I finally have my ideas in line enough to make something of this room. That's one of my goals for this year is to make this room beautiful!



So here are the rough plans...





1- I've always wanted to make an upholstered headboard... and I keep going between a dark brown or a white one... but I think that brown is going to win out.

2- I love white bedding. I'm nervous about this one because I have a wild and sticky fingered little two year old... but there is always bleach right? This is one from West Elm that is just beautiful.

3- We need a new quilt for under the duvet as well.... and I really love this pattern called Stacking the Odds from Denyse Schmidt.

4- I love these knit throw pillows from West Elm. However, I think that I'm going to knit my own for our bed (besides, I saved this picture a million years ago and I don't think that they carry them anymore anyway...)

5- We had some amazing family pictures taken in September and I love them. Just the colors that I want to put in the room too... aqua, white, touches of yellow. And look at my little man... what a doll he is! I can't wait to put this one up on the wall!

6- We really need some more clothing storage in our room. I saw this Ikea Hack that Little Green Notebook blogged about. So nicely done! I think those would look great as night stands in our room.

7- Just tying in more of the pretty colors from the Hope Valley fabric line from Denyse Schmidt. More blues, aqua and yellow please!

8- Also some pretty artwork from Urban Design would look great on the walls...



So there are the plans... I can't wait for it to all come together!

Chairs...

Twas two nights before Christmas and we were completely done Christmas shopping!!! So we decided to have a little fun... eat some pizza and egg nog (because we're healthy like that)... and recover our dinning room chairs!

Before...

We bought our dinning room set a year and a half ago on Craigslist and the chair seats were white. We knew that they didn't have a chance of staying white in our house, and I've been meaning to recover them ever since... but I just kept putting it off.

So we went and got some pretty green/brown/cream/gray fabric to go on top. And I have to say, this $12 staple gun from Home Depot may be the best $12 I've ever spent on anything...

We just cut out the fabric, pulled it tight, I made husband fold under the raw edges because I wanted it to look nice (even though nobody will ever see the bottom of the chair...) and stapled away!

After...

We even went the extra mile and covered them in vinyl too... just so that we wont have to do it again anytime soon! I love them! They look so much better! Now to finish the rest of the room to match the chairs...