Christmas Time...

Remember a few months ago when I was decorating for fall and I said that fall was my favorite? Well I do love fall until Christmas rolls in then Christmas becomes my favorite! We moved into our home the last week of October last year so at Chirstmas time, it sort felt like we were just trying to get settled in so the Christmas decor was pretty minimal. This year however,  I had been planning the mantel in my head for several weeks. I saw this photo on Pinterest and it was love at first sight...

Of course I followed the Pinterest link for the details and came across this blog...http://mydesigndump.blogspot.com/2010/04/diy-antlers.html.  Believe it or not, the deer is made out of foam board and wrapping paper. I had a piece of foam board that I had bought at Hobby Lobby when they were half off a couple of months ago (you never know when you are going to need foam board and when they are just $1 a piece, I have to grab a few). So, I headed to Target and found the perfect wrapping paper. At $5 a roll it was a little more then I wanted to spend but the red houndtooth was just to perfect and plus since I already had all the other supplies, the whole project was going to be $5. The blog has really great directions so if you are interested in making a deer of your own, jump on over there for a great tutorial. 

Here is a pic of the supplies that I used (I went with rubber cement rather than the spray adhesive but if I was making another, I think I would have used the spray adhesive...I think it would have been a little more secure).

It was really as simple a cutting around the pattern and then wedging the peices together. 

Here he is all finished and on the mantel! I added a couple 3.5ft prelight trees and some garland and totally love how the mantel looks (remember is it 14 feet long and 3feet deep so decorating is pretty overwhelming...nonetheless I love how it turned out). 

Tis' the season...Merry Christmas!

Rock Chalk Jayhawk

The hubs and I went back to Lawrence this weekend! We had lunch at LaParrilla, went to the football game, and walked through campus. It is always enjoyable to go back and remember when...

Rock Chalk!

Mission Accomplished!

I have a little secret...look closely at the pics I posted of the mantel last week and perhaps you will see my little secret. 

Or let me help you...here is an uncropped photo of the mantel.

The whole room had that terrible palm tree border. I always tried to crop it out when I posted pics of the room because I disliked it so much. Here is a better view of the room with the border...

Yep, see the palm tree border?

Well I have wanted to take it down since we moved in but I was worried about what was underneath. If it had been painted before the border was put up, I figured taking down the border would be quick and easy but if it had never beed painted that would be another story. My suspicion was that it had never been painted...I assumed the former home owners were to lazy to paint around the top of the room so they just put up a border. Turns out, I was right... 

 The border came down super easy (it look less then 20minutes) but like I suspected, there was not paint underneath. There were roller marks where the former home owner rolled the paint up high enough to be covered by the border but left a 3-4 inch uneven white gap. I was able to find the paint in the basementh but I worried that it would not match since I had no idea how long the paint had been sitting in the basement. Turns out,  the paint matched almost perfectly.

A couple of hours of painting and this is what it was looking like...

Nice! I instantly asked myself why I waited a year to take the border down! 

The other reason I never took it down was I was worried about this area...

 Above the exterior door in the family room, it is two differnt colors. Above the border it was white (which is really the dining room wall) and below it was beige. I didn't really want to paint above the border to match the beige below because then I would have to paint all the other sections of the dining room to match. I didn't know how it would look when I took down the border, but my original plan was to put a piece of trim molding up to break up the colors. But when I was painting with the beige, I painted a straight line and it turns out it looked pretty good so I don't think it needs the molding.

Mission accomplised! Finally after living here for a year, the palm trees are gone! YAY!

Dryer Vent Pumpkins

I could spend hours on Pinterest (and lets be honest, I do!). I love looking at the Home Decor section and the DIY section. I have lots of design ideas/projects pinned. Like this one...

I followed the link on the pin and it led me to this blog...

http://adiamondinthestuff.blogspot.com/2011/09/dryer-vent-pumpkin-tutorial.html

Turns out the pumpkins were made out of dryer vent. Sounded simple enough so I went to the home depot and gathered some supplies...

 

I cut the dryer vent into 3 equal sections then hot glued the end of each section together...

I gave it a good couple of coats of spray paint, stuck a stick that I found in the yard in the middle for the stem, and ta-da. Simple as that! 

I left them like that on the mantel for a couple of weeks but I just didn't  love them. They were a little boring so I got motivated one day and spruced them up a bit...

I wrapped wine corks with burlap and then tied ribbon around them and replaced the sticks as the stems. They look a little more sophisticated.

I added them to the mantel when I put up some Thanksgiving decor. 

 

The glitter trees came from The Holiday Mart, the Thankful sign I painted (it is just a foam board wrapped in burlap then hand painted...total cost...$4! The frame is one I had already and it just happened that the foam board fit in it!) and then the jar is filled with pine cones and white pumpkins.

Here is another view...

  Where is the third dryer vent pumpkin you ask...well he got a total makeover...

Look close and you will find him...he got covered in burplap!

 I love burlap so I decided to cover him and then I covered his stem in moss that I found in the craft room. He is probably my favorite now. My first project pinned on Pinterest completed!

Fall is simply my favorite!

Oh, I do so love fall! 

I love baking, going to the pumpkin patch, fall festivals, decorating, the weather, and my hubs favorite day of the year...Halloween. Here are some pics from my phone from the start of our favorite season...

A little burlap wreath for the front door!

The start of the mantel decorations...pumpkins made from dryer vent  tubing!

An owl familly, burlap pendent, and some mini pumpkins!

Red Barn Farm in Weston!

Pumpkin scones, oh so yummy!

A little owl candle and a bowl full of fun gourds!

The Front Room

Honestly, I can never remember which is the family room and which is the living room so I just call the upstairs the front room...makes sense to me! The front room finally got a makeover! Here is the before...

Holy white and beige! Add a beige sofa (from our apartment) and that is how the room looked for a good 8 months. It was pretty overwhelming to think about decorating it. I knew I didn't want to paint, afterall the walls are pretty much 1,000 feet high and the thought of having to figure out how to paint that high was exhausting so I needed to figure out how to embrace the beige and white. 

The first addition was a rug. I looked and looked for a fun floral or geometric pattern that would liven up the room and this is what I ended up with...

Yep, that is right, an all white rug! Oops. The rug is faux sheepskin and I really loved the texture so I changed plans, go for a nautral rug and add pops of color elsewhere. 

The next additions were a coffee table and a side table from the Good Ju Ju. I LOVE the Good Ju Ju!! If you have not been, you must (http://www.goodjujukc.com/). The coffee table was $40 and the side table was $30...score! Then I added a leather chair from TJ Max...

My grandma and I made the pillows and the cushion on the coffee table (so I guess it is more of an ottoman) together as well as the curtain after a trip to the Sh** shack in Springfield. I have no idea what the fabric  store is called really but there is fabric stuffed in every nook and cranny of the place. It takes hours and lots of digging but we always leave with the perfect fabric for next to nothing. It is awesome!

Next came the buffet. I found it on Craigslist for $100 and made my precious little sister come along with me to pick it up. I am not the biggest fan of Craigslist simple because you have to go to a strangers house but when you score a great buffet for cheap, gotta do whatcha gotta do! I forgot to take a before pic but it looked something like this one that I saw at an estate sale...

I took the hardware off and sanded, primed, and painted the whole thing and now it looks like this...

At last, some color in the room! All the knobs came from World Market and for all 12, it was less than $20!

Now to address the massive white wall...I knew I wanted it to house our wedding picture so I began looking for the perfect shelves. Really I wanted the shelves to be 6 feet long to really cover the wall and I kept coming up empty handed. Thus, I begged asked my sweet older brother to build some for me. I had this vision of what I wanted and when I can't find it, I can usually convince him to make it.  I won't tell you how long it took him to finally get around to making them but none the less he came through and they are awesome! They are huge and I just can't tell you how much I love them...

Aren't they awesome! 

Last, I had to do something with the wall space above the buffet. I really wanted a big round mirror but mirrors are so expensive so maybe someday. For now, I found a $45 mirror at the RiverMarket antique store and painted it to match the knobs on the buffet. It works for now and it is a fun splash of color.

Here is how the room looks now...