Curtains

Over the Thanksgiving break, my sister-in-law was over at our house and helped me come up with these awesome curtains. I got the fabric as a Birthday gift and all we did was go to Hobby Lobby, purchase the backing and ribbon, cut, and away I sewed! I made the curtains in about 4 hours and it took about another two to staple gun the dining room curtains to wood. It was a lot of fun and completely therapeutic. Who would have guessed?

Our new furniture

Here are some pictures of our new furniture: The couch is more of a camel color and the chairs are a light, gray-blue.

Our living room Before and after... a work in progress

I have had several requests for blog posts... so I am appeasing the masses ;) (masses may be a little far fetched). We have been busy the last several months painting and working on our house. We are having a ton of fun making our house "home". I am posting a picture of our current, updated main entry and living area. It is still a work in progress as we have just ordered a couch and two chairs to replace our current living room furniture. But we've painted everything a lovely "cappacino" color (from Restoration Hardware) and have said "adios" to the lovely yellow walls that were too country for our taste. I can't wait to have it all put together, but am trying to be patient as money doesn't grow on tress (why can't it!?). Enjoy!

Before (with the previous owner's furniture in it):




After:

Wallpaper Woes

So I am totally on board with the rekindling of wallpaper use in the home. I love all the new designs that are out there. I have spent far too much time searching and searching for just the right wallpaper for our half bath by the entryway. I have four that I am trying to choose from. What are your thoughts?

Painting projects

We've been in our new house for about a month now and we have been busily making changes here and there. Our first project was to paint the dining room from it's forest greenish color to a wonderful "olive sawdust". We had a lot of fun painting and finished the project in about three hours. It was my first time painting a room, ever. Can you believe that? I guess there was never a need to, living in apartments for so long. Here are the before and after shots for you to see how it turned out. We have a loooooong list of rooms to paint, but we'll get it done.

Before and After: Before picture is first, After is beneath it. It's a little hard to tell the color different between the two...

I love farmer's markets!

This past weekend, Joel and I went to a local farmer's market here in Raleigh. It is the neatest place. They have the freshest, sweetest fruit I have ever tasted. Once you start going, you can never go back. I am done with buying fruit from the grocery store. We bought some collards for the first time, too. I wasn't sure how good they would be, but I looked up an online recipe and we absolutely LOVED it. We are working on trying to get as many fruits and veggies as we can. I want us to eat as healthy as we can. I'll pass on the collards recipe to anyone who wants it.

Gift ideas

Along with the cards, I've also been making coasters to give as gifts. I make them in sets of 4 with any color scheme. They are on sale for $12.00. Just let me know what colors you want and I'll send you pics of what I've found for final approval. The ones pictured below are ones I've already made for others.

Just a Little Something...

I've recently been thinking about how much fun it would be to open up a gift shop/interior design store. I don't know how good of an idea it is to combine the two, but two things I really enjoy doing are designing and creating (if I'm not teaching). I'm toying with the idea of an etsy site. If any of you have been given a gift by me recently, it came with a handmade card. Here's a couple of examples. (Cards-see below)

We'll see about the etsy site. I'm still undecided. The good news is the new house will have a craft room complete with a sewing machine, so my creative juices will continue to flow.

Shower Fun

Recently I threw a shower for my future sister-in-law. Due to the fact that I'm not working at the moment, I had lots of time on my hands to scour and find interesting projects to use for decorations. One of the things I decided to make was to spell the word BRIDE using twine, wire, and wreath flowers, and string it across the mantle at my parent's house. It turned out great! Even though it was time consuming (about 4 hours), it was well worth it. Anyone can make this, and it's cheap!

I also made the center pieces
for the table. I bought some hat boxes
and placed Styrofoam at the bottom,
inside the box. I then bought silk
flowers and cut them to size. I simply stuck
the flowers into the Styrofoamand- voila!
Perfect centerpiece for any party.

Summer is here!

We are so excited to get moving on the summer- literally. We are moving from Raleigh to Atlanta June 19th and couldn't be more excited. I'm busying myself with anything I can possibly think of to keep my mind off of wanting to hop in the car right this second.

We bought a house in May and can't wait to have a place to call our own. Here's to parties, cook outs, the pool, friends, family- the works! :D