New Family Member

I'd like to introduce you to a new family member.

A new member of my fake plant family! 

Which one is new, you ask? 

I know. There are four in this photo. (I have a problem.)

That tall, white potted beauty up there. That's her. 

She came to live with us thanks to the nice folks over at Silk Plants Direct. 

When they offered to send me another plant to add to my ever-growing (and never dying!) collection, and I saw their awesome selection, I couldn't turn down their offer.

I'm even thinking about buying a plant stand. For my fake plants. Is that weird?

I really don't care. Because my available surfaces are getting full. And these puppies aren't going anywhere because, well, you know.  

Just call me the crazy fake plant lady. 

And if you want to join me in this fake plant craziness, you can get 10% off everything but custom orders by using code BLOGGER10! 

Brown thumbs unite!

XO,

Shutterfly Feature

If you've been around here for awhile, you'll remember about four years ago when I redecorated the boys' shared bedroom...

Well, a little site called Shutterfly recently included 
it in their list of 100 Kids' Room Decor Ideas!

So fun!

I'm happy to report the room still looks mostly like this, with a few added posters and random piles of boy things.

It looks like they will be outgrowing the bunk beds (and possibly a shared room?) in the next year or so, so we'll see what happens!

XO,

Around Here Lately

Hello friends!

How was your weekend? I thought it would be fun to pop in and share a little random update since I haven't done that in for.ever. 

We had a really busy and productive weekend at our house. Turns out planning to have people over two weekends in a row turns Dan and I into little worker bees! 

This coming Saturday is the boys' 9th birthday party (I KNOW...9?!) and the next weekend I have a new friend coming from out of town to help me with a super exciting art-related adventure, which I'll be sharing more about soon! (ACK!) 

Sooo...we did a lot of cleaning, painting, purging, and a bit of decorating over the weekend to get the house ready.

I spent a bit of time in my little artsy corner of the house, hanging this fun wire shelf and printing some orders. And caught the light streaming in at just the right time...

And I cleaned out my boys' dresser, which turned into more than a few tears, and this photo of their first and latest pairs of shorts...

GOODNESS. They are getting SO big you guys!

And after about two months of being married to my new iPad, I pulled out my sketchbook, pencil and pens to work on a new piece!

I thought it would feel weird after not using them for so long, but it was like reuniting with old friends.

I'm really in love with how this piece turned out.

I even grabbed the star motifs from it to make a pattern...

I've been drawn to shades of pink and orange like crazy lately which is SO not like me...but maybe it is SO like the current me? 

I heard a quote the other day that said something like "you aren't required to be the same person you were 5 years ago or even 5 minutes ago." Isn't that great? Permission to always be changing. 

I am embracing that as I'm noticing lots of things about myself evolving over the past year, and allowing myself to change however much I darn want. 

Consider this your permission to do the same!

Hope you have a fabulous week!

XO, 

Decorating around a HUGE TV

We recently moved our TV to a different wall in our family room, and for the first time I had a huge empty wall to decorate around this big black box. 

In the past we had our TV above the fireplace (our first house) and most recently it was on a half wall. So this was new territory for me!

Obviously what was on that wall before the TV was there wasn't working...

And I hadn't changed anything on that wall in ummm...5 years or so. It was definitely time for a change!

I knew I wanted to create a fun collage to frame the TV, and my inspiration started with this butterfly artwork Landon created in art camp last summer. 

I love everything about it! 

Of course the fact that my 8 year old made it is the best part. But the image is so lovely, especially the colors. I found a shadow box frame for it at Hobby Lobby, and covered the board behind it with sticky chalkboard paper to make the art really pop. 

And then I started gathering more artwork and other pieces that coordinated. 

The hexagon shelf was an idea I had pinned a long time ago, so I was excited to pick one up, also at Hobby Lobby, along with the four artwork. The cute little faux succulent is from Target, and the adorable peacock house is from Things with Wings. 

Here is the finished (I think) wall...

I might still do some tweaking. Not totally sure about the arrow in the lower left, but for now I'm calling it a day.

"Kind people" artwork from Natural Life, and what my husband refers to as a "giant paper plate holder" 😂 is a thrifted basket from Goodwill. "Dream" canvas is one of my licensed pieces from METcolors.

My other favorite piece on this wall is this landscape painting made by Ben, also in art camp this past summer. 

(We LOVE art camp!)

Home sign also by Things with Wings, and lovely hand artwork by Mary Wangerin. 

The turquoise piece is a trivet from Hobby Lobby!

And another sweet spot are these candles and mini (faux) succulent on the TV cabinet...

And now I want to redo basically every wall art we have in the house. My husband is thrilled. 😉

Cheers to the weekend!

{getting cozy}

Things are looking all glowy and cozy at our house these days...

My goal is to cover as many spots with twinkle lights as possible. 

Ones like this are my favorite.

Ben helped me with the little shelf display above. He picked out all of the pieces and I did a little rearranging and added the lights. We make a good team!

 

And oh how happy I am to have these kitchen shelves to add little snow-topped houses and holiday cheer to! 

The rest of the house may look like a tornado went through, but at least I have these happy scenes to distract me!

Did you do holiday decorating over the weekend?

XO,

{felt leaf garland}

I'm in full on fall decorating mode around here. 

Pumpkins on every possible surface. That's a post for another day though.

Today I want to share a super easy DIY project with you. So easy that I debated even sharing it, but it turned out so lovely I figured why not!

Saturday I broke out my felt, yarn and hot glue gun to whip up a happy little fall leaf garland. 

I took a trip to Joann Fabric to pick out the felt - four coordinating colors that felt like fall to me and also matched my other decor. I free handed the leaves (used a sharpie to draw out the more complicated shapes), but if you need a bit of help with shapes a Pinterest search is super helpful. I even found a template here.

My first attempt at stringing them together was with a needle and clear thread, but it was a total fail. I wanted them to lay facing out when hanging, and that wasn't happening with the string. So I broke out my trusty old glue gun and some yarn. 

And it turned out perfectly! I might make another to hang over our kitchen window.

The fun thing about this project is you can cut out any darn shape you want! Feathers, acorns, pumpkins...and felt is super forgiving. 

Hope this inspires you to create some of your own fall decor!

XO,

{kitchen reno update part 2}

Oh I am BEYOND happy to share with you that for all intents and purposes, our kitchen reno is DONE!

Goodness that 7-ish weeks felt like an eternity! 

We still need to do some painting...white on the walls and a pop of turquoise on the island surround, but anything that we hired someone else to do is finished! 

It is all so bright and white and pretty. I don't know if I can pick a favorite thing. I'll post again when everything is 100% done but for now here is how it is looking!

Oh this backsplash makes me all kinds of happy. This photo was pre-grout but we went with gray so not much of a difference in the finished look...

The open shelving is from IKEA and is making me giddy! I couldn't resist plopping some dishes on it two seconds after the contractors left and snapping a few pictures. 

And now for a  good corner view of everything...

The upper cabinets, sink and drawer pulls are also IKEA. We purchased the lower cabinets and countertop (formica if you can believe it!) from Lowe's. 

And I actually smiled while washing dishes the other night... 

That Mrs. Meyers lemon dish soap didn't hurt! I'm obsessed with anything lemon scented these days. 

And because we all love a good before and after...

Holy cow right?

I've been pinning kitchen ideas ever since we moved into this house over seven years ago and really didn't know if we would ever be able to do this. It is a dream come true! 

And I really want to encourage you by adding that even though this wasn't inexpensive, we did it on a lower budget and income, so it is possible friends! Here are some examples of how we saved money...

We have a TON of countertop, and with formica it was only around $700 for the entire counter. No need to spend thousands on granite or solid surface to get a beautiful counter. The farmhouse sink from IKEA is only $300 which is a bargain. And it is a monster...so much room in that thing! Our faucet was an $80 Ebay find. The gas cooktop was $150 marked down from I think $400 in the IKEA clearance section. We have literally had it in a closet for like four years waiting for a new kitchen. The key is to be creative, think outside the box, and snatch up deals when you can!

Thanks so much to everyone that has joined in my excitement over this renovation. You are awesome!

XO,

kitchen reno update!

We are a month into our kitchen reno and I thought it was time to share an update with photos! 

I wish I could say it is finished...but it is well on it's way and for that I'm going to say thank you and keep practicing patience! (Although eating off of paper plates is getting OLD.) 

Here is my last post with the before photo (ack!) and lots of inspiration images and the plan. 

But in case you want to see that before again...

And here are the progress photos!

We had a new window installed which provided a much bigger before and after than we imagined! Worth every penny.

I'm really proud of Dan for getting the pieces for our island ready for the contractors. He painted the cabinets and has painted countless coats of sealer on the butcher block counter. Here it is temporarily put together so we could get an idea of how it will fit in the space...

The island will house our cooktop and have an extra piece of counter added to the back to accommodate stools. It will also have a surround added to cover the base cabinets that we'll be painting turquoise. The awesome cabinet with the pull out drawers was a super lucky Goodwill find, and we grabbed the slim cabinet from the clearance section at IKEA (we'll be adding shelves inside). They were mismatched colors so Dan painted them both white which really pulls it together. The butcher block top is also from IKEA. 

And umm how perfect is that Raskog cart nestled in the middle? I'm dying. Can't wait to see it finished! 

Next week is supposed to be counter install, which will then lead to the sink and hopefully back to a functioning kitchen very soon after that! Eek! 

SO ready to stop using those red solo cups. It looks like a 24/7 frat party at our house!

XO,