Homefront: So Long, Couches

 We got rid of our couches!! I did love my slipcovers, but my highly energetic 4 year old is a major couch jumper, and keeping those things on, are near impossible with him. It's been a good 2-3 year run with them, so I'm not complaining. We are selling off the large couch and slipcovers in a garage sale this weekend, but keeping the small loveseat with it's slipcovers to cozy up another room.

9 years ago when we were first married, I fell in love with a gray sofa. But, $500 was way too much, so we got a half sectional, gray corduroy for $86 on clearance from an actual furniture store. I loved that couch... but since it only had one arm, the cushions always slid off the other side. Ever since then, we have had one couch dilemma after another. Always from garage sales, hand me downs... at one point, we were using a bundt pan and kettle to sturdy the broken legs of a very awful sunny yellow floral monstrosity.

My slipcovers (white pottery barn and brown surefits) were heavenly, but they had drawbacks as well. Constant rearranging and so forth. So, nearly every single day for the past year I have been searching for nice, sturdy, affordable gray couches. Preferably, ones in which the cushions do not easily come off.

 And I found them last week! A natuzzi microfiber gray sofa and loveseat for $225... barely used on craigslist. They are a little shorter/smaller than I was hoping, but aside from that singular detail, perfection.

Ever since we brought these couches in, I have been on a major redecorating curve. I found these images of Kristin's living room via Little Green Notebook and it inspired a living room transformation. The beginnings  is taking form in a similar style and placement as hers.

Now all I have on my list to do... rehang wall art, find a coffee table, paint our tv stand, maybe dye our curtains, and learn how to slipcover my $1 skirted circle ottoman find. Pics to come soon!

Adorable Paper Dots Garland Tutorial

I saw this paper dots beaded garland tutorial on Oh Happy Day and thought it was totally adorable, practical, inexpensive and easy. All you need is crepe paper! Maybe I will do something like this to create a little wall feature for the nursery? We've been busting our hineys the past few days to get the room ready... all craft supplies have been moved to our room and the baby's room is underway. Pics will follow soon!

Purging and Clarity

simplify via homegrown hospitality

With all the losing photos, morning sickness, fatigue and all, I got way behind blogging. And now, I can't get my camera too load pics or work half the time, it's always one thing after another, isn't it? But people, I am due with my little baby girl in 3 WEEKS! And we still don't have a name for her. Hubs is stuck on one, and one day I love it and the next day it gives me a sour face just thinking about it. So... for anyone who asks about a name, I'm sure you will all be just as surprised as I will be on what it is.

free simplify printable, marjorie pay hinckly quote via it works for bobbi

Right now, I'm in a major purging mood. I feel like clutter and junk, and my dog's smelly skin particles, and the smelly rotting wood from the bathroom cabinets (dang rental) are just like sticking to me and I can't breathe. Pretty major clutter anxiety meltdown here. (And no, it's not totally nesting, I've been feeling this way for a looong time!) If I could just dump about 75% of my belongings and furniture in a box and haul it off and gets lots of money, I would be thrilled, and would in all honesty, probably not miss a single thing. But when I get down into the organizing, I have a hard, HARD time figuring out what to do with it all.

 how to yard sale, for buyers and sellers via nester

We could use the cash a garage sale, or craigslist/ebay whatever would merit, but with a barely working camera and the major headache of a garage sale and a husband who works most Saturdays lately and a broken down truck in the driveway.... I don't know if it's even worth it. I did sale some furniture already, (though I deeply regret selling this chair)... but I really need new couches (and to repair that dang truck) and so the money, even if not much sounds great. So, I know it will either be a garage sale, or I am calling up a charity to come and haul off tons and tons of boxes and can only hope that we could get a decent tax write off.

  declutter list via little lucy lu

Since I'm clearly not in the right frame of mind for decision making, I'm off to see what I can part with and throw them all in boxes! These helpful and simple declutter tactics and this awesome post on 99 ways to simplify life with kids are giving me some strength! I want to live more simply, a "tiny life", in a organized and refreshing atmosphere that doesn't stress me out every time I open a cabinet door looking for a cake pan, and tons of old pots and such fall on my toe.

Inspired Interiors: Blue Honey

mustard gray and white mantle via annesage

I'm not quite feeling the spring yet. I love the varying shades of blues here, like a range of patina... but the hints of  honey and mustard accents keeps me in my comfort zone. I've been having a lot of decorating ideas lately that combine these colors, even with a bit of navy mixed in. I just got a new set of chairs from a city wide garage sale and am considering finally pulling out that sander I borrowed from my friend to do something colorful. Well see where this adventure takes us.

kids  room via living,etc

mustard wallpaper and blue chair via annesage

aqua bedroom design via madeline stuart

Memories

My husband went out of town for a week for a business trip... and everything went wrong! The garage door broke, the boys were crazy, major fatigue set in... but even worse, my computer crashed for the whole entire week. (Though I DID get a lot of cleaning done!) When we got it back, all of our pictures were totally wiped out. I had been backing them up on an external hard drive, but apparently the last 2 years of photos hadn't been backing up like I though they were.

Through a lot of trial and error, we were able to get SOME back... for free! We were told by hp it would cost at least $100 for them to even try, and the geek squad and other places quoted us a lot more. But my husband did some google searching and found a program Recuva you can download that got them back. It only took about 2 entire days, but now we have them. Unfortunately, the recovered ones are most of what we had already saved, or ones I had already blogged. Some of my absolute favorite newer photos are still totally gone. About 8 thousand photos that we never took or have ever even seen before, like random logos, arrows, borders, color gradients, facebook pictures of people we don't even know and that sort of thing. So it is took a very long time to sort through them. We plan on getting an automatic online backup like Carbonite that should help in the future.

 

 

It made me really sad, because all this time I have been editing and saving pics for the blog and other sites, but I have failed to do the ones that matter to me the most... my family! I had just finished edited and organizing a few hundred family pictures, but didn't back them up. I keep seeing the images of my little guy in is homemade ghost costume for Christmas, or the boys playing soccer and their adorable little faces, a photo of me 'scolding' my oldest, and him rolling his eyes at me (hilarious), or the pictures of our family by the lake during Christmas time (which we totally lost).. then I thought about my family blog and how I haven't updated it in over a year!

I tend to be the type of person who, if I skip posting about Halloween, I think, I need to do it before Thanksgiving... then before you know it, Christmas has passed and I never updated because I could never update things that late or out of order. I do the same thing with my journal. Well, now I know better... I am really going to try and focus on not only making those memories, but keeping them alive, and not drowned in some hard drive to be lost somewhere. And, I am going to try and focus more on making memories with my kids, than on missing old photos with them. I've come to realize that is why those photos were so important to me, because I haven't been doing as well of a job in being there for them right now. So, apparently, I have got a looooot to work on.

Thrifted Vintage Master Bedroom Makeover

For those who have followed my blog over the years, many of you have seen my sporadically different bedroom changes, in three different homes. The first was the diy painting of the garage sale headboard here. Then the vintage linen room, then the plate wall  and total bedroom makeover (my favorite), and now in this yucky rental (with the nausea inducing mustard orange accent wall.) Well, it's the end of an era, because I just sold my pretty white headboard and my adorable vintage french provincial dresser last weekend. A bit is due to earning some cashola to get new baby girl gear, but I'm also going through a mega purging phase right now. I have boxes and boxes of clothes/decor/craft supplies/linens and stuff just waiting to get out of here. My room feels naked now without a headboard, so any free/cheap/diy ideas for that would be awesome.

But, I did find these two amazing vintage lamps the other day for only $12. I have been looking for lamps because all of ours have broken. I never find quirky/cool lamps in a pair that actually work at a thrift store.... and these lamps are definitely pretty quirky. A woman at Goodwill commented that she liked the lamps... if the shades were different, but I happened to love the silky drum shade and the pretty pale robins egg blue color, even though it does clash a bit with the interesting pink and green glass/acrylic (?).

The wall sconces were another find for $2 and the vintage crewel embroidery art was $3. I am not usually a big symmetry decorator, like my blessed grandmother, but I love the simplicity it brings to the space.

 I have a beautiful vintage crewel embroidery on a down stuffed wool pillow that accented this art beautifully, (as seen on a chair that I also sold, *sniff*)... but I RUINED it! I wasn't thinking and washed the thing... now it is all moldy and the embroidery colors ran. I am so upset with myself. I may just cut the front part off and try to frame it?

My little boys love picking me little flowers they find. I put one in my hair the other day and they thought I had magically transformed into a princess.

Of course, the end tables usually have medicine bottles, glasses of ice water, cell phone chargers and a way huge ugly alarm clock. But you know, gotta look a little gussied up for pics right? Since the thrifted tables are pretty banged up, and I still haven't sanded and painted them, I cut this vintage thrifted lace panel in half and now we don't get splinters on our end tables at night.

 

 My hubs' Far Side looking elephant piggy bank. And his studly glasses. He looks so cute in those glasses.

 A few slip covered pillowcases my aunt, the professional seamstress made for me. I stuff them with cheap (and washed) thrifted pillows. I love how she made me so many covers, I can change them throughout the seasons and always have a fresh update. That is the beauty of slip covered pillows people. I really need to get over my fear of sewing machines and just do it. Rae Gun has a great envelope pillow case tutorial here.

So, I got me a little mini makeover for now. I have a challenge on my hands on how to make this space a little more comfortable while spending zero money on a headboard alternative. I have found a few cute ideas out there, that I will likely be posting soon, do you have any free/diy headboard ideas?

Linked to:
Thrifters Anonymous 
Her Library Adventures Flea Market Finds 
Nester's It's Not Perfect But It's Beautiful 
Between Naps on the Porch 
Chic on a Shoestring Budget 
Remodelaholic

DIY Birthday Cupake Toppers

It was my oldest child's 6th b-day and we are only allowed to bring store bought cupcakes to school. Since we weren't having a party for him, I really wanted to do something relatively fun for his kindergarten class. I checked out our local store's bakeries and all they had were these neon colored frosted cupcakes, so I bought these cute eye candies thinking I could decorate them as monsters. When I asked my sweet hubs to pick up cupcakes, he brought these home, (he went to a different place). They look kind-of meh for a kid, and all of my colorful ideas/supplies were not working. So I found ton's of super cute free online printable cupcake toppers, like LEGO Star Wars, Angry Birds, robots and such... but alas, our printer wasn't working! So, I raided my scrapbook paper stash (haven't updated it in years by the way) and found a square of camouflage. Pretty much the only thing that would work, since the baby blocks, pastel flower paper or shabby chic damask prints clearly was not going to work for a 6 year old little guy!

 (They tasted better than expected too!)

 
I cut bamboo sticks in half, making sure to get rid of any sharp ends, stamped out some circles and tied on some twine, and viola, decorated cupcakes. A lot easier than expected. I only had one size circle punch, so I stamped all of them with it, then handcut the camo ones a wee smaller to there would be brown space showing around the edges. Of course, I used hot glue for everything. So, you can make your own simple cupcake toppers, in a hurry even, much easier than I thought and you really don't need that many supplies.

My happy 6 year old birthday boy! Unfortunately, my camera is on it's last legs and doesn't take very good 'action shots', one reason why there is a serious lack of original photos right now!