His and Hers

April 22, 2013 By 1 Comment

Pssst…

come close…

I have a secret to tell you…

That’s right, baby Hawkins #2 is arriving this fall!  And apparently a flexible one too!  Brian and I have been holding tight to this secret for a while but we’re so excited to finally share the news.  And what was one of the first things that I started working on when we found out bambino #2 was one the way?  The nursery of course!  I’ve been secretly bookmarking and pinning ideas for months (thank you Pinterest for the new secret board option!) and now it’s time to start wrangling ideas and get to work.  And time’s a ticking because not only do we need to get the new nursery ready, but finish Juice’s big girl room – check out the mood board I made for her room here.

Since I’m pretty sure this baby thing can only turn out one of two ways, boy or girl, I put together two mood boards.  Up first, girl nursery -

Those who know me might be a little surprised to see this one from me.  I pretty much swore off pink the first go around and went the more gender neutral route.  I’m still a big fan of that, but I just loved this rug so much I wanted to plan a room around it.

Next up, boy nursery -

For this one I went back to a more neutral look.  It’e pretty hard to find bedding for a boy that doesn’t include trucks, animals, or sports, so for this room I’d probably turn to Etsy to find a cute blanket for the crib, maybe navy or orange.

So which room are we going with?  That one we’re keeping to ourselves for a little while longer!

Filed Under: Decor

Window Shopping: World Market

April 5, 2013 By Leave a Comment

World Market is slowly reaching Target status – you can’t get out without spending at least $100.  It got me again today and I added about a hundred things to my wish list.  I’m that weirdo that walks around the store taking pictures of things that I like so I can remember later on, here’s what I captured today -

 

I was loving the chairs at World Market today.  This guy would be great for the office (currently in progress), especially with the cushion.

I loved the print on this one, and it’s just the right size for our tiny living room.

And this was seriously one of the most comfortable chairs I have ever sat on.

They had a ton of great prints on the outdoor cushions, umbrellas, and rugs, but I loved this pouf.

And my longstanding obsession is with World Market shower curtains.  I’ve been looking all over for curtains for Juice’s big girl room and the prints on half of the shower curtains were perfect.  They need to sell fabric.

But in the end, I left with a couple new lovelies that I hope to share in the next couple weeks.

 

Filed Under: Decor, Products

Stairway to Heaven

February 27, 2013 By 13 Comments

It’s Pinterest Challenge time again over at Young House Love and oh was I excited about this one!  I FINALLY pulled the trigger on one of the first things I ever pinned, a chevron stair case -

Ahh…love this more every time I look at it.  Not to mention the wainscoting and decor in the picture are perfect.  But alas, carpet just isn’t in the budget right now so I figured I had two choices, paint or wallpaper.  Wallpaper seemed like way too much effort for such a small space so paint it was.  I started by giving the stairs a good cleaning (projects seem to be the only time something get’s a good cleaning in our house lately…) and a fresh coat of cream paint.  To make the chevron pattern, I created a template using some cardboard.  Then I traced the pattern onto the steps before using my beloved Frog Tape to tape the lines.  Along the way, I ended up creating a couple other template pieces to fit into the smaller spaces around the edge of each step.

This was seriously one of the most tedious, time consuming processes I ever used and ranks right up there on the fun scale with painting the ceiling on our sun porch.  Ugg.  But after the pattern was traced and taped off, I gave the steps two coats of a dark gray paint and I was done!

I haven’t had much time to take it in, but so far I’m pretty happy.  If I could do it over I’d use a slightly darker gray, but it’s soooo not worth taping and painting again.  I also like that our staircase isn’t the focal point in our house, so the pattern doesn’t overwhelm you.  It’s a nice little surprise that you catch on accident.

Some day I’m hoping we can upgrade to a carpet runner, especially when kiddos start running up and down the stairs, but for now I’m diggin’ our new steps.

To check out more of my pins, visit me on Pinterest.  Any suggestions on what I should do for the next Pinterest Challenge?

Filed Under: Decor, DIY, House, Paint

Yes Please: Twigs

February 17, 2013 By Leave a Comment

In my recent search for the perfect wallpaper, I can across this guy -

Yum.  And when I was looking for shelves for Juice’s big girl room, I found these shelf brackets -

Like.  And these hooks are in the running for our laundry room -

Hmm…I think I have a crush on all things twig.

 

Filed Under: Decor, Products

Valentine’s Day Garland: Two Ways

February 13, 2013 By Leave a Comment

T’was the night before Valentine’s Day and all through the house…I was scrambling to put up last minute decorations.  Par for the course.  For a quick project, I made heart garland using a couple sheets of craft paper and twine.  I used a cookie cutter to trace hearts on the paper (hey, use what ya’ got), cut them out and strung them on the twine.

I couldn’t decide where to put the garland so I tried two options.  First, I strung the garland on a frame we had sitting around the house (same one I used for the glitter deer bust at Christmas) -

The frame has little metal clips to secure the back, so I pulled those out and wrapped the twine around them -

I put the frame on the side table by our front door, along with some Valentine’s M&M’s (which probably won’t make it through the night…) -

For option #2, I hung the garland on my old standby, the fireplace -

Oh garland, I love you anywhere I put you.

Filed Under: Decor, Holiday

Yes Please: Geometric Shapes

January 19, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Lately I’ve been loving all things geometric.  It goes against almost everything in our house, but I’m working  hard to sneak it in somewhere.  Check out these lovelies -

{lamp}

{sheets}

{Terrarium}

{Hexy Wall}

{rug}

{vase}

{boxes}

{mirror}

 

Filed Under: Decor, Products

Hangin’ In There

January 11, 2013 By 1 Comment

The plague has descended on our house.  After recovering from the flu, I turned 5 years old and got strep throat.  Liv joined the fun with an ear infection and some respiratory issues.  After nursing us back to health, Brian is now bed ridden.  So as we recover, disinfect our house, and generally catch up on life, DIYing will be on the back-burner.  Until we get back on our feet, here’s a quick project I completed a few months back.

A few years back, I bought a cute little key hook rack from Anthropologie, which is pretty similar to one they still sell.

It gracefully adorned the walls of our old townhouse, but ever since we moved into our new house it’s been banished to my ”I need to do something with this” box.  I love the key rack, but I didn’t know how to hang it since I have a phobia of nailing or screwing things into our plaster walls (Command Strips or bust!).  After indecisively taking the key hook in and out of our garage sale pile the last few years, I finally came up with a solution - all I needed to do was attach it to something else and use Command Strips on that.  Duh!  With a few lonely pallets sitting in our shed just waiting for project, I had Brian rip a board off and cut it down for me.  First, we stained the board but it ended up a little too dark and monotone.  Then I tried my hand at whitewashing, mixing a little white paint with a little water and applying the mix to the board using a rag.

Then I used tack nails to attach the key rack to the board (I used these because they blended in with the metal the best), threw my beloved Command Strips on the back and we were in business!

 So there you have it, my quick scared-to-destroy-walls-pallet-key-hook!

Filed Under: Decor, DIY

Movin’ On Up

January 5, 2013 By 1 Comment

The time has come…for Juice’s big girl room!  I thought I’d be sad about this – our baby, growing up so fast.  Instead, I’m geeked about decorating a new room!  I’ve been plotting the space in my head for a while now, flip flopping between color schemes and how “mature” I want it to look.  Right now I’ve settled on muted yellows, blues and purples.  And after seeing the mood board I created, I’m kinda thinking I need to steal this look for our master bedroom!

Sources:

  1. Bed – IKEA
  2. Rug – Land of Nod
  3. Night Stand – West Elm
  4. Fabric – World Market (it’s actually a shower curtain, but I LOVE the pattern)
  5. Chair – Amazon.com
  6. Basket – West Elm
  7. Blanket – West Elm
Filed Under: Decor, House, Kids

Taking Christmas by the Antlers

December 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Animals heads are popping up everywhere right now.  Cardboard, paper mache, ceramic…and glitter?  Yea, glitter isn’t exactly my style but I’ve seen a couple versions lately that were pretty cute.  And the cheapskate in me thought this would be a great way to incorporate some wildlife into our house while I save my pennies for this little fella -

 

 

So I tapped my inner 4 year old and got my glitter on!  I found a deer silhouette here and traced it on a poster board.   Then I spread a thin layer of glue in the silhouette and poured a crap-ton of glitter over the glue.  After letting it sit for a few minutes, I swept off of excess glitter and gave it a light spritz of hairspray so we wouldn’t be finding glitter all over our house for years to come.  Then I put it in a frame we had laying around the house and voila, he was ready!

If you look closely you can see a couple spots where the glitter didn’t really take.  I just used my finger and a q-tip to spread the glue, but it might go on more evenly if you used a small paint brush.  I actually don’t mind the gaps, it breaks up the insane amount of glitter I used.  Right now, he resides on the Christmas-ish mantel with the felt and twine trees I made -

I can’t believe we’re already t-minus 13 days until these stockings are full!

Filed Under: Decor, DIY, Holiday

A Tree of a Different Color

November 29, 2012 By 6 Comments

Not to sound like a Scrooge, but I’ve never been big on decorating for holidays.  A Christmas tree here, some pumpkins there, maybe even some candy hearts in a bowl, but nothing over the top.  It’s not that I don’t like holidays, I think I just have a hard time shelling out the cash for decorations.  But with Juice getting older, it’s time I step it up and be a good mama and decorate!  So this Christmas I decided to take matters into my own hands and make some decorations.  I promised myself I would wait until Thanksgiving passed, but this week it was on!  Project #1 included two cones, felt, and some twine.

Oh yeah, and my first experience with a glue gun.  It. Was. Awesome.  For the first tree, I used the twine to cover one of the cones.  I had some trouble at the top, trying to figure out what technique to use, but after a couple times around the tree I get a pretty good rhythm going -

I figured out it was best not to glue every inch of the twine down (way to tedious and messy), but to just use a touch of glue every once in a while.  When I was done I had one fuzzy little tree, but after giving it a trim it looked pretty good!

For the second tree, I did a play off this one from Land of Nod -

I loved the scalloped pattern, which I’m totally obsessed with right now.  I decided to mainly use gray and cream, with a touch of red mixed in -

I cut two different sizes of half circles, using the larger ones at the bottom and the smaller ones as I moved towards the top -

After topping off the tree with one last large piece, it was done!

Right now the trees reside on the fireplace mantel, which is begging for a little more Christmas cheer.

The grand total for both trees?  Less than $10!

  • paper mache cone – large: $2.99
  • paper mache cone – small: $2.69
  • felt sheets – 7 @ $0.20

Total cost: $7.08

Hopefully this week we’ll bust out the rest of the Christmas decorations…and maybe throw in a couple more holiday crafts…Ah, the Christmas season has arrived!

Filed Under: Decor, DIY, Holiday
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