Office art...

Yep, I'm still talking about projects for our office. This time I'm thinking art...

from here, found here

I'm thinking a big monogram made out of pencils is a really fun idea.

A love/hate relationship with Design Star...

So, I'll be honest, I'm no expert but last night's episode of Design Star left a little to be desired. Seriously, like the judges said and David says in his vlog - where was the design?

My husband and I was totally looking forward to the episode thinking there would be some great backyard design ideas, but not so much. I guess we will have to look elsewhere for ideas for our fall yard makeover we're planning.

But just when I thought I might be disappointed in Design Star and my obsession may be fading...

My husband informs me that last season's winner is from our town! Seriously, where was I during last season!? How did I miss that!?

Project reality check...

Okay, so I've been told [multiple times] that our list of Labor Day weekend projects was more than a little ambitious. Considering we are getting free labor from our amazing families, we have refined the list [just a bit] so that we still have loving families when the weekend is over. :)
Anyways, the major project that is being temporarily delayed is tiling our master bathroom. It actually works out really well though, because since I'm out of town yet again this week, we needed to find the tiles this past weekend. But we just haven't fallen in love with anything we've seen so far. Now we will have more time to find that special tile.

Hopefully we find some beautiful glass tile like this...

A chandelier!? Us!? Really!?

I have always thought having a chandelier in our master bedroom would be pretty much the ultimate in beauty, relaxation, luxury and just plain amazingness.

My husband, however, has always thought our boring [and gold, uck!] ceiling fan is the ultimate in necessity and just fineness.

Well, this past weekend while shopping at Lowe's, I just happened to casually point out a beautiful chandelier and how incredible it would look in our bedroom...

And my husband totally agreed!!! I don't know what changed, but I like it! :)

chrome & crystal

antique white crystal

six light chandelier

[This takes away from the story a little - but no, we did not end up buying a chandelier. Yet. But now there is finally hope for a beautiful, sparkly, shiny, wonderful chandelier someday finding its home in our bedroom.]

Speaking of projects...

This dresser / nightstand transformation is incredible...

Oh Centsational Girl, you are so talented. And your home is so lovely.

Projects, projects, projects...

My husband and I have been compiling a list of home projects that need done. The list has been growing since, well, when we bought our house in April. Now it is all planned and ready to go - over Labor Day weekend, along with the help of our parents, we will be crossing some major items off the list. :)

• Painting all the rooms upstairs
• Switching out some light fixtures that look like they are from 1982
• Replacing the garbage disposal - ewww!
• And installing tile in the master bath

I am crazy excited, but a tad nervous, about doing the tile in the master bath, but the Thrifty Decor Chick has once again inspired me with her tiling adventures. We don't have the incredible tub she does, but the tiling will still make a huge impact in our bathroom.

Oh, and have I mentioned that we will also finally be putting together the desk for the office? I guess maybe once or twice....

More office goodies...

I love, love, love this wallpaper file cabinet featured on Design*Sponge today. I am definitely adding to this to the project list for our imaginary office. Seriously, as soon as we paint and put together the desk, I am off to Goodwill to hunt for a file cabinet to makeover. :)

For more wonderful office ideas, check out The Office Stylist and her store Sorting with Style.

Cousin time...

What better way to pass some time while out of town than a great dinner with a great cousin? In honor of the fun evening, here are some great "cousin" items from etsy. Enjoy...

Family cousin book page necklace

Sweetest cousin scrabble tile pendant

Stark's Cousin - original painting

Grandma's House sign

And the last, but not least, the big cuz shirt. Cuz, his name is Trevor and he's my big cuz. :)

Trick or yummy baked treats...

For Halloween this year, my brave friend is attempting this haunted house cake...

I, however, would be scared out of mind to take on the haunted house. But I would love to make these candy corn cookies...

Or this little peeking monster...

Getting organized with lists...

If possible, life seems even busier right now for my husband and I than normal. With balancing work, traveling, a new puppy and just life in general, we could definitely use a little extra organization these days.

So, I made lists to help us get organized before each week - what's for dinner and what we have going on...
And lists for us to jot down things to get done and what we need from the store, with a little spiritual motivation thrown in also...

The plan is to print them off when I get back home, cut 'em out and put 'em to use in our kitchen to help organize our lives. I actually first made them to better match our kitchen, which is decorated with items like this from Bed Bath & Beyond...

We have this framed print and the matching trivets, coasters and ceramic pot [holding our cooking utensils]. So, I thought the lists should coordinate with the colors, like this...

But then I remembered that I want to keep them in the cabinet like they did here at Young House Love...

So, I changed the colors. But since I am stuck in a hotel and can't print them yet anyways, the colors, style, etc. will probably all change again by the time I get home.

[By the way this part of my mini-kitchen makeover I am planning. And by mini, I mean very mini, like $20 mini. But still fun. Stay tuned for the small improvements until my husband lets me do this. Or until we win the lottery and can install real granite countertops. :)]

Simply lovely...

I would love to have an ice cream social and these would be a great addition: Free "Love and Ice Cream" gift tag printables from Eat. Drink. Chic.

This is one on the sweetest baby showers I have ever seen. How precious! I am filing this idea away in my mind for someday when I am hosting a baby shower.

"Sip and See" library baby shower from Swanky Tables

Wishing they could stay forever...

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend - I know I did! My sister [the best sister ever!] and brother-in-law were in town visiting and I loved every minute of it! I already cannot wait to see them again!

Sister Owls print from the yumi yumi shop

E-stationary, labels, and more...

I just got the cutest e-thank you from this marvelous girl. Check out all of the fun, free e-stationary at iomoi. Adorable.

They also have tons of fun items to buy. I love labels of all types, so of course I liked the address labels and gift tags. [I'm actually a mega dork and have already been thinking about making custom tags for all our Christmas gifts this year.] This site has great ideas for bright, graphic labels.

I also love the handmade lucite trays. I can honestly think of a reason I need one in every room of our house. :)

Office accessories...

There is something about being away from home that makes me really motivated to do home projects. Tonight, I am wishing I could be home to finally get our office organized. We are painting the room in just two weeks. Then, we will finally be able to put the desk together. And then, we will finally be able to decorate!!!

I am planning for some crazy amazing organizing to take place. Can't wait! The plan is to use unique containers for storage and make the room feel inspiring. [And I'm secretly planning to sneak in some girlier, craftier, prettier items too. But, shhhh, don't tell my husband.] Check out some inspiration accessories...

inspiration from Ballard Designs

inspiration from Pottery Barn

Anthropologie

inspiration from

[I don't know what happened to some of the pictures in these last two...but if you click on them, you'll be able to see the missing items. It's kind of just a big accidental surprise.]

So, some of the items are definitely not realistic for me to buy...but they are inspiring some great crafty thoughts. Like adding numbers/letters to glass jars, recovering a bulletin board we already have, making my own chalkboard hanging tags, designing my own notepads, and so much more! Stay tuned for office updates. :)

Two [more] new faves...

I'm pretty sure you can tell I've been stuck alone in a hotel room all week, because I just found two more new fave blogs...

Numero uno is Heart of Light for all of the wonderful baking and making ideas. Thanks to my friend for introducing us. :) Of course, it was love at first sight with this rosebud headband. So pretty!

[By the way, in case you are sharing in my new flower obsession, check out these great organza flowers.]


Numero dos is Be Different...Act Normal. All I can say about this is "Holy moly! You've got to be kidding! There's no way these great countertops were just painted! Must buy paint now!"

Delightful downloads...

• Polka dot thank yous found via iDiY
• Bubble bath labels found via iDiY
• Lemonade printables found via iDiY
• Printable art found via How About Orange
• Butterflies found via iDiY
• Notecards and more notecards found via iDiY
• Print-and-mail party invites and petal-shaped invites found via iDiY
• Bookmarks found via How About Orange
• Mod monkey baby shower signs found via Hostess with the Mostess
• Cross-stitch stationary found via iDiY

Can't get enough of these flowers...

Silly little rose pin - now that I have found you, I can't stop thinking about how much I want some pretty little flowers. Look at all of these lovelies...

And there are so many possibilities for making my own pretty flowers...

• Lovely headbands
• Paper flowers
• Flower pins
• Lace flower pins
• Hana kanzashis [Nope, I haven't the slightest what that means, but check it out - they are crazy cute!]
• Martha's zipper flowers
• [And don't forget the cute ribbon flowers I posted here.]

Add these to the list...

Here are some of the newest additions to my never-ending list of projects I'd like to do...

Notepads from Little Birdie Secrets - I am a mega dork about making lists and anything that resembles school / office supplies. Yes, mega dork. So imagine how excited I got when I saw directions for making your own notepads. And, even more exciting is that the notepad adhesive is only $2.65.

Wine bottle torch from Design*Sponge - I know everyone has probably seen these posted on 72 different blogs by now...but I couldn't help it, I had to include them. We have big plans for our backyard and these would be a great addition!

Marshmallow art found via Design Dazzle - I am definitely not an artist, but these are too cute to resist.

Ribbon flowers from Little Birdie Secrets - These are adorable and there are so many possibilities for using them. I would love one as a hair accessory, on a purse or pinned on a sweater. And they even look similar to this rose pin from my fab fall finds.

Fab fall finds...

Unfortunately, summer is quickly drawing to an end. I don't know how it went by so quickly...but I do know that if I had a few of the items below, I would be much more excited for fall to come.

By the way, I definitely paid no attention at all to the prices of these wonderful items. So the $924 clutch, the $629 candle sticks and some other items are way out of the realm of reality. But there were a few pleasant surprises too, like the two cute green tops and the eye-catching orange skirt.

Two new faves...

I recently stumbled upon two blogs that I absolutely love. First up is Love, Actually. I already loved it, but today's post "Romancing the Alley" totally sealed the deal.


And next is Young House Love - a great reference for DIY projects and tutorials. One of my favorite little ideas from the site so far is the Wining and Dining post about creating great table decor from spare decorating items around the house. As soon as I get back home Friday, I am putting together this little lovely for our table. :)

Back to school beauty...

In honor of everyone heading back to school...check out this beautiful school-inspired wedding. The inspiration came because the bride and groom were classmates in elementary school. They are adorable and the details are incredible!


Check out more from the wedding here and at Martha Stewart Weddings for even more photos.

Happy Birthday!

Today is my husband's birthday! Yippy! Happy Day! I can't wait to celebrate with him tonight and this weekend!

Here's him celebrating his birthday last year on our honeymoon cruise...


Love you! Have a GREAT birthday! :)

A rocky start to the friendship...

All day yesterday I was looking forward to my delivery from Schwan's with my free food...but it never showed up.

I even double-checked my order confirmation and it definitely said it was supposed to come yesterday. Okay, time to stop whining - it is free!

I watch way too much HGTV...

I am kind of ridiculously obsessed with this season of HGTV's Design Star. I like to play along in my head and come up with how I would have decorated the room. Like on the White Wall Challenge, I had all these cool ideas about how the floor would be made out of the lids of canned food and there would be a chandelier made from baby food jars (I know that may sound strange, but one room used dog food. Way weirder.). Seriously though, I get really excited about each episode.

As further evidence of my HGTV obsession, during the whole Garage Transformation Challenge, I was telling my husband all the details from the garage makeover on Color Splash.

See...it's really cool! I especially loved how he covered the cabinet doors in blue plastic. Looks awesome and simple to do.

And speaking of Color Splash - I love David Bromstad too and his video blog after each episode of Design Star.

And at the risk of getting into the whole Tashica debate, there are some fun blog interviews of her after she was eliminated from Washington Spaces and Room Fu. I did find it interesting that the Design Star Blog had been featuring every Washington Spaces post about Tashica until this last one...maybe it's because Tachica referred to Design Star as being "like a prison boot camp or correctional program." Just a guess...

[By the way, I'm pretty sure my rambling reiterates how totally obsessed I am!]

I love free things...

Hurry!!! Go to this link! Schwans is giving away $10 worth of free food to the first 500,000 people to go to the link. I have creamy Parmesan risotto coming on Wednesday. Yum! I haven't had anything from Schwans since I was a kid, but have a feeling we might rekindle a great friendship! :)

Thanks to Made with Love and Glue for sharing the free food fun!

That was fun...

Thanks for sticking with me through my twelve wedding posts - one for each month I've been married and one for everyday leading up to our anniversary (kind of). Anyways, it was really fun looking back at all the photos and thinking of all the great memories! [Check out memories 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.]

We will now return to regular programming...


How incredible is this laundry room drying rack? Uh, yeah, really incredible! I love the Ballard Design drying racks, but that wasn't going to happen. But with the help of Centsational Girl's tutorial (and my dad), this one just might!

[I have actually been wanting to post this for about a week, but there was no way I was going to interrupt my nice lovey-dovey wedding memories for something laundry-related. Whew, good things come to those who wait.]

Wedding memory twelve - marrying the man of my dreams...

The title of this one pretty much sums it up.

My husband truly is the man of my dreams - actually, he is way more incredible than I ever could have dreamed. On our wedding day, I felt like the luckiest woman in the world. And that feeling has only gotten stronger everyday since. <3

[Check out memories 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.]

Wedding memory eleven - the honeymoon...

So I was MIA and totally forgot to ever post my last two wedding memories. I have been very busy with celebrating our anniversary and lots of other fun stuff you will hear about soon. :)


Like most couples, the whole honeymoon was full of incredible, can’t-be-beat, beyond wonderful, completely relaxing, fun, romantic, sweet memories. We went to New York City to see both a Yankees and a Mets game since it was the last year for both of the stadiums. (I know most people don’t watch baseball on their honeymoon, but our baseball fanaticism really shouldn't surprise anyone anymore.) And in between the games we went on a beautiful seven-day Caribbean cruise.

The trip was amazing and I’m 100% sure we should repeat it for one of our anniversaries. After all, we do need to see the new Yankees and Mets stadiums. :)
[Check out memories 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12.]