Soft and pretty pink...

To continue posting pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, here are some beautiful pale pink rooms courtesy of Martha...

I love the use of pink and gray in this bedroom.

This room has the same lovely color combination and the shape of the side table is incredible!

The palest of pinks makes this room look so calming.
I'm always a sucker for a cool headboard like this one.
I always love the pink KitchenAid and it makes this kitchen look so sweet. And to Cook for the Cure, KitchenAid makes a donation to Susan G. Komen for the Cure for every pink product purchased. :)

Redecorating the guest bedroom...

Just like the guest bathroom, we gave the guest room a mini makeover with very few purchases...

Before:
A naked window, a rumpled comforter and a mirror that reflected the closet door - fancy.

Pretty much more of the same.

And a blah corner with a practically empty bookcase thingy.

After:

Yay for curtains! [Even though my husband sees absolutely no purpose in curtains, the curtain rod was still one of the few purchases.] I also moved the mirror and added a few different accessories. Oh, and the walls are Glidden's Icy Waterfall, just like the bathroom.

I got the three frames for just a few dollars each at Wal-Mart...and learned that I shouldn't go shopping when I'm sleepy. I totally didn't notice that the frames were two different sizes and that two of them were missing the mats that were supposed to come in them. And, of course, it was one of the larger frames that actually had the mat, so I had to cut it down to fit the frame in the center to keep things symmetrical. Anyways, it all worked out in the end and I was able to frame the bright wrapping paper [also from Wal-Mart - and my last purchase for the room]. Other additions here included adding ribbon to the lampshades and switching out fun-colored candles for the white ones that were there before.

I fixed up the blah corner a little with a few baskets [originally used for the programs at our wedding], the mirror we moved, a monkey and actually putting books, frames, etc. in the bookcase thingy.

This last picture is really bad, but the four frames pictures from my sister's wedding actually are really cool in person.
This room is definitely still a work-in-progress as the real reason for the color scheme is that I couldn't find the light blue pillow cases, so I had to use the pink ones...and the pink accents just expanded from there. :) The someday plan is to change up the color scheme to just the light blue, navy and green. But in the meantime, the room is much more presentable for our guests.

Redecorating the guest bath...

About 37 years ago, I was talking about all the projects we were going to tackle over Labor Day. Well, now I am finally back with a few pictures...

Before:
We had some amazing matching going on in the guest bathroom before, huh? Just kidding. It actually didn't look this bad most of the time, but it was still in need of some desperate help. The shower curtain was left behind by the previous homeowners and although lovely, it wasn't really the color scheme we had in mind and we obviously did not have any matching towels.
After:

We gave the room a few coats of Glidden's Icy Waterfall, hung a picture and put up the shower curtain we used in the master bath at our old place. I love this shower curtain - it is so much more "us" and it matches the towels much better. Eventually, I would like to get some new towels and hang more pictures, but this is already about eight million times better than before. But so far we didn't have to buy anything for this little bathroom makeover [well, except the paint if you want to get technical].

Mood Board Monday...

Room Remix is hosting Mood Board Monday today...I should be working, but instead I am playing along. :)


The "rules" were pretty simple - pick one of two inspiration items, make a cute mood board and post about it. [Be sure to check out Room Remix for more information and the great designs others came up with!]

I choose the lime trellis fabric [upper left corner] as my inspiration item. From there, I found two coordinating fabrics - the pink trellis fabric and beach stripe fabric, both from Hancocks. And then I had about eight million ideas of fun rooms these fabrics should be used for...a summery outdoor room, a plant-filled sunroom, an ultra modern dining room.

But then I found this crazy amazing modern bright pink kids' chair and fell in love. So I finally decided on a modern preteen bedroom. For between the two chairs, I found this lime storage ottoman.

Across the room is the simple bed with bedding that just happened to coordinate perfectly. The bed would have modern tables on each side and two hot pink sparkle storage ottomans at the foot of the bed.

This totally cool preteen would also have this bright orange art deco table lamp and four-drawer dresser. The three fabrics would be used to make pillows for all over the bed and chairs, and maybe for an accent on curtains as well.

I didn't include any art on my mood board, but don't worry, I thought of that too. :) There would be blown up pictures of flowers [think the orange, lime, pink and teal in the fabrics] with giant white mats and big black frames.

Oh, and in case you don't click on the 42 links in this post, everything other than the fabrics was found at good 'ole Target.

Peg board organizing...

I like the idea of using peg boards for organization. Here are some ideas...

These hanging baskets aren't quite my style, but with the right baskets for me, I would love this.


I know peg board is not generally considered pretty, but adding trim and color like they did with this Pottery Barn knockoff really dresses it up.
Whoa, organization heaven! How cute are these painted silhouettes? And, even better, nothing would ever be put in the wrong place and you would know right away when something was missing.

There were two big peg boards already hanging in our garage when we bought our house. One of them just might be a recycling station in its next life.

Yes, this is a kid's closet. But the same idea applies to other closets or little spaces as well. A little extra peg board could add up to a lot of extra storage.
And another way to sneak in some extra storage - put it right on the cabinet doors.

Or just cover the walls with peg board. I really like this idea and the others that could be used in our laundry room. Now, if I can just figure out how to incorporate this drying rack idea into my new peg board obsession, I would be set. :)

Posting pink...

Think Pink...

Martha

Metropolitan Home

Elle Decor

Elle Decor

Elle Decor

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For information on detection, treatment and donating, please visit the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

[Visit Mrs. Blandings, who posted pink and inspired many others, including me, to do the same. I will be posting more pink throughout the month. Please feel free to join in with a pink post of your own to help spread the word to Think Pink this month and every month.]

October, already!?

Lately I’ve had all sorts of posts about fall - my October goals, decorating pumpkins, fall treats, more fall treats, fall fashions and even spooky marshmallows. This may have led you to believe that I was excited about October and fall. But you would have been wrong. Very wrong. Fall just reminds me that it is getting colder out and winter is coming. Ahhhhh! I hate cold weather.

But as I was looking back at my pictures from our pumpkin carving experience last year, I found lots of other fun pictures from last fall. So much to my surprise, I have realized that I actually don’t hate fall. I kind of love it.

Last October, we enjoyed a fun-filled day at the Renaissance Festival with great friends, where my husband was attacked by a crazy lady…

[By the way, I am risking my life for your entertainment with this one. :)]

And a wonderful trip to visit my grandparents and go to a beautiful dessert wedding in Arizona…

And our first trip to a rodeo to see a Josh Turner concert with my parents…

And baking a cake to help celebrate at a coworker’s baby shower…

And even dressing up like the 1985 Royals for Halloween…

[I threw this one in here just because it's pretty embarrassing...now my husband can't be mad about that first picture, right?]

Well, now that I know I like it - Welcome, October! Here’s to another fabulous month and beautiful fall!

Who wood have guessed it?

My mom has some incredible wood pieces that were hand carved by her father. The first that come to mind are her jewelry box and beautiful wooden bowls, but I'm sure there are a lot of other pieces I am forgetting. Anyways, lately it seems like a lot of cool wood items have been popping up on some of my favorite blogs.

Like these hand-carved spoons seen here...

And this retro bowl seen here...

And even these finds from Eddie's Etsy shop seen here...

This last one is no longer available in Eddie's Etsy Shop, but it's the real kicker. Seriously, these "1970s teak salad bowls" look exactly like the ones my mom has from her father...And if I'm remembering correctly, he made them for my parents' wedding in the 1970s. :)

Oh, the possibilities...

While getting a suitcase from our storage room for my current work trip, I realized that our storage room is in major need of some organization. So, of course, a project came to mind. Nope, not to clean out the storage room - to decorate vases. Logical, huh?

But really, it makes a little bit of sense. Right inside the storage room, we have boxes and more boxes full of vases and votive candle holders from our wedding. So the plan is to do something cool (or a lot of something cools) with the vases instead of them just taking up space in the storage room. I will just call it the first step in cleaning out the storage room. :)

Here are some of the possibilities...

Paper-wrapped vases

Wrapping paper vases

Fabric-wrapped vases

Frosted glass (Sooo many fun ideas here.)

Twine-covered vase

Spiderwebs from Martha found here

To carve or not to carve?

I'm having a dilemma trying to decide whether we should carve pumpkins this year. Here's our pumpkin carving experience from last year:

My parent's came to visit and we all enjoyed a wonderful day at the Louisburg Cider Mill - drinking cider, eating cider donuts and, of course, buying pumpkins...

Once we got the pumpkins home, they sat in a corner of our living room for almost three weeks until one day at, oh, about 10:47 p.m. when I decided we should carve them. Right then. So, this time the picture isn't dark from my horrible photography skills, but instead because I sure did make my husband carve the pumpkins in the dark...
Then, even though the kit said it was "easy," it still took hours of this...

But we did end up with a great looking pumpkin! And yes, for all of you observant readers, we did start with pumpkins and end with just one. We never quite got around to finishing the other one...

Moral of the story - I'm just not sure if we're cut out for pumpkin carving. But I'm not the Grinch of fall or Halloween, so we will have really cool pumpkins one way or another. Here's some options:

Maybe, we'd be better at drilling polka dot pumpkins...

Or we could paint and do shallow carving for these witch legs...

Or we could glitter our pumpkins. And by we, I mean me. Pretty sure if I make my husband glitter pumpkins, I will be banned from pumpkin decorating forever...

But spray paint is a little more manly, right?

And we do have a house now, so we could always paint our house numbers...