Vintage love

Pinterest. It's one of those things you just get hooked on and end up spending hours browzing before you even realize it. Obviously it's much more fun to follow other pinners who have such a keen eye for design too. 

Several years back, April and I embarked on a trip to Canton, Texas (huge market that's only open the weekend of the 1st Monday of each month).  As recommended by several other friends, we stopped by a little home decor store called Laurie Anna's. I fell in love. This is my kind of store. I wanted to pick everything up and just put it in my house because I love a good vintage look. Since then, we've made trips to Texas just to visit this little place. Following Laurie Anna's on Pinterest is almost just as fun as going to her shoppe. I recommend checking her out!

Below are a few shots of this amazing little place from the last time we were there.

A&J

Decorating for Christmas

I love decorating for Christmas. And I love looking around at all the awesome decorating on Pinterest and blogland. So many great ideas!   

Here is a peek into some of my Christmas decorating this year. As you can tell, I love anything that is vintage or has a vintage feel to it. And I love collecting old scales.

And Buddy the Elf even came to see us this year.

I have lots of fun plans for him every night. ;)

I found 101 ideas here.

A&J

Incorporating all those gifts...

Ok, now that Christmas is over, what do you do with all the extra STUFF you thought was a great gift idea, but then didn't give much thought to how it would actually fit in your house.  Luckily I was able to make a few moves in the playroom for these fun new gifts.

Katie got this adorable Disney talking vanity from Santa...

It can't sit in a corner all by itself, so I made this Audery Hepburn sign to go with it.  I tried to make it look like a Tiffany's box.  Decal from Etsy and I googled the actual paint color for a Tiffany' box.  I can save you time and reveal the big secret here..... Behr Sweet Rhapsody.  It's a perfect match and I love it.  I bought extra so I can use this color more.

 Added a few other frames and voila.  Her own vanity corner.  I already know I'll add more to this corner.  I'm loving it.

Since I was taking pics of the playroom, I couldn't help to snap a pic of the kitchen corner just because I really like it.

I found this little shelf at a garage sale and painted it black.  Guess what color it's going to change to now. :)  Anyway, I digress.  I let the girls pick some items out of the pantry that they thought would be fun for their pretend kitchen.  Yes, they are all empty.

This playroom is so much fun to decorate.  It is a challenge because it's one big long room with an odd angled ceiling.  It makes decorating the walls almost impossible.  It's always a work in progress.  But it sure is fun.  Makes me want to post more areas.  I actually have to clean them first.  As you might guess, it's not exactly pristine. 

A&J



Music Sheet Christmas Tree Tutorial

Today I made one of these cute little music sheet trees.

Here's a little tutorial to make one of your very own.

It's very simple really.....

What you will need is a styrofoam cone, some sheet music, scissors and a hot glue gun.

 

First off, I cut the music in 2 inch strips.

 Then took the strips and curled them a bit. 

{I used the end of a wooden spoon and that seemed to work well}

Then I cut slits all alog the bottom about halfway up.

Take these pieces and hot glue them around the cone.

One row at a time.

Keep going till you get to the top!

It's really that easy....

Although I think it may need something at the top.
I haven't thought of anything yet.
What do you think?
Any ideas??

Need some free sheet music for the project??
I have a page here you can download and print (8.5x11).
It looks best on some sort of antique or ivory finish paper to make it look a little vintage. Enjoy!

Linked up at Funky Junk's SNS
and at Tatertots and Jello Weekend Wrap Up Party
and Under The Table and Dreaming Sunday Showcase Party.

A&J

A Bit of Fall Decor

Gosh, I've been so busy lately that it's already the middle of October and I'm just now starting to pull out fall decorations!

I love looking at others blogs and how they've decorated for the season. So here's a peek into mine. I decided not to go overboard on all the fall foliage this year and just make it pretty simple. Just a few touches of fall here and there......

Centerpiece on my kitchen table.

And finally a shot of the fireplace mantel.
{I'm loving the white pumpkins mixed with all the orange this year}

Pretty simple this year, but I really like it!

A&J

Laundry Room Redo

Earlier this year our dryer (which was fairly old) decided it was time to retire.
I took this opportunity to pick out some new pretty red front end loaders for my laundry room, which turned into a bit of a redo for the whole space.

I absolutely love my little laundry room now!
{it just makes me happier to do laundry. :) }

Here's the After:

Here's the Before:

Let's take a look at how this transformed.....
Here's how the framing around the washer and dryer started. We also had to put down concrete backer board before we put the tile down.

See the space between the washer and dryer... I wanted to have my trash can there for lint etc.

 So we found a pre-made 10 inch cabinet that fit perfectly in between the two (knobs from Hobby Lobby) and I just painted it black!

 

 Here is the slate tile that we picked out from Lowes. They were 1 inch tiles that came in 12 inch squares.
{note: the pretty colors of the slate come out after you have it installed and apply a sealant on top}

On the other side of the room we had this small little cutout that originally just had a folding shelf right in the middle of the two walls. Total waste of space and pretty ugly. My husband and I worked on this built in and it turned out great. All the shoes are stacked neatly under the bench and the hooks are used for coat, backpacks etc.

 {Who am I kidding, I have two boys and a husband. Shoes are never stacked neatly under there, but at least I can stuff them under the bench with ease and get them out of the way for the most part. heehee. note: this is why you can only see up to the bottom of the bench in this picture. :) }

 As you can tell the room is pretty small, but I think this change has made it seem so much bigger. Before we just had the space on top of the washer and dryer to use to fold laundry or set things on as we walked in the door. Now the total counter space is approx. 65x34 inches.
Huge difference!

The slate tile counter top turned out EXACTLY like I envisioned from the beginning and is beautiful. This room is a walk through from our garage to our kitchen and happens to be where most of our company follows us into the house anyway, so I'm very happy to have a nice organized space.

Linked up here:

A&J

Just a few Halloween Decorations.....

A few of my Halloween Decorations!
{one of my favorite holidays to decorate for...}

Below is a shot of my dining room table.

Since we have a table in the kitchen area too, this room is really used soley for decoration. And is the first room you see when you walk into my house.

{So, no we don't eat at this table.... or I wouldn't be piling all of this stuff on it! ha!}

Let's take a closer look....

The book below was just an old book I had that I covered with kraft paper. I then used some rub on letters from my scrapbooking stash to add "book of spells" on the spine. (the black lines were just made with a sharpe marker).

The little Halloween figurines were inspired by this post from the Room to Inspire blog.
Found these two figurines at the Dollar Tree. And grabbed my can of Ivory spray paint.

Spray Painted these dudes.... then grabbed my burnt umber acrylic paint and just painted and wiped and painted and wiped etc till it looked like I wanted.


Here's how they turned out!

{notice my Dollar Tree black crow as well...}

And there you have it!

Who says you can't decorate on a budget. The pumpkins, skeleton jar, figurines and black crow were all from the Dollar Tree and I've shown you how to spruce them up! (Trick or Treat sign I got from Hobby Lobby last year). 

A&J

Halloween Dollar Tree Finds

I found several things this year to use in my Halloween decorating at the Dollar Tree
{Don't these skeletons just look SPOOKY!}

You can see in the picture below, it was just a 5 ft skull garland made out of foam that I stuck in a jar (which they also have at Dollar Tree) with some moss at the bottom.

Also picked up the black crow, some spanish moss for various projects and these really cool bottle labels.
I just need to find the perfect old jars and bottles to use them on!

And don't forget to check out these pumpkins I also picked up from Dollar Tree.
I just love Halloween!!

A&J

Book Page Pumpkins

Earlier this year, I made some book page eggs for Easter decoration. I just loved them so much that I left them out with my other dining room decorations until just recently.

Hey, eggs aren't really just specific to Easter right?

So I used the same technique and made a few of these book page pumpkins!

{and alot easier to do that the eggs, I might add!}

Just LOVE how they turned out!

Here's a quick little run down of how I made them....

First I grabbed these items:

pumpkins: from Dollar Tree

book: From Dollar Tree

Some Mod Podge

and a bit of spanish moss if you wish.

I simply ripped the pages into various pieces and started putting them on with the mod podge glue.

{and I just realized that I've always called it "modge podge", but looking at the picture just now it clearly says "mod podge" on the bottle. Huh..... learn something new everyday I guess!!}

Here's a shot halfway through the process.

And then I added a bit of spanish moss to the top (hot glued) and stuck a piece of a tree branch from my backyard in for the stem.

That's all there is to it!

What I also love is that you can find any ugly old pumpkins you might have in a pile to get rid of and decorate them using this idea. You don't have to buy expensive pretty pumpkins!

Be sure to check back for more quick and easy Halloween decor ideas...

We've got a few more Dollar Tree finds to share with you!

A&J