The Day I Discovered Polyvore!

Today, I discovered Polyvore...and I am obsessed!! Since I am pregnant and can't by any normal clothes for myself yet...This is the next best thing for my fashion deprived mind! These are my creations, enjoy!

Baby on the Brain.

Blogging has gotten a little harder lately due to the fact that all of my crafts are pretty much none existent right now. I have been focusing on getting Baby C's nursery in tip top shape. I have read that the more time you spend on the nursery the less the baby actually sleeps in there. If there is any truth to that, he certainly won't be in there much! The nursery blog post with all the fun pictures and ideas is coming up soon. For now, I have created a "baby info plaque," if you will. And here's the best part - I did this for all under $10!

Here is the finished product, hung up in all it's glory - 

Now, on to how I created this masterpiece - 

Supplies -

1. 4 Clear plastic platters from the dollar store

2. White ribbon

3. Chalk board paint (something I already had and did not contribute to the $10 price tag)

4. Paint brush (ditto)

5. Hot glue gun (ditto)

Steps - 

First, start by painting the inside of your platters with your chalk board paint. (Tip I wish I had known beforehand - I am a perfectionist but chalk board paint is NOT perfect and will NEVER paint on perfectly. You will have some streaks and bumps. It's just the nature of the beast)

I used 4 coats of paint and made sure you couldn't see through any of the platters anymore.

After they are all dry set them up how you would like them to hang and flip them over.

Once they are set up to your liking glue two pieces of ribbon connecting each one and about a half an inch a part.

For the top ribbon (where the weight will be for hanging) glue a security piece. Don't be afraid to use A LOT of glue. There is nothing more frustrating than everything falling apart.

After all is said and done, write what you would like on the chalk board paint. I decided on - "Name," "Date," "Weight" & "Length."

Now, Baby's C's nursery is black and white because I am extremely color-phobic. However, you can get chalkboard paint in an array of colors now and do this whatever colors float your boat!

Happy Crafting!

I LOVE UPCYCLING!

I am truly obsessed with finding something for super cheap (and that's old) and turning it into something new. Giving it a new life, if you will. The project today is a dresser for little one's Dr. Seuss inspired nursery.

We found this dresser in our house (an old three family, we found it in the 3rd floor apartment after the tenant moved out) asked out landlord if we could use it (he said of course) and we were on our way to upcycle loveliness!

Of course, I didn't get a picture of it before (I need to get better at that) hubby started stripping the paint off, but it was this ugly green color and had a few scrapes in the wood.

So, here is a picture of the paint being stripped -

I know you can't really see it in the picture, but the reason why I fell in love with this was because it has amazing detail  on the ends of the dresser and the top is big enough for what I like to call "baby needs"....changing table topper, diapers and whatever else the little is going to require. Also, the drawers are nice and deep and have lots of detail on them.

So, I decided that I wanted to paint it grey. The crib is white (and very bright, true white) and I didn't think we could exactly match that color so, grey it was. I also found these fabulous drawer pulls on Etsy..very Seussian if I do say so myself!

And, without further ado....the finished product! --

The Mister did an amazing job and I think it came out perfectly. It really is a gorgeous piece of furniture!

Next stop, finishing the nursery and designing my outdoor space..I had an idea in mind for my outdoor space but I just watched an episode of Nate Berkus that inspired me beyond my original idea..I am going to try and design it for under $100...I will keep you updated!!! <3

Memorial Day (Weekend) Party!

Sorry I haven't been blogging, between getting the baby's room ready for his arrival and planning this party, I have had no time to sit down and blog.

So, first I will start with my summer party...Of course I don't have many (or really any) party pics because I was too busy talking and mingling to take pictures..which always seems to happen to me..But, I do have pictures of all my ideas because I managed to quickly take some pictures before everyone got there..

First..the tables! -

I covered all of them with white table clothes made by my mom. And put washable markers as the centerpieces so everyone could draw on them. I also put my wedding photo props as centerpieces as well to give them a second use. The markers went over really well especially with the kids that were there. And they were all (of course) washable!!

All of the activities, with the exception of the alcoholic beverages, were geared towards the kids. We don't have a pool, so I thought the next best thing was to make sure there were little activities that kept everyone busy!

Next, I put up make shift easels! --

I got two rolls of cheap craft paper from Wal-Mart, some washable paints and brushes and $1 ponchos from the Dollar Store...We used three eye hooks to hang them up with some fishing line and they worked perfectly against our garage!

Then of course, we had to have our bubble refill station...

We also had some sidewalk chalk that I didn't get a picture of...

And for the adults we had a regular bar and a "Spiked Lemonade Stand"

I was going to have The Mister build me an actual lemonade stand but then decided against it and went with a regular table and banner instead. The flavors were - Lemonade, Peach Mango, Strawberry Lemonade and Cherry Limeade..Being preggers, I could not drink but I made sure to make them extra strong for the people that could drink.. :)

It was an amazing (yet very humid) day and hopefully everyone had a great time!

Happy Summer!

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Pinterest Craft Crawl - Day 5 - Bridal Party Pins

So, today I am showing you all a craft that I actually made up and technically did not find on Pinterest. However I will later today be pinning this so technically this will be on there soon.

These are the final product...

I had one for each member of the bridal party and one for The Mister and I. I had them wear them at our engagement party and I would have had them wear them at other wedding related events had I not lost them in the midst of the wedding planning. These are just so everyone at the party knows who is in the wedding.

The supplies you will need are --

Flat back pins

Black and White felt

Tulle in white (for the bride) and tulle in your wedding colors 

Hot glue gun

A small sewing kit

Glitter glue

Rhinestones (optional)

The first thing I did was print out a template of a dress on card stock. Then I drew out the template for the tux on card stock as well so everything was uniform.

Next, use the stencils to cut out all the pieces of the felt that you need. Also, use the dress template to cut out the dress shape in the tulle.

Glue the tuxes together, put three buttons down the white part of it and glitter glue a bow tie.

Next, place the tulle for the dress over the felt for the dress and make a few small stitches in the waist section.

To hide the stitch line glitter glue a "belt" on there and stick on a rhinestone to spruce it up.

After everything is dry (and this is very important cause nothing is worse than messed up glitter glue) hot glue on the flat back pins and VIOLA! Bridal Party Pins!

I tried my best with spelling out the steps as much as possible. Because I don't have many step by step pictures I am assuming these could be a bit confusing. If there are any questions please leave them in the comments section!

Pinterest Craft Crawl - Day 4 - Scrabble Coasters

This is a pretty easy craft but still packs a punch and I don't think you can ever have enough coasters...

Supplies...

1. Hot glue gun
2. Wooden Scrabble letters

And pretty much all you do is assemble in the words you want...

Very easy!! I can't wait to use them!!!

Pinterest Craft Crawl - Day 3 - Kitchen Menu

Sorry for the delay in posts, the menu that I was working on took a lot longer to dry than I originally thought, so there will be two posts today and this is the first one!

This is what this craft is based off of...

We are already doing a chalk board wall somewhere else in the house and I have an old cork board that we haven't been using so I decided instead of the chalk board that I would re do our cork board...

These were my supplies..

First I taped off the edges and painted the whole cork part with black paint..This was the part that took too long to dry...

Then, after waiting a day, I painted on the days of the week...

There ya go! I actually like the cork board aspect of it because now I can tack up recipes instead of just the names of them because usually I don't remember the actual recipe and have to go through my computer to find them.

Pinterest Craft Crawl - Day 2 - Soda Bottle Art

So, this isn't the most exciting craft, but I thought it was really cool, easy and I needed something to fill out a shelf on one of my book cases...

Things I wish I remembered before I started this - I suck at painting.

These are your supplies -

Black (or white) card stock, a paper towel or some other paint receptacle, a soda bottle, a paint brush, shadow boxes and paint.

Next, paint a tree like structure on your black card stock in whatever color your heart desires..

After that, coat the bottom of the soda bottle in paint and stamp the bottom on and around the tree branches -

And voila! Art. Like I said, not the most complicated, but fun to do with kids and good when you need shelf filler!

Enjoy! Tomorrow is nail art!

New Apartment Interiors

The other day The Mister said to me - "You had really good ideas for the apartment, you should blog about it." So, here goes...

Our new place has a double parlor and a basically two kitchens as well. A kitchen at the back of the apartment and a galley kitchen.

The double parlor is a nice long area which I love because I love me an open floor plan. I never understand why houses/apartments have separate living areas with the exception of the bedrooms. This is why I will eventually build a house because I will probably have to knock down walls anyways.

In the first "parlor" we have just the typical set up a couch with a chaise and amazing grey and white lounge chair. We also have a blue table set up with coffee table books because even though I don't read many books I love to be surrounded by them, I think they add texture. We also have our wedding canvas prints in here. -

Next, we have the second "parlor" which we decided to set up as a lounge because putting a table in the middle of the room and using it as a dining room would have just cut things off and we would have lost precious square footage. So, we put in floor to ceiling bookshelves and a bar. I am not completely done decorating all of the shelves, but the way I went about it was the same way I went about putting together my wedding tables. Every shelf is different just like every table was different. And some of the things used on the shelves we used at the wedding as well...

For the bar, we didn't want to spend $500 at Crate and Barrel for a bar and since I consider myself the queen of upcycling we decided to do something a little more creative...

The bottom part of the bar is an old entertainment center from Salvation Army that we got for $30...yes, thirty bucks. It was wood colored and had crappy cardboard on the back. So, The Mister sanded it all down and took off the cardboard, stained it a chic shiny black and, viola, a bar! The top shelf was $20 at Home Depot that we spray painted and the silver drink holders were $2.99 a piece. This was by far our best upcycling project to date.

Next, we have the galley kitchen...The pictures are not great due to the glare, but we have three huge clear fronted cabinets and we decided to cover the backs of the shelves with amazing contact paper (Target for $5.95 a roll) and then put all of our new kitchenware up including putting some on stands which I think really finishes the look.

There was a shelf in the "second" kitchen and we decided to put all of our vintage kitchen ware that we used for the wedding on that shelf...perfect second life for it!

Now, on to the bedroom...Again, we wanted to use stuff from the wedding so we used our "LOVE" canvases. We got a curtain rod and sheer curtains from Ikea and used doorknobs as anchors for the curtains. -

In my future house dreams I have this vision of my wedding dress(es) being in a huge shadow box displayed for the world to see in my dressing room. And that will happen eventually...But, for now, I just made myself a "wedding shelf" with my shoes, bouquet, The Mister's boutineer, and two of my headpieces..

And last but not least, we have our invitation shadow box of our invitation which was made for us for our wedding..<3

Decorating this apartment just made me more excited to build a house eventually. And I have definitely narrowed down my style which was a great learning experience for me.

Next stop, the baby's room!