Weekend ahead...

I am welcoming this weekend with open arms! I hate to wish my life away but we live for the weekends! My mom (also referred to as Mama Jane or Mimi) is headed into town and we have some fun plans ahead. Tonight might go sip on one of these:

And then tomorrow we are head to Birmingham to go see what all this is about.

 Mom is redoing her upstairs bathroom so it should be fun to go get some ideas for it. But it will also be a challenge to me since I am in the "no shopping" season.

Before the "no shopping" season began, I did make a purchase that I have been wanting FOREVER!

These beauties!

I have wanted them for a really long time. In fact, I have been in search all over to find some even close to how much I like these but just haven't been able to find some. The ones I do find are even more expensive than these and I don't even like them as much. These are from Ballard Designs and were only $79 each for the large size which is be perfect for our front porch. Best part is, even though they look like cement, they are made out of fiberglass so they won't weigh a ton.They are just so versatile. You can make them look good all year round just like these:

Simply Southern Flowers

 

EAB Designs

Willow Decor Blog

Can't wait to be able to decorate with these every season!

Happy Weekend!

These are a few of my favorite things...

One thing I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE about the holidays is decorating for them! The main reason I love it is all the memories that come flooding back to me as I get out each ornament, or my Christmas Village houses, or even our stockings. All of our decorations are a mix of old and new which I LOVE! (Have I mention love in this post yet?)

One tradition that we started the 2nd year of dating... since we had only been dating a month the 1st year, was to buy a photo frame ornament from Pottery Barn monogrammed with the year to put a photo in it. I thought I would be so neat to see how we change through the years, and how our family changes. Can you imagine after 50 years?!?!? We will have to have a photo tree all on it's own!

Here are the ornaments that I buy year after year. Let's hope they don't stop making them or it will really mess my "uniformness" up! (yes, I know that is not really a word) OCD doesn't go away with a Christmas Tree!

(this is not one of our ornaments, I just pulled from website, but she is a cute little girl!)

Besides looking at each of these ornaments, (we are up to 6 now by the way, meaning our 7th Christmas together) I love getting out all the other ornaments and remembering where we got them, who we where with, or who gave it to us. It is so fun. And since you only get to do it once a year, it makes it all that more special.

Here are a few of my favorites

This one my mom gave us last year for our 1st Christmas in our house.

It is Waterford Crystal and when the lights hit it just right, it is beautiful!

Everyone has to have a peace sign!

I bought this one last year for myself and friend. We always get once ornament alike each year.

(also from Pottery Barn)

Roll Tide!

We bought this on our engagement trip at the Beach Club. 

I love Sock Monkeys! And every tree needs one of these lit guys. 

And this was our 2009 frame (for Pottery Barn) since we got Bella last year.

Mark one year down for a new family member, hopefully some more to go! :-)

Speaking of "No.1 Pet", she has lost her privilege of roaming about while we are gone to work, at least while the Christmas decor is up. She had been doing so good, until one day. Ted came in to find two chewed up ornaments, one of which was his when he was a little boy. A little wooded teddy bear with his name on it. Sad day. I am just glad she didn't bring the whole tree down when she went for the little guy. She was also eyeing sock monkey so he has since been moved to the top. Hopefully she can't see him!

**Side Note**
Because I started this blog OVER a week ago and can't seem to finish all my decor, I will stop this post for now and will be back soon with the rest of our decor!
(Plus everything else I need to catch up on!)

Holiday Kickoff...

Thanksgiving, to me, officially kicks off the holiday season and we had a great one last week! I always enjoying visiting my hometown and being with family! Here are a few pictures to share the love...

 Cute Little Mimi getting all ready!

 A Thanksgiving card for MG that turned into a place mat.

 MG was being too quite in my room so I went to go check on her and this was what I found.

 Followed by my discovering she had gotten in gum that wasn't hers and didn't ask so  proceeded to tell her that she needs to ask and this is the response I got...

heart breaking!

 But, Bubba can make it all better!

And whats Thanksgiving without a little manicure to end the night?

Later that night, we did something that no sane person in their right mind would do, well at least not twice.

Wal-Mart. Cullman, AL. Midnight.

Enough Said!

These people are crazy! I don't know if Ted will ever be the same from this experience!

Moving on to Friday and the dreaded Iron Bowl! Alabama came out blazing the 1st half and went down in flames the 2nd half. Oh well, you can't win them all! 

But you can look cute win or lose. This was my outfit when I was her age!

How cute is she?!?!?

Maybe one day I will have little girl of my own to pass the tradition on to!

Roll Tide! We will be back.

Or in MG's words: "Roll Eagle".

She knows how to play her cards right in a divided house!

Coming up:

Decorating, Crafting and Shopping!

Wordless Wednesday...

Fall at The Baker's!

Happy Fall Y'all!

Where do the weekends go...

And the weeks for that matter! It has been a full week since my last post yet again! I really do promise to TRY to do better!

Every now and then I get these bursts of energy to do a "project" around the house. I guess I feel like it is my way of being creative and expressing myself. Some people get to do this in their jobs daily, and while I love my job,I wouldn't really considering me being creative as a description. So I often come up with a great idea which leads to others, then leads to others and so on. And I will admit, sometimes I can't even remember why I started the whole thing in the first place!
So here is the 1st thing I was up to this weekend: (which lead to others that I will post about soon!)

1. Small Redo for Master Bedroom

Here was the room after we 1st moved in:

And before I got my hands on it this past weekend:

(not much different, just changed the photos over the bed)

And now with the headboard:

I know.... nothing is dramatically different but I just have to change things up a bit from time to time. And I LOVE just the clean, simple look.  I still want to paint but am just not ready for that task yet.

Breakdown of how to build headboard:

1) Determine how big you will need it. I just measured the width of the bed and kind of estimated where I would want it to hit on the wall. I ended up buying 2 54" 2x2s and 2 36" 2x2s. Which made the head board 40" high and 54" wide.

I chose just to do a frame because I was just going to be covering it with fabric. You can also use plywood or a pegboard but it would make it significantly heavier. I just wanted to be able to hang on the wall and not worry with screwing into the bed frame or wall.

Oh and by the way... the handy dandy workers at Home Depot cut the boards for me...

"I can do it, they can help!" :-)

2) Secure all the corners together with brackets.

(Bella was very curious as to what in the world I was doing)

3) Once frame is secure, it is time to wrap your materials around it. I used some quit batting from Hobby Lobby for some padding.

Laid it out on the floor, cut to size and

then laid the frame on top of it.

Now here is where my blogging skills need to be polished up... continue the picture taking while doing a project you plan on blogging about! :-)

4) Stable the batting to the frame and repeat the process with your fabric.

5) I chose wall hangers to hand the frame onto the wall with and it was done!

Again sorry for the lack of photos at the end. I am not going to lie, I got a bit frustrated with some things so the picture taking went out the window!

Cost Breakdown:

Wood  & Hanging Supplies at Home Depot - $ 13.00

Quit Batting (using 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby) - $11.00

Fabric from scrap bin at King Cotton - $7.00 (and I still have a ton left!)

Total - $31.00 for a new fabric headboard!

Compared to this:

  For $474.00 on Sale at Ballard Designs! Now, don't get me wrong I love the corners on this but if it was between saving $443 and having fancy dancy corners... I choose the $443!

Other small changes around the room:

New framed photos

New $7 a panel curtains from Target and other accessories from around the house.

And and most importantly... the "POP" of the zebra pillow made by yours truly...

Which I hope to do a post on pillow making later this week!

I do have one disclaimer. While many of my ideas do come from straight out of my head, I also have lots of inspiration from other blogs and decorpad.com.  This is the photo that was behind my mini makeover:

(photo from somewhere on decorpad.com )

Some elements are different, like the curtains for example. I went dark while they have white but that was mainly because the walls haven't been painted yet. I plan on choosing a color very similar to this and when I do I will also probably get some white panels.

But overall I love the outcome of my weekend redo and

wish I was snoozing in there right now!

Happy Monday!

War and LoveS...

After being in our house for a little over a year now, I have a continuous WAR on pet hair! Don't get me wrong, I would not trade Bella Baby for the world, but her hair is a different story.

I mean how could you not love that sweet little face?!?!?

We have a combination of carpet, tile and hardwood in our house, all of which have a different method of cleaning. I have tried it all... vacuum, broom, mop, steamer, swifter, if it is out there, I have tried to conquer this never ending battle.
Well when my vacuum of over 6 years went out 2 weeks ago I started doing my research. And I knew it had to be done fast!
So now I would like to introduce you to the new love in my life.
Drumroll please...

The Dyson DC14

I CAN NOT imagine my life complete without it. I consider myself a pretty good little housekeeper. And let me just tell you that I am not sure if I was more impressed or embarrassed after the first time I ran this little piece of machinery through the house. Pure amazement! However I am pretty sure I was more embarrassed hence why I didn't take any pictures of the aftermath! And note... this is just the entry level of the Dyson family! Nothing fancy just a wonderful piece of work that I will never live without again!

Now even though this is just the entry level Dyson, they aren't known for their small price tags. I have been known by a few to be a bit on the thrifty side. I love finding a good deal, sale, coupon... I consider it a challenge and I get a high from NOT paying full price for something. So you can imagine my excitement when I found it at another one of my "loves"... Treasure Hunt!

What is Treasure Hunt you ask? It is paradise right here in Tuscaloosa, AL! Ok... well maybe not paradise for EVERYbody, but I love it! Some of you might have heard of Hudson's or Dirt Cheap, well this is similar but this is the King of them all! (and not quite as dirty) Anywho, it was there, I spotted it, still in box, never been opened and 40% off! I swear a beam of light shined down on it at that moment! I registered with Dyson online to insure my 5 year warranty and now I won't have to live a day without it in my life ever again! Ahh the joy!!