That’s more like it

Now THAT’S what I’m talking about!

I took the green bowl back to Home Depot and picked out the matching paint color with my eyes, rather than relying on their color-matching machine that let us down the first time. It’s a perfect match, which seriously makes me giddy. It’s the little things. You know.

Alex and I painted both guestroom nightstands with the “Cool Aloe” paint, and we absolutely love how they turned out.

I also found an Amy Butler fabric that matches the tables that I’ll use to make throw pillows for the guestroom bed, which is an easy way to make the bright green look like it belongs without overdoing it.

It’s a beautiful color, but I think too much of it will overtake the room. So I’m mellowing it out with punches of red and aqua.

Once the room is finished, I’ll post pictures here, but it’s definitely the sort of room that is being pieced together, little by little, over time.  My favorite kind of room.

Going green

We’ve been in the new house for about a month now, and two weeks ago, finding nightstands for the guest room became a bit of an obsession for me. That’s nothing new. It’s how I work. I get something in my mind that I must have — a pair of gold sandals, a pink peacoat, red plastic retro chairs for the dining room, a white vintage kitchen table — and finding the perfect one becomes a mild obsession for me until I’ve found it.  

So for the past two weeks, I’ve looked through every local thrift store, vintage store, Salvation Army, Goodwill and Craigslist listing for the perfect side tables for the guest room. There were specific criteria, of course – less than $50 for the pair, no wider than 24 inches, couldn’t be too girly, etc.

I finally found this pair of rather interesting tables at the Salvation Army that I fell in love with, even though they’re pretty beat up and definitely need a coat of paint and some TLC. I knew this would be one of those purchases that I would have to explain to Alex with, “Trust me. I have a vision.” 

 

Luckily, he does trust me, because I’m pretty sure I saw him cringe when I dragged these puppies out of the back seat of my car.

So the next step was to choose a color of paint. I decided to go with a jade green to perfectly match a bowl that I purchased at a vintage store several years ago.

Unfortunately, the bowl’s shiny glare messed with Home Depot’s paint matching machine thingy, and I ended up with this dull, muddy, boring version of the beautiful minty shade of green I had in my mind.

 

I’m going back to Home Depot, and I’m going to try to find — with my own two eyes and not with the assistance of a machine – the shade of the bowl from within the paint color samples. If I can’t find the right shade, I’ll play it safe and paint them red.

The pink chair

Alex and I have been on an Ikea bender lately. Our latest trip was for curtains to cover the double French doors that lead from our bedroom to the large screened-in back porch, which has quickly become our favorite place in the house.

We don’t have it set up the way we want yet, but we’re still out there whenever possible. We love that our indoor cats can enjoy the outdoors. When it’s not too hot, usually in the evenings, we just open the French doors and let them wander in and out as they please. They are truly happy kitties.

While we were at Ikea, we decided to check the “as-is” section, and I found this hot pink chair for $3.

I’d been eyeing it up as a desk chair for my new craft studio anyway, so when I found it in the as-is section with just a few minor smudgey scratches on it from being the display model, I grabbed it. Seriously, three dollars? Yes please!

My studio is still a complete mess, but I can already tell that the chair is going to look awesome sitting in front of my sewing machine. I can’t wait to get in there and organize everything and start sewing again.

Oh, and today’s lesson? Always — ALWAYS — check the as-is section at Ikea.

March

March has become a very special month in my little world. It’s the month that I get to marry the man of my dreams. Our wedding is March 28, and these last few weeks are crawling by at a sloth’s pace. I just want it to GET HERE.

We’re having a very small, simple wedding, so I haven’t been freaking out the way that some brides do a month before their wedding. Luckily, we’ve been able to support handmade while planning our wedding, which we thought was very important. We met our photographer, Megan Katauskas, at a craft show I did late last year. Her photographs are natural, unique and beautiful, and I consider it fate that we were at the same show together. I never would have found her otherwise. 

I purchased two stunningly realistic silk flowers for my hair on Etsy from Butterfly Enchantress Designs. These flowers look so real that Alex called me at work in a panic the day we got them because he was certain they would die before our wedding.

We worked with another talented artist on our wedding invitations. Jonathan from Ello Invitations created an original design just for us. We love the invitations so much that we’re going to frame one for our apartment.

These photographs don’t do the invitations justice, FYI. The colors are much richer in person.

I decided to try to make a pillow based on this design. It’s getting there, but I feel like something is a little off (other than the fact that they don’t have legs yet). I think they’re too big for the space.

So it’s not quite there yet, but nothing has been ironed on yet, so I can still play with the layout.

Donkeys and roosters

Alex gave me a pair of slippers for Christmas. They were white and fluffy and totally my style, except for one thing. They were size 5. I wear size 9. How cute is he, having no clue what size shoe I wear and thinking I’d be able to fit my big feet into the tiny, adorable, size 5 slippers?! I love him for trying.

I wanted to exchange them, but the store didn’t have my size anymore, so we returned them and kept on shopping to see what else we could find to take the place of the itty bitty slippers.

And we found this table runner at Pottery Barn.

This runner that goes perfectly with the rest of our home.

This runner that was marked down to $9.

This runner with aqua donkeys and roosters on it. Seriously? Was this thing made for me?

I’m still amazed that Alex doesn’t question my decorating choices. I asked him several times before we bought it if he was absolutely sure that he was okay with having an aqua table runner with donkeys and roosters on it, and he assured me he was. He trusts my taste, and I appreciate that.