Summer Mantle

I love switching out the themes on my mantle, but after Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter, I was looking for something I wouldn't have to change through the summer.  This is what I came up with.  I am digging it.  It's a little coastal, a lot summer, and nice and bright.

I made the big wooden "flag".  I had a few pieces of 1x3 board, and I had J cut them into 2 ft. pieces, I attached them together with the Kreg Jig on the back after staggering them randomly.  To paint it, I used some leftover blue and white paint.  The white is just an acrylic white paint by Apple Barrel, and the blue was from our dresser update, found here, it is a Valspar color called Vintage Blue.  The metal stars were from a little garland that I pulled off, and spray painted white, then roughed them up to let the metal show through a bit.  I hot glued them on with huge globs of glue.

And to finish, I had to rough up the edges a little, and sealed it with a satin sealer.  I accessorized with stuff I already had, milk glass, candle holders, grapevine balls, a fat birdie, candles, and flowers.

I definitely think it will carry me through summer.  Plus, it was perfect for Memorial Day, and for the 4th since it's sorta patriotic.  Almost all of my patriotic stuff is now in the office since it's kind of our military themed room.

Dresser Salvage

I heart free stuff.  There was a house down the road (a single mom) who was moving, and to save some of the hassle, she was giving away certain things that they didn't want to move, or didn't fit in the new house.  J and I quickly snatched up this small dresser as I had big plans to use it as extra storage in my office/craft space.  It was a wooden dresser, unfinished, and in pretty bad shape, but I knew I could do something with it.  Two of the drawers were chewed by a dog, and there was no saving them.  The knobs were also unfinished wood.  I sanded it, painted it with a flat no-so-bright-white paint, stained the top with Rustoleum's Early American stain, and then roughed it up with the sander.  I removed the knobs and spray painted them with rubbed bronze spray paint, they turned out really pretty, and it saved me from having to buy 11 new knobs!  After painting, I sealed it with a a stain spray sealant.

For the empty drawer compartments, we used some Gorilla Glue and put in some thin white panels we had laying around from another project to make a shelf for some baskets, in place of the damaged drawers.

I looked for about a week, when I finally found these at Michael's.  I hadn't seen these the first trip, but they were the perfect size and fit nicely.  I like the different browns in the baskets, I think it ties the lighter top in with the darker knobs.

You can't beat free!  And the extra storage has been so nice!  Plus I have a better place to put my gargantuan printer.  The little plastic drawers it was sitting on were giving out.  I'm pretty proud of this project, I did (almost) all of it by myself:)  Jason helped a little.

Unrelated

I have been on a major break from blogging.  I think my head is back in it now.  I just wasn't feeling it for a while, but I feel like it's time to pick it back up.  This post is just a few random pictures I had wanted to blog about, but never got to, so they kind of got mashed into this post together.  Random.

 

I am kind of obsessed with beauty/hair blogs and YouTube channels.  My mom directed me to TiffanyD who has wonderful tutorials.  The one I used for this hairstyle is here.  My hair is shorter than hers, but it still did exactly like she said it would.  And the Paul Mitchell Hot Off The Press spray is wonderful.  I love it, but it's kinda pricey.  I got lucky, and found some at a wholesale place that a friend of mine, that does my hair, has access to since she has her cosmotology license.  Much more reasonable price, and that makes me happy.

 

I made a new wreath for our front door with some neutral colors since the front door is in direct sunlight for most of the day, my wreaths seem to fade pretty quickly.  I used flowers from Hobby Lobby, and hot glued them into an oval grapevine wreath, and painted my last name initial wooden letter (also from Hobby Lobby) with Antique Parchment by Apple Barrel (acrylic paint).  It's attached with a cup hook on the back and some floral wire, and a little hot glue so it doesn't move too much.  I finished it with a light colored burlap bow.

Jason made me dinner awhile back (I just came actross this picture and it reminded me to give him some major kudos) on an evening that I was feeling a little blah.  Oh man.  It was so good.  He made bacon wrapped chicken bites with a cream of chicken dipping sauce, chunky mashed potatoes, and spicy green beans.  I could have eaten another plate it was so yummy, but I did have a little self control.  J is becoming quite the chef.  Sometimes his recipes flop, but when they turn out how he envisions them, they rock.  Cheesy sausage topped asparagus with toasted crackers was not a hit, but I love that he tries, and that he likes to cook for me.  Now his homemade southern mac 'n cheese.  That one has a solid place in our recipe book.  I am so lucky to be his bride:)

The Pink Has Taken Over!

I love to decorate for Valentine's Day.  I don't typically decorate with much pink, so when the opportunity arises, I do so!  I love pink, it's in my top favorite colors, but is hard to use in year-round color schemes.  If it were just me in the house, there would be much more pink.  But it would be sad, because I'd trade pink for J's companionship any day:)

I added some color on my bookcase with a few pink blooms, some hearts and free printables found on pinterest and other blogs.  The print in the pink frame can be found here.  The print in the sweet little birdie frame (that I HAD to have from World Market a few weeks ago when J and I spent the day in Wilmington), is here.

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Now before anyone gets too excited and starts thinking how sweet J is to be doing the dishes, he's actually just cleaning his phone case.  But I still can't resist that sweet, goofy face:)

After cleaning out all the glitter and fake pine needles from my centerpiece box that we made last fall, I decided to fill it with all of my white and red candles.  Perched in front is my sweet little love bird salt and pepper shakers from Cracker Barrel.  They're smooching.

I left up one of our Christmas trees by the back door, and added a strand of red, pink, and purple lights from AC Moore, and decorated it with heart ornaments from Hobby Lobby.  I left the twine bow on top and the burlap sack skirt from Christmas, because I just really like them.

I got some bigger red and pink hearts, and some little clay hearts with all sorts of cute love quotes on them.

I filled my favorite vase with pink and white hydrangeas.

On/at my buffet/pencil leg table, I draped a ribbon garland over the window that is wrapped with another strand of the pretty little lights, and added a heart wreath from Target.  I made some topiaries this year with styrofoam balls, a wooden dowel, and a clay pot.  All the flowers came from the Dollar Tree.  Even at 1.00 a piece for the bouquets, this project got expensive.  I love the outcome, but it went more smoothly in my head.  I had to use A LOT of flowers.  I ended up having to go to 3 different locations.  Ridiculous.  The original plan was to do two identical ones, you will see the Plan B version on the mantle.  I just trimmed the flower buds close but still leaving about a 1-2 inch stem, then hot glued them into the styrofoam.  I painted the pot white, and polka-dotted it with pink.  The wood dowel is hammered into a piece of wood and glued in the bottom, then covered with dried spanish moss, the wood dowel goes all the way through the pink one, and topped with the white one.

This is my new, absolute favorite lamp.  It was in the clearance section of Hobby Lobby.  Don't know why, it was in wonderful shape, and it has KEYS on it!  For 27.00 it wasn't even a question.  I had no idea where it was going, but I knew it was going home with me.  There was a group of girls stalking me for it, as it was the last one, and everytime they passed me, they would comment on how they just loved it, and how cute the keys were.  I didn't let it out of my sight.  It ended up being the perfect size for the table.  Another clearance item was the little wooden box.  The top was just a plain piece of padded burlap.  So, of course, it got a stenciled key on it to match my lamp.  They are the perfect pair.  Add a yummy candle, and a grapevine ball, and it finishes this little corner of the table.

In the middle sits a little bird perched on a heart, holding yet another key.  With my coupon, I got this at Hobby Lobby as well for 40% off.  I'm tellin' ya...it was a good trip to Wilmington.  (Same day that I got the bird pic frame.)

I added one of my favorite Willow Tree figurines since it goes nicely with the love theme, a red candle on a white stand (that you can't really see), and framed this cute little printable with a glass heart frame from Walmart for about 4.00.  It's kind of light, but it says "Keep Calm and Love On".  It can be found here.

I added a little stuffed heart to the swag on the entertainment center.  It's looks hand stitched and has lots of cute buttons.  I think the colors worked perfectly with the scrap fabric garland already there.

My mantle!

A little banner I made the other day.  I printed out vintage music sheets found here.  I really LOVE this website, she makes all sorts of free antique printables.  Tons of stuff there that I want to frame!  I cut out a simple square banner shape out of them, and distressed them a little more with my distressed inking stamp pads.  Then, I cut out the letters with my Silhouette Cameo, glued them on and added some primitive shaped hearts in between.  I glued them to some braided twine, and voila!

Plan B topiary.  I combined the leftover buds, and "planted it" in a pink pot.  It's a smaller one, and works well for the mantle.  It's accompanied by a candle in some milk glass and another Willow Tree.

I made this big wooden sign out of a piece of finished plywood.  The design is mine, and if you would like to use it, you are more than welcome to.  I will include a picture of the outline at the bottom.  To get this look, I used all acrylics.  I used different pinks to paint patches first, then covered it all with Antique Parchment by Apple Barrel.  Then I sanded to let the pink come through a bit.  To get the design onto the board, I colored the back with a pencil over the picture/words, and just traced on the front.  It leaves a nice outline for you to paint in on the board.  I painted the picture/words with FolkArt Lipstick Red.  The border is done in Apple Barrel's Honeysuckle Pink and Cameo Pink.  Then it got another good sanding.  To finish, and give it a more aged look, I heavily watered down some brown paint, brushed it on, and wiped it down.  I accompanied the sides with a few more printables.  The one in the red frame is here.  The one in white is here.

Candelabras, milk glass, and flower buds finish up the other side of the mantle.

Another view...

And a bit of pink and red by the front door.  A heart welcome twig swag sign and some pretty daisies in a blue mason jar.

 

And, for anyone interested in the design on my Valentine sign, here you go.  If you use it, please don't sell it or claim it as your own.  Please link back to me if you do use it or post about it.  Thank you! 

 

Note:  My board was 28x24, I uploaded it to blockposters.com to get the size I wanted for my board.  It will print it out in regular size sheets for you, then you just tape together to get your poster.

 

Christmas Is My Favorite!

You will notice a theme throughout this post.  There will be a lot of the use of the word favorite.  But I can't just choose one thing.  I love it all!

New snowflake pillows courtesy of felt and fabric glue:)  I needed something to match my new very warm, very snugly snowflake blanket.

Our pretty Christmas tree.  I love lots of lights, and lots of color.  We don't have a theme.  It's just lots of meaningful ornaments from over the years together.  That's the best kind for us!  Guess how many lights is on that 7 ft. tree!  1400 baby!  I told you I like lights!  And then there's all those brightly wrapped gifts, it was so nice to get done early this year!

A shot with the mantle.  It has a colored lights garland to compliment the tree. 

I used the reindeer burlap picture that I made a few months ago, spread some big pinecones under it, added some red candles and holly sprigs, then topped it with the "no peeking...no sneaking...no shaking" sign.  I bought that specifically for my husband;o)

A pretty framed Santa picture in our guest room.  I love this picture...it was cut from a gift bag!

A few more guest room decorations.

One of my favorites.  A sweet little snowman lamp with a shade that shines different Christmas scenes when turned on.  I inherited it from my Momma.  I adore it.  It warms up this corner in the kitchen perfectly.

Christmas goodies tins, big white poinsettias, pinecones, and snowmen line the high bar in the kitchen.

More poinsettias in my favorite sisal rope vase.

One of my favorite Christmas pictures at a tree lot.  If you look close, my hair was really dark, but I still love the picture even though I'm back to blonde.  On the other side, a cross-stitch Merry Christmas from my Momma.  Half the stuff I have is thanks to her!

Corner by the tv cabinet.  Snowflake plates, and a vase full of sparkly curly thingies.  Such a technical name for them.  There's also a hand stitched primitive letter to Santa on the table in a frame, can't see it too well, but refer to this post to see it better.

Another cozy Christmas blanket to match another pillow that I made.  I stenciled this design on canvas drop cloth and painted it in with red acrylic paint.

A basket full of ornaments, grapevine balls, and jingle bells.  All wrapped in a holly berry swag.

My pencil leg table with some more favorite decorations.

Another primitive letter to Santa, Jingle Bell candle sticks, a small tree with a burlap skirt, and a flocked wreath.  One of my favorite areas to look at this year.

A little tree in the mudroom greets visitors, and our Jason and Christie snowman plaque hangs over our ugly alarm system box, I think I need something there year round now.

My most favorite nativity scene.  I collected these pieces over several Christmases, and finally got them all 2 years ago.  I look forward to setting this up every year now, changing it slightly from year to year.  My mom and I found a branch vase filler with lighted stars on it, and it works nicely as the night sky background when it's dim in this room at night.

Our little centerpiece box redesigned for Christmas with flocked pine branches, pinecones, and holly berry sprigs.  The candles light up the middle.

And lastly, another small tree by the back door with wooden ornaments and a burlap skirt sits atop a little chair.

I love our decorations this year.  It never seems that I get to enjoy them for long enough though.  Our house has felt really warm and cozy this year.  It may get to stay up a little longer than usual...

Merry Christmas everyone!  I wish you a wonderful day filled with love and joy, surrounded by family and friends.  And my most favorite thing about Christmas....remembering the real reason we celebrate Christmas, I am so thankful that we serve such a loving God who sent His son to save us.  Let us celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord today and remember how very blessed we are!