July 16, 2013

Quick Tip Tuesday - A Place for Hair Bows and Headbands

Any little girl mama's out there can probably relate to the massive amount of hair accessories that comes with having a daughter.  They usually end up everywhere and you can never find the one that you are looking for.

We have tried hanging bows from ribbons and shoving headbands into drawers only to be constantly frustrated.  That was until about a year ago when I finally found a solution that works for us!


An over the door shoe organizer now holds ALL of Sis's hair accessories and keeps them organized! The fact that this one is see through makes finding what we are looking for a breeze.  Everything is grouped together by color.  I think it actually looks kind of cute.  (Of course I would think that because I happen to love both organization and hair bows;). 


The fact that headbands actually fit in the pockets has literally solved all of our first world hair accessory problems.  I found this particular organizer at Wal-Mart.   You can find it here.


This has eliminated a huge stressor from our morning routine.  I hope it can work for you too!





July 06, 2013

Master Bedroom Reveal


There a couple of reasons that I love this room makeover so much.  The first reason is the wall color.  I am not one to shy away from color, but I was even a bit nervous about painting the entire room so dark.  I am so happy that I took the risk and went for it.  It is absolutely dreamy! 

The color is "Newburg Green" by Benjamin Moore.  It is a navy blue with a hint of teal.  My husband was totally down with going dark blue, but was adamant about not wanting anything green.   I was afraid that even mentioning the word green would turn him off despite how perfect the color was.   It happens all of the time.  People get very hung up on the name of the paint color versus the actual appearance of the color. 

In this case, the word "green" may or may not have been interchanged with the word "blue" when revealing the name of the color to him (it was for his own good).




The key to using dark or really bold colors is to balance it with plenty of neutrals.  In this room, I broke up the space with creamy bedding, light colored artwork and champagne curtains.  I raided my storage closet and brought most of these items out of retirement.  This leads me to the second reason that I love this makeover so much.  With the exception of buying a few accessories, I either already owned what is in the room or I made it.  The paint color made a huge impact on its own so the cost of the transformation was minimal.

One of the new to me items in the room is the bench at the foot of the bed. I found it on Craigslist and gave it a fresh coat of Caramel Latte spray paint.  I talk more about that here.


All of the artwork in the room is DIY.  The crown pictures above the lamps were clip art images printed on scrapbook paper.  I already owned the frames.  I think they could be a tad bigger, but not bad for using what I had.



The LOVE letters are from Hobby Lobby.  Three of the letters are now Caramel Latte along with the bench.  The "O" was "Rubbed and Buffed" a soft silver color.  
Thanks Honey We're Home for the idea.  




The chair in the corner now sports a DIY slipcover made out of a drop cloth.  It is really soft and is the perfect neutral color.  I will share how I made it in an upcoming post.



I commissioned two up and coming artists for the pastel works in the corner.   Nobody does abstracts quite as well as these two.


Finally, here is how the room looked before:


And while I wish this photo wasn't so dark....here it is after:


With great risks comes great rewards.  I can't believe I ever second guessed the bold color.  The only problem now is that is really, really hard to get out of bed.  
It just might be a little too cozy and relaxing:)

July 01, 2013

Quick Tip Tuesday - Using Fabric Markers to Color Match


I scored these awesome Robert Allen's Khanjali fabric pillows at Homegoods last week.  All though they are not outdoor pillows, I knew that I had to have them for my back patio.


Unfortunately, they only had two pillows in this fabric and I didn't find any others that worked as coordinates.  I needed at least two more.  In addition to these two chairs, I also have a loveseat that needed a little pillow love too.

I went to Homegoods, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Pier 1, Tuesday Morning, Target and World Market looking for coordinating pillows only to come out empty handed.  Yes, I really did go to all of those stores.  What is even more disturbing is that I visited multiple locations of some of them.   I admit it, I have a problem.  

Normally, when I can't find exactly what I am looking for at the stores, I just make it myself.  This time, I was completely unmotivated to sew anything.  Just when I thought I might have to resort to making pillows myself, I remembered the last time I was in Garden Ridge, they had a huge pillow department.  Yeah, they are pretty crappy quality, but I didn't care at this point.  I headed there and unlike the other 75 stores I searched, Garden Ridge did not disappoint.  I found these cute pillows in almost the exact colors of my Robert Allen pillows. Did I mention that they were on sale for $6??  


Looking at the pillows in the pictures, they look like they match just fine.   Most people would have been totally okay with them the way they were.  It seems that I have this color matching disorder.  I get fixated on colors not being "just right"  Every time I looked at the new pillows, I saw pale, smokey blue as opposed to the more vibrant turquoise that I was seeing in the original pillows.


Nothing I buy or put in my house is above getting a little tweak or makeover.  I decided I would make the new pillows exactly the color I wanted using a turquoise fabric marker.


I basically scribbled over the blue flame stitch pattern until I got the vibrant color I was looking for.  Because the pattern wasn't perfect, I didn't have to be either.


Now the pillows look like this...

The marker is permanent fabric dye so it should hold up just fine.

Here they are on the loveseat.


And once again here is the fabric that started it all.


I love how the colors and patterns work together now.  I am sure that I will find more opportunities to use fabric markers.  This little trick will open up a ton of possibilities.