Sunday, March 6, 2016

Trough Box & Faux Cotton Branches

We have been using a lot wood lately in our home makeover projects.  When I see the leftover pieces of wood, I think of all the little things we can make with them.  A trough box was at the top of my list.
I showed Cody what I wanted and thought that sooner or later he could make me one.  Twenty minutes later, this is what he made me!   
I put some vinegar and steel wool stain on it and went to town filling it up with pretty things.  I shopped the house and yard and was able to find a nice variety of things to put in it. 
Bed springs, horse shoes, silk flowers, candles and rag balls are both shabby and rustic, vintage and farmhouse.  Some of the things I love! 
I am sure that I will be adding and subtracting until I get it just the way I like it.  But for now, I think it's perfect sitting on my dining room table. 
I have also been crushing on cotton lately.  We don't have cotton fields in Idaho and I have honestly never seen cotton "out in the wild".  I tried my hand at making my own cotton branches and it is the perfect focal point for my new trough box. 
I cut egg cartons into petals and painted them brown.  I pulled cotton balls apart and formed them into bigger balls that were glued inside the petals.  I gathered twigs from the yard and glued the cotton blossoms onto them.   
I think they look pretty good and I love the way they look in an aqua Ball jar.   
Cody didn't realize how easy it would be to make a box like this or how much he would like the end result until he made one.  Now he wants to make a whole bunch in all different shapes and sizes and sell them.  I think that is a fantastic idea! 
I love having a handy husband who can take my wild ideas and turn them into something like this! 
I am not sure if it is a good or bad thing that I was able to shop my house and find all this stuff to fill it but I am glad that I had all of it either way! 
Linking up with:

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Spring in the Bedroom

Spring fever has hit our house!  We are all longing for nice warm weather where we can sit out in the sun and bask in it all day long.  Grady took full advantage of the sunshine we had last weekend.  As uncomfortable as the back of the truck looks, he makes it look pretty comfy!  This weekend was overcast and chilly so there wasn't much of this happening.
I brought Spring into the bedroom since it feels like awhile before it will be Spring outside.  I love changing my bedding on a regular basis and one of my favorite duvet covers is this aqua set I got at a thrift store.  
It has polka dots on one side and roses on the other.  Such a perfect duvet cover for Spring!  The foot of the bed has a vintage sheet in aqua roses and stripes.  I put it on the bed when the dogs come lay with me at night. 
I still have this spring vignette and thought it was perfect to put on the bed.  This is still one of my favorites! 
I found some really pretty fabric this weekend and made a rag garland to hang on my old wood window in the bedroom.  The 4 different fabrics all have roses and are the prettiest colors and patterns. 
I brought home 2 dozen roses from last weekend and they had to go into the bedroom on the little fireplace.  I wish I could have fresh flowers all over my house all the time! 
The sheets on the bed are not Spring sheets--it's still cold out, especially at night so my little flannel owls are hiding under the Spring bedding. 
I put some pink peonies in blue Ball jars on either side of the headboard for some extra Spring touches. 
It's definitely Spring in our bedroom and hopefully soon it will be Spring outside too! 
And we have started on our next room makeover in our house.  The living room got its first bit of love this weekend and we have much more to do.  But here is a peek of what we got done.  I am so glad to have a handy husband and one that goes along with my crazy ideas! 

Linking up with:

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

2016 Scholarship Gala

Another Scholarship Gala has come and gone for another year!  This time, our gala was on a Saturday which was good and bad.  It made for a long week and short weekend, but we were able to start and finish earlier.  Since this is our 125th year as a college, we went super fancy for our gala.
At first I wanted to do something vintage for the centerpieces but nothing was coming to mind.  So I went elegant instead and the results were perfect!  We had our campus carpenter build us 50 boxes that were 8x8x5.  We then painted them gold.  A very generous grocery store chain donated 50 dozen roses and statice for filler.  On Saturday morning I showed my boss and co-worker how to arrange the flowers and we were off making all the centerpieces in no time. 
Gold ting-ting was randomly placed in the arrangement and I bent purple wire into numbers for the table numbers.  The best part of all, we sprayed all the flowers with the nicest smelling glitter spray.  Everyone was raving about the centerpieces and I have to say, they are some of my best yet!
We had about 430 people this year and made around $180,000 for student scholarships.  By the end of the night my feet were dead and I just wanted to go home and go to bed. 
Here is my amazing team.  We worked our hiney's off for the last few weeks and we still haven't gotten much rest.  As they say, there is no rest for the wicked! 
{Me, Kelly, De}
Just 2 days before our gala, we had to plan a groundbreaking ceremony for a new library that is being built on our campus.  And 3 days later, we had to plan a dinner for 150 for our Staff & Faculty Appreciation.  We've been busy! 
I was able to recycle my gala centerpieces for our dinner centerpieces because the roses held up so well. 
I just took them apart, cut the oasis down and put it in small candy dishes.  I cut the roses down and arranged them in the bowls and stuck some statice in them.  They were the perfect centerpiece for this dinner and I love that I didn't have to spend any money. 
Here is one more picture of my team in our messy glitter room/craft closet.  We are exhausted but we still look good!  Spring is our busiest time of year so the rest we need might not happen for awhile.  It's a good thing that I LOVE my job!!

Linking up with:

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Farmhouse Chic Bathroom Makeover

Our bathroom makeover isn't 100% complete, but I am too excited to wait any longer to share it with you!  Come take a look inside my Farmhouse Chic master bathroom.
Here is what it looked like before.  Carpet on the floors, plain white walls and yucky gold fixtures.
 
The only thing I liked about this bathroom was the big soaker tub in the corner and the double sinks.  
The first thing we did was to paint.  We chose a blue-ish grey color called Icicles.  We painted 3/4 of the wall from the ceiling down and left the bottom 1/4 white.  A white chair railing was put all around. 
Then we ripped out the nasty carpet and laid down vinyl tiles.  It looks so much better!  Stained barnwood trims out the bathtub and adds such a pretty, rustic look.
There were no medicine cabinets and since we were doing all of this on a very small budget, we decided to stain some pallet pieces and make floating shelves to hang and use for storage.  I got Mason Jar soap dispensers from World Market instead of making them myself.  I think it actually saved me some money doing it that way. Clearly I have way more stuff than Cody!
We used pieces of pallet and barnwood where we could.  The toilet paper holder was painted white and distressed and then screwed onto a piece of pallet.  It's much sturdier now. 
We took another piece of pallet and added an old hook to it.  These act as towel holders for both sinks.  I made stain using vinegar and steel wool and I love the way it made the wood turn a pretty grey. 
Of course I had fun accessorizing and put my little white crate to use as a wash cloth holder on the back of the toilet.  A jar of white hydrangeas is the perfect farmhouse touch. 
Cody painted the cabinets white and distressed them.  I got the knobs for 50% off at Hobby Lobby. 
I love taking baths and always like to have as little light as possible.  My vintage mirrored tray has candles to be lit and a romantic book bundle sitting on it.  It will also be the perfect place to set a glass of wine! 
It has been so much fun putting this bathroom together.  We have done our best to keep costs down and I think we did a pretty good job. 
My candle chandelier has been looking for a home of its own since I got it a few years ago for Christmas.  This bathroom makeover was inspired by it and I think that I created the perfect place for it!

The wall above the bathtub will soon have crates for towel storage and we still need to stain and put up the trim along the floor.  But for now, I am loving it just like this. 
I will probably put up some more decorations and of course when I do, I will show you those too. 
I hope you enjoyed the tour of my new Farmhouse Chic bathroom! 
Linking up with:

Sunday, January 10, 2016

A Beautiful Bathroom Window

We are slowly but surely making our new house into our home.  The first thing we tackled was the master bathroom.  It's still a work in progress, but I wanted to give you a sneak peak of my window. 
We painted the bathroom Thanksgiving weekend, a color called Icicles from Home Depot.  I wanted to make this bathroom Farmhouse Chic and this color just seemed perfect.  This is the window before we had done anything to it. 
After the paint, we replaced the floor.  Who puts carpet in a bathroom?!  We ripped it up and Cody laid down square pieces of linoleum.  It looks amazing and I can't wait to show you the floor.  We also put some barnwood on the bathtub surround and stained it.  It looks amazing! 
Cody is the one that does all of that stuff of course, but I am the one that gets to make it look pretty.  I made this banner for the window and I love how it turned out.  I made a rag garland with some white linen and then added this banner that I hand lettered.  It fits perfectly over the window. 
Even though it is frosted glass, I still felt it needed a curtain.  I bought a small drop cloth and glued a piece over to slip the curtain rod in.  It matches so well with the garland.  This corner of the bathroom might be my favorite part! 
My farmhouse chic bathroom needed a chandelier over the tub of course.  Maybe one of these nights I will even light some candles in it! 
I am loving this bathroom makeover and I can't wait to be completely done so I can show you all of it.  We still need to paint the cabinets and the trim around the mirrors white, hang some shelves and put moulding around the floor.  Cody is currently putting down flooring in our other bathroom so this bathroom will be finished after that one is done.  It's going to look amazing! 
Linking up with:

Thursday, January 7, 2016

*Featured* Little French Table

This Little French Table that I did a makeover on a few years ago was featured on The Graphics Fairy yesterday!  Go take a look at it again in case you missed it.  
This inspires me to find another graphic and do another project!

Monday, January 4, 2016

Snowflake Ornament

Continuing on with my winter decor, I wanted to show you a super cute snowflake ornament that I made just for the occasion.  A trip to the dollar store and a few things out of my stash and look what I've got!
Right before Thanksgiving, I had to go downtown Boise for a meeting and had breakfast at one of my favorite restaurants called A'Tavola.  They have amazing food-I had the Croque Monsieur and breakfast potatoes-highly recommended!  They also always have fun things to purchase and decorate the whole place so festively.  These snowflake ornaments were right up my alley and I sneakily took a picture so that I could make some on my own! 
The Dollar Tree had these large snowflake ornaments in a 2 pack and the silver snowflake ornaments in a 5 pack.  Everything else I had.  I used vintage sheet music to create the medallions, lined the edge in silver glitter and glued it onto the large snowflake. 
I then glued the silver snowflake to the middle of the medallion and stuck a clear glass pebble to the middle of that. It needed some sparkle so I added clear glitter to it and it is perfect!  I made 2 of these and they are the perfect for my winter decor.  Now I may have to copy that adorable snowball garland they had as well! 
Stay warm out there friends!

Linking up with: