My New Love: Chalk Paint!

Have y'all tried chalk paint? OMG, its fabulous. No sanding, no priming. Just painting, and then playing. We like that in our house.... the getting right to the playing part. 

A sweet friend gave me a little, old table and chairs for miss caroline. It was the perfect thing to jumpstart my thoughts for a little person playroom. That is still the works, but the table and chairs are finished, and caroline is already loving them!

Here is what they looked like before:

I painted a coat of gray on the chairs to start. I wanted them to have gray under tones instead of the brown of the original oak chair. 

This is how they turned out:

There were exposed screw holes on the sides, and I found these fun colorful buttons at Michaels and hot-glued them over the holes. Love the punch of color!

Caroline enjoys climbing up and down because they are the perfect size for her to maneuver independently. 

I used CeCe Caldwell's Chalk paint and Satin finish over top. It worked great, and is mineral based, VOC free, no oder, so easy to clean up, washes out easy with water... basically the perfect paint. Did I mention you don't have to sand off old finishes or paint. AMAZING!

I used two sample size containers of Carolina yellow and two of Seattle mist gray for a total of $36. Which is a little more pricy than regular paint or acrylic, but it is so worth it because it was that easy! And our table was free, so 36 dollars sounds awesome :)

Have you found and fallen in love with chalk paint? Give it a try! 

Love Bug Party: Party Details Edition

Two Saturday's ago we had Caroline's first birthday party. I kept repeating all day, "How has it been a year" and "Oh my goodness, Caroline is really ONE, we're having a party to prove it!" It was kinda silly since I had been planning for weeks and obviously knew it was coming. I just don't know where the last year has gone?

Anyway, I LOVE a good theme, and I knew that a Ladybug theme was perfect for our little Love Bug who has a spring birthday! Everything was ladybug and polka dot, and red, black, with some bright spring green. It was fun, and fairly easy to find cheap ways to stick with my theme using stuff I already owned.

First off, the invites:

I love invitations. If I could make a living just designing invitations for parties, I totally would. I just have a thing for fun fonts and mixing colors and patterns. Anyway, I am really happy with the way these turned out!

I framed an invite at the entry way for the party.

I found the cute wooden lady bugs at Micheals for .49 cents each and hot glued one to the big wooden"C", and tied it up to a hook with polka-dot ribbon. I loved how simple and subtle it was. I already had the red and white flowers from ikea and they worked perfect in a plain white pitcher. 

I LOVE how my party wreath turned out so much it is staying up as a spring wreath. Ladybugs are spring right??? Anyway, I just covered a wreath form with burlap strips {that I already had!} using hot glue. I really like how the texture of the imperfect burlap looks!

Then I just made several flowers out of polka dot ribbon and scrap white and black fabric that was left over from curtains in a guest bedroom and random buttons. They are really simple... I made these flowers using scissors and a hot glue gun. I also made an extra red polka-dot flower that was easy to attach to elastic for a headband for the Birthday Girl!

I found the ladybug circle printable from this website here. I made additional circles that just said "Happy 1st Birthday Caroline" in the same font from her invites to alternate with the lady bugs.

I printed and cut out the different circles, and hot glued them to abstract "flowers" that I free hand cut out of polka-dot paper. I then hot glued the whole "flower" to a clothes pin to hang up Caroline's Monthly Bib Pictures Pictures {from my sweet friends at this shower} across the mantle and our ledge shelves. It was simple and fun to look back through at how much she has changed from a baby to a little girl in the last year!

My Mom found this cute lady bug frame at Hobby Lobby. It was perfect. We took Caroline's picture in her 1st Birthday shirt and red homemade tulle tutu the day before the party so I had some pictures already printed out for the party. I found her lady bug shirt from this Etsy Shop. 

I made these simple water bottle lady bug wraps that said "happy 1st birthday caroline" and printed them on sheets of 8x11 label paper. I then cut apart the strips and had 6 water bottle wraps per sheet. I love details and these were a favorite detail for sure! 

I painted a few different flower pots in bright green and red to hold straws and others for the utensils. I already had these chalk board labels that I tied on with bakers twine. Easy! 

In sticking with our red and black theme, we had bottled cokes! Such fun and a big hit. We also {of course} had Chick-fil-A tea and lemonade too. 

We were lucky to have a beautiful spring day. I was praying hard for this because we had been itching to grill out hamburgers after a very long and very cold winter. It was the perfect day for an early spring cook-out. We kept it pretty simple with burgers, chips, fruit, guacamole, and then cupcakes, chocolate covered pretzels and Lady Bug Oreos. 

The cupcakes were vanilla cake with cream cheese icing, and I sprinkled mini chocolate chips on top. Once again, easy! 

The lady bug oreos were a big hit too and very simple. I used red melts from Micheal's to dip oreos. I then just used a black M&M and more mini chips and black icing for make the lady bug on top. I left them in the fridge to get hard overnight. They were super sweet, but very yummy! 

It was such a fun afternoon celebrating our girl. I am big on the party details because thats fun in a weird way to me, but Caroline actually really seemed to enjoy having so many people over to "party" with her, and that was the best part! 

Pictures of the birthday girl coming next!

Our Guest Room!

I have finally finished up a few of the projects in our Guest Room and I wanted to share the final product {atleast for now... I always seem to be wanting to change things around!} 

 The wall color is Blue Hubbard by Sherwin Williams. It is such a great color that we loved it so much we used it in our downstairs half-bath as well. Much, much better than the awful green carpet and green walls and green trim, don't you agree?

 This room sorta felt jungle-ish with the bamboo shades and if you look closely below you will notice the closet door pull is a frog. {OH MY!}

Its AMAZING what a coat of paint, new carpet, new blinds, new ceiling fan, and a little bit of taste in door handles can do for a space :)

Our "H" pillow was a wedding gift, and the chevron pillows my sweet mom found at Stien Mart. The Color matches perfectly and I am in love with all things chevron these days. 

I made my super simple pinch curtains from fabric that I fell in love with from Fabric.com. {Also with help from my sweet mama!} These were a post-caroline project. I think she was only about 4 weeks old and they took all day for two of us to go back in forth between rocking, feeding, and soothing her to get the babies lined and sewed! 

This is the room my Mama/Gram always stays in when she visits, and as I am typing this I am sorta feeling like I made her decorate her own guest room... Sorry Mama!

 My chalkboard was a fun Saturday afternoon project. I bought a poster frame from Target for super cheap, took out the plexi-glass, and painted the particle board backing of the frame with two coats of Chalk board paint from Lowes. It was SO easy!

{And check out those gorgeous leaves changing outside our guest room window. Fall is simply the best in our back yard. Come for a visit and you'll just want to sit and watch the leaves change out this window.}

I wrapped the thin picture hanging wire with Jute rope that I found in a dollar bin at Micheals to add a little something more to this plain black chalk board. The jute stayed in place great with several drops of hot glue. 

It's fun having a chalk board in my guest room to write welcome messages to our guests!

 I love dried hydrangeas. So beautiful and they hold their color really well for a long time!

 The top of the dresser is currently decorated for fall, and will most definitely be switched out for Christmas decorations {yay!} after Thanksgiving. 

The mirror is a Greensboro thrift store find that fits in with the color of the room perfectly. It was one of those things I saw, I loved, I grabbed, and I knew I would find the perfect spot for it eventually. Got to love a cheap, beautiful find.

 I got the idea for these framed quotes from some of our favorite hymns from Emily at Jones Design Co. Emily's art prints are SO beautiful, but I wanted to create something for a little bigger frames, and in slightly different colors for Fall. 

Now, friends and family- come visit us and stay in our Guest Room! Its ready for you anytime!

Touches of Fall to our Nest

I love Fall! Love orange and pumpkins and Halloween and changing leaves and Football... and I could go on and on. We got married in the fall and it was perfect. Perfect weather and perfect use of lots of fall decor at our reception. Anyway, I also love lots of fall decorations in our home.

With our busy, crazy lives, I finally got a few touches of fall up around the house and I wanted to share!

 Decorating the mantel is always a favorite. I like arranging and re-arranging {weird I know!} and figuring our what I need to make for finishing touches. 

I found this free fall printable here.  

"A life without love is like a year without Fall." Isn't that saying so true?

They have tons of cute ones and they're so easy to print one out, or get inspired and make your own print! I love finding ideas and re-creating my own art that fits our home and our colors.  

After finishing the arranging and re-arranging on the mantel, I knew my window need another touch, so I made bunting from left-over burlap scraps. I just free handed with black puffy paint the word "Fall" and attached to some jute with miniature close-pins. Very easy and quick, but I think it added so much. I am in love with bunting these days! 

 And it definitely isn't fall without several pumpkin spice candles!

I made an easy Fall wreath that I threw together with a $1 stick/vine wreath from Target (the dollar section is SERIOUSLY the best. Can't walk into target without browsing for a craft idea!) I loved them then, and I'm thankful now that I held on to a couple! I painted the tiny wooden "H" {$1 from Michael's} a dark Orange color with acrylic paint, and attached to the wreath with hot glue. Whole project took less than 5 minutes! 

It isn't fall without fresh gourds and pumpkins! Each one is so unique. 

Is it fall in your home too? I am hoping as Caroline grows up she enjoys helping me put out fun decorations each year and remembers all the fun of pull our special memories. I sure remember loving when my mom decorated for each holiday :) Happy Fall!