How To: DIY Crystals for Winter Decor

OK - first & foremost, this new house & move has been keeping us extremely busy!  I apologize for my lack of posts, but you know what?  We have the internet again! That means I'm back to posting regularly.  After last weeks storm, with our fun floods & septic alarms, our lack of cell phone service and internet, seeing that Google logo pop up on the lappy was a huge breath of fresh air!  You don't realize how much you need the net til it's gone... I swear it's as essential as electricity.  Or I'm just dramatic... whatevs.

Since December seemed to sneak in while I wasn't looking,  I was reminded that I wanted to share this awesome winter decor DIY I spied over at Kara Paslay Designs - man, she is constantly coming up with amazing projects!

I love these! They are so different than your usual holiday and winter decorations.  Don't get me wrong, I love me some sleigh bells & Christmas trees, but these you could easily leave up until spring and it won't look weird.  They remind me of that Ice Princess from Candyland, I bet her place would be floor to ceiling in crystals like this.  I can't stand that game however, I had to play it daily for years when I worked in childcare - over it! Anyway, guess what these cuties are made of? Straws. Yep. Straws. She's done it again - hop over to Kara Paslay's blog for the full scoop.  Hey, wouldn't a little LED lighting look great under there? Hmm..

I have 3 million things to tend to today, but believe me when I say that my intentions were to fill you in on all the little repairs & improvements we've been doing in just the last few days. It's amazing how such little things can be so satisfying, I'll assemble a list & share soon, because if you haven't done them to your place -  you should.  Who knew a motion sensor light would bring us such joy?  For now though, check out these amazing yellow leaves off our deck:

Gorgeous, right? Only drawback - once those hit the driveway (which is sort of steep) & soak up the rain, you quickly get nature's version of a slip n' slide. Look out! Have a fantastic weekend everyone, fill it with soup, fireplaces & coziness... see ya Monday!

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Oh, the "Pin It" button is working again.... bonus points!

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The First Night....

We made a goal earlier last week, to be sleeping in the new house by this last Saturday.  Well we met that goal, and just in time too.  As we were unpacking the mattress, it started to sprinkle again - which was the beginning of the third, and largest storm we've been facing out here in the west.  Seems like Ben Lomond wanted to give us a wild welcome, and really let the rain pour down.  Record breaking rain, or so I hear.  We learned about the haunting sounds of a sump pump going off and on under the house, and what to do when your septic alarm starts going off. Yea - I know - septic alarm?!  For two people who have never dealt with a septic, this was exactly what a nightmare of mine sounds & looks like.  I was pretty stressed, but had to remember to stay calm, and that things could be worse.  A lot worse. Here's what we woke up to (I can't believe I even slept!)

Wild stuff! This is just one area too.  But you know, now that the rain has stopped, things have dried up a little, and the septic is being repaired - I have to reflect and think that it's your attitude that will get you through things.  So on that note, rather than feeling overwhelmed I'm going to be positive. For example, we learned:

• Our roof is not leaking into the house.
• Under the house is fairly dry. 
• The house did not float away.
• What to do when the septic alarm starts screaming at midnight.
• We have a lot of water to do some "fun" french drains with. 

Hope everyone else enjoyed their weekend, we are happy to be in the house, and ready to start tackling these projects. The internet is about to be transferred, so I may disappear for a minute, but I promise to be back soon with a more exciting post than water down a hill.  Have a good one!

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Kitchen Table Makeover Ideas

So the other day I was showing you a table tutorial, and I mentioned the dilemma with our current table.  Well I've been going crazy thinking of a few ways to customize it, (or build a new one if all else fails!) to match our style which is more modern, colorful & bright.  I just can't say no to bright colors, so if we can't put bright on the walls (house is a little dark for that...) then you know we'll have some bright fun pieces.  Take a look at the table, check out that hutch while you're in there:

 

psst...you can kind of see our wall samples there, I think we have a winner! Three walls in the lighter one, and one accent in the darker. 

Sorry about the mess! Like I mentioned before, we're moving! Actually, it's been pretty clean. We've been packing up a truck of boxes, bringing them over, and unpacking.... surprisingly seamless so far.  Anyway, love this table - we just want to do something to it to make it more our own.  That hutch will definitely be getting the deep turquoise, almost peacock treatment.  Probably with a fun fabric background and some new knobs, but the table is undecided.  Maybe something like this old favorite I did a few years ago:

Striped Table Tutorial

Or this glass triangle paint job I featured a while back:

Painted Glass Tabletop

I'm imaging joining the two techniques, and having a pattern of triangles over the top with the wood grain showing through the edges. We'll see. We're going a new direction with the colors of our kitchen, leaning towards a teal, turquoise, orange, white sort of thing going on... sort of like this, but with teals and whites the more dominant color.

Actually the peaches in the bowl are the perfect example!  What's new in your home, any painting adventures on the horizon now that winter will be locking us indoors? Thanks for stoppin' by friends!

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How To: Dining Room Table

We are mid-move, so let me apologize in advance for my short & sweet posts!  I was at the new house yesterday thinking more about our dining table. I like it but the space can hold something a bit bigger.  I looked at a few tables, and nothing really spoke to me.  So I thought - hello!? - let's just make one! I shared this Live Edge Table a while back which I love...but also found a tutorial that shows the steps start to finish, I love it's simplicity:

It's beautiful and can be customized in so many ways. The tutorial is from the blog Our Vintage Home Love and is very detailed and user friendly.  I got a full lesson in table construction just buy skimming the pictures.

Nice and simple construction.  I never realized there were so many table legs available at the hardware store! Did you know that when you put new legs or parts on a piece of furniture that weren't originally intended, it's called marrying? Well now you do - just a little useless trivia for ya.  Like, "I married the legs from this table with the top of that table".  You learn something every day, so they say.  When furniture and marriage are in one of my sentences it's usually "I love that couch so much I want to marry it".  Ramble alert!

For the full tutorial, visit their blog here.  I would love to do a really long one of these someday, nothing beats a 12 seater table!  Now if only I could figure out the drop leaf action... hmm....

So, what kind of table do you have?

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Building a Couch

Whoah, what a weekend!  Thanksgiving was delicious, we celebrated my Mom's birthday on Saturday (Happy Birthday Mom!) - and Ralph and I battled the beast that is IKEA, on a Sunday! We may not have really thought that decision through, but we were fogged by the excitement of buying our first brand new couch. It's a big step!

Meet Karlstad! I love love love this green.  We both really wanted an "L" couch, and this living room is big enough to hold one.  But wow - getting this thing home was a real test of our patience.  IKEA has that special something that gets you to come into the store, only to find yourself trying to quickly get out.

We had a return to do (mistake #1), we pulled number "02" and they were on 70...  45 minutes later we were in, and starving! Surprise, guess what? It was a special eat-for-free day, and the lines were cra-aa-azy.  We'd already come that far, so we hopped in with the rest of 'em and loaded up on the (FREE!) meatballs, chicken tenders, and whatever else Sweden could throw at us.  Then it was on to pick out a couch!

Actually, the couch was already a 100% yes, so no in-store decisions necessary.  I gotta say, the rest was pretty easy and straightforward.  An IKEA worker was actually available, friendly and wrote our order up. We paid, and then went to furniture pick up where - oh that's right - what DOES a couches box look like? It looks like a pallet of 5 enormous boxes that they slap on a tiny baby cart and say "Have a nice day".  I am kicking myself for not taking a picture, it was hilarious.  Maybe it was the shock, but really, what was I expecting? Some flat packed miracle I could toss in the back seat? Yes, of course.  It was both funny and frightening in reality, and we got it into the truck with surprisingly few snags.  A  nervous ride home, and it was time to BUILD ourselves a couch..

It was 26 pieces in all, a lot of bolts, and a LOT of slipcover.  But it was easy! How often can you say that about IKEA assembly? I was shocked. Best couch ever, and it's soooo cozy. We sprang for a rug though, totally not in our plan or our budget, but I don't see my self getting to make this T-shirt rag rug that I want anytime soon.  (It would be SO worth it though...!)

 

Source: replayground.blogspot.com via Jesse on Pinterest

That one is great, but won't realistically get done for another 5 years. So, we had our eye on one just as shaggy, as we wanted a really cozy rug - and IKEA had plenty.  I haven't figured out how we'll be vacuuming this high pile beauty, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it... for now I can't get my toes out of this thing, I think the dark looks great with the green:

In other news, we are still slowly but surely brightening up that kitchen (from this post).  We added some under cabinet lights, that make an amazing difference in the work space:

I got excited and installed them, even though I haven't cleaned up all the wires yet, but what a difference! If you look closely you can see the 4 color samples on the right wall there, none of which we went with. Ha! SO glad we got samples..  Please forgive the quality of my pictures lately, all our things are between two houses so I'm usually only armed with the phone's camera - which is surprisingly good..

Hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving and weekend with the family & friends, here's to a new week!

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