I am obsessed with this drapery makeover from Home Stories from A2Z.
She loved these curtains from Ballard (which I am kind of feeling, too), but the price tag is $468 a window. Seriously. Do people spend that much on drapes????
But here is where I am so impressed and wish someone would do this for me.
She took these $30 curtains from Ikea:
And turned them into this:
I want.
Do I have any friends who want to do this for me? Aja?? Mom??? :)
Go see the full tutorial here.
Guess who was featured on Knock Off Décor today? Um, me! Go check it out here! Knock Off Décor is one of my daily reads. She features designs that are knock-offs of much more expensive items that you can buy in stores.
Speaking of “featured,” I thought I would feature some of my favorites for the past week.
I love lunches that are creative and I also love Angry Birds, so this lunch caught my eye. Eighteen25 featured so many cute kid lunches like this one from Lisa Storms.
I love beverage containers. I have several and have given several as gifts. I especially loved this one that you can fill with three different beverages. Get it at ZGallerie.
I also loved this Cake Pop “cake” for a Hungry Caterpillar party. It is so easy, but makes such a cute statement. Featured on the Pottery Barn Kids website.
Look how cute these cookout invites are from PaperSource! I love them. They would be so easy to do as well…famous last words :).
I will feature more soon!
Today my mom and I started working on a project for her guest bedroom, which then turned into a project for my master bedroom.
You guys remember when I got my big girl bed, right?
Well, I have been dying for some artwork for our room but haven’t really found anything I liked. Enter my mom.
The other day she was at Ross and picked up these vinyl adhesives for her guest bedroom for $15. (I went to all of the Ross stores in Tulsa and they do not have anymore, but you can buy them off Amazon for $28 here.)
My mom got the inspiration for how to use these from Ballard Designs:
My mom went to Michael’s and had foam board cut exactly to the size of the vinyl. That was a grand total of $8. If you look closely at the second picture below, we just took the foam board and painted the edges with Folk Art Italian Sage paint.
You obviously don’t have to be perfect:
Then we took the adhesive and just put them on to the foam board:
Then my mom, mother-in-law and sister-in-law were nice enough to hang them for us.
I really like how it turned out. We have decided to order another set and do 3 more on each side. My interior designer (ahem, Tommy) think it needs a little more.
I do love how it turned out and thanks to my mom who let me highjack her project and use it as my own! Love you!
I think I might have forgotten how to blog. Oops. This week has been crazy busy – girls night, movies, dinners out, Tommy taking the laptop for a fantasy football draft (ahem). Maybe next week will be better?
One of the cutest things did happen this week. My niece started “school” again and my sister posted these adorable pictures on Facebook and I had to share for those of you who aren’t “friends” with her.
She is very sweet. She is also going to the same school as my nephews! My sister-in-law showed me a picture of Max yesterday of his first day of school. Bless his heart…it wasn’t all smiles :). Though, she did get some after school pictures where he was feeling much less anxious.
In melt your heart/adorableness news, on Friday I ran to an outdoor shopping area (Utica Square for the Tulsa readers) around lunch time. I was walking out of a store and I heard someone call my name. It was my brother-in-law and he was with my niece who was running around on a little grassy area. She saw me and ran all across the lawn yelling, “KK, KK.” Seriously, adorable!
I have to brag on my sister. She threw her husband a really, really cute 30th birthday party this weekend. She definitely covered every detail and we all had a fun time. My husband especially.
The party was a beer tasting theme. The invites were made by Luna Petunia Designs and the image was used throughout the party.
When you walked in the door, my sister had a set up with instructions on how to rate the beers and a koozie for each guest. (Remember, you don’t come here for my photography skills :).
I think this was one of my sister’s most brilliant ideas:
Kyle is an optometrist. Get it??? Love it!
I loved also what Allison did for Kyle’s cake – it’s a beer bottle cap. For the Tulsa people, she got it at The Frosted Bowl in Sand Springs.
In the backyard she had several beer set-ups. One was for local brews, one for was summer ales and one was for international beers.
One of the really fun things that she did was have a Food Truck come and custom take everyone’s burger order.
Definitely wishing for a great year for Kyle!
Allison, amazing job! It was definitely the most fun party we have been to all year!!
One of the things that kept me so busy this week is that I helped host a shower for my good friend Mindy that is having a destination wedding this Fall. And when I say “helped host” this is my only contribution.
I do love doing flowers and it was really fun to do this arrangement. I typically don’t work with foam because I am not doing large arrangements anymore, but it was really fun to get to do this one. I actually miss being creative in this way. I may need to help host more parties. Ha!
I did a step-by-step for you guys because it really is doable, especially for you crafty types. All of this was done for about $45 (not including the container).
Items Needed:
- 2 bricks of Floral Foam – it needs to be wet foam specifically for fresh flowers (it looks really similar to the dry foam). You can get this at Michael’s, Walmart or Hobby Lobby.
- Container – I got mine at Hobby Lobby while we had the flower business when they had a 1/2 off sale for about $13
- Wet floral tape – You can get this at Michael’s or Hobby Lobby. (This just keeps your foam in the container. If you wedge it tight enough, it isn’t necessary.)
Flowers (all from Sam’s):
- One bunch of leather leaf – $4
- One bunch of seeded eucalyptus – $6
- 5 stems of white lilies $7
- 5 stems of white snapdragons – $7
- 1 large bunch of white spray roses – $15
First, soak the floral foam for about 30 minutes in warm water. Then place into your container. I like to tape mine in there so that it doesn’t move around. Also, my foam was way too high, so I cut it with a knife to leave only about three inches of foam over the top of the container.
The next step is to add the leather leaf to the foam. You just stick it right in there. It is actually pretty fun!
Men are funny. Tommy told me I didn’t even need to add flowers. It looked pretty like this.
The next step is to add your flowers. I started with the lilies. I placed one in the center of the container and then put the other four facing upward around the “four corners” of the container.
Note, you do have to cut quite a bit of stem off the lilies.
The next step was to add the snapdragons. I just added them in between the lilies.
The arrangement is still looking pretty sad. Don’t let that discourage you. We still have plenty more to add!
Next, I added the spray roses to fill in throughout. I wanted full size roses, but Sam’s was out. I improvised and got spray roses (just tiny clumps of roses on one stem) instead and it was definitely a blessing in disguise.
Ah, much better. But it still needs a little something else. This is where I went back in and added the seeded eucalyptus.
I was happy with the finished arrangement. (Isn’t it amazing the difference that extra greenery made?) It took about 40 minutes to arrange total and would definitely be a significant savings over what a florist would charge.
The one thing about flowers, too, is that they don’t photograph as beautiful as they are in person. So imagine this a little prettier :).
That evening at the shower everyone thought they were artificial, so I took that as a compliment!
Wow, this week was busy. Next week looks even busier. Since when did I get a life?
I have still been reading all of my blogs, so I do have some stuff to share. But, believe it or not, blogging actually takes some effort. Le sigh.
I laughed when I saw this today. Wouldn’t that make life easier? Not that I would eat a human…but, you know? :) via mind.body.soul.
Yesterday I saw a contest on Facebook for Starbucks that will start on Monday – it is a Bring the Pumpkin Spice Latte to your City First. Tulsa, we can totally win this. If you don’t live in Tulsa, this contest isn’t open to you. ;)
Speaking of Fall, I loved these cute pumpkins made with old timey keys featured on Maddycake’s Muse. I mean, I could even do this project.
And while I am pining for Fall, it is, alas, still summer. I did love this summery and citrusy wedding featured on Celebrations at Home.
Speaking of weddings, I loved this really elegant and inexpensive centerpiece featured on Perpetually Engaged.
And I have no good segue here, but I am a huge fan of fruit pizzas. Like LOVE. (I think it is the cream cheese icing.) I actually make these a lot on a small scale with individual cookies from the package, but a large fruit pizza is so pretty. Here is a recipe from I Heart Naptimes for those of you that actually make your own dough and don’t buy your frosting in a can.
More soon while I have some downtime this weekend!
So I am still pretty excited about my Birchbox! I thought I would first review the mascara that was included.
First, I love the name – blinc. Very clever.
The mascara is really unusual. It puts “tubes” around your lashes to prevent caking, smudging, running and flaking.
However, once on it just looks like normal mascara.
To remove it you just wash your face like normal with warm water and then rub your eyes softly and the “tubes” come off. They describe the product as tubes. I didn’t see any in my sink or anything. It just looked like normal mascara when it came off.
Plusses:
1- Much, much better than waterproof mascara. It isn’t impossible to get off and it isn’t heavy at all.
2- Goes on smoothly and made each individual lash stand out.
3- Dried quickly and didn’t smudge all day. Also, I typically wake up with raccoon eyes because I can NEVER get all of my mascara off during at night. This came off really easily and left no residue over night.
Minuses:
1- Didn’t feel like my lashes looked as thick.
2- A little pricey if you were to purchase it.
Bottom Line: I would definitely recommend if you are in need of a good waterproof mascara.
First, this is not a pregnancy post. (I may have a slight flare for the dramatics.) But I seriously have been looking forward to receiving my first Birchbox ever since I signed up. I think this is as close as I will get to a celebrity swag bag. Only I am pretty sure they don’t pay for theirs…
Birchbox is basically a subscription service where you pay $10 a month and you are sent a box of beauty samples. Each box has a theme (this one was beauty innovations) and includes several samples and one full size product.
Today it came:
A box within a box:
All of the goods!
My full size sample was this blinc mascara which retails for $24. I only paid $10, so clearly this is a great deal, right?
The next two items were from Befine – an exfoliating cleanser and a night cream. I need all the aging help I can get, so I am pretty excited about the night cream.
I love a present within a present – more anticipation!
Included in the mini present was this Lift Lab Fast Fix. This is a serum you put on to help red/sensitive skin. The description is very la-ti-da and uses big words like Cell Protection Protein and Arctic-derived ingredients. It also retails for $85. It must be good, right?
My last “gift” was this Kate Spade Twirl perfume. So far this is the only product I have used since ripping the box open 5 minutes ago. I actually rarely wear perfume, but really like this fragrance. It is light, sort of sweet, floral and fresh. The closest perfume I could relate this to would be Clinique’s Happy. Though, obviously, it is different.
When I signed up for Birchbox online, I took a little survey about my hair and skin, so I think the boxes are each different based on your profile.
Also, you don’t have to blog or blog about the box to sign up. I am just really excited about it! :)
I will post reviews on these products soon. I am excited to get ready for bed and wake up tomorrow. (Clearly my life is VERY exciting.)
