Changes....

6 months ago I was very comfortable and confident in my life and work. I had been at work a year and felt mature and successful in what I was doing. I knew I had tons to learn still but I was happy with where I was.

I was happy with my single girl life.

Today I am unsure about things. Not that comfortable anymore. Maybe I'm supposed to be learning patience or how to be submissive.

Quarter life lesson to be determined.

Few things....

1. I have a few older gentlemen admirers. One is a regular attendee of Rotary here at work so I see him every Thursday around 11am. He is gradually getting bolder with me. He has recently told me that my curly hair is sexy and that I have cute feet.

My other fella is around 40 and frequently tells me he wishes I was his wife. He is definitely married.

Who gave old guys the "say whatever you want" pass?


2. My name is not Amber, Ashley, Audrey, Aubry or Aubri. Neither is my last name Wilson. I would hope those who've known me for several years would know all this but apparently not. I would NEVER mispell someone's name. I would feel so bad....its their FREAKING name!!


3. I go on family vacation in exactly one week. I am not currently sold on Disney World but am being told that Disney will prove itself to me and be amazing. Bring it Disney....show me what you got.

Here's a little peek into every Saturday night of my life :)

My current list

A list starting forming in my brain today and I wanted to share.

I am currently in love with/waiting for/so excited about:

Red poppies
Glitter pumpkins for fall
Framing pics of Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly for my guest bath
Orange cookies to be made in the next few days... thank you pinterest
The smell of a cold front
My Christmas wish list
Black boots with tights
Making Chicken Tortilla soup in my new crockpot
Laughing with Sara on our 9pm donut run
Marc Jacobs eau so fresh perfume
My new Ikea dresser....drawers a plenty
My lovely friends all across Texas. Wish I could see them more.
Fashion sketches
Fall

Look at this loveliness i found on Pinterest today.

Been a while...

So I didn't buy a house. Instead I moved into a fabulous 2 bedroom apartment. My decorating has expanded due to tons of new space. I will update with pics soon but in the meantime....

My two best friends got married!

Pics to follow.

Happy Birthday to me!

I decided to purchase myself a 25th birthday present.

Officially in escrow tomorrow. Inspection on Thursday.

Yay!!

Here comes 25

I love today. I feel so calm. It feels fantastic outside. I've had so many things going on and tons of things to think about in the past few weeks that I haven't had a chance to sit and write. 
   

I started the process of purchasing a house about 3 weeks ago and since then my mind has been constantly occupied with houses, townhomes, zip codes, windstorm insurance, decorating, moving, down payments. I am super excited about this next few months but know it will a mind boggling process. I can no longer drive through a neighborhood without analyzing everything. I see a house for sale or a nice neighborhood and I must research it later. 

  

I was slightly stressed about it about the beginning and felt the pressure to make huge decisions about houses I wasn't sure about. Now, for some reason, I am calm about it. I will find the one I love when the time is right. I will not stress.
  

During this same time, I was planning a shower for Sara in the span of a week and taking on the role of Membership Chair for the hospitality association in town. I constantly had 7 different things rolling around in my head. I am happy to say that Sara's shower was precious and went wonderfully! And I am making my way as the Membership Chair. Meetings and lists have been made and things will be great.

We are now in the month of my 25th birthday and I can see that 25 is going to be a great year. 24 had some many exciting twists and turns, I can't wait to experience what's next.
  

Get excited for fun, creative decorating blogs to come. They're gonna be big! I am personally anxiously waiting to see the first inch worm of the summer. They are soooo cute I can barely breath. Heehee. 

Love

What I created during Kim and Kourtney... :)

When I first moved into my apartment, I made several pillows for my living room. I bought my navy couch and it came with two questionable quilted pillows. I decided to take them apart and make my own with the stuffing inside. Once my living room started taking on a theme and colors, I made more pillows to match. Now I am wanting to change things and see what else I can create.

I am always on the lookout for fabulous fabric or finding pillows I can re-create. This is why I visit JoAnns on a regular basis just to check things out. I have collected a fun little fabric box that I pull from when I feel creative. 

My overflowing fabric box

I get most of my decorating done on Mondays since it's my day off. This past Monday I journeyed to JoAnns and heard the announcement that they would be closing in 10 minutes 2 minutes after I got there. I didn't want to leave without fabric so I made my way to the sale section and found a wonderful orange suede and a guazey stripe fabric. I made the super quick decision to get both and decide what I would do with them later. 

I got my sewing machine and set it out on the floor (since I don't currently have a table) and had a little fun.

My pillows I created a year ago

I added the guazey fabric to this piilow

I added some sweet lace to my orange pillow.

I still have a navy pillow to jazz up but not sure what to do. Any ideas?

 

Vintage Pattern LOVE

I love the look of old, vintage patterns like McCalls, Simplicity, etc. I once saw a basket of tons of old patterns for sale at Goodwill and started thinking of ideas and things I could create with them. 

My grandma used to design for McCalls and taught me how to sew when I was a teenager. I developed my love for creating my own clothes and decor from her. She started it all. She is also the one who gave me my first sewing machine for graduation. I LOVE it!!

I've created a few things with vintage patterns that I wanted to share:

For my first project, I used the actual pattern pieces and layered them as the background. I fell in love with this particular 1950s Simplicity pattern for sweet dresses so I used it as the main picture. It even has someone's notes on it....cute!

I created two of them and hung them in my bedroom. 

I had three random little canvases that I bought from the dollar section of Michaels one day. They were very nautical but my apartment is anything but. I decided to cover them with the patterns so I would actually use them. 

I chose the best looking, cutest colored patterns. I LOVE them but haven't decided what exactly to do with them yet. I considered selling them on Etsy but I love them too much. I have recently decided to use them in my new and improved bathroom. I am in the middle of re-decorating and am so excited them finally have a home. 

I'm happy I can share my joy in decorating with you. I hope you enjoy it.

Cutie little birds I love!

I am in love with all things peacock. Dark, deep colors like purple, navy, orange, gold....I LOVE!

When I moved here, I had tons of wall space to fill. I didn't have any art or any fantastic pieces I wanted to display. I've always been the one to create what I want so why not paint a peacock feather to display?

As I've said, I make things up as I go along so I didn't have a pattern or anything. I just had an actual peacock feather and tried to re-create it. I had two blank white canvases from Hobby Lobby that I painted gray. I painted the feather over both so the final result would be larger.

The final result

I've painted several other things along the way. A picture frame here, a shelf there, a cork board from goodwill everywhere. :)

I am also in love with owls. I'm not really sure what because real owls seem weird and scary. 

Here are a few of my precious owl items.

My salt & pepper shakers

That is it. Enjoy your Sunday. Go try a raspberry sweet tea from Sonic....you will LOVE it!

Pieces of my heart

During my time in Alice, I fell in love with anything mosaic. I figured, "how hard can it be"? 

Mom had a flower pot stand that was perfect. The only thing was that it didn't have a top. I wanted to add tile to it so the top had to be a special material. I had dad cut a circle of hardy backer to fit the top. Once that was done, I went on a search for plates at Goodwill. 

I had to find the perfect plates that would break up into good pieces. It took me a while to discover the best way to break them up. I became very good at breaking and creating the perfect pieces I wanted. Through all of it, I never cut myself.

Once I had enough pieces, I laid them out to make the pattern I wanted. Me and Carrie had a fun little time of gluing them down with all the proper tiling tools (thank you dad!).

When that dried, I was ready to grout. Me and dad mixed it all up and went after it. I'd tiled before so it wasn't too difficult.

I'm super excited with the finished product. Mom uses it for her plants. Sorry for no final picture.

Grandma loved it too so I decided to make her one for mother's day. I had a better plan going in to it the second time. I enjoyed giving it to her. I think I like hers better.

New projects are forming in my head since I've started this blog. I'm excited about what is to come!

I've recently become obsessed with this beautiful rosette lamp from Pier One. I was walking through the store and fell in love with it. I am in no need of a lamp and it was unnecessarily pricey so no lamp for me. Isn't it beautiful though?

I have a Goodwill converted lamp in my room that I had a little fun with. I found this gold and crystal lamp with no lampshade in the Alice Goodwill about 1 1/2 years ago. I LOVED the crystal and wanted to see what I could do so I decided to spray paint it. I unscrewed it and taped everything up and went after it. I was obsessed with navy at the time so I went with navy.

I knew that I wanted a drum shaped lamp shade but couldn't find one anywhere. After several weeks of looking, I found the exact one I wanted at Ross. It was $2.99.... LOVE!!

I'm happy with the finished product. I'm so happy that almost everything in my apartment has my touch on it. I created what I love.

On another note, yesterday was St. Patty's Day. I did spray my hair green! Also, I made strawberry cake cookies for my brother's birthday. They were SUPER strawberry...not the biggest fan but they were sooo cute!!

I'm beginning to love this blog thing. I'm happy to share my eccentric creative mind.

I'm itchin to get outside

During the time of my no-job 2009, I spent a lot of time organizing and redecorating the parent's house in Alice. I spent many hours in the closet under the stairs going through tons of wrapping paper, several days organizing the craft room, and about 2 weeks redecorating the game room.

 Finished Game Room

I acquired several director's chairs during this time. Once I cleaned them up, replacing the bright orange fabric was a must. I found and purchased the same sturdy duckcloth in a sweet light blue at Joanns Fabric store. I used the old seat fabric to created my own pattern. Once I made one right, I just had 5 more to go.

I wanted to add something extra and was really into anything monogrammed. I searched for a monogram pattern online and created a stencil. I mixed a clear fabric paint with the pink color I wanted and went after it.

I now have 6 sweet patio chairs. I love to use them during this glorious weather. I used them as my actual furniture in my apartment before I had any.

Thank you my precious grandma, mother, and sisters for all their help with these chairs.

And the adventure begins!

I've lived in Corpus Christi for a year now and during this time I have acquired, refurbished, built, and painted an assortment of glorious items! I've gotten so much positive feedback from friends and family about these projects that I've decided to share them with you! My friend, Sara, has been urging me to create a blog for quite some time now, and I figure that this is as good of a time as any! I have no doubt that I will also be documenting my day-to-day adventures as well.

My goal with this blog is not only to showcase my work, but also to get feedback from my readers about these projects. If you ever have any questions about how to create an ottoman, redesign your bathroom, or refurbish a vanity you've bought on Craigslist, I'm your girl! I never really follow a pattern or directions; I make it up as I go! I'm excited to see where both this blog and my creativity take me.

I hope I inspire you to let go of your fear of painting that picture because you can't draw a straight line. Who cares if you can't draw a straight line! It will probably turn out better any way!!

So here's to throwing away the rule book and rockin' it out!!