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!