Happy Halloween

I love Halloween and dressing up!  Even more so than that, I love creating my own costumes.  This year I sewed my cavewoman costume. 

And a close up of my attempt at making myself look dirty - excuse the facial expression, apparently I thought cavewomen can't possibly be happy and must be mad ;) 

Here's a group picture from the night out...I partied with Brett Farve, Winter, Spring, a bloody man, Fall, and a pimp!

Pumpkin Fun!

My painted pumpkin as part of our fall decor!

Bedskirt

After months of searching for the perfect fabric for a bedskirt, I finally settled on basic stripes.  They add enough interest without competing with pattern of the lamps and pillow.  I had one minor mishap when I sewed the foot of the bedskirt on backwards - oops - so I had to take the seam out and re-sew it the correct way.  Before, we had just a plain white bedskirt and now we have:

And because she is cute..and ALWAYS has to be on the bed when I try to make it....

Fall Decor



The temperature outside is telling me that it's Fall!  I love the crisp air of fall weather, I love waking up in the mornings and feeling the cool breeze blow through the window, I love being perfectly comfortable in jeans and sweaters, I love the changing trees - I love Fall!  Along with the change of seasons, comes some change in the decor.  Since we don't have a ton of space to decorate seasonly, change usually just means a different center piece on our dinning room table. 

A few months back, I bought some fabric to make some table runners.  I finally got around to making said table runners.  Instead of doing one runner of each fabric, I did 2 runners that were reversible.  Now, when we add the leaf in the table, if I want to use 2 runners, I can! 

So with the perfect Fall runner in place, I needed a new centerpiece.  And, as you guessed it, it had to be on a low budget.  After browsing a few blogs, I came across this idea and decided it would work perfect for our new centerpiece.  Off to Dollar Tree I went, to pick up 3 vases and 3 candle holders.  I forgot to take a before picture, but I ended up getting 2 different sized candle holders - one tall holder and 2 smaller holders. (The larger one is already attached)

With the help of a little glue, the vases were attached to the holders.  I decided to only attach 2 of the holders, so I could have 3 different height vases.  Once assembled, I filled the vases with Fall decor.  We have about 20 strands of leaves left over from our wedding decorations, so I cut leaves from one strand to fill one vase.  I also have plenty of candles sitting around, so that filled another vase.  The last vase had a little help from the clearance section at Target, where I picked up a pack of "fall like items".  I wasn't planning on using any pumpkins to decorate, but they came in the fall package and look nice in the arrangement...Here is the finished product, table runner and all. 

It's Been Awhile!

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted.  I'm not very good at this blogging thing.  But, in my defense, I've been BUSY!  The summer came and went and I feel like I hardly had time to blink my eyes.  Here's a glimps of what we've been up to the past few months. 

Road Trip to Chicago to visit some good friends:

A couple Twins games at Target Field!

A Family Reunion

Many weekends at the lake

A Mom & Daughter vacation to Door County, WI

The Tour de Corn bike race with my mom and brother

And some time spent in Sioux Falls celebrating the upcoming arrivals of some sweet little babies

That was our summer in a nutshell, I can't believe it's nearly Fall!

Another Painting

One of my very best friends (and her awesome new boyfriend) was here visiting for the weekend and I wanted to make something special for her.  She recently graduated from grad school and moved in to her first "real world" apartment in Detroit, MI.  She has asked for decorating advice a few times, but since I can't be there to assist her in decorating their place, I wanted to send a little something along with them instead.  Here's the painting I created for their bedroom. 

I originally was going to plan one large painting, but then remembered they were coming by plane and needed to be able to easily transport the painting back to Detroit on the plane.  So, a 3 panel painting made much more sense.  Now, if only I had a nicer camera and sharpened up my photography skills a bit......

From Drab to Fab!

When we first moved in to this apartment, I didn't put much thought in to decorating.  We have been known to move around a time or two, so I didn't want to put in efforts of making the place pretty and then have to take it all down a short time later.  Now that we've been here for almost a year and will likely be here another year, I've been putting more effort in to making this place feel like home.  I've hung up a few items here and there around our apartment.  But, the largest blank slate of a white wall that we have is the one behind the TV.   And, I hate apartment white walls - you know, the ones that are flat white paint and get dirty by just looking at them. 

My first attempt to decorate this space was to play around with a few wall hangings that we already own.  Problem was, this wall is large and the items we had just didn't fit the space well.  They were either too small, too tall, or not wide enough.  As always, I wanted to spruce up this space without going broke.  I contemplated doing a couple paintings, but canvas can be expensive, especially in the large sizes I had in mind.  That's when I decided on using fabric.  I set out Saturday morning and two hours and 20 dollars later, I was at home with all the supplies I needed.  I sketched up some simple plans and the project was under way. 

I got too excited about the wall hangings and didn't take any pictures of the steps or process. But it was pretty simple tasks of measuring, cutting and hemming to complete the look. The final finishing step was to insert wooden dowels in to the pockets at each end. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The final product was about 5 feet tall and 20 inches wide.  I made two of them, so it only cost me $10 per hanging - pretty darn good deal if you ask me!  Add in a floating shelf with accessories we already owned and we no longer have a large blank white wall laughing in our faces everyday saying "you can't paint me, neener neener neener".  Who needs paint when they can use fabric to dress up a space?!