Halloween Wreath

So I realize that Halloween is quite far away. Here's the story: I bought all of the supplies for this wreath last year around Halloween. I took them home, pre-arranged them to look how I liked them and then... couldn't find my glue gun. I assumed it must be packed in storage, looked there. No gun. So surely it must be in my boxes at home? The holidays were close and distractions were fierce. We got moved in and things have slowed down.

We've unpacked every single box and... no glue gun. So today, I went to Michael's and bought a new mini glue gun at a whopping $2.50, along with a pack of 100 mini sticks for $9.99. I have two projects that have been on hold while I await a gun so I've accomplished the first: my long forgotten wreath! I'm so satisfied with the results.

I bought everything at Michael's last Halloween. I used ribbon, glass ornament balls, two little ornaments, a "Boo" sign, and a black base wreath. I moved the little spring bat onto the back of my purple/black swirl bat and pinned him to the sign so he'd pop out. I toyed with creating a little bow of the ribbon for the bottom left, but decided to just leave the two trail-off ribbons. I think it's really cute.

Here's a close up of the Boo sign without the glare of the camera flash. How cute is that?
I adore the wreath. Did I tell you I adore this wreath?

Twisted Photo Clock

So we were browsing the local Goodwill and ran across this puppy. The box had a Kohl's sticker and retail of $29.99. We paid a whopping $8.99 for it. Initially, we planned to put pictures in it, but the more I thought about it, the less I wanted it to showcase pictures.

B wasn't really on board with my idea: scrapbook paper of different colors and textures. He can't really see the big picture when I tell him my crafting ideas, but he trusts me enough to let me try, within reason. I spent $8.67 on my shopping trip at Michael's and came home with 6 sheets of scrapbooking paper (I mistakenly thought I needed only 6 -- doh!), 2 packages of glowsticks for Cole, and 1 pack of alphabet stamps. So $3.00 of my purchase plus tax were not a result of my 6 sheets. But now I'm sidetracking.

I cut out one of the display pictures for my size estimator. From there, I cut one square of each sheet with about a 2 millimeter excess on each side for security. I used photo tabs to stick the paper pieces down to the display sheet (with all but that one cut out piece still intact as a single piece of paper).

I realized that I was missing two spots and raided my extra fabric for a beautiful upholstery scrap I bought at JoAnn's a year ago. It's the feathery looking white squares.

I'm in love with the end result. I can't wait to put my living room together!

A sneak peek, I envision my sofas in fitted white slipcovers (microsuede) with navy blue/grey/black throw pillows. My wood furniture painted black and the room accented with silver, grey, white, black, and navy blue. I'm very excited and have quite a few ideas for the room.

B was quite skeptical about decorating as he's very adapted to the current look and fine with mismatched couches and wood pieces but after seeing my frame project, he's agreed that a room over-haul is in order.

Oh, here's to converting my boytoy even more into the beauty of putting pretty things into your home. :)

New Place

So this is late news, but we got a new place! We moved in on April 1st!! It was all very sudden. We began looking for something that would work for us on Monday, and were approved by Friday, received the keys the same day and began the move in that night. I have a vision for this place and I adore the crown molding and matching baseboards throughout the place. I also love the white cabinetry throughout the place and the contrast of the walls to the molding. It makes me very, very happy! But here's the pictures.

This is the first thing you see coming in the front door. It's our living room. Yes, that AC unit's cord is wrapped in plastic and ugly. I'm still working on something clever to cover it up without rendering it useless. I'm also considering throwing together some fake drapes to hide those blinds when they're opened fully for visual appearances.

Turning immediately to the right after walking into our living room, you see our hall, but I'm saving that! You can also see our dining room. That ugly table came with the place, along with other random things the cleaners left behind. I think that it looks like a tube of lipstick with a curved top or something of adult nature. It's gone now. Our neighbors downstairs swooped it up when we put it out by the dumpster for anyone to take.

To the left of our dining area is our kitchen. I adore the silver hardware, the white cabinets, and the storage space! It's incredibly fabulous and fits so perfect into my blue, black, and white kitchen scheme.

Back to that hallway. In the bottom right corner, you can see our kitchen. I'm standing in the living room for this picture. Look at that amazing cabinet space at the end of the hall! The first door on the left is Cole's bedroom, the second door on the left is our bedroom, and the only door on the right is the bathroom.
I'm planning to line both walls of my hall in pictures. We'll see how that turns out.

This is a bad shot (but a view nonetheless!) of Cole's room. You can only see half of it, as I'm in the doorway and there's a wall on my left (the closet).

And here's some more room with his double sliding door closet. He loves this room and hides in his closet all the time.

I'll let you have a peek in my bathroom. I'm loving the colors of the cabinets and the floors! They fit into my bathroom color schemes too. Amazing. What a perfect place for us. Also, those are more cabinets on the left wall of the bathroom. MORE storage space. This place has so much of it. But there's more to see in this bathroom.

Here's the other half. I apologize for the toilet brush. It hadn't yet found it's home under the bathroom sink and out of sight. This bathroom is very roomy and shocking for an apartment type housing.

Here's my master bedroom. Once again, it's larger than the picture, but you get the idea.

My large walk-in closet. This place is huge, it could be a small room all by itself. We have a lot in here. I love the wrap-around (three wall) hanging racks + the wrap-around shelves for boxes. We presently have a small bookcase for extra shelf space, kitty litter box, vacuum, craft containers, and dog crate in here and getting around is easy peesy.

So that's a mini tour of my new place. Here's a list about it:

Pros/Likes
White Cabinets
Silver Hardware/Doorknobs throughout
Bathroom Floor
Carpet Coloring + Texture
Tile in Entryway
Crown Molding + Baseboards
Contrasting color on walls (not white, more of a soft gray)
Large Windows and good placement of them
Storage Space
Large closets
Good Layout
Size
Price
Location (We're two blocks from our college campus)
Really nice landlord

Cons/Dislikes
Neighbors
No assigned parking
No private yard
Upstairs unit
Cabinet Quality (particle board)
Not a fan of managing realty (but we have direct access to the landlord and go through him from here on out)
Some floorboards creak

This place has so much potential and it's a decorator's dream. I really think it was meant to be for us. :)