pinnable me: chalk it up.

We're back!
This week, I'm obsessed with all things chalkboard.

I have a project in mind for my house involving a chalkboard, but I'm not yet willing to share.

So for now, these will have to suffice.

I really, really, really want to do both of these projects. 

Especially the globe. How much fun for learning geography. I'd have aced every single one of my quizzes in GEOG 101 if I'd had this to draw on. 

Design Sponge via Moi on Pinterest. 

I love this board too, I think it's a fun, clever way to keep things that you're looking forward to in a place you can always see it. 

I'm thinking I might make it and give it to Liam next year for his birthday, with a countdown to our big Disney World trip on it. 

Infarrantly Creative via Moi on Pinterest.

What about y'all?

What did YOU find on Pinterest this week that makes you swoon??

Link up!
And, if you wrote a post last week when we were on hiatus, link up both posts!

help! have you seen this tablecloth?

TABLECLOTHS FOUND! THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING SO WILLING TO HELP!
And I apologize for the weird update... on my phone :)

I am sending out a big plea.

HELP ME!

I need FOUR of these tablecloths from Target:

I have two now, so I need TWO more.

The problem is that they're now on clearance. 

And at Target.

On clearance.

Which means they're HARD TO FIND.

If you see any, give me a shout and let me know where they are, pretty please :)

(also, if I get desperate, I'll pay you back)

Since a few of you wonderful people have asked... I bought my first one at the Target in Katy, and the one I picked up today, I found in Brazos Town Center in Rosenberg. I found the first in a section near the towels and home goods. Today, I found one in the same type section, but at the end of an aisle. Honestly, I don't HAVE to have them, but they'd make me very happy ;)

pinnable me: home

So, as discussed, in this FRIDAY feature, I'm going to post my favorite post by one of my friends and and my favorite of mine from the past week. 

LOVE this, I'm searching for a color to paint a few walls in my living room and this may be the winner. Plus, I'm hoping to inject a little more coral in my life, so this is doubly fine in my eyes.

{via Kate on Pinterest}

 I don't really like bunk beds very much, I think they're... a lot. But these are simply wonderful. Who wouldn't want to sleep here?

{via moi on Pinterest}

LINK UP!

If you were inspired to post YOUR favorite Pinterest pins, add your link here so we can see what you're loving...

past painting projects

I can't believe it's taken me SO LONG to get around to posting about this!

To begin with, I started the project in Liam's bathroom when my dad was home last... so, around Valentine's Day? Yes. I didn't quite realize when I made the plans for this room quite the project I was in for.

I designed the look I wanted in my head a long time ago, bought the paint before we moved into our house and never had a moment when my dad was free enough to help me. I've gotten a lot better at my painting (meaning: I have gotten really good at edging everything by hand, without the hassle of painter's tape) so I figured I'd get started.

I wanted the bathroom to be a modern beachy theme- without the kitsch.

crabs left over from the first birthday party

Personally, I could not be more thrilled with the way the bathroom came out. The stripes were the most difficult part of the whole project. My dad helped me a lot with those. We used his laser level to lay out the straight lines and then we applied a single piece of painter's tape to each line (and those were LONG pieces of tape!). Once all the tape was on, I went along with blue paint and painted over the edge of the tape that would define the tan stripe, allowing the blue to bleed under the tape. After all the blue dried, I hand painted the tan stripes. It was a lot of steps, but the stripes are completely spot on, you'd have to look really, really hard to find anywhere where there's even a little bit of a blemish. Really proud of the way this room turned out, and pleased that it's done. I don't think it's childish at all, so it's going to stay this way while we're in the home. 

Back in January (I guess?) I got that "must paint" wild hair and made my hubby decide on a color for the wall behind our bed. I used Ralph Lauren's Regent Metallic paint on a wall in my bedroom in a townhouse in college and just loved the way it came out. I decided to go ahead with that again in this house and am really glad we did. The metallic sheen is very, very pretty in the evening when the lamp is on. I think you can get a little bit of an idea from the sheen the flash of the camera creates, but I think it's far lovelier in person. I'm also really in love with the way the color goes with the inspiration cushions. 

That's the painting -- on the walls -- that's gone on at MY house lately. I did help my mom out by painting her upstairs powder room, but I don't have photos of that. I also bought paint two days ago to use on the "console table" (what it actually IS, I'm never telling!) at our entry. I cannot paint enough furniture. I'm also in the process of planning a display board in our hallway that involves colored chalkboard paint, lacquered frames, sliver clips, particle board and moulding. And my FIL. You know. Gotta have a place to display all those sweet works of preciousness Liam will be bringing home in his backpack come August. 

Hope you're all enjoying your Sunday. I'm off to draw up a couple of designs for our backyard. Yeah, I think I'm also an amateur landscape designer. Ha. HAHAHAHAHA.

brain dump for a busy few days

• Yesterday was looooooong. I got up at 6 and didn't crawl into bed until around 2:45. I'm still grumpy/tired. No, not the best idea. 
• I was up late because I was working on a painting. I don't know where I'm going to hang it, or how I'm going to frame it, but I'm fairly pleased with the way it came out. I'd have preferred the colors to be a little more muted, a little more dank, but I also didn't want to wash the whole thing with a lot of Payne's Grey and end up with a hot mess. Cause I could have. I am hoping it's giving off a kind of "once upon a midnight dreary.." vibe. I wish y'all could see the iridescent medium I applied over the moon. Love it.
• Liam is being picked up by my mom tomorrow and they're going to take her puppy to Zach the Vet. Since we don't *ahem* GO to the Vet, it'll be interesting to see how Liam likes going to see his daddy at work. 
• Mom's taking Liam because I want to clean. I cannot, can NOT clean my house thoroughly enough for my taste while Liam is home. I have to have him out of the house so I can focus completely on what I'm doing and not have to have one ear and eye on Liam at all times. 
• When i clean, I turn off the TV, open all the windows and listen to music very, very, very loudly. It keeps me moving quickly and keeps my spirits up. I put my CDs in the Blu-Ray player and let them play on the surround sound. I also get out the iPod & dock from Liam's room. Tomorrow, I think it's going to be Audioslave, Queen of the Damned and The Essential Michael Jackson-- skipping the Jackson 5 stuff, though. Believe me, when nobody's around, I can belt out Smooth Criminal and P.Y.T. like nobody's business. 

• I'm also thinking about letting Mom take Liam to work with her on Tuesday morning. Zach and I need to get outside and do yard work. Like now. We've got massive weeds and they need to not be in my yard anymore. Getting Liam out of the house will allow us to get outside and get work done without worrying about where he is or what he's doing.
• We're in "make the house presentable" mode because our friend Ryan is coming over for dinner on Tuesday. I'm excited. We got to be friends our senior year of high school. We were lab partners in physics and did a lot of traveling with the band. When he came to A&M for grad school, it was lots of fun to have him around. (Ryan's modeling the CD below)... BONUS points to anyone who knows where the photo was taken, too. 

• Zach's cooking Tuesday night. I love showing off my husband's cooking skills. He's trying to decide if he wants to grill steaks or shrimp or if he wants to do his homemade chicken piccata. I'm leaving the menu up to him. I should throw dinner parties and just let him do the cooking/planning. I'll just clean and make pretty. Yes.
• I'm still trying to settle on dessert. I can't decide. I won't make Oreo Ice Cream Dessert for anyone but the Cory. You just gotta hope you can grab a slice when he's in town some time.
• WITH THAT. Zach has retreated into the bathroom for his old fashioned razor date and I'm going to hoof it into the baby's playroom for a workout. I skipped ONE day and I'm feeling like a fat, lazy slob. Lord have mercy, can you believe that came out of my mouth!?

planning a nursery: girl

So in the same vein (I've been saying that a lot this month!) as the post on Liam's big boy bed, I started online window shopping for things for baby E's potential room. Should a baby E make her appearance in our family in a couple years.

Back when I knew I was pregnant, but didn't know Liam was Liam, I had planned out a girl's nursery in raspberry, lemon and white. I'm still stuck on that color scheme. I can't get over it. But it's hard to find *just* what I'm looking for.

Enter Serena & Lily's Ruby Heirloom Crib Bedding:

How about with the Hayes Glider in Punch with white piping?

And for the walls? 2 shades of yellow, in foot wide stripes, all around the room.

Of course, I'm not in love with the shades of yellow they used in the above photo, but you get the idea. The yellows I have in mind are much brighter, more pure yellow- less mustardy.

I'm also envisioning painting the dresser Liam has in his room (which will go to a younger sister, but not a younger brother) a great shade of pink. Then we'll put in a white bookcase like the Lilac Bookcase from Pottery Barn Teen. With the yellow on the walls, the pink on the dresser, the white on the crib and bookcase... it'll allow so many fun accessories to really pop!

Besides a beautiful, dainty chandelier like the White Ella Chandelier, I also see this, the Capiz Table Lamp -- in pink!-- looking so cute!

I'd love to add a few of these Petal Pop Wall Stickers as well, in both the pink and the white.

To keep a little yellow in the room, I'd toss one (or both!) of Pottery Barn's new Bee & Beehive Pillows on the glider.

Then I'd pick up the Pink Senegalese Storage Baskets in large and small to put toys and dirty clothes in.


That's what I have planned, at least. I long to make this room a reality. And I really hesitated about posting this nursery because my design/decor ideas are like baby names to me. I don't like sharing them lest someone decide to rip me off. Oh yes, I'm weird like that. Use my baby name, knowing I like it, or use my nursery ideas and I'll flip out. Warned.

planning a big boy room.

That makes me laugh.

"big boy room."

It's not really a big boy room at all. I don't expect the decor we pick for Liam in 6 months to take him into our next home, middle school and beyond. In no way. Now that is my definition of a big boy room.

For now, we'll say 'big boy room' with a sense of slight irony. Can we? Thanks. 

Moving on.

------------------ ** -----------------

We've talked about Liam's second birthday as our benchmark for moving him out of his crib and into a bed. We're skipping toddler beds (hi, have we met? have we discussed my utter and complete loathing of toddler beds?) all together and going straight into a twin bed. Yep. Oh man.

We've ... ahem, I'VE ... picked the Camp Bed from Pottery Barn Kids in Weathered Navy.

My head is already spinning with plans for Liam's bedroom. Our current quandary is this:

We are not planning on having a second child any time soon.

I know. But it's bugging me because I feel like it's holding up plans for decorating Liam's room as it stands now.  Regardless of a future sibling, Liam will be in his current bedroom until at least late 2013 (hi, have we met? I'm planning my family down to the weeks). So from mid-2011 until late 2013, he'll be in the Dr. Seuss nursery. 

If I can get my grubby hands on it, we'll just get Liam the Dr. Seuss quilt and call it a day. Because he already has the sham and the crib quilt. Sheets I don't really stress about because there's an abundance of color and pattern to work with. If, by chance, they're all out of Dr. Seuss then my plan is to either buy the Kasey Quilted Bedding in Primary, or the Gingham Duvet Cover in Green.  All three will work in Liam's room NOW. 

But in the future? If Liam has a baby sister make an appearance in 2013, then he's going to be moved into the play room. Where the decor is brown, teal and lime. Right. What do I do with all the Dr. Seuss?

(if baby brother instead, baby K will be in the play room. simple)

It's all rather befuddling, because I don't want to drop hundreds on stuff I might not be using in a few years. Blah. WHY do I have to over-complicate things?

pizzapie!

We decided to be very adult and make our meal plan Monday night before we went to the store Tuesday.

We were having trouble coming up with what to eat for dinner Tuesday night, so I suggested pizza.

Usually, we buy pre-made crusts, canned sauce (don't judge, it's the BEST) and the mozzarella with Philadelphia cream cheese in it (it melts so well!).

HOWEVER, this time around, Zach suggested we make our own crust. 

This is my arena, folks. The mixer? MINE. The kneading? All ME. Yes. So I told him to hie he to the computer and find me a recipe. 

Oh man. DID. HE. EVER.

The dough has to rise, then you split it in two, then let it rest for 10 minutes under a towel. The smell is insane. It makes that the longest 10 minutes eh-ver!

We plop them on a couple of cookie sheets, I work my fingers and make them into perfectly lovely crusts, brush them with olive oil and go. 

They take between 12 and 15 minutes to bake and the smell is DIVINE.

I made this for dinner Tuesday, and then yesterday for lunch, Liam and I wanted pizza. We didn't have enough time to make crust and make Zach a pizza too, so we had an extra crust. We baked it for half the time, then pulled it out, piled on the butter (4 tablespoons worth!) and cinnamon sugar, and then baked it for the remaining time.

Little boy heaven. 

I told Zach yesterday, when two crusts pre-made are about $4 a pop, it's WAY cheaper to buy the bread flour and the yeast. And to be honest, it's so easy and so much yummier, I am forever cured of wanting to buy crusts at the store.

two down, one big decision to go.

So I spent the evening (baby went to bed, hubbers went to sleep at 7:30) playing around with the arrangement of the prints I blogged about earlier.

Here are the final options...

OPTION 1

OPTION2

OPTION 3

OPTION 4

OPTION 5

I have settled on for sure using frames, and doing as the wonderful ABQ recommended, and I'm going to paint them white. The prints don't look bad next to the white paint. It's not going to annoy me. And, I'm going to use mismatched frames, to work with the eclectic feel I'm shooting for. 

WHAT IS YOUR VOTE? Which layout is YOUR favorite?

opinions needed: frames for the famous

I'm sure you all remember the hulaballoo I went through getting myself a desk, and the work that my dad and I put into the one I have now...

A while ago, I found 7 wonderful, fantastic, terrific prints on Etsy that I talked about in this post. They came in the mail a few days ago, and now I'm trying to settle on HOW and WHAT to use to frame them. This is what my workspace currently looks like:

I really like the chalkboard and the two framed pictures, but am open to taking the PICTURES down. The chalkboard stays. My issue is that I thought all 7 prints were going to be 5 x 7, but two ended up coming in at 8 x 10:

I really love the way the white frames look against the grey paint in the room (see, ladies? I told you it was d-a-r-k grey!), but I'm not sure that the white frames will look great with the off-white paper they printed the images above on. SO...

I have frames around the house, frames like this one:

So here's my dilemma:

1. Should I paint the frames white, or should I paint the frames to match the desk?
2. Should I take down the photos and replace them with 2 of the smaller quotes, and then stretch the two 8 x 10s and the remaining 3 5 x 7s across the top? Or should I keep the photos and randomly arrange the 7 prints above them all?
3. Should I try to get all matching frames for the prints, or should I just pick up pieces like the one above and a few random others and paint them all the same color to coordinate?

My initial thought was to keep the photos, buy mismatched frames for the prints and arrange them over the desk. I can't decide what to paint them. Then I thought if I painted them like the desk, I should buy wooden frames and sand them down. And then when I thought that, I figured they'd all have to match. 

If I were to keep the photos, and use all 7 prints over the top of the photos and the chalk board-- which I have plenty of space to do due to the 9 foot ceilings in there-- I would put each 8 x 10 in larger frames on the end, then I'd put three 5 x 7s across the top, with two centered under them. I don't know if I explained that well, but I think it'd look fine.

I'm kind of lost. I'd like to go looking for frames tomorrow- I want them UP on my wall for next week when my mom and I are starting our first weekly "Grandma takes Liam, Mommy works on her novel" dates. I think the quotes are just the right kind of inspiration for me!

THANKS a million for all the help y'all give. LOVE.

color splash

When we moved into our house last November, I spent the few days between closing and move-in getting some paint on the walls. It was only the rooms we could settle on. We chose the paint for the bathroom, office, Liam's bathroom and his playroom easily.



(I didn't give Zach options on the last two- he didn't care!)



I wasn't really sure what direction we were going to go in our bedroom, so I didn't purchase paint, I didn't make any plans. Now, though, I'm ready to pull the trigger and get some more color on the walls in my house!


I love the colors we have going right now in our bathroom. I'm obsessed with the white, yellow and grey combination and love the way my framed pastel came out, the metallics and the grey.

The problem I have right now in the bathroom is that the painting didn't go so well. There's a lot of it that bled onto the ceiling under the tape and it drives me so crazy I cannot even be bothered to rip all the tape off the walls. Oh, and the tape is tearing the original paint off the wall when we peel it off too. 

What I want to do is repaint the bathroom-- get another gallon of the grey and cover up the little places where the paint didn't cover well, just finish the walls off so they're nice and even and deep in color. I've always wanted to paint a ceiling, and I think the bathroom would be the perfect place to do it because we need to cover up some of the blemishes we've got going on.

If I'm going to fancy up my bathroom and make it look gorgeous, I need to add some POP! to the walls in the master, too.

Here's our master bedroom:

The only thing I don't love in our bedroom is the curtains. We're planning on moving them into the office-- which is a bluer grey than we painted the bathroom. I'm planning on looking for an ikat type print in brown and cream so I can make four curtain panels and a bed skirt. If I can't find something I like, I just don't buy (unless it's necessary, like the curtains, but then I'm miserable because I've settled). So we haven't had a bedskirt ever. Partially because we've always had this brown bed spread, but the quilted shams and quilt are backed in a light, light turquoise (that doesn't match the Chiang Mai) and we'd always had those exposed until we moved here. I decided I was tired of the blue, so I reused all the accessories elsewhere in the house and flipped the shams and quilt back to brown.

Speaking of the Chiang Mai, it is our total inspiration point for the rest of the room. I think this fabric is quite possibly the most perfect fabric on the face of the planet. The colors are insane, the fabric itself is sturdy and the dragons make me so happy. When we settled on these cushions, and decided to go with a contemporary Asian detailed space, it gave me a place to display a lot of tchotchkes I had collected over the years. 

I have a beautiful Japanese jewelry box my Grandpa Rodney gave me, as well as a fan he got on one of the airlines when he was working in Japan. I have my clock with its Japanese numerals, which was the first thing I ever bought for my own apartment. I love this clock. I will have a cow when it dies one day. We have a beautiful Asian vase and two Chinese dragons we got as wedding presents and a dancing Thai lady I got in Bangkok. I LOVE having a place to display all these pretty things- especially someplace where it makes sense.

{And yes, I did the pink and green paintings over the shelves. I quite like the way they turned out, even if I didn't intend for the colors to be quite so Easter-eggy.}

Now that we've settled on a direction, we've decided to paint behind the head of the bed. I'm obsessed, OBSESSED with Ralph Lauren's Regent Metallics paint. I painted a wall in my room (in the townhouse I shared with SARAH!) in the Palace Silver and just fell in love with the finish and the sheen.  I'm going to pick up paint chips tomorrow, but Zach's current favorite is Highgate. I was leaning towards a gold, but Zach thinks we ought to go more bold. Then once we get the wall painted and I find some fabric I like for the curtains, we're going to order a yard of the Chiang Mai fabric and I'm going to make it into a throw for the end of the bed. One day, I'd like a lounge chair in the bedroom that the throw could eventually move to. I think once that's all said and done, I'll be content with our bedroom. Of course, eventually we'll be replacing the furniture, but we want to collect pieces and not buy a suite. I hate bedroom suites. So. What do you think? Teal, coral, gold, silver? The possibilities...

I think I'll get a quart of the Parlor Gold to paint the ceiling in the bathroom. Or maybe the Silver Plated. EIther way.

Finally- Liam and I spent the afternoon with my mom yesterday.

We met for lunch (Liam chose the music in the car) and then headed back to her house to play with the new Cozy Coupe she got him. 

F-u-n stuff.

I'll leave you with this:

I can't hardly even remember when he was this small. Man.

Oh and FOR REAL, I have the B-E-S-T friends. 
It's true.