Vintage Pretties

A Room of My Own

One of my very favorite places in our new house is what I call my crafty-study room.  It houses all of my craft lovelies, my sewing goodies, my school materials, and basicly anything that makes my heart happy.  It also happens to be one of the only rooms that is already just about how I want it to be, so I'm going to share it with you.

First off is my little sewing space, with my new sewing/embroidery machine (sooo cool -- a subject for another post).  I just love having absolutely everything I need right there & being able to see my thread.  I only have my embroidery thread on the wall at the moment, but I'm planning on getting another rack for the regular sewing thread.

Beside the sewing table is a little bookshelf that holds my tiered basket of trims, glitter & crepe paper as well as vintage jars of buttons.  My inspiration boards hang above them, with my favorite quotes and poems, mementos from special events, small art pieces, and my number from the first 5K that I ran, to remind myself of what I can do.

A close up of my trims, just because I love them.

All of school binders & textbooks are below, within easy reach of my desk.  One of my classes this semester is 'Media for Adolescents', so you'll see a lot of young adult fiction on the shelf this spring.

On the other side of the desk is this little display case (in another life it was a medicine cabinet) with more mementos from special trips and memories.

Beside the cabinet, I have my Expedit bookcase, which is one of my favorite pieces of furniture, ever.  On top, I have my favorite vintage biscuit tins and other pretties including my wedding bouquet.  The cubbies hold all kinds of fun including my decorating and craft books, inspiration binders, collection of vintage children's books & primers, and a stack of vintage fabric.

When I get a block of time to putter around in here, I can be here for hours, creating and writing and researching and sewing.  I hope that you enjoyed my little tour.

DIY Library Book Container

I'm finally back!  After a crazy semester and a lot of soul searching as to whether I should keep up the blog.  When I started blogging, it was such a pleasure to discover other women my age who were interested in decorating and crafts, vintage and cooking, and all the little details that make life fun & warm.  Blogging has changed quite a bit and there is a lot of pressure to make your blog look perfect and your projects super creative and, for that matter, to be working on something at all times.  I'm not really up for that at this point.  However, I am up for continuing to share what I'm up to and to continue to connect with the amazing people that I've met & continue to meet!  Though, sometimes I wonder if you are still there...if ya are, could ya raise your hand in a comment, just so I know that you are still out there?

Having said that, I do have a project to share.  I actually finished this in the fall, but darned school got in the way of me blogging about it.  I saw this cute project on Pinterest:

(I'm sorry, I cannot find a link to the original creator, as my pinterest link says "Google".  If you know of the creator, please let me know & I will give appropriate credit.) We were always mixing up library books in our own books, so we definitely needed a special place for the library books.

Super cute, but I couldn't find one of those old magazine stands for less than $30 or $40.  Really???  But, walking through IKEA one day, I spied this:

$9.99. My little mind started going and thought "with a little paint and some lettering like she does, I might be able to work this out...."

What you need to do:

-take out the box pieces & spray paint the wood pieces whatever color you like.  Let the paint dry.

-print your desired text in a large font on a piece of paper & then rub colored chalk all over the back side of that paper.

-place the paper, chalk side down on the surface that you would like to letter & outline the letters with pencil (don't use a sharpie like I did at first -- it bleeds through -- whoops)

-pull off the paper & you will see the letter outlines in chalk.  Very carefully paint in the letters with craft paint & a small brush.  Let the paint dry. (for more detailed instructions on lettering, check out this link)

-put together the box as per IKEA's instructions & you have a box for your library books:

It's worked out really well -- we put all of our library books in the box, only keeping out the one that we are currently reading.  Before I go to the library, I ask her which ones she is done with and return those.  No more misplaced books!

 

I'm Still Here

I've been missing from this blog for quite some time & sometimes I think that I should give it up.  But, I can't.  It's the place where I share the me stuff, the stuff that makes my heart sing.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do that much recently.  Because right now, I'm a mom & a wife & a library student.  And not much else.  And, I look around my new house & wish that I could spend some time on decorating it, but I can't right now.  Because what I'm doing means too much too me to not give it everything.  So, it all waits.  The decorating & the pretty pictures & the projects & the crafts. 

But! I have a break coming soon & I am making a list!  It may be Christmas time, but my list isn't for Santa.  It's all about curtains and paint and bookshelves and accessories.  Please come around when I can tell you all about them, won't you?

Housewarming Party

We knew that our house wouldn't really feel right until we shared it with our  friends...and, we knew that they were so curious about the new place that they'd probably storm the place if we didn't invite them over!

Since it was the end of October, I went with a fall theme....

And, isn't it funny how you suddenly find the time to put up curtains and pictures when you know that people will be coming over in less than 24 hours????

Plans for the Kitchen

So, I'm moving along with my fluffing projects...we are going to hang a few pictures in the family room this evening, or so my husband tells me.  I need him to help me hang pictures.  Its pathetic, but I can't hang a picture straight to save my life.  Actually I CAN, it just takes me about 5 tries and 5 corresponding holes in the wall.

Along with the pictures, I'm working on curtains for the family room.  1 panel down, 3 to go.  They are going to be easy peasy since I decided on making them from dropclothes...to be revealed in an upcoming post.

Anyway, onto the kitchen.  As I mentioned, we have plans for the kitchen, but they involve more serious work than just nailing a picture hanger into the wall.  Here are the components of the plan:

I'm anxious to get started...we have the drawer pulls (off ebay for a bargain price -- woo hoo!), so I just need to get Glenn onto that.  Again, not such a hot idea to let me be drilling holes into the new cabinets.

We have a friend who tiled his entire bathroom, so we are hoping that we can bribe him with beer ask him nicely to help us out, or at least get us started.

Cheap & Easy Custom Spice Jars

Check out this cuteness!  Organization!  I'm just as happy as a clam, because I finally have my spices in matching jars, labled & alphabetized.  I realise that this is a sign of some kind of obsession or illness, but just indulge me.  In the old house, my spices were kept in a cabinet that I had to reach up to. I couldn't see what I had & usually had to dig around.  So I came up with this plan....

Since I don't have a baby at home, I bought 50 empty baby food jars on ebay & removed the gum from the labels...this was definitely the most time consuming part of the project.  Once they were cleaned off, I let them dry

and I spray painted the lids black.  Using a pack of round stickers that I had left over from our recent yard sale, I made up labels for each of the jars and arranged them in drawers that I'd saved specifically for this project.

Ta Da!  I now can see all of my spices & sprinkles clearly and I don't have random bottles falling on me, as I did in the old house.

Let the Fluffing Begin

The unpacking is done, so it's time to start fluffing up this house! I started with the eat in area of the kitchen, mostly because it's the one area that I actually know how I want it to look. 

I've had these spoon hooks for years & never had the right place for them.  When I was looking for hooks for my aprons, I knew that I'd finally found a place for them.  They are made from old silver spoons that have been made into hooks -- cute, huh?

I put up a few of my tole trays and I really like how they look with the black table (I never blogged about it, but I painted my kitchen set black).  Five trays is it, though.  I began to feel that the wall o' tole was  a bit much by the time that we moved. 

Here's another view, into the family room.  I was waiting for a sunny day to take the photos, but it didn't materialize...imagine the room brighter :)

That room was easy peasy since I just had to nail up a few things.  We've got some great ideas for the kitchen, but they involve tiling, drills & electricity, so they won't be happening as quickly. Stay tuned.

Minnie Mouse Birthday Party!

My little girl turned a big 6 years old this month & she wanted a Mickey & Minnie Mouse birthday party. Thanks to Pinterest, Mama was able to make it happen with style!

To give myself a little credit, I did think up some of the ideas -- the snack area, the decorated treat bags & the cake.  Actually, Hope is a big fan of Cake Boss & she saw a cake on the show which had cupcakes on top of the cake.  She had to have that for her party. 

It's amazing how easy it is to make such cute things with a little borrowed creativity...thank you Pinterest! 

(You can find the links with ideas & instructions for the party ideas on the Pinterest link above -- they are on my "birthday party" board)

My Little Sewing Project

This post has absolutely nothing to do with decorating or the new house, but I've been meaning to post about it for literally months.  On my short break in between classes this summer, I pulled out my sewing maching & finished up this project:

(oh my gosh, I hate my camera -- every photo turns out dark & grainy!  Arrggg)

I'm loving how it turned out -- I really love the mis-matchy fabric & layers.  I got the idea & directions from an old issue of Mary Jane's Farm.  I'd share, but, quite frankly, the directions are terrible and overly complicated.  I sorta followed them & sorta made it up as I went along.  :)

The New House!

I'm so sorry for not posting in so long, but I've been a bit busy moving into our new house!!!!  :)

Come on in, I'll show you around!

First, you'll see the dining room...on the other side of the hall is the study...no photos yet.

Then, it opens to the family room -- excuse the weird photo -- there was no light & then I fiddled with it in picnik....Here is another, with better light, taken from the kitchen:

The centerpiece of the house, the kitchen:

Oh my gosh, I'm so in love with our kitchen.  It's just what I've dreamed of -- we hang around the island (it's become the homework space for Hope & I), have loads of room to cook and loads of room to store everything.  Speaking of storing everything, the pantry:

I've always wanted a pantry where I can keep everything and not have to run from place to place to get the things that I need for a recipe.  I used to have extra & seldom used items in the basement -- there was a lot of running up & down the steps!

Another feature that I've always wanted is a mudroom. 

After the last several years of muddy boots & miscellaneous winter gear being dumped directly from the garage door into my kitchen, I'm so excited about this.

Going upstairs...

I can't wait to decorate the railings with greens & red ribbons at Christmas.

Our room...it looks remarkably like our old room, right?  We painted it the same color.

I am so happy with the white subway tile that we chose for this room.  And, let me tell you, a bath in this tub is DIVINE. 

There are also 3 other bedrooms, one of which is Hope's & another which is my craft/study room, and a bathroom on this floor.  The basement is partially finished as well.  Photos to come....

As you can tell, we are so happy in the new house & are so thankful for it!

It's been about a month since we moved in & we are pretty much unpacked.  Now, I will move on to fluffing things and making it a home.  It's going to be a slow process, as the equation of one income + me in grad school + new mortgage = one small project at a time.  Regard these photos as the "before" pictures & watch this space for the process of getting to "after"!