I love it when...

Target's stuff goes on clearance! LOVE. After finding out the baby's sex on Friday, the hubbs & I ran past Target to pick up some t-shirts for him & we walked out with the t-shirts + my awesome new lightweight bedding: 

So here's the deal - I had been in the market for new lightweight bedding to use in the spring & summer for a while now & while browsing aimlessly doing some essential shopping at Target a couple months ago, I saw this Dwell Studio birdie bedding & knew it would be absolutely perfect for our birdie-themed (but still very adult) Master Bedroom. But, pump 'ya brakes woman...the quilt was $70 & each sham (I'd want two total) was $25 - that's $120 total. A cost the hubbs would surely deny for an unplanned purchase. So I sadly walked away from my perfect lightweight bedding, thinking that I'd find something else...some day. Le sigh.

But on Friday, I just so happened to be back in that very same Target - this time with my hubby - and decided to take him over by the bedding to show him my perfect lightweight bedding. JUST to show him & to my pleasant surprise, those lovely red & white Target clearance stickers were on the only remaining queen-size quilt (on clearance for $48.98) & last two shams (on clearance for $17.48/each)!! Holler!

::bats big eyes at hubby, makes sad face & pleads for said bedding because it's such a good price::

So, after several minutes of deep consideration on the part of my awesome husband, he approved the purchase! Yaay! About $84 (before tax) & a quick machine washing/drying when we got home, I put my lovely bedding on our bed:

And a little closer...

So what do you think? I absolutely love the bedding & sleeping under that, rather than our heavier bedding, felt amazing last night. I can't wait to go lay in my bed again tonight! Tomorrow is Memorial Day (well I guess today now, huh?) & we are telling my family the sex at our BBQ, then I'll tell all of you! We already told the hubby's mama since she does not live around here & I told my dad because he wasn't sure he'd be able to make it to the BBQ tomorrow since he was admitted to the hospital on Friday (he got released today btw...yaaay!).  I accidentally slipped & told a friend already over the phone today, sheesh. I'm no good at keeping exciting news under wraps - or maybe I am? I'm actually a lock box of lots of interesting secrets that no one will ever know, bwahahahaha....okay, sorry for the evil laugh. Welp, hope everyone has a good one tomorrow - I am excited to have an extra day off & to remember all the heroes that have valiantly fought for our country. Project Nursery + big gender reveal coming lata this week! 'Till next time!

Spring Cleaning - Part Deux

Finally right?! OMG, life has been so busy the last few weeks & I have been procrastinating on actually putting this list in writing. Don't ask me why, but I feel like if I blog it, I must DO IT, lol. But, I got a lot done at work today, so I'm taking my last 30'sih minutes at the office to put up this list...finally. This list will be for the main & upper levels of our townhouse (Parts II & III if you are following along form my first Spring Cleaning post). I'll do the basement list separately, but I need input from the hubbs on that b/c that's his "man cave" & I'm not to make plans for down there unless he approves them first, hahaha. That's so changing when Baby J gets here! After I get all the lists up, then I'll post updates on how we are doing on everything.

As I mentioned before, these have turned more into spring/summer/getting-ready-for-Baby-J lists, so everything won't be done before the spring is over (in just a bout a month...eeek!).  Anywho, here goes....

Main Level To Do's:

Living Room

Powder Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

We actually don't have too much to do on this level for the time being, or at least anything we anticipate having done before Baby J gets here. We are absolutely going to be either painting or replacing our cabinets (you can see how sun damaged some of the sides are in the above photos - boo to the sun for that one) & getting new counter tops in the kitchen at some point & we'd also like to add a back splash. I'm looking at a few options, but our main D&R priority right now is the baby's room. Eventually we will also replace our old @ss fridge & oven with new appliances that are a bit more energy efficient (read: not original to the house - like our fridge is & the oven is just crappy). I'm also trying to beg persuade my husband into some DIY crown molding, which I think will make our little joint kitchen/dining room look 10 million times better. Oh & I'd also like to replace ALL of the white, aluminum horizontal blind in the house with the shades we got for our bedroom, which are these fabricky {I realize that's not a word, lol}, light-blocking, honeycomb shades - I LOVE them!  So the list for this level will be short, but here goes:

• Replace all remaining brass/old light fixtures in all three areas - there are a total of 4 left, including the powder room light fixture.
• Get ceiling painted in all 3 rooms, but especially the living room.
• Buy new rug for living room.
• Mop hardwoods in all areas; I usually do only a few good moppings a year - I spot clean with our steam mop in between time.
• Replace powder room brass fixtures - everything in this house was brass when we bought it, so we are slowly, but surely switching out everything for brushed nickle fixtures.
• Find & install valance over sliding glass door.

Upper Level To Do's:

Master Bedroom

Master/Upstairs Bath

Guest Room...being turned into Nursery!!

This level has already gone thru many many changes this year between our Master Bedroom re-do & the Master Bathroom re-do & now the currently in progress Guest Room/Nursery re-do! Because of our newest edition, we have lots of things to do on this level:

• Remove all the furniture & other misc. stuff from the guest room, go thru it, get rid of what we don't need, recycle anything that can be recycled, sell/give away furniture, pack up our personal items that we are keeping for storage in the attic.
• Clean out guest room closet; buy additional storage drawers for extra storage (something like this).
• Paint, buy furniture for, replace all outlet covers, replace blinds & decorate nursery.
• Find fillers for master bedroom apothecary jars/vase.
• Purchase lightweight bedding for the master bed for use during the hotter months.
• Go thru clothes & pull out items to donate.
• Buy same type of storage drawers for extra clothing space in my closet.
• Decorate master bath over toilet storage nook.
• Go thru boxes in attic & get rid of anything we don't need any more.
• Get carpets steam cleaned.
• Replace any remaining brass light fixtures in hallway.

I think that's it. The list for the upper level doesn't look that big, but it's a lot of work. The first item, which is done (yaaay!), took us like two weeks to complete. But all the stuff (minus the stuff in the closet) is gone or put in a new location. :)

Stay tuned for the lower level of the house portion of this list & updates on how far we've come since starting spring/summer/getting ready for Baby J cleaning! Tomorrow is my 27th Birthday, woot! And we are having a big summer BBQ @ my casa {complete with my fav mocktails}, so I'm not sure I'll be participating in 5QF this week, but I'll post some pics from the BBQ on Saturday or Sunday. 'Till next time!

Gotta love 99 cent shipping at Kohls.com!

Today I purchased a new shower curtain for our MBath - the re-do is coming along nicely btw (progress pics coming soon!). When I took everything out of the bathroom for the renovation, I decided that it would be a good time to wash the shower curtain, and...well...I sorta-kinda-accidentally faded the shower curtain, which made me sooo sad because I actually really did love it. It was a housewarming gift from Bed, Bath & Beyond and I went on there to try & find it again, but I figured it was a long shot since it was given to us over 2 years ago. And guess what, it was a long shot - trying to find a 2 year old shower curtain at BB&B = FAIL. So, my next idea was to still try & use the old one & see how bad it looked. But I showed DH the poor shower curtain & he told me to just go ahead and buy a new one! Well I wanted one very similar to my old one, and I searched the internet high & low and FINALLY found one that is somewhat similar (and not ridiculously expensive) AND was up to both me & DH's standards, behold:


You like? I think it's pretty & will go well with my planned MBath re-do . I am not sure it'll be the same quality as my B,B&B curtain, but for $20 I think it'll do for now.

While I was browsing on Kohls' website & since they are having a $0.99 shipping promo right now, I decided to see if they had any gray sheet sets. We want new sheets for our MBedroom since our current sheets are white, which looks fine, but we want to have another option available, lol. So I also bought these in silver:

They are microfiber, which I have never heard of in sheets before, but our couches are microfiber & are fine...I even think they may be extra warm in the winter!! Warmness is great for me because I am one of those people that are always col - seriously - even in the summer. Have any of you ever tried microfiber sheets? How do you like them? I guess if I hate them I can always return them right?? Ahh the joys of online shopping ! Head over to Kohls' website to take advantage of the $0.99 shipping - it ends today so hurry over!!

MB Updates

With the exception of the fillings for the glass vase & apothecary jar, my birdie themed MB is done!! I have actually been to Michaels several times trying to find stuff to put in the vases, but I think I am going to end up ordering the stuff online. I am envisioning cream rose heads & black satin ribbon in the tall birdie vase & moss + a bird's nest with faux bird eggs in the apothecary jar.

Here are pics of the finishing touches (click on any photo to enlarge):

*View from the door*

*Close Ups*

The drapes & hardware are from Burlington, birdcage candle holder from Pier One, silver & black zebra trays from Home Goods, cream pillar holders, aqua candles & birdie knick knack holder (on TV stand/book shelf), baskets from Michaels, birdie wall art - DIY :o)

What do you think?! I am so happy with how this room turned out! Now, on to the next D&R project...the Master Bath!! Inspiration Photos coming soon! :o)

Thanks for Visiting!

DIY Birdie Wall Art

I DIY'ed these cute birdie canvas prints to go on my MB wall & to add to the birdie theme I have been obsessing talking about.

I wanted the birdie touches to be pretty subtle, so I was going for wall art that was something cute, but adult; something that stands out, but not too over the top. So, I decided to try my hand at something like this. Overall I am pretty happy with how everything turned out & they look awesome in my room - pics of the updates to my MB coming soon, like tomorrow (or maybe Sunday :o)!

Here is a quick tutorial on how I made these cute prints - you can change out the birds to PMB (prettymuchbasically) anything you wanna change it to. They were super easy to make, it was just a bit annoying cutting out the birdies b/c their legs are sooo skinny & I had to be super careful not to chop them off!

• I bought the desired size canvases, black (or whatever color you choose) acrylic paint & the patterned scrapbook paper I wanted to use from Michaels. You will also need Modge Podge (I used the "lustre" kind), a paint brush & a sponge brush, all of which I already had.

• Then I painted the canvases with the acrylic paint (2 coats) & let them dry. It probably only needs to dry a few hours, but I let it dry overnight just to be safe (&& b/c I was in no real rush). While they were drying I cut out the birdie prints - if you google image "bird silhouette" then the template I used will come up. I had my little sister blow up the birdies I wanted in photoshop & printed them out on spare heavy cardstock I had. I used the cut out as a stencil & traced the design onto the scrapbook paper with pencil, then cut that out (&& erased any left over pencil marks on the paper).

• Once the paint on the canvases dried I applied Modge Podge very lightly to the back of the scrap book paper birdie cut outs & placed them where I wanted them on the painted canvases. Then I applied several layers of the Modge Podge over the birdie cut out & covering the entire front of the canvas.
  

• Let dry & Wha-lah - pretty DIY wall art for my MB wall!

Hope you like them...I will *hopefully* be posting about my final MB updates sometime this weekend, so check back soon to see how these little lovelies look on my walls. I also finished my DIY fall foliage wreath & it looks awesome, so I will post that soon too - I should have it up in time for the DIY Show Off's Monday Fall Festival post! Thanks for stopping by!

What I've been up to!

I really haven't been doing much DIY or D&R for the house because we are trying to save money/get some other stuff done so that we can reach the financial goals I talked about few blog posts back. But this weekend, we had a little extra money so I decided to get the last few big things I need for the finishing touches to our MB. If you recall from my previous post about our MB, I am going for a birdie themed room...nothing too over the top, still reserved, but definitely birdie touches. So, this weekend I went out and bought few things to finalize the room! I spent about $250 total on drapes, curtain rods, a CUTE birdcage candle holder from Pier One & a vase with little glass birdies on the top edge - here are the last 2 items, WDYT?:

*birdcage candle holder*

*birdie vase*

Last weekend I also bought some cute pillar holders & a birdie bowl from target. I didn't take a pic, but hopefully the hubbs will get the drapes up tonight & I will be sure to take a pic of that stuff with the rest of the room. I'm also working on my very first set of DIY wall art with silhouettes of birdies on canvas that I painted...hopefully it turns out good ::crosses fingers::! I hope to finish that up tonight or tomorrow & then I will post photos of that. Lastly, I need to figure out what fillers I want to put in the apothecary jar & birdie vase - probably a birds nest in one & dried flowers in the other.

I also bought some rugs & coordinating towels for our powder room from Burlington CF this weekend. I forgot to put the before pics of this room up, but I basically only added the wall art (from our honeymoon) & the rugs/towel. Although they are only small touches, I think it really warms up the room. Eventually we want to replace the mirror & vanity and of course replace all of the outdated brass fixtures...but we need to do that throughout the house, so we are trying to finish the small stuff first.

Stay tuned for the updated MB pics & my new DIY fall decor project - I haven't quite decided on it yet, but I know it'll involve pumpkins in some manner! I also am looking into buying a new laptop soon & we are starting to browse for my new car soon...so many exciting things coming up! And in closing, I just wanna say that I 'effing love the fall & I'm soo happy it's now right around the corner, woot!

FINALLY - our Master Bed Makeover!

I'm so so sorry for the long wait - I blame it on my hubbs. :oD Seriously, he was taking his precious time helping me do the photo wall. This room is not completely done - I still need to incorporate my birdie theme into the room somehow - I plan on adding some apothecary jars with some natural fillings (flowers, bird nest, etc.), we also want to buy some table runners for the tops of the dressers before we put anything on them & scratch them up, and finally we need to add window treatments - something to block out the sunlight a bit more. Anyways, I hope you LOVE it as much as we do!

Here are the before's:
No coordinating furniture, old clunker TV & plain walls.

...And After:

Close ups of the decorative pillow storage basket & photo wall:

Paint color is Valspar Granite Dust, furniture is all from VCF except the bookshelf-turned TV stand, which is from Target, lamp bases are form Walmart, shades from Target, bedding from JCP, pillow basket from Pier One, honeycomb shades from Home Depot, frames for photo wall from Michaels, wall words from Etsy seller empressive designs.

What do you think? I'm so proud! I think it looks like an entirely different room! It's so cozy now too, I spend a lot more time in our room than I used to...which was the original point, so yay for that! More decor for this room with my DIY touches coming soon! Thanks for visiting :o)

Weekend Re-cap

So it's been a pretty slow weekend over here. Saturday was my nephew's 1st birthday...sooo exciting & I can't believe he's already 1!! Time flies. It seems like yesterday we were just @ the hospital welcoming him into the world. Here are some pics from when he was 1st born & this past Saturday:





One thing we did actually get done though - we picked a bedroom paint color & I can't wait to get started painting! We picked Valspar Granite Dust - Satin finish...I think it's going to look amazing in our Master Bed & Bath. We also picked up some mulch & supplies to fix up the front yard; we should be working on these projects this week so hopefully I'll have some preliminary pics to post!