Cottage Contemporary

Jesse at Good Girl Gone Glad is contininuing her Q & A series and this week she asked us to define our style. I honestly don't know what my style is but I know what I like so I Googled "cottage contemporary" and had this come up as a search result:

Image from Coastal Living.com

It is definitely what I like. High ceilings, an airy feeling, cottage like, cozy and by the sea!  I don't know if my style is a rigid cottage contemporary because I always find I'm mixing different styles (which is probably a faux pas) but if I could find out how to execute my ideas then this is something you might see in my house!

Don't forget to head on over to Good Girl Gone Glad and see how others are defining their style ♥

Pumpkin Fun Pt. 2

Note: I broke up the last post and this one because it was getting picture laden and long!

Last night, I decided we were going to carve our pumpkin. Last year we just painted ours, even though I had every intention of carving! I had looked for stencils and everything but figured to try it freehand and at first it looked "redonkulus" so I just went with the traditional triangles for the eyes and nose. Then I realized my pumpkin was going to look like it had green eyes (I used a green marker) because I drew the triangle over my redonkulus eyes!! Mr. Clean's erasers came in and saved the day there!! Ha!

Chris cleaning out the inside of our pumpkin.

Which was disappointingly not full of pumpkin seeds!

My first eye cutout!! Ha!

Logan with the finished results...

He climbed up on the table and threw everything into the pumpkin!

The pumpkins and the rest of the Halloween decorations:

Chair Love

I love Labor Day weekend! It's never long enough but it is the unofficial end of summer! Chris and I went to New Orleans for the weekend and I'll be posting about the weekend sometime this week but I just had to share this:

We went to one of many antique shop and this was my absolute favorite find! It was an orange with gold paisley and with a turquoise wood framed carved so beautifully! I would loved to have this and its pair in my sunroom but with a price tag of $5,900.00 (yes, you read that right) I could only admire and sit in it, of course! We saw so many lovely (expensive) things and it made me want to "be a billionaire so freakin' bad" (song lyrics, ha!). One of the shops we went into greeted us and told us that we didn't have to buy the exact ones in the shop, but that we could special order something and have it to us in 8 weeks! Amazing treatment and gorgeous stuff! Even if you can't afford the items you should still go in and experience the history and the beauty of these items, even if the price tag makes your heart race and your mouth drop! Ha!♥

Nursery Set-Up.

Well we've been in TN for 2 1/2 months now and although our house is still not yet a home, Logan's poor room was lacking major love. His furniture was set up but it was lacking the warmth and love that his old room had. So I've set on making Logan's room a nursery one of my goals for the week. Here's what our progress looks like:

This blue (Behr's "Peaceful Night") was the closest that I could get to the dark blue in his bed set. That wall has been painted 3 times and touched up countless times thanks to Logan's little handprints!! The first time we got it wrong and it was bright royal blue!!! This is NOT the main color though for his room. The rest of his room will be painted a light blue (Behr's "Coastal Mist"). I wanted to make him a big boy room without removing alot of his baby elements so that's why he has one dark painted wall but if it doesn't work thank goodness there is primer and "Coastal Mist" =). The plan for that wall is to put up Logan's fingerpainted canvas and add shelves on either side (or his name up in letters).

One of the other walls. My plan is to get a valence for his window, that dresser that you can sorta see on the left is going to be repurposed and painted white, and then have a frames on it, with a picture or something big on his wall above it. It's definitely a work in progress and my weekend has been spent painting that darn wall. Chris had a shelving project in the laundry room, to store our still unpacked boxes, which came amazing. So we were busy beavers this weekend!

Silhouette complete!

I found my camera! Yay. I have to apologize to my son because he didn't take it, it was buried deep beneath top and bottom couch cushions.  I also found various other items too and coinage. Alas, my camera is found and I can continue to picturesquely document life! =)

In my last post, I blogged about some decorating ideas I had for my sun room. One of those projects involved creating a silhouette of Logan. Well I did it! Note that it's not a traditional silhouette, I definitely added a twist to it but nonetheless I love it. I love it even more because I made it!

I'm still trying to figure out if it's straight, unfortunately if it's not I can't do anything about it! It's completely adhesed!  I used a paisley cloth, from Hobby Lobby, as the background. The silhouette itself was traced onto a black bazzill paper using a 13 month old photo from when we went to the botanical gardens. His hair was soooo curly and big and I love it, so that's why his head has "hills".  Ha! To hold everything down I used Elmer's spray glue. I read that using spray glue was better because it kept from swelling and/or warping.  I used stickers from Creative Memories for his name. 

On a side note, last post I blogged about a website that provided the opportunity to print free art. The website was hard to navigate and I wasn't extremely thrilled with it, so I apologize if anyone went to it and felt the same way!

A little UGH and a little excitement!

(Photo courtesy of User findstuff22 on Photobucket)
It's a summery pic and refreshing one, at that!

I lost my camera!! GASP!! It's in my house somewhere but I just don't know where. I mildy rearranged my living room and probably moved it and don't remember where I put it. Another possibility is that Logan misplaced it somewhere too...His chubby hands are quick to grab things he's not supposed to have and then hide them (without knowing it). Sigh. I hope I find it soon because I'm doing up my sunroom and I want to show it off when I'm done! We're painting it Ash Bark from the Martha Stewart line!

(courtesy of Martha Stewart.com)

#14 is the Ash Bark color.

Some of the other ideas I've had were to remove the blinds from my windows and just hang sheer drapes, in either a beachy blue or ivory color.  Pottery Barn (love) has these drapes with ties on the top instead of tabs! While I was doing my morning reading of blogs, I came across these wonderful and inspiring ideas, as well. Shawni at 71 Toes created silhouettes of her children and numbered them in their birth order and explained how she did them. It seemed pretty simple and I'm excited to do a silhouette of Logan!  YHL posted yesterday a readers office redo that only costed about $200 and it looks amazing. Anyways, the reader included a website, called Vintage Printable, which allows you to print artwork for free! Awesome, right? I'm excited. I can't wait to see how my ideas turn out!

Downsizing

Yes, we need to downsize the boxes of Logan's outgrown clothes, his closet was becoming a cramped mess instead of the wonderful walk-in it's supposed to be. As you can see there are SEVEN boxes!! I would be giving them to Goodwill but it was costly to arrive at 7 boxes and we're holding on to them in hopes that a future baby (if it's a boy) can use them (no we're not having another baby....Yet! Ha!)

So in order to contain the chaos of Pampers boxes that were taking over the closet we decided to try out those Original Space-Saver bags. They seemed to have worked, however, Chris read reviews where many people said they stopped working after a month or so (crud!) and a friend of ours said the same thing. I hope they hold up because I was able to fit 2 boxes in 1 large bag (3 large bags came in a box) and it definitely is better than bulky boxes!

(Shoes, booties, hats, pjs, clothes...they're all in there!)

{{Red}}

Real Simple is my all time favorite magazine...It's got a little bit of everything from how to save money, to how to decorate, to food, etc.  I love it so much I even pay the cover price for it!  I really do need a subscription.  So recently I've seen their last 3 issues do a whole How to Decorate With (insert color here).  December they did brown, January was purple and February is (SURPRISE) red.  So here's some stuff that I like in red!

($280; http://www.lotusbleudesign.com/)

($49.99; http://www.target.com/)

($198; http://www.coach.com/)


Because I love this trellis type print =)
($69.95; http://www.crateandbarrel.com/)

Glass Amaryllis
($3.95/ea; http://www.crateandbarrel.com/)

($375; http://www.gucci.com/)

and last but not least:

LOVE LOVE LOVE roses!! For ANY occassion...All I would really like to do right now is go back to bed!! =) ♥

Sundays are made for...

...making a cup of tea, turning on easy listening on the radio, and starting a scrapbook layout.  Since Logan was with his grandparents and Chris was  out for a bit I took advantage of the alone time to finish reading my mags and then start the scrapbook layouts for next month. I started at home and finished at Chris' dads house...Here's the final product (my camera gives these pages no justice)

Taking these pictures reminded me of how badly I need to invest in an easel and/or better camera.  Anyways I used the pictures from the day Logan was born...The technique taught for this layout was using a distressing tool like the one below.

The tool allows the paper to be frayed and curled, which looked further distressed when using a stamp pad (any color...I chose stamp colors Cocoa and Sweet Leaf sold by Close to My Heart).  I used glitter made by Martha Stewart to embellish the butterfly on the second page and Stickle glitter for the butterfly on the first.  The die cuts were made using the Cricket, however, since I didn't cut them myself I don't know which font box was used.

I picked up a copy of House and Home yesterday and fell in love with this fabric:

(photo courtesy of http://www.fschumacher.com/)

It's a bit expensive at $215 a yard but I love it...I saw this on a chair that had been upholstered using this fabric!  I wish I could post the chair but I can't find it.  Then I saw these chairs that looked fun and well I loved them too =)  Relaxation and fun are what Sundays were made for ♥

(photo courtesy of http://www.alannacavanagh.blogspot/ [Google search 1/31/10])

Found a new love: Country Living ♥

Yesterday was Chris's first day back from his 48 hour trip to Memphis for that job interview. He said everything went really well and we should hear back by the end of next week! Woo!! Can't wait, I really hope he gets it even though it'll mean moving out of New Jersey but I think we're ready for the challenge!  Anyways, we went to several places to return stuff and get stuff for the Lemon-Basil Potatoes that I saw Giada de Laurentiis make on the Food Network! They were amazing and just as good as she made it seem on tv!

While we on line at ShopRite I saw the cover for Country Living magazine and I wanted it because of everything on the front cover.  But we were in a rush to get out of there because it was freaking CRAZY.  Anyways we went to Target to return gifts that Logan had already received and I went straight to the magazine section and picked it up, along with my other FAVORITE magazine, Real Simple.  I was so excited and I wanted to get to reading it as soon as I came home but I had to first, make the taters and then his cousin brought over 2 of his 3 girls for us to watch! So needless to say I didn't get to the mag until 11 pm! But once I opened it I was in LOVE. These are the things that I would love, love, love to have in Memphis or wherever we end up living, hopefully!

This was painted in "Saffron" and was $159 from Gothic Cabinet Craft

These decorative birdcages were awesome too! They're only $38 and are from Great Rooms Decor.

These mum napkin rings are adorable and they weren't the exact same ones in the mag but still close and for the same price of $2.95 from Pier 1 Imports.

This print I love for a dining room and/or kitchen.  It's 18 pounds or the US equivalent of $28.99.

These prints are cute to and are from Keep Calm Gallery a U.K. based company! The one above, coffee, is 20 pounds or the US equivalent of $32.21, as per the conversion done on XE.com.

And last but not least these creamers, from Pigeon Toe Ceramics.com, at $8 each, are cute and the neat thing about these is that there are 13 different colors to choose from, giving you the ability to match it up to your dinnerware, or almost match it up!

So there ya have it! Boy this was probably my longest but insightful post. At least I know where I can find these items if I lose the magazine! =)  ♥ I love lazy sundays!!