Splash of Decor

Valentine Pictures

2015-02-02T15:02:00.001-06:00

Family pictures

2014-11-06T11:48:00.001-06:00

When we got our pics in Mexico they offered these prints with our package and I just haven't found the right spot for them. When we moved I decided not to clutter the walls with family pics but of course I can't just stash pics away so I decided to mount them on burlap and I absolutely love it.

Baseball stitch wall

2014-07-18T07:14:00.001-05:00

I originally saw this idea online but I did things a little different then what I read so I thought I'd share my techniques to make this easy and satisfying :).

My first step was to paint the entire wall, basically bc it was a flat paint before and I changed it to eggshell.

Obviously walls vary in size so you will just need to determine how close you want the stitching.

We tied a pencil at the end of a rope and then tacked it in the corner then drew from one side to the other to get the long line. Make sure u hold the pencil outright and not slanted at all! Then do the other line in the opposite corner.

I traced the line with a thin paintbrush using a gray paint we had already. It's ok if the line isn't exactly the same thickness ! If u look close you can see mine varies in thickness.

The best thing I did was make a stencil from a scrap piece of cardboard for the stitching. And I didn't try to draw the stencil exactly the same, I made some shorter and longer just to get a different stitch

Using this stencil made it so much easier than trying to do it free hand! I did one line with the stitching one way and the other line with the stitching the opposite way and did them about 2 inches apart.

When I was done painting all the stitches I added a little black with some red to make the shadow at the end of each stitch. That really did add a lot to the overall look. You can see in the pictures with and without.

Mommy and Me photo session

2014-05-07T21:12:00.001-05:00

https://www.facebook.com/ARICABODEPHOTOGRAPHY

Princess Tea Party

2014-04-13T14:14:00.001-05:00

For my daughters 5th Birthday party we decided upon a Tea Party with Cinderella! I think I went overboard this time but all the kids and even parents were saying what a great party it was which makes me feel really good since I put so much time and effort into it!

These were the party favors, I loved making these! I just cut out the circles with a cd as my template, then used a cupcake wrapper template for the tea cup and it took a while to cut out the perfect handle but I got it! Used the bags to make it look like steam coming from pot! I also put name labels in the side as well so the kids wouldn't fight over them. I bought all pink candies, stickers, Cinderella pens for the girls and sll blue candies for the boys! The boys didn't partake in the tea party ;)

Pin the Tiara on the Princess! Bought on Amazon for apx. $2.99

Had Cinderella give all girls a wand, gloves, and a necklace!

Tea Cup Pinata, Made by Wackalotta Pinata, can be found on Facebook.

Place Cards!

I made pink Meringues, in which I am so mad that I forgot to take a pic of but they are so beautiful and light and taste like cotton candy! Here is the pic I stole from the site and the link for the recipe, just allow yourself a lot of bake time for these

http://www.createdby-diane.com/2011/01/valentine-raspberry-rose-meringue-cookies.html

Buffet

2014-03-16T08:54:00.001-05:00

I finished the buffet!!! Yay! I actually finished a while ago but I'm just now posting due to me being busy preparing for my daughters "Princess Tea Party" ( which I will post pictures in).

I need to sand the doors down a but as they are rubbing with the xtra layers if paint.

So, like I mentioned before my mom brought this over to me from her garage. It needed some MAJOR TLC!

I had to cut a piece of wood to fix this broken leg! Just glued in on, sanded, used wood filler, sanded, sanded, sanded!

Definitely had to keep the original hardware! Spray painted them black and the original hinges were rusted so I just bought new hinges!

This thing came from a garage sale and it was so nasty in and out. I sanded lightly but used the liquid sander deglosser as it's my favorite :)

The drawer was gross it has a purple Nasty velvet liner that stunk and was a pain to remove. :(

Ok, so my initial plan was to paint white and do the door and drawer panels gray but the wood ( pinkish) stain kept bleeding thru the white so I just painted it all gray twice and then did panels white. I was wanting to just paint the panel tiny trim white but it was hard considering I was out of painters tape and was too impatient to go get some. :)

Here's the final product. LOVE! I really love having a buffet rather than a tall china cabinet and I love that it's all enclosed so no one can see my clutter :)

The main reason why I wanted a buffet is to be able to SERVE from it for Kalyssa's Tea Party so here is a pic from her bday and I will post a separate Birthday post as well.

NYE Wedding

2014-01-16T09:14:00.000-06:00

Boudoir Shoot

2014-01-16T08:24:00.002-06:00

Twins

2014-01-16T08:18:00.002-06:00

Rustic headboard

2013-11-22T17:55:00.001-06:00

Instead of an upholstered headboard I decided to go with something a bit more rustic and instead of using pallets like I had originally planned I just used good ol' cheap whiteboard from the hardware store.

Have you EVER tried to take a pallet apart? It's not an easy task at all!

I bought 2-10' pieces an 8' piece of whiteboard and had the 8' cut in half for 2-4' posts then the other cut into 4-54" pieces for the horizontal slats.

Once it was all together I slapped on a few streaks of off white flat paint and while it was still just a tad bit wet I used a cheesecloth and wiped on some Martha Stewart glaze. It turned out beautifully and the pictures do not even do it justice, as I was adding the glaze I was smiling ear to ear watching the magic happen. :)

New door wreath/initial

2013-09-07T03:52:00.001-05:00

I needed to change out my wreath from Target, the artificial berries have been falling off and break off so easily so I decided to do the whole initial thing. Very simple, just paint, little pattern, and burlap and wa la!

I decided to make a burlap wreath to go behind

Splish Splash Beach Ball Birthday Party

2013-09-03T08:19:00.000-05:00

Konner turned the big "2" and I wanted to have a pool party in our new neighborhood but I was nervous the pool would be closed or it would be too cool or even rainy and thanks to my mother-n-law she always lets us use her blow up slide/pool so instead of using "pool party" for the theme I made it a "splish splash" theme and used beach balls as the inspiration. The weather was HOT and the pool was opened so we were able to use the pool and I was so happy, except........

We had one hiccup about two days before the party as we found out the clubhouse compressor in the air conditioner was totally out and the air company could not get it ordered and installed by Saturday as we found the problem on Thursday. I cried as I imagined all of our guests being HOT or our cupcakes, cake pops, and candy melting.

Saturday morning we installed THREE window air units which helped a bit so I just started the decorating which was therapy for me and I forgot all about it and honestly it was cool and not hot at all inside being that it was the hottest day of the year! The turn out was great and everything worked out as planned.

Just add a few flowers!

2013-08-19T20:41:00.003-05:00

It's crazy how just a flower arrangement can change the look of a space.

Our breakfast nook has a white table, 4 chairs, some window panels that I plan to replace sooner than later and it just seems so bare...like something is missing. It is such a small space that I really haven't wanted to add much to avoid "clutter" so I just did a simple arrangement and Im loving the look.

Dancing in the rain

2013-08-13T13:50:00.001-05:00

Playing in the rain....

Beach ball piñata

2013-08-07T19:28:00.001-05:00

I'm having my sons 2nd bday party at our pool in our new neighborhood this year and I decided to do a beach ball theme since there was a beach ball on our splish splash invitation.

I looked up beach ball piñatas and they weren't too bad in price but the shipping was high so I decided to make one myself.

I think the last time I did anything like this was 4th grade, so of course I looked up how to make a piñata but created the beach ball myself.

I used a perfectly round balloon $1.00

Equal parts flour and water

Newspaper

Crepe paper $1.00 each x 6 colors $6.00

String that I already had so basically I saved $15.00

It took me a total of about 5 days to let the newspaper dry then did another layer let it dry then added the crepe paper and waited for it to dry.

I still need to add candy and close off the top.

Can't wait to watch the kids break it open.

It was also a fun project for the kids to work on since it was messy :)

Kalyssa ripping up the newspaper

The mixture

The balloon

Out with the fan in with the light

2013-08-05T08:44:00.004-05:00

So excited about my new drum light. I searched and searched and finally found one on overstock.com for a very low price.

I am a very impatient person when it comes to decorating so I decided to do this by myself and if wasn't hard at all.

Basically you need to know a little bit about wiring and making sure you shut off the power to that room or the whole house if need be!

I removed this ceiling fan first and then figured out the length I wanted for the light and connected all wires and hung it up.

Exactly what I imagined! I just love eating in my beautiful dining room. Can't wait for our first dinner party :)

Bedroom makeover time

2013-08-01T20:25:00.001-05:00

I can't believe we've only had this dresser and nightstand set for 5-years...it shows but it just doesn't seem that long. I really didn't and don't want to have this new project because its just so tedious but the outcome is always fun.

I started with one nightstand to make sure it looked good enough to do the dresser and other nightstand.

Of course I used my favorite solution "deglosser" to begin the process.

Here's the OLD...so scratched up and ready to be renewed!

The process...

The finished product...

Also notice the lamp...it basically looked like this ( I forgot to take a pic of the before)

While I was waiting for paint to dry I decided to fix the lamp up too... Just a little spray paint, gray on shade and white on lamp.

Now the dresser is next...ughghg

A billion things you could do with a pallet, what do you think I'm creating?

2013-07-31T16:18:00.001-05:00

I found a few pallets and had some ideas in mind and I'm just now getting to one of them...2-months later!

I shaved the back side off of this one so it wouldn't be so deep and I cut off a few slats so it wouldn't be so wide.

I sprayed some primer on and then painted each slat a different color. I used the paint samples from lowes that were 2.96 a piece.

Of course I'm planning on using this in the playroom for bags, dress up outfits, and much more. I think I may add some hooks on the lower end as well. I'm so happy with this piece.

Stay tunes for more pallet projects to come....

Vintage Sports Room in the works

2013-07-29T20:08:00.001-05:00

I am still trying to decorate Konner's room in the "Vintage Sports Theme", it's taking a while because I am very picky about what Vintage Sports items I will put in his room. Here's what I've got so far but like I said, " in the works" so on far from done.

Picture Wall

2013-07-18T21:56:00.001-05:00

I decided in our new home I wouldn't put family photos throughout the entire home but instead limit them to just one area!

Since we have the space and a large hallways upstairs I found the PERFECT WALL to make my "PICTURE WALL"

I used a very odd method but it worked out so great I've used it again and always will if need be...

First I laid all pictures on the floor, this was the hardest part...placing them in the correct spot to make a perfect rectangle.

It took me forever but after about an hour I got it! As you may tell In the last picture I changed the placement more...

I started with the right side pictures top to bottom, then to continue on and get them exactly how I had them on the floor without the annoying measuring, I used a special tool that was right across the way in my sons room " DESITIN" Diaper rash ointment! Hmmmmmm, well....it was the closest thing I could find and I just squeezed some out on my finger, put it on the hanging device on the back of the frame and then I stuck the frame up to the wall next to the picture it was next to on the ground, gave it a little push, removed pic away from wall and wherever the desitin was is where I nailed in the nail and so on with ALL PICTURES.

WHA LA....perfecto and exactly how I wanted it :).

Don't be afraid!

2013-07-11T15:17:00.001-05:00

I loved this cheap round mirror the way it was but I've changed everything in my house to a blue or white to brighten it up so I was afraid to do this but I had to keep telling myself " don't be afraid!" Lol and I just DID IT! I just used a gloss spray paint and it looks great :). Before and after pics! A few after I posted this and hung my mirror I made a lil change to the mirror. (Last pic)

Do-it-yourself curtain panels

2013-07-09T15:13:00.001-05:00

I decided to make more window panels since I can never find any that I like! I had a vision for my dining room of bright white extra long panels, I went to Penney home store and got 95" panels brought then home and they just weren't long enough to have any pull ( dragging on the floor) so I went to our local fabric store and found a very pretty burlap in the shade that I've been leaning towards!

In my dining room I have a 9' ceiling so I needed 108" plus 6" more for a 3" hem on each end and at least 3" of pull which means I needed 117" total per panel.

I originally had spent about $60 on a rod and jcp panels, which was super inexpensive because it was all on sale. After I returned everything, bout two white rods $1.00 a piece and the fabric I ended up only spending $22 to make my dining room look fabulous! All I need now is a new pendant light so I will post updated pics at a later date. :). Thanks for reading.

Painted mason jars

2013-07-08T16:08:00.001-05:00

Oh how I've been wanting to do this FOREVER! I didn't want to make the paint do I've just slacked a bit, however, I was at a very small local antique shop and saw the ALREADY PREPARED paint YAYAYA!

Super simple just use any mason jar or any type of glass container for that matter and just add a little bit of your paint and just hold it up and turn it and move it to where the paint coats the jar! Don't worry about the rim because you will just turn the jar upside down to let all the excess drain out and it will coat the rim!

One small tip: when turning upside down to drain place on something that you can drain the excess paint back into your paint container. Try not to use newspaper because it will rip and soak it up...you'll be surprised how much comes out and can be used on another fabulous project.

Chalk board wall

2013-07-05T14:19:00.001-05:00

I know this has been a popular home finish fir a while and even know I love taking decorating chances I really WAS scared to do a chalk board wall.....and of course it turned out just as I wanted!

Painting a Chevron wall

2013-06-20T16:29:00.001-05:00

Ok, long time since I posted, we've been so busy with moving, vacations, unpacking, settling and so much more. I've been so excited to have more space to decorate.

So originally in our new home I was planning on making our formal dining into a formal living room, however the table I had made was much too big for the breakfast nook so we are using it as a formal dining room and I am not upset about it by any means! I LOVE my new table. I kept the idea of the chevron wall and boy was I nervous to start it but dove into it and was soooo lucky to have had my husband to help.

The steps to take are pretty easy, I used the method of making squares on the wall with chalk, i found a Dora book in my kids room and used that to make my squares:

then sticking paint tape one square intersection to another, I wanted a large chevron print so I think I went from one intersection skipped 2 squares and ended the tape at the intersection.

Honestly you have to literally jump into doing it to start understanding and visualizing it. I started taping at the top of each intersection until I realized I needed one stripe to be taped inside and than one outside and so on so lucky we weren't that far on it and changed it ( the parts where the tape pieces are where i painted ) finished the taping and than painted 2 coats.

I usually remove the tape before the paint dries so I don't rip any tape off.