Boy's Nautical Red, White and Blue Themed Bedroom

welcome to the cleanest Austin's room has ever been...

admiring his stripes

Decorating a boy's room was a challenge for me, which is why it's taken me 2 years to finish it.  My house is full of neutral colors and lots of pastels.    I love all things Pottery Barn, Country Living Magazine, and Rachel Ashwell.  None of those styles are all that "boyish".  When Austin turned two we switched out his crib for a "real" bed and I decided I'd better make his room look a little more grown up (i.e. no pastels) or I'd be redecorating again soon.  I have a much easier time decorating if I choose a "theme" and run with it.  I decided to loosely go with a nautical/travel theme and to incorporate as many antiques and thrift store finds as possible.

custom sign by Theerin

• Custom made metal sign by Theerin.
• Vintage Globe was a Goodwill find.
• The vintage books came from a thrift store for $.50/each.
• A vintage map of Lake Superior bought on Ebay.





antique school desk

lighting from Lowe's

gallery wall full of found treasures

Union Jack Flag painted on an antique dresser

The bed came from Ikea and I spray painted it yellow.  After using 6 or 7 cans of spray paint and getting it back into his room, I instantly wished I had painted it copper.  Doh!  But I guess the yellow is a little more preschool appropriate.

Beer Bread Recipe

So easy to make beer bread!

I really hate grocery shopping.  We go out to eat, or just pick up dinner (or have it delivered) almost every night.  So when Snowpacolypse 2014 hit, I had no milk or bread, of course.  Last night, as I was digging in the pantry trying to put together a meal I noticed the self-rising flour and thought "Oh!  I know how to MAKE bread!"

If you find yourself snowed in and you keep beer in your house, then there's a good chance you can make this bread.

4 Simple Ingredients

Ingredients:

• 12oz can of beer
• 3 cups of self rising flour (don't have self-rising flour?  You can add 3 teaspoons of baking powder and 1 teaspoon of salt)
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1/4 cup of melted butter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Mix the dry ingredients and beer
3. Pour into a greased loaf pan
4. Pour melted butter over the mixture
5. Bake for 1 hour

It's that easy!  And it's actually really good!

Hopefully this will help you out when you're kicking yourself for not running to the grocery store when you had the chance.  

DIY Moss Letters

supplies

Making your own moss covered letters is a lot easier than you might think.  

You'll need:

• - scissors
• - a pen/pencil
• - glue gun and glue sticks
• - sheet of paper to trace letter shape
• - a letter (I used the thin wood cut out kind - I think it was about $2.49)
• - moss mat 

6sq ft at Hobby Lobby is $19.99 or $12 with a 40% coupon.  They sell smaller little sheets, but I went with the big one because I figured I would be doing a lot of mossin' around here.

Also, the moss mat comes with some paper on the back.  It's not glued down, it's there so you can trace your shape, but the pen wasn't writing very well on it, so I used a separate sheet of paper.

Step 1- trace the shape on a piece of paper (cardstock would work best) then cut it out

** tip - Learn from my mistakes, add about an extra quarter inch or so to each side, you're going to want to be able to wrap it over the sides so the don't show.

Step 2 - stick the shape to the back of the moss mat and cut it out

** another tip - go ahead and peel back the brown paper and either tape or glue your template so it won't move while you are cutting.

Step 3 - use the glue gun and glue the moss to the wood

You can see in this picture that there were a couple areas that I cut too closely to the template.  If you do this - it's not a big deal.  You can just cut a strip and glue it.  The moss is fairly forgiving.  The seams aren't super obvious.

Finished!

  I'm putting together a rustic Valentine's Day themed mantel.  I'll post pictures once I have it all put together!

DIY Faux Flower Arrangement

floral arrangement foam blocks

I was at Hobby Lobby the other day and got to thinking "peach hydrangeas would really tie the living room together."  I looked around in their floral department, but didn't love any of their faux arrangements.  They do, however, have pretty realistic looking floral stems that you can buy individually.  I have ABSOLUTELY NO experience with floral arrangements.  But I threw caution to the wind and decided to buy a bunch of flowers without looking at the price tags.  I was sweating a little thinking I about how much I was spending and I had no idea if I was going to be able to pull it off.  

Wire cutters

It ended up being pretty easy.  And I think it took me only like 5 minutes.

You will need:

- floral stems 

- wire cutters (scissors might work too)

- a container

- green foam floral blocks (water foam brick)

Step 1.

Cut the stems to the appropriate length (I would do this one at a time as you are placing them)

Step 2.

Stick those suckas down in the foam.  Start with your bigger, main flowers first.

I like things to be symmetrical, so I had three peach hydrangeas, one in the middle and two on each side.

bigger flowers

add in small, filler flowers

Step 3.

Now that you have your main flowers arranged, start filling in with the smaller flowers.

finished arrangement

project in progress - Valentine's Day themed mantel

Turn your tea towel into artwork

A creative way to display your favorite tea towels

Nana's Oatmeal Bread Recipe

We LOVE printing family recipes onto towels.  They always turn out so pretty and it's always a pleasant surprise when we see the finished product.  A lot of customers tell me that they order these and then are too scared to actually use them because they don't want to mess them up.  You could always frame them and keep them safe!

Georgia On My Mind Tea Towel

I used 11x14" frames so I printed the prints in the middle of the towel to make sure I had plenty of room.  

If you plan on framing your towel, just let me know and I can print it in the middle of a towel.  And (cough, cough) we have some blem towels that we can't print onto because of a stain, etc.  Mention that you know about this secret stash and I'll give you a discount if I can use one of these towels.  I mean, if you are just going to cut it up and frame it, you can cut the stained area off.  (Help us get rid of these towels!!) 

Surviving the Polar Vortex

Surviving the Polar Vortex

My furnace WOULD decide to break during a friggin' polar vortex!  It was 45 degrees downstairs this morning.  I've spent most of my life in Georgia, so surviving cold weather isn't something I'm used to doing.  Thankfully, our upstairs furnace is working, but downstairs feels like walking into a cooler.  I wised up today, bought another space heater, some of those 3 hour logs, a heated blanket and closed off the living room/kitchen area from the rest of the house.   I really need to work on my survival skills, though.  I'd be one of the first to go in an apocalypse.  

99 Problems

How to Solve a Problem

I really do have at least 99 problems around here.  We bought this house a little over 2 years ago and we are CONSTANTLY doing some kind of project.  The house was built in 1989 and the previous owners hadn't done much cosmetic work.  What little they did, I've undone because it wasn't my style.  Recently, we ripped out the hideous white laminate countertops and replaced them with gray (marengo) silestone.  There was already a marble backsplash, that I didn't hate, so I decided I needed to just keep it and have the countertops match.  Anyway, so when we ripped the old countertops out there was a section of the old "backsplash" that was attached to part of the cabinets that was extremely stubborn and left some particle board that we can't get off.  The guy who sleeps on the couch and I both went at it for quite a while with a sander and a chisel.  

Before.

This was the best we could get it.  So, it sat like this for months.  Until one day my mom came over.  She and her husband like to come over and point out my 99 problems.  They noticed this one and my mom had a suggestion "You should just cover it up with some cork board or something."  I thought about that for a while.  Figured I'd need to frame it out.  I was just afraid it was going to look like I was masking a problem.  Plus, I wasn't sure how well cork board would hold up next to the cooktop.  It might get gross.  Then, a genius idea hit me.  "Sheet metal!"  I wasn't even sure where to get it, or how much it would cost.  I looked online, but it couldn't really find what I needed.  Then on one of my many trips to Lowe's I decided to see what they had.  Sure enough.  They sell sheets of metal and different grades and sizes.  I bought a 24"x 24" sheet of the cheapest kind (cost me about $11).

After.

Problem solved.  And now I have a magnetic board that can be used to hang recipes as I'm cooking or hold my to do list.  And, most importantly - it can be wiped clean!

It had to be cut down a little.  I'll have to ask they guy who sleeps on the couch what kind of blade he used.  And you need to use self drilling screws so that they can drill through the metal. (See below)

But I think it looks pretty nice.  It blends in nicely, and in my opinion doesn't look like I'm trying to mask a problem.  Yeah, I realize I need to replace that hideous 1989 microwave/oven combo.  That's on my to do list.  But nothing is ever easy around here.  It's not a standard size, just like everything else in this house.  I'm thinking about buying a single wall oven and then a microwave that's meant to go over a range... I saw that on HGTV once.  Thought it sounded like a good idea.