I have finished my chair! It turned out to be a bit of an undertaking, but I followed this simple tutorial from creative maven and it turned out great. The cushion was tough, but I made it work.  It is definitely not perfect, it’s actually a bit puckery.  But oh well, it holds your ass.  I want to paint the legs at some point.  I probably should have done that first…oops.

I chose an avocado green chenille for the fabric. I think it goes really well with the other furniture in our living room, which is where it lives now.  It actually serves the very noble purpose of hiding our rediculously oversized subwoofer.  It is successfully doing the job of not letting our living room look like an electronics lover’s paradise.

I feel like the corner needs something else to round it out and make it look put together and finished.  However, that’s another project for another day though.

A few weeks ago my husband and I spent a couple hours in the morning building a raised garden bed. We followed these simple instructions from The Pioneer Woman. It was certainly a lot of work (on his part mostly), but it turned out great!

Later that day I filled the bed with a mix of garden soil, manure, compost (my own!), and top soil. I used the top soil in moderation. It’s cheap, so it’s great filler, but it drys out quickly and has little nutritional value for the plants.

Compost on the other hand, is chock full of the good stuff! In fact I’ve apparently been growing cantaloupe and didn’t even know it. Evidently I put some seeds in my compost, and by some I mean all the seeds from the innards of a cantaloupe. I have seedlings sprouting up all over the place! I’ve been keeping an eye out for them, and when I see one or in most cases ten, I pull them and replant them in a corner of the garden. I’m going to wait until they grow some and then pull out all of the small ones.

Speaking of plants. I think this was a classic case of my eyes being bigger than my stomach, or I guess in this instance my garden. I got three different types of tomatoes, two types of lettuce, four types of peppers, garlic, onions, and lots of fresh herbs. I also purchased some seeds, but I didn’t have any room after I put in all the live plants. I guess I’ll just have to keep the seeds until next year, and hope they germinate then.

Now I just have to worry about keeping them alive and hope all the plants produce something edible.  And hope that I get to it before my dog does.

I have some great plans for this chair. I acquired it from a friend and can’t wait to recover it. Once it is finished it will live in the corner of our living room that has been rather vacant since moving into our house almost a year ago.

Spring is finally making its appearance here in the valley.  The days have been mostly sunny and warm.  I’ve been trying to get outside and enjoy this lovely weather.  Soon it will be unbearably hot and these gorgeous early days of spring will be gone.  While I was strolling around my backyard yesterday, thinking about all the things I want to get done this spring, I noticed something poking out of the ground.  Three of the five Hostas I planted last year are coming back!  I was so excited that I immediately called my green thumb wielding mother.  It’s always nice when she shares in my enthusiasm for the simple things in life.

Here comes my resident garden stomping, hole digging, mole hunter.  Hopefully the little guys will survive her massive clodhoppers.

Remember when we first moved into our house and I posted about the master bedroom decorating? Remember the “Jendro” doily that was a wedding present that I framed and hung above our bed?  Well, I did.

Afterward I thought it looked a little small and I wanted something more substantial.  But I also wanted the “Jendro” doily to stay there.

After that I found this neat design post involving doilies on ohdeedoh and got very inspired and very excited.  Because it just so happens that I have access to tons of crocheted doilies.  Both of my grandmothers were big into knitting and crocheting and my parents have tons of their creations stored away for safe keeping.

Well, with a boost of inspiration and a plan I went to my parents house and started digging through old boxes and the hope chest.  I found a ton of great doilies in all different patterns and sizes.  I stuck ones that were done in white/ivory to keep with the color scheme of the bedroom.   (As you’ll notice I also decided to redo our bedroom in all white and brown because as it turns out I couldn’t stand the blue.)

I had my doilies and I took a rough measure of each one and set out on a quest for frames.  I purchased all of them from Michael’s for 40% off.  At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep the frames monochromatic or use different types of frames with different finishes.  In the end I settled on all the frames being black wood, but with each having a little bit of a different design.  They are all relatively simple because I really wanted the prettiness of the doilies to be the standout.

Once I had the frames I bought the matting that I needed keeping it dark so the intricate patters would stand out.  I framed them all pretty easily in about an hour.  The doilies are all actually held in place by nothing more than double sided scotch tape.

When I had them all framed I played around with the arrangement by laying them out on the floor.  This helped me get a feel for the spacing as well.  Because we spent so long patching and painting every room in our house it hurts my soul to put holes in the wall for a piece of art, just to discover I don’t like it there and I have to move it.

Finally I hung them all on the wall  with only two nails having to be moved a tad.  I marked out a border with painters tape and made sure to stay inside of it when hanging the frames.  I think this project turned out really well.  I like the mix of the modern frames with the old doilies.  And the fact that I know who made each of the doilies makes the whole thing personal and very special.  It gives my grandmothers’ sweet creations new life.

… I redecorated his office!  Well I guess it’s more just decorated since we never really did anything to it to begin with.  As is made very apparent by this first picture.

(And yes, there are three computers sitting in this one tiny room.)

Last week J went out of town on business and in an attempt to ward off boredom I decorated his office.

I painted the walls a nice medium toned gray, with the help of my sister.  And just doing that made the space look infinitely better, but why stop there?

I decided that the curtains I originally made for our master bedroom looked better in the office.  So I hung them in there and the gray/blue/green of the silk looks much nicer with the gray than it did with the brown in the master.

I then organized and replaced all the office furniture and the elliptical machine.  I actually got rid of some books and other miscellaneous items that had no home and I no longer had a use for.  I get sentimentally attached to things, so this was a tremendous effort on my part.

The office also turned out to be the perfect place to hang my International Star Registry certificate and map.  Yes, I have a star!  My star’s name is Jessica Nicole and it is located next to Andromeda.  Thanks to my bestie I will live forever!  Well, until I burn out anyway.

The office is not entirely finished.  I need to find a way to wrangle all the computer cords.  Also, I want to frame all of my University of Alabama Million Dollar Band posters and pictures from when I was on colorguard.  This is very nerdy, I know, but I can’t help it.

I finally finished the curtains for our bedroom!  YEAH!!!!  I did them in a really pretty blue shimmery silk.  (I know they look green in the photos, but they’re not.)

I think they look great against the creamy chocolate brown of our walls.

Oh, and above the bed I framed the pretty crocheted name thingy that was a wedding present from a family friend.   I think it looks really good on the dark mat and framed with our standard black frame.

I did the curtains in a couple of hours yesterday.  They turned out the same length and everything!  I feel pretty good about them and I know my mom’s proud. 

I finally hung something on our walls!

I wanted something simple and beautiful, but that had a meaning to us.  So, we decided to hang a series of pictures from our honeymoon on the accent wall above the couch.

I love the slightly distressed look of the wood frames and I think that the white mats make the colors in the pictures pop.   I bought the frames and mats on sale at WalMart.  For about $45 we got great inexpensive art!

It took forever and a day to actually get the pictures to hang level with one another, and there’s about 20 holes in the wall behind them.  I think they might be a little too high, but I can’t really put them any lower, or all the holes will show.  Oops!  But oh well, it was all worth it in the end.  I think they look good.

I have been so busy lately! With moving and work and life in general things have been really hectic. But, we are slowly, but surely, getting settled into our new house. It’s starting to feel more and more like home. I’m still rearranging lots of things and trying them out in different places. One room, the living room, is mostly done. The only thing it’s missing is the other panel of the curtains and some pictures of course.

Arranging the living room the way I wanted it was kind of difficult. I had a plan in my head, but we know how those turn out sometimes. Luckily though, we got it!

I absolutely love the rug that my parents bought us as a housewarming gift. I picked it out a long time ago, but when we went to go get it, it was on sale! WooHoo! Luckily we got it when we did, it was the last one.

I’m completely in love with the accent wall. I changed my mind on the color at the last minute, and it turned out great. I think the color goes with the rug perfectly. The wall is just screaming for something huge as the focal point. I just can’t decide yet.

Hopefully soon I will have more to share. Most of our things are unpacked and put away, but it’s far from done. We’ll get there though!

Well, we closed on the house this past Friday morning! It was such an overwhelming experience. At times I felt like some of the forms were redundant, and then other times I felt totally lost and like I was signing my soul away. Then at the end of it you can’t believe that you just bought a house. It’s a huge milestone and it almost seems like it’s too easy. The weight of it doesn’t really hit you until you walk into your very first home!

(For the record, selling my soul would totally be worth it. Just kidding!)

Since we closed we have been going non-stop. We ran twelve hundred errands that day and then we got straight to work. I had an I idea about what colors I wanted, so it wasn’t too difficult to pick them, just which shade I wanted was a bit harder. I did finally come to a conclusion. Then we bought all our paint and supplies and got straight to work. Can I tell you how grateful I am that my dad knows how to paint? Otherwise, it would be a hot mess if Jason and I had to do it on our own.

I’m really pleased with how things are coming along so far. We painted one wall in the living room the color of paprika. It’s so much prettier and vibrant than I had anticipated. The color also matches perfectly with our new rug. My parents bought us a beautiful rug as a house warming gift. I don’t think I could have found something more perfect if I tried.

Although we are having lots of fun making the house our home, I’m really hoping that tomorrow we’ll be done with all the painting. Then it’ll just be touch-ups and the fun part of decorating after that.

I will post pictures of the whole exciting process very soon.