Bookcase Makeover

I'm so excited to finally share my bookcase makeover for my creative studio! Instead of holding books, this bookcase houses a lot of my craft supplies in an organized fashion. 

I've actually had this bookcase for years and it's been all sorts of colors (white, blue, brown) but it was starting to look kind of bad and definitely time for a fresh coat of paint. I'm almost embarrassed to show you the before - it was MESSY! (I promise, it wasn't always THAT messy!) But I think to fully appreciate the new and improved bookcase, you must see the before.

So, once I cleaned off the bookcase, I sanded the bookcase down and then I painted it with two coats of flat black paint. It looked a million times better at that point - but I wanted to do something different - I wanted to add paper to the back of the bookcase. (Like this pretty cabinet!)

I'm using different black and white prints in my creative studio and I found a big roll of black and white damask printed wrapping paper at Hobby Lobby that ended up being three bucks for 50 square feet with my coupon.

I was actually nervous to paper the inside of the bookshelf. I was scared I'd mess up or it wouldn't be straight or something. But, I decided to go for it - if I did one shelf and didn't like it, I knew I could just rip it off, sand the heck out of it, and repaint it.

The wrapping paper had a grid on the back of it. This made it SO much easier! I used spray glue to adhere the wrapping paper to the back of the bookcase. I liberally sprayed where I needed the paper to go then I started at the top of that particular shelf and worked my way down, smoothing it straight as I went. It was so much easier than I thought it would be and I LOVE the outcome and am seriously having to restrain myself from running around and papering all the bookcases in my house.

Ok, enough teasing.... Ready to see the end result?

Ta-da!

Here's some closer looks.....

Everything is sorted and in different baskets an all organize now! Boy, does it feel good to have it all organized! I have the ribbon all sorted by color - I even rolled up all the ribbons and secured them with straight pins. My Momma would be so proud!  All the baskets actually came from the Dollar Tree. I wasn't looking for baskets there but when I saw them I knew they'd be perfect and you can't beat the price. 

I made the labels using my Silhouette machine and adhered them to the baskets with glue dots. 

The large shelf houses my paper storage boxes. (Go here to see how I made them.)

I sorted some of my embellishments into little jars that I already had. 

More miscellaneous crafting supplies sorted into baskets. 

And the very bottom shelf holds my large paper trimmer, crop-o-dile, and other necessities. It's not as pretty as the other shelves so I may try putting those things in the closet. 

Love it! 

Pretty and organized!

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Happy House-versary!

We have lived in our cute little house one year today! 


Happy House Anniversary to us! 

My Creative Studio

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be showing you different projects that I have completed for my "creative studio" but I thought I might better explain what the creative studio is first! 


We have a spare room in our house and when we moved in J pretty much gave me free range of the room saying we could do whatever with it. We knew it needed to be a partial office and house the computer but I also thought it would be a great place to store my craft supplies and have my own place to craft. 


But calling the room an office sounded blah and calling it a craft room sounded blah too so I came up with "creative studio. Just perfect because if I'm crafting Im obviously being creative and a lot of times when I'm on the computer I'm creating by writing so it works or maybe using my Silhouette. 


My fave color is teal and it is already in multiple rooms in our house so I was trying to NOT use teal in the creative studio. I started going with pink and green but hadn't done very much at all. But the more I looked at the little bit of pink and green in there, the more I realized it just was NOT me. I wasn't being true to who I am, what I like, and what my style has become. So I have decided to go with teal, black, and white. I was totally inspired by this room  and have decided on using different black and white patterns along with teal. I've been working on some of the smaller things like a bulletin board and frames. I'll be sharing those things as I complete them. 

This is a little a snippet of what I'm working with and where I'm going


I am excited to get the room decorated and organized so I can begin creating things for holiday craft fairs!

Goodwill Score for Noah's Shelves

Most of the time when I go to Goodwill/thrift type stores I'm looking for potential in the items I see. Most of the time I buy an item, fully intending to totally transform it once I get it home using paint and whatever else I deem necessary. Rarely do I find something that is awesome just as it is. But today that happened....

We found this awesome little Clemson basket. Ok, J actually saw it first and brought it over to me with a huge smile on his face. He commented that he didn't know what we'd use it for though but it was only $1.00. My first thought when I saw it was that it would be perfect to hold Noah's diapers on his bookshelf in his new Clemson room. I'd been wanting to get some kind of basket to hold the diapers anyway.

It just needed washing off with some soap and water and it was good to go. It looks great holding Noah's diapers now!

The Kitchen: Light Teal with Cherries on the Side

I've shared Noah's room and the bathroom and now I'm finally ready to reveal my favorite room in the house thus far I think: the kitchen!

The kitchen needed a makeover desperately. It was green and if you like green I think it would be OK, but green really isn't a "me" color. I love teal and thought some shade of teal/turquoise/aqua would be lovely but I wasn't sure what direction to take it until I started doing a little surfing online and found this apron which became my inspiration for the kitchen.

(Funny, I don't even own this apron.... yet. It will have a special spot in my kitchen at some point!)


So we went with a light teal blue on the walls with red accents.


This kitchen has two built in components that I adore. One of them in a built in hutch that sits in the corner of the kitchen right near where we put our table. And the other is built in open cabinets that are above the sink. I'm not crazy about the counter tops but baby steps, right! 


Let's start off with some before pictures.......

So we painted the walls aqua chiffon......

I think it turned out beautiful!

Here's a view from the doorway of the kitchen. 

The open cabinets above the sink. LOVE them. And I love how great the red dishes a la' Target look on the bottom shelf and the teal Paula Dean cookware looks on the top shelf!  

A close up of the glasses becasue they are polky-dot! And you know how much I love polky-dots!! 

(Also from Target.)

Here's a close up of the "art" that is above the sink. I put the pot holders on little hooks which makes them decorative yet functional at the same time. I made the art in the middle. The cherries are buttons that I sewed on to white fabric with felt leaves "framed" in an embroidery hoop which I spray painted red. 

And here's a shot of the kitchen table with the hutch in the corner. 

And a close up of the art I made that hangs near the table. 

That's just a wooden plaque I decopauged with some red/teal polka dot paper and then I glued on an old fork, spoon, and knife which I had spray painted a light teal to match the walls. The word "enjoy" is just a vinyl wall decal. 

And the art in the middle of the hutch. 

That's just a dollar store plate and vase I spray painted and then mod podged an S on the plate and filled the vases with artificial flowers and tied a red ribbon around it. 

And now you have seen the kitchen!!

 I love cooking now because I just love being in there! 

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Our Bathroom

On Tuesday I shared with you pictures of Noah's new room and today I'll share pictures of the bathroom with you.

We knew the bathroom needed to be painted but we weren't sure what color. J kept suggesting orange as he did with every room. (Our entire house would be Clesmson orange and purple if I let J and Noah have their way!) We also needed a new shower curtain so we decided to base the paint color on the shower curtain.

My Mom and I went to Target where they have an excellent selection of shower curtains. In fact, I was quite overwhelmed. Naturally I'm drawn to teal, pink, and browns but with the kitchen already being light teal and our bedroom being brown and teal I didn't want to go overboard with brown and teal in the house. I narrowed it down to two shower curtains both of which had the same color scheme of a salmon orange, mustard yellow, forest green, brown, and dark teal. One of the shower curtains was striped and the other one was more whimsical and had funky trees and cute little owls. I decided to go with the whimsical shower curtain because of the cute little owls.

We decided to paint the bathroom the salmon orange color in the shower curtain. I took the actual shower curtain with us to Lowe's when we were buying paint and they color matched the paint to the shower curtain.  I call it Clemson orange on estrogen since it is a more feminine orange. LOL So J sort of got his orange bathroom after all.

Ok, on with the pictures. We'll start with a before shot....

And now after shots.......

  

I made that valance too. 

See the cute little owls and chimpmunks 

Baskets I spray painted to hold toiletries and what not.

Cute little owls I paper pieced using a pattern from Little Polka Dot.

A close up of the cute lil' owls

(Their names are Hoot and Who and no I didn't name them myself!)

My BFF sent me that adorable owl hand towel. 

As we were painting the bathroom, that orange was looking so bright and I didn't think I was going to love the finished result but now that the shower curtain, space saver, towels, and new light are in the bathroom it is definitely growing on me!

Noah's New Room

So many of you have been patiently waiting to see pictures of the rooms in our new house. Finally, a few rooms are almost finished. I have just a small couple of projects left for a couple of these almost finished rooms and I now feel comfortable sharing photos of the "almost finished" rooms.

Let's start with Noah's room. Noah wanted a Clemson (a local college) room and we were more than happy to create a bedroom full of orange and purple for him.

Originally the walls in Noah's room were a beige-ish color but we painted them white. I kind of struggled just painting them white since the other rooms in the house were painted bright colors but I just couldn't see painting the walls Clemson orange or purple and I think with all the accents and furniture it brings enough color in to the white walls.

 (Click on the pictures to see them larger.)

This is the view of Noah's room from the doorway. There was already the one set of blinds in his room but they are an odd size so we have had trouble locating a set for the second window. That is still on my "to do" list for Noah's room. 

This is the view of Noah's room from the corner near the bed. 

Here's a close up of the valances I made for Noah's windows. I sewed these myself (and if you know me you know I don't really have the patience for sewing) so I'm super proud of them.

This is a close up of Noah's nightstand that I painted orange. He added a little decoration of his own by adding the small tiger paw sticker in the corner. That's a touch lamp sitting on the night stand so he can turn it off and on by himself. 

Autographed pictures (that were graciously sent to Noah by the Clemson athletic department during his Scoliosis surgery recovery) adorn one wall in frames that I painted orange and purple. (They don't look that straight in the picture but I promise they are straight!)

Noah's bookcase that I painted purple. 

Noah's football that was autographed by Dabo Swinney the football coach at Clemson (something else he received while in the hospital) sits on the top of his bookcase.

A close up of the "border" 

(These are really just vinyl wall decals that I arranged so that they sorta look like a wall paper border.)

Yep, I even decorated the trash can with the Clemson "C." 

Now you've had a tour of Noah's new room!

Click here to see some pics of Noah enjoying his new room. 

Home Sweet Home

Well, almost.....

We are now finally in our new home! There were some major "bumps" over the past week which includes finding out that tree roots had grown into the pipes and they had to be replaced and having electrical problems where only half the house had power but finally those problems are fixed and yesterday was problem free and I'm hoping and praying that things stay that way.

Noah's really enjoying the new house. I was worried about him adjusting after staying at his Grandparents for so long this summer but it turns out he wasn't the one I should have worried about adjusting - it's Miss Paisley who seems to be having problems adjusting although she did a lot better yesterday.

Noah seems to really enjoy having his own space and room again. Monday and Tuesday first thing when he got home from school, he wheeled towards his bedroom as if he was checking to see if it is still there. He also really enjoys sitting out on the front porch in the mornings while waiting for the bus.

We still have a ways to go as for as un-packing, organizing, and making this house look like a home. I know many of you are dying to see pictures of the inside and I'm dying to show you but please be patient. I want to share it with you once it looks more like a home and less like a house with stacks of boxes around!

Painting & Moving

We have been working hard (when scheduling allows) on painting our new house and aside from some minor touch ups and two rooms (living room and the creative studio/office) which we will do once we move in and Noah's in school, we are almost finished! I love the personality that paint has given the rooms and can't wait to see them finished with furniture and art on the walls and what not!

We'll begin moving furniture in tomorrow!! So hopefully sometime next week, I'll be updating this blog from my new house and I promise to have some pictures then too!!

Health Updates and News

I've gotten slack lately but I just haven't been feeling like myself. I've been pretty sick, went to the doctor, got sicker, end up dehydrated, and went back to the doctor. At that point, I'd lost 13 lbs in 12 days and was dehydrated. They think I have a bacteria infection in my blood most likely caught from when Noah was in the hospital. I got new meds and was feeling better then I relapsed again. Went back to the doctor and am on different meds now. I'm feeling a bit better again but am still going to go to a GI so we can get to the bottom of these issues. 


Noah's doing well. He is able to get off the bed by himself again although it does make me a tad nervous again. He is crawling around some too. Still haven't made it into his regular wheelchair yet but we'll try that soon since school is less than a month away! Once the school opens back up, I'm going to call and get their advice on whether or not he should go to school in the reclining wheelchair or his regular wheelchair and a couple of other concerns. Hopefully he'll be up to full days but if not we'll figure something out or if the reclining wheelchair is an issue we'll just drive him to school instead of him riding the bus for a bit. We'll get it all worked out - he is going to be so excited about going back to school! 


And the news..... we found a house!! I'm beyond excited to begin living in our own one story (no more lugging a 60 lb child up and down steps - thank you Lord!!!) house. It's a cute little house in an older neighborhood and as I said no stairs and all hardwood floors - which is going to be awesome for Noah! It's three bedrooms and has a fenced in backyard for Paisley. We get the keys on Thursday! We have some painting (the kitchen is currently bright lime green - I need sunglasses to deal with the brightness!) to do first and once that's all done we'll begin to move our stuff in.

So, if I get quiet again, it's probably because I'm busy fixing up the house or moving. Once we get the house looking like a home, I'll bombard the blog with pictures.