monday, monday

I thought I would share some fun and bright things today to get rid of a case of the Monday's (well at least mine).

I am seriously loving a few trends right now, what are your favorites?

Love these shoes!

Gold, gold, and more gold.  Its all I have been wearing the last few months, I really love that its made such a huge comeback.  I really love mixing a lot of different tones like this.

And just a little hot pink to brighten up your day!

See you all tomorrow!

xo

a little thursday inspiration..

Thursday is the new inspiration day!  I have decided that every Thursday I will post inspiration photos.  They will range anywhere from design, DIY projects, to photography shots that I am trying to perfect.

I am an avid Pinterest pinner (is that a word?!?) and I love finding beautiful things to share.  If you want to follow me I will add the link to my boards at the bottom of this post, continuing on, I will try and source everything from its original source but sometimes its very difficult to find so if you have any questions about where something came from, let me know, and I will do my best to help you find it!

I am in love with the colors in this.  I have the Edland bed from ikea which I love and is so versatile and currently am using a lot of white with some yellow and gray to go along with it, but I really want to add some color to the room.  Living in an apartment we can't paint so the walls are white, the bed is white, the bedding is white...its getting to be a little much.

My obsessions currently are black & white stripes, gold, and pink...does anyone else find this picture fitting?  Hopefully soon I will be able to switch it up a little.  I have always found bedding to be one of the hardest things to coordinate in a room, so I am constantly on the search for inspiration, and this is perfect!

Ahh!! Color, I love it!  Those yellow curtains make the room, so bright and cheerful.

Wow!  What more can you say about this bathroom?  In House Beautiful a designer stated, that the places to go bold in your home are the rooms where you spend very little time in, foyers, bathrooms, closets, guest bedrooms, etc.  You won't be trying to sleep, eat, or do other daily activities on a constant basis in these rooms so you can use more color, drama, and pattern.  Hence, an amazingly dramatic half bath, could you imagine walking into a friends house and going into this bathroom?
  

Another bathroom...I love this pattern would be really cool in a closet as well.

The ultimate inspiration photo for any closet girl.  Who wouldn't want that shoe closet, its like a Krispy Kreme donut perfect every time!

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Hope you enjoyed this weeks Thursday inspiration.  I am excited to start this series, please let me know what you think!

xo

p.s. my pinterest boards, follow me!

a little memento...

One of my favorite things that I own is from my Grandmother.  She was an amazing collector.  Born and raised in the deep south she had a love for knick knacks and other cool items that she would find and put someplace around her house.  I inherited a few of those things and my absolute favorite is this tray she kept on her dresser for as long as I can remember.

 

As you can see I put some of my own beauty items on it.  It makes me smile everyday when I see it, and I know she would love that I use it the same way she did.

xo 

birthday party.

I know I said that I would post pictures of what the apartment currently looks like but alas I was not able to get shots of the whole thing yet.  I wanted some really amazing pictures and to do that I need daylight which during this time of year when I get off work, its dark.

My roommate threw me a little impromptu gathering with some good friends over the weekend for my birthday.  I got a few shots of some of the rooms decorated and wanted to share with you all.  Until next time!

The dining room with a few decorations.

The living room with a ton of pom poms that we made and put up.

And me!  Yes I wore a crown, I mean when else can you get away with wearing a tiara?

xo

Old house, new house

I was thinking of all the ways I could share some of my favorite things with you all and with this blog just starting I thought a few ways would be how my home has transformed in the past year.

In October 2011 my roommate and I had lived here for a whole year and we really started to decorate and get in the groove of things.  It seems like after those first few months in the house together we got a feel of the place and started to understand what would look good and what wouldn't.

These pictures were taken in late December of 2010, a little over two months of living in the house together.  A lot has changed since then but today I would like to share with you just the beginning!  Tomorrow you will see all the changes!

It really is crazy how your personal style transforms and changes as you learn design and what looks good/what looks really bad!

I remember looking at some of my things and thinking how great they looked and then seeing pictures and thinking "WOW!"  You really did think that looked good then?  WRONG!

You live and you learn right?!?

This is the original living room, the couches are from my parents, which underneath the black slipcovers are a red and green plaid!  The curtains are from my college house that my mom made for me.  The lamp is an amazing find from a thrift store that I spray painted black and recovered the shade in a taupe burlap.  Lastly, the frames are all from ikea.  Originally I loved the layout but after living with it for a few months I felt the frames were too cookie cutter and changed everything.

This is the first thing you see when walking into my home, the table is from my roommate's parents and the bench was actually a coffee table that I tried to make into an ottoman and failed miserably.  It was about five inches to high and looked very awkward with the couches, so when push comes to shove and you need to seat six people at a table, when in doubt work with what you have!

Another view of the dining room.  Ignore the trash in the background it was on its way to the dumpster!

Baby office nook, no chair I know!  And to this day this desk still has no chair.  Today we usually use it as a wet bar area when people are over, otherwise it usually has things piled high on top of it.

Close up!

Kitchen...enough said.

Other side.

View of the living room from the kitchen.  The Christmas tree was still up because we had people over for New Years!

The view of my bedroom from the living room.  Notice, no headboard/footboard, no nightstands, no anything! I don't know why but I did like sleeping close to the floor!

Side view.

Master bath using all of my old decorating items from college!

Shower curtain.

 Towel rack.

This was my makeshift nightstand that was actually a shelving unit for a bathroom, hey you use what you have right?!?

And that is my apartment!

Tomorrow I will show all the changes that have occurred in the past few months.  A ton of different furniture items have been added, artwork switched out and basically I have redone the whole apartment, I love it all though.  I feel as if my style really has changed and evolved and I love everything about the look we have going on now!

Scales, scales, and more scales

It is COMPLETE!  It was not easy, it was not fun, but it was definitely worth it!  The fish scale wall is done, two weeks, a lot of cutting, a lot of spray paint, and a lot of work but I ABSOLUTELY love it.  I found this off of Pinterest but the actual tutorial comes from Kara Paslay DIY Fish Scale Wall and another one at Two Thirty-Five Designs.

So without further ado...

The process is actually quite easy.  If you have a garage that you can do this in the project will be much easier.  I live in an apartment with no outdoor space so everything had to be done inside which made it a little more difficult but nonetheless it is still a relatively easy project to do.

The materials you will need are:

Poster board (I used 17 pieces)

Circle Die-Cut (I got mine from Michael's for about $12, make sure you get one of coupons they always have on the internet or in the store flyer)

Stapel Gun

Gold Spray Paint

Plywood

Molding

My first step was to cut all the circles with the die-cut, I used magazines to put under the poster board while I cut which made it a little hard, a better bet would be to purchase a mat used for cutting.  I was trying to save money but it would have made things a lot easier.  Here is about 3/4's of the circles I needed.

All of my circles were 4 inches in diameter so I marked by board off in 2 inch increments all the way down then started to staple from left to right.  The circles are all touching but not overlapping.

Once the first row is down continue to follow your grid by stapling the circles between the circles of the previous rows.  I overlapped off of the board itself so that no wood would show once the sides were cut and the molding was put on.

Here are some more in process pictures.

After all the scales were stapled down everything in my apartment got a layer of plastic and I sprayed the whole thing with Valspar Gold Spray Paint (it is the spray paint without the mirrored lid).  I let it dry then spray painted the molding as well.  Originally I had planned on staining the wood.  I did try but the result was a little lacking.  For some reason the stain came out tinted green so at about 11pm last night I decided it would look just as good painted gold.  I actually really like it with the gold, it gave a sheen that completes the whole thing.  

The whole thing is nailed directly into the wall and then the molding on top of that.  Here is a closeup of the molding

I ended up not using the miter box to cut the corners, if you do this project once you get to the point where you are hanging it you will understand why!  I just needed to see it finished and up on the wall, eventually I will fix those corners, o and perhaps get matching molding!! Late nights at Lowes=mismatched molding!

All in all I think it looks amazing, its a huge wall and I really wanted something that took up a good portion of the wall.  Doing the whole wall would be awesome, one day maybe!

And again for your viewing pleasure!

Fish Scale Wall

My birthday is coming up this weekend and my love of parties and a reason to celebrate means there will most likely be a group of friends coming over on Saturday.  That being said my roommate and I love to take on huge totally unrealistic projects when we are having people over, a birthday being a reason to throw a party we decided to not only start one huge project but add on another hmm three or four.

My beloved fish scale wall which I know I will absolutely love when it is actually on the wall and finished but as of now I dislike more than anything really.  After cutting out 500 plus circles then stapling them, then spray painting INSIDE (bad idea, FYI don't do it) the project is no longer the love of life, more like the bain of my existence.  In the end however, I know its going to look amazing and its almost complete so I continue the forward march.

Pictures to come tomorrow!!

The Best Is Yet To Come

This blog will be a place where I not only post my lifestyle photography but also a place where I share the things that make life beautiful.  My posts might be very sporadic at first but as I learn and grow as a photographer they will increase dramatically.  I am excited to share this journey with you and would love to take your picture one day!