Spring Fling

When I think spring I go CRAZY!!

Grass grows, tulips bloom, people's spirits begin to rise, this is when I feel the heavens sing!

I have been wanting to finish up our screened in porch for quite some time.

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Walk down memory lane, shall we??

Our house came with a hot tub, which we removed...

And a really unstable deck, which we removed...

And a coy pond, which we had already removed in this picture and were waiting to fill in...

{pond removal}

Now that the hot tub area is filled in, the pond area leveled and sodded its time to wrap this project up.

We need install the beadboard ceiling, stain the porch floor, paint a few more boards, add some fresh screen, and ... my fave... accessorize!!!

{I am really letting it "all hang out" for yall ps, this work was completed in June 10' and I am just now sharing... ashamed?? maybe... but we are so close to the end now.}

{notice in the middle we were laying out the ground work for a fire pit. this will be removed, great idea in theory but with a 2 yr old chasing your dog... not so much. I dont want to go to the emergency room}

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ps.... see how much shade this back yard has.. thats due to no tree trimming for at least the last 10 years. 

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well that was taken care of on friday by my new hero.... our mr. fix it my mom went to high school with.

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before photos.

{yes we back up to the interstate, no I don't hate it, no its not loud, how do I plan to disguise it?? guess you will have to wait and see}

{we have already removed 6 baby trees on our own previous to this picture... I live in pine needle land!}

mr. bradford pear, I love your shape... hate your droppings and hate your spring smell.

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plus you were a mere 18' from my house so you had to go.

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disclaimer: I am very well aware only a small portion of my porch is white, I am only sooo tall and felt unstable on a old shaky ladder so we hope to take care of all of that ugly brown withing the next 2 weeks!!! I promise we are not "in the ghetto/ white trash" 

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please don't judge my abrupt halting of project... I am waiting on muscles and manpower to help me wrap this up.

all my limbs piled out at the street.

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I went to grab my recycling bin this morning and a nice man was collecting the neighbors trimmings{city sanitation worker, he informed me he would move my heaping pile to the top of the list!! U ROCK MISTER and deserve a city employee of the day award!!!!!}

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Within 2 hours this is what baby and I watched for a good 20 minutes.

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see, all government workers aren't bad!!

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Now, back onto the porch...

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Here is something we found hanging from one of our pine trees when we purchased the home.

{this is the chandy taped off and ready for spray paint}

Our plan for our screened in porch is to have a very "Key West" feel. 

We are wanting to white wash all the flooring, ceiling, spindles and bring our colors in through our furniture and accessories.

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Think turqouise, yellow, orange; very bright and tropical!!

So a turqouise chandelier was step one to put some pep in my step and get me ready for spring!!

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I hope to have this hanging for the reveal, but I am finally seeing some headway on this project and it feels good!!!!

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Time for some inspiration photos...
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Shall we?

artwork for outdoors?

holy dream house... you make my knees weak.

{source unknown}

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{decorpad}

{via decorpad}

{via country living}

{via decorpad}

Hopefully we will have this spring bug stay with us so we can get our space looking like this in no time. 

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What are you working on this spring??

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spring cleaning anyone??

A Review and A New Company

First of all allmodern.com (via) CSN offered me the wonderful opportunity of doing a review on an item.

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 After searching for nearly a month I finally found the perfect item. 

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An indoor/outdoor doormat for our screened in porch!!

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The best part... it is made by my new favorite company........

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Dash and Albert

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I got this awesome diamond pattern rug in denim for $13.00!!!

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I have had the rug for close to 3 weeks now and moved it to inside our front door, you know.. to "test it out"

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Verdict.... ITS AWESOME!! does a great job of hiding dirt, (despite its white) and doesnt catch on the bottom of the door. 

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It would stay here permenantly but... I went ahead and took the plunge on this guy.

{can't WAIT to get him in!!!}

now... onto that new company....

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Had a neat encounter at preschool the other day. There was a sub in my classroom and I am always excited about meeting the new person I get to work with. Within minutes of meeting I discovered Karen owned an ADOREABLE hand painted ceramics company.

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She makes just about everything you can imagine.

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LOVE all her greek stuff!!

personalized dishes

she also makes precious tea sets.

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Her items are sold all over the country and I feel so fortunate to be able to meet such a talented lady!!

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Be back later tody with some new additions.

An Award!!!

I recieved an award!!!

The award comes with a few rules.  No worries, nothing too crazy.

1. You must link back to the person who gave you the award to let them know you accept;
Thanks  for the award Lessons of a Newlywed

2. You must share 7 things about yourself; and

3. Pass the award on to 15 recently discovered bloggers and let them know about the award.

Now without further ado, here are seven awesome things you may or may not have known about me.

1. I greatly despise doing the dishes!
2. I LOVE to bake!!
3. I used to want to be a professional photographer and "the dream" was to photograph the pipeline surfing tournament in Hawaii {can we say I watched the movie Blue Crush every morning before school??}
4. I am deathly afraid of roller coasters, spiders, and mice!! DEATHLY AFRAID!
5. I get stopped all the time and have people tell me I look like Elisabeth Shue, like once a week... its wierd.
6. I am well known for my uber corny jokes.. ie, have you heard about the new circus in town? its IN-TENTS!!
7. When I met my husband for the first time he paid for me to get into a concert on campus at Alabama then within 5 minutes of being in the door I totally blew him off.. {harsh i know, i now regret this.}

Now onto some of my new fave reads....

1. Dixie Delights. 
2. His Holy Hill
3. Not Your Average Southern Belle
4. Ten June
5. Gus and Lula
6. The Savvy Speechie
7. Hoot Photography
8. Design-aholic
9. For the Love of a House
10. Franks Funny Farm
11. Kentucky Mama
12. Less Cake More Frosting
13. Life on Dahlia Lane
14. My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
15. Old Days Old Ways

Thanks for all your inspiration!! I just love each and every one of you!!

Chic find

So found this great little table in Ballard Designs spring catalog!!

I am needing something small and round to break up the modular lines in my den

While in the process of looking for this table I came across a new blog!!

*this girl has got such great taste!! Lemme tell ya!!

She found this exact table I had been looking for at Kohl's!!

Isn't it great!!! And here is the best part!

Not too bad paying $30.00 instead of $139.00!!

That's my chic find of the week!!

Monogrammed pillows.Tutorial

I found some inspiration in an unexpected place a couple months back...

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I saw these amazing monogrammed pillow sitting on a gorg couch in Guilana and Bill Rancic's Chicago apartment.

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After researching for pictures for far too long I googled her name + monogram pillow and lo and behold a tweet popped up!! Yes, twitter is now an amazing resource!!

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Come to find out these pillows are Jonathan Adler.

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Here is the link to create your own.

I love these pillows but I have an affinity to have something noone else will have, 

therefore I made my own!!

*here is another woman's interpretation of Giuliana's pillows

{via..google images}

To make your own:

Open Microsoft Word on your computer, 

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and begin looking through the fonts

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I used a similar sans serif font {to the Jonathan Adler pillows}

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{this font is Bakersville and I modified the curl of the "r" to something more squared.}

I mixed it up by using lower case.

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Did a few trial runs printing the one letter in a really large size;

 I believe 300, 400 something of this size.
{maybe even 600 for a lower case letter}

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Cut the letter out and use it as your pattern to cut out your fabric 

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the fabric for my letter is black linen fabric.

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the fabric of the pillow is duck cloth and can be purchased at hancocks, joanns, any place you can find fabric basically.

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Attach the letter with straight pins.

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Set your machine on one of 2 settings.

{this is where you will need to do some playing around with your machine. some machine's have an applique setting, once in this setting you want the stitch length to be really low, say .6 or .8 so the stitches are really tight; and the width to be really high, say 3.5 or 4, or if you do not have an applique setting you can use your machine's freehand buttonhole setting, again just check the length and width.}

**tip; this is my biggest piece of advice, when you go to attempt an applique USE GOOD THREAD. Don't buy this thread at a basic store like hancock's or joann's. Find your city's local sewing machine store or fine fabrics store and purchase high quality embroidery thread. This thread will be 100% cotton, a very heavy weight and will not be as fragile as a poly/cotton blend. This type of thread will run you $5.00ish a spool.

another reminder, if you are using 2 light weight fabrics buy some fabric stabilizer to help add weight to the back of the design.

Once you have determined which setting your machine will replicate the tightest stitches begin stitching away.

**another great tip, if your machine is not a "free motion" machine; meaning if it does not round curves on its own (often found to be a quilting or applique machine) you will need to stitch a little slower and stop quite often to slightly pivot and turn the fabric so you will have nice seamless stitches.

this is the first of my two pillows.

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I am actually glad you can see the minor imperfections and learn from my mistake.

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When working with linen and "appliquéing" linen please know the fabric will begin to unravel 

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You will need some Dritz fray check, use a light amount of this along the edges of the letter BEFORE sewing {make sure to allow time for the solution to dry}

Then sew the letter on.

Tada, I must say I am pretty pleased with the outcome!!

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linking up with..

My Jammie Shirt

This post is more or less for me to document the great love my daughter has for her beloved Jammie Shirt.

That's pronounced "jahmee"

Here is my favorite part.... it's my shirt from 3 yr preschool!!!

{for some reason we did 2 shirts this year and the only photo I could find is of the other shirt}

{I am the one on the right, in the middle is my friend Michelle, I think she reads the blog and may kill me for posting this, but come on... we are 3!! and went to school all throughout middle and high school!}

Here is my little stink bug in my 1990's preschool shirt, complete with puffer painted name on the back!!!

She loves this shirt sooooo much that at naptime she requests a full wardrobe change to wear her "jahmee shirt" 

I think it is soo sweet how she loves something that was mine.

Despite it's paint splatters, haha

Is there anything more special than your child loving something from your childhood??

I am linking up to Sentimental Sunday over at Cha Cha's.

A Place to Dine

So... my dining room... has had more than it's share of a quarter life crisis.

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She is now on her 3rd set of dining furniture.

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First my memaw's set..

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Then my nanie's set of furniture...

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And hopefully now my own!! {and final set}

Here is a diagram of the layout of the room 

3 walkways, one window and a complete focal point in our home. 

here it was when we first moved in.

Then the dining room looked like this. 

Lovely solid wood furniture just not me.

So with my husband's gracious heart he is allowing me to make the room my own!!

Sooo as I move to sharing our new pieces what do you think we need to do rug wise??

The rug you have seen in the room so far looks way too good in my master bedroom to move it back into the dining so I am looking at bare floors for the time being.

Here are some things I was trying out....

Patterned, bordered, ... traditional.

cream, basic, more casual and transitional in style

striped, added depth to the room and modern in style??

*we are leaning toward the striped {that's what hubby likes..}

What do you think would look good in the room?

Our Love for Books

It's true!! lil' bit loves books, I just had to capture her face when I told her I bought some new ones!!

We wake up reading and go to bed reading; we have even been known to crawl in bed mid-day and read!

Right now we love...

.curious george

                  .adventures of dick and jane

.pinkalicious

.nursery rhymes

.courdory

               .chicka chicka boom boom

         .any fancy nancy book.

On my bedside table is The Tipping Point. {pretty good so far}

What are some books you are enjoying reading??