In case you haven't heard, I am a Stella & Dot stylist! I LOVE the jewelry! The best part is that I worked really hard on it when I first started for a few months and then was able to take a break during school. Now, I'm picking it back up for the summer and am so excited! I just got some of the new Summer line in and can't wait to show it off. 

I was able to wear my favorite new piece while we were in Key West last week. It is the Palamino necklace and I love it! Seriously, go check it out along with the rest of the summer collection. 

If you know anyone that might want to host a show with all their friends and earn free jewelry, make sure to let me know. It is ridiculous how simple it is for a host!

Ok, now back to my house to do list for the summer. I'm trying to decide on a color to paint my bedroom.

I love Ballard!

GOSH I LOVE BALLARD DESIGNS!

Here are my new Garden District Mirrors and I love them! :-) I'd really love to get another pair and hang all 4 together, however, they are a tad bit pricey!
I'm really glad I painted the house and bought these!

Seriously, go fall in love with Ballard Designs!

House to do update

Well.....I finally got the living room and dining room painted! Which is super exciting! EXCEPT...not at all the color I was going for....I wanted a light tan and it looks super white most of the time, so I'm a little sad. However, I'm trying to work with it since it costs so much to do again since it is a large space. I am now buying new accessories and redecorating the way I want it more and hopefully that will distract me from the color. I'm giving it until May to decide whether or not to repaint for sure! I ordered some gorgeous mirrors for the living room from ballard (my new FAV) and I have gotten a few new things for the mantle, but it is definitely a work in progress!So here is the mantle in progress...suggestions?

 See the super bare white walls? ya....the white frame I picked up today at tj maxx for 8 bucks! couldn't resist! not sure if I'll keep it up there but I just needed a spot for it! The wedding pic used to be in our room but it was the largest thing I could find for the blank wall, so I think it is temporary cuz it can be a little awkward to have a massive wedding pic in your living room I think! We are having my sister's 30th birthday party here this weekend, so I'm a little nervous about the house being in such an uproar recently....it looks very unfinished and I don't like that, so I'm trying to make it look ok with what we already have.

I also bought a new comforter from Pottery barn and am waiting on a PB blanket and some cute Etsy pillows to put it all on!  Then I plan to paint the bedroom and bathroom myself...I'm thinking a grayish blueish color....

this is the pottery barn duvet I bought and the pic with the blue and yellow is really what I am striving for. 

I am getting quite a bit done on my House to do list for 2012!  Go me! I'm really excited! But it will all have to come to a halt again for a couple months for my last 2 months of school starting next week again!

My new Ballard Garden District Mirrors should arrive Friday and I'll post how wonderful they look then!

Craft Day!

Well it is spring break finally! I'm SO sad to leave my kindergarten class and switch to first grade, BUT I'm thankful for the break from school this week. So today my friend Katie and I (check out her awesome blog) had a craft day together! We really never have time for fun crafts anymore so we set aside a day. It was so nice to have a day to devote to some crafts I've been eyeing and pinning!

So I decided to make a craft for my mentor teacher as part of a thank you gift to her. I of course saw this on pinterest and loved it!

 

I had a really hard time finding a good size bowl and one that is flat and even all the way around, but I went ahead with this one. Super simple obviously, BUT my crayons keep falling off! Darn hot glue on glass! Hopefully they eventually decide to stay because I think its a super cute bowl for a teacher. Just be careful to glue your crayons on straight...unlike me....:-)

I also decided to make her another item I saw on pinterest. It is just a clear plastic frame with scrapbook paper and sticky notes glued on. I'd like to add some more embellishments though possibly. 

Although, looking at it now...it might not need anything else! I thought it was a super cute idea for sticky notes!

So, I'll just give her those 2 items plus some other typical teacher stuff like glue sticks which she is always out of! ha And maybe even a little starbucks card!

Anywho...that was our craft day! I wish I had more of those! House to do 2012 update coming soon!

p.s. here is my adorable Molly...I also made her a tutu today! :-)

2012 House Goals

What better time to write a blog than when you have a major test in 4 hours and an unfinished assignment that was due yesterday! :-)

I've been thinking alot about our house. Hubby has lived here for about 4 years and I have lived here for 2.5 years. Our goal was to live here together for about 5 years then move to our forever home. We already have a really nice house, especially for our age. However, I'm always wanting to move-what's wrong with me?! I just dream all day about beautiful homes! So I have made a decision! I have never put alot of time, effort or money into our home because I know it is temporary....there is my problem!! I have decided to invest in our current home so that I love it! I want to love our current home and be comfy here! Then maybe we can even stay a few years longer. :-)
So I made a realistic list in January of things I would like to do with our home this year.
Here it is:

-Paint the living room and kitchen
-Buy an office chair
-Replace our backyard fence
-Remove the massive pine tree and replace with something...don't know what yet...
-Replace our current coffee table
-Buy a large picture or painting for over our desk in the office
-replace the picture over an antique near the dining table
-Paint our bedroom and bathroom
-Buy a chair for our bedroom
-Put in a peephole
-Trim up a massive bush on our sidewalk
-Buy a new comforter
-Finish accessorizing the office

Ya....that's sort of a lot...and I get distracted....So realistically all of that probably will not happen, however I'm happy to have a list to go off of and try to accomplish some of it. Hubby already put in the peephole for me! I also get a little obsessed in the spring/summer about flowers and that is alot of work and money and I'm not great at it.

Luckily hubby will take care of getting the fence replaced, everything else will be up to me though...and well let's face it...that would be crazy expensive to do all of it! So I'll have to be creative....

Anywho, I'm hoping that come spring break and summer break that I won't be too busy to atleast accomplish painting the living room and kitchen...or well hiring someone to do that massive job! I am SO over painting by myself!! It is ALOT of work!!! I have painted 3 times in this house and I can do no more!

This post would be alot better with pictures....but ya know...I'm busy....See ya!

What ever happened to my office?!

Well obviously it has been awhile.....so prepare yourself for the longest post ever!

I last left you talking about wanting to redo our office. I did! I did it! Well....for the most part I did it. It's not complete, but really who can redo an entire office in 2 weeks? Ok, some of you can! But I cannot! I am way too indecisive and too cheap!

Here's a few before pics....isn't it obvious why I wanted to redo it! :-) Madhouse in here!



It ended up being a catch all and was never organized. I have started to realize that messes and unorganization drive me a little bit nuts! You wouldn't know it by the way I live tho......


Well, I painted the office all by myself, it's a bluish grayish color. I wanted more gray but I enjoy the brightness in here either way. I bought the best desk from West Elm and got a fantastic deal on it! But it's also gray. I bought the West Elm curtains I loved that have gray. I also bought the beautiful dresser from a craft market nearby and its gray. It was more than I wanted to spend, but I couldn't find anything even remotely close to it that I could bare to spend more than $1 on! ha So we bought it! :-) And then we have the same dark brown wood bookshelf. I love that bookshelf! It was the first furniture item hubby and I ever picked out together, so it's a keeper! It may not go very well with my new light look in the office but this is the best space for it in the house and we plan to still use it in our next home.
Here's a few pics right after I painted and moved the new furniture in.....


Since then I have accessorized a little. I have been picking up pretty pieces here and there. That will be an ongoing job, but I'm ok with that, because I get new ideas everywhere we go and I don't want to settle just to get the job done! :-) That lamp thats on the desk in the pic above I don't even have! ha I returned it and LOVE the one I got instead.

I didn't mean to buy everything in gray in this room, but I apparently love the color. So I really need to brighten it up with accessories! I'll have to post more recent pics someday...

Things that still need to be done in here: buy a new chair that matches (we have one of those huge, black, boyish, but very comfortable desk chairs in here), find a picture/painting something great for the wall above the desk. I want something with color-like yellow maybe! I envision a beautiful picture with yellows flowers but haven't found one that is just right yet. I also need to finish the ottoman I built......

This is how it sits today.....


I had wanted an ottoman that would match the office so that I could store things that are ugly in it that are needed next to the desk. I also wanted something that Molly could sit on while I work. So I envisioned this beautiful ROUND ottoman. For some crazy reason I couldn't just make a square ottoman....no, that's too simple! So my dad helped me build this round ottoman in August! Yep....5 months ago! We cut wood, screwed it together, I bought this metal stuff to go around the outside for sturdiness, and then I put the soft foam around that. I had alot of trouble with it since its round. So once school was back in, I gave up for awhile because I couldn't find the perfect fabric that didn't cost a tonload. My goal being that on Christmas break I would revisit it. Christmas break was over January 3rd...and it still sits.
So finish the ottoman is also on my to do list.....first find fabric...then call my mom over to make sure I put it on correctly. Someday......

Anyway, I love my office redo! I love that my husband has been really supportive of things I want to do around the house and doesn't give me the crazy wife look too often.

On another note....I FINALLY bought curtains for the living room AND my bedroom. I LOVE them. They are simple, but wow they helped warm that room up so much!

We will be in this house for atleast 2-3 more years, I know that isn't a long time overall, but I've decided that I want to make it more "our home" this year. The more I love our home and the more I feel that I have made it a home, the longer I'll be willing to stay here. Meaning the longer we have to keep saving money for our dream home.

So for 2012, you may see me around this ole blogworld a little bit more than CRAZY 2011. I plan to make this house our home!

Our Office

Well, I hope to redo our entire office during my little break in August! I'm getting excited! I've been hunting for cute furniture thats not too pricey and trying to organize. I tend to do my hw on the couch and have started getting back and neck aches and think that might have to do with it, therefore I decided I need a good desk to do hw at as well as a place to think without the tv in front of me, and also a room I like and want to go in!!

I haven't bought anything yet tho....:-/ BUT I found a desk I like, that I'm thinking about...its a little pricey but it's the cheaper version of the pottery barn one I am in love with....see below....

I also would love to find some antique piece that isn't overwhelmingly chunky for storage in the room, I'm having trouble though...I've found pieces I like that are too expensive, or ones that need refinished and I'm just not sure I would follow through with that....so I'm stuck there. I found a great one that is a great color yesterday...however it seriously smelled like manure...ya... so I'm thinking about it! ha

I think I'm coming close to determining the right paint color....a very light gray....at first I wanted to stencil an entire wall...its adorable believe me. however, everyone that I read that did it said it was so much work they wouldn't do it again etc etc. It would look great but maybe some other time....ha

Also, I just found curtains I LOVE! on a website called westelm , I never heard of it but then I saw ladies throughout the blogworld talk about it, so I checked it out. The curtains seem a little pricey to me, but finding adorable curtains in a clearance bin is just almost impossible for me! I'm so impatient! ha
So those are my plans......we shall see what gets done before September...my goal is to have a place to do my hw for the fall semester, one thats organized and beautiful! However, I was supposed to make curtains for my living room before Christmas 2010....still bare..........:-)