March Top 10

March Top 10

So as you can see my New Year's Resolution to blog more has been super successful and by far the best resolution I have ever made.  Real truth- I suck at time management and my blog has take a backseat to my 'real life' priorities.  Considering it's half way through the month I will give you my Top 10 highlights of March so far and resume with the regular Top 10 format in April. (fingers crossed).

1.

I got an A in my first grad school class.  (Yup teacher has become student and I will fill you in on the full development in a separate post).  This is my study companion when I'm not reading at the local coffee shop.

 

2.

 I am super excited that I recently have started to replace old terrible doors in my house with free older doors.  Say goodbye to bland and hello to character!

 

 

3.

My favorite new App for my iPhone is called Typic.  It's my favorite App to add font to your photos!  It's super easy to use and that's how I edited the photo above!  Check out it here if you don't already have it! 

 

4.

Galaxy Playdough.  Homemade Playdough + Mounds and Mounds of Glitter = me living out my childhood dream as an adult!  Seriously, I pinned this from Pinterest and it has been sooooo much fun.  

 

 

5.

Extreme Nail Art.  Not sure if I nailed this look or not... but I must say I am getting pretty darn good at using my left hand to create designs.  The weird thing is I am right handed.  Another weird thing is that I have terrible cuticles. Yikes.

 



 



6.

Meet our friend the angry swan.  All I wanted was a picture and he was out for blood.  Until we meet again swan. 

 

 

 

 

7.

 Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone!  Hopefully you ingested large amounts of green food coloring like I did, and got a little crafty.  We used a green pepper as a stamp to create Shamrocks.  Of course then we buried our painting in gold glitter.  For Irish luck you know.

 



 

8.

It's finally warming up here in Nashville and I have been taking advantage of the great outdoors!  Goodbye winter!

 

 

9.

I have finally become cool and joined the world of Instagram.  I cannot stop snapping photos and editing them with different filters.  Follow me on Instagram to see my life through the lens of my phone.



 

10.

Last but not least, if you have not seen this video you are seriously missing out.  I cried I was laughing so hard the first time I saw it.  Enjoy! 

 

 

Happy March Everyone!

 

I cried at a bar.

Okay... so let me explain.

Yes there were tears shed...by me...at at bar last night.
But it was beautiful I promise!

Let me explain.  I tend to be a grandma/home body during the week and never leave the house once I get home after work.  But my dear friend Ivy (the one that made me this knitted treat) talked me into rallying these old bones to go hear a friend of hers play at a local music venue.  The 5 Spot in East Nashville was recently featured on the new drama Nashville and is a perfect place to hear local musicians.

So I thought to myself, "you should go."
Also I thought "you shouldn't sit down when you get home because you won't want to get back up."
So I cleaned my entire house before meeting up with my dear friend.  (Talk about nerd alert.)

I was getting a second wind of energy after arriving to the 5 Spot.  There had been a lot of build up of high expectations of Luella and the Sun and I was ready for the other bands to speed up their sets so I could hear Luella and then quickly retreat to my bed.  Out walks Luella and the Sun.  First off I am mesmerized by her appearance, dark blue velvet dress, long sheer lace coat, layered with a jingling gold belt and a perfect cat eyeliner.  Once she uttered the first few hums, all I could do was utter "are you kidding me?!?!" 

By utter I mean I screamed loudly at Ivy in shock at the beauty of her voice.

I wish all of you were there to hear what we did.  The way she could belt out her notes mixed with
incredible gospel inspired lyrics brought the entire venue to silence, leaving us all wanting more.  At one point Luella sang her own rendition of "His eye is on the Sparrow."  This is when I couldn't help my self and teared up... yup.  Me in a smoke filled room full of hipsters there stood Luella sharing God's love and connecting us all.  After they had finished all anyone could do was turn to the stranger standing next to them and just whisper how amazing it was.

 

This is why I need to get out more.  To see live shows, to see these incredible artists performing their hearts out, and allowing myself to experience new things.  Maybe it was all of the cleaning supplies that I inhaled prior to the show, but my soul was moved and they are now my new favorite group.

Oh did I mention that I bought 2 copies of their vinyl record.
Did I also mention that I don't own a record player??
I am determined to fill my house with their music so the quest is on to obtain a record player.

You owe it to yourself to watch this video of them performing.  Thanks Luella and the Sun for making my week!  Happy Friday everyone! 

 

 

If you want to hear more or see them live for yourself check them out HERE.

Too Heavy to Hang

I wanted to entitle this post as "To the windows"  in honor of a recent karaoke session on my trip to Korea town in New York, but apparently I have already used that title.  (Lil Jon would be so proud.)

So how about:  DIY Message Board Windows. 
Probably appeals more to my followers.
If you have no idea who Lil Jon is then I was correct in my assumption.

Any who, over Christmas break I got thrifty and wanted to up-cycle some old windows a friend had given me.  Like most things in my life they were stacked against a wall in my dining room.  I sort of cleaned them off, removed the wooden cross bars and went to work painting two different windows brown.

After allowing 3 coats of brown paint to dry, I put the crossbars back into the window, used sandpaper to scruff up the painted edges creating a shabby chic look and set out to use the divided sections for a chalkboard, cork board, message board, and dry erase board.  I purchased scrap booking paper from Hobby Lobby to be the 'backdrop' for my dry erase board and used spray adhesive to attach it to the back side of the glass. 

 

Then on the bottom of both window frames I drilled holes and screwed in burlap knobs (also from Hobby Lobby) adding an extra hanging feature to the window message board.  I am not sure what my mom and sister will hang from the knobs, but come on- they're burlap!

Lastly, on my mom's window I added an extra detail by using her initials with painted wooden letters glued on top of a stencil that I painted directly on the front side of the bottom window pane.  I LOVE how her window turned out!  Since these are real windows they weigh a ton!  So we need to make sure that we securely hang them to the wall... minus toggle bolts. I'm trying to cut down on the swearing.

I'm thinking now that I need to use the rest of the windows and make one for my kitchen for grocery lists, menus, and to display all those adorable Happy New Years photos that people are sending out. 



p.s.  I promise I really have tried to live up to my New Years Resolutions... has anyone else been frustrated with not being able to upload pics to blogger??  Ohhh technology- you keep me young!

2013... WHAT?!

Happy New Years Everyone! What? Yes- I am alive... sorry if you got bored with the lack of postings and moved on to bigger, brighter and bustier blogs.  I guess time just got away from me?  I never intended to take a three month hiatus from this little blog, but hey... a lot has happened.  Good things.

I guess I should catch everyone up on what you missed before I start yapping about the New Year.

So lets do a little recap from October. (ugh I hate myself, that was 10 weeks ago).  For Halloween I dressed up as Zooey Dechanel from New Girl.  Some people got it.  Those are the cool people.



Then there was my birthday where I wanted to revive the 80's.  Little did I intend- I ended up looking exactly like I did in the 80's.



Fast forward through an amazing December, this is what happened after Christmas brunch with my parents.  Yes I inherited their swagger and skills.

Immediately after Christmas I hopped on a mega bus with my bestie and headed to NYC to spend the remainder of 2012 living it up and ringing in a new year!  We hung out with the Radio City camels, had a beautiful snow day in Harlem, and danced the night away on a yacht with fireworks for New Years Eve.










I had an amazing time and have loved reading everyone's New Years Resolutions.  You guys are extremely ambitious.  I know you guys are more than capable, but seriously some lists are crazy long.  I would like to list out my resolutions for 2013.

Blog More.

There.  One thing at a time people.  But don't roll your eyes, I intend to do more than upload posts.  It's about to get real... with real working tabs! Whoop whoop!  Now that I have your attention check back soon (cross your fingers tomorrow) and see what I created for loved ones over the holiday season!

Cheers to the New Year!  It's good to be back!

My Weekend In Color...

xoxo

DIY: Happy Fall Banner

Continuing along with the Fall crafting spree, I added to my a Fall banner created from a vintage map, twine and a little bit of paint. 

Happy Fall!

 

You will need:

Vintage paper of some sort

A laser printer with Orange Ink

Twine

Hot glue gun/sticks

Manila folder (or something to make a triangle stencil with)

Scissors

Using this free font I printed out each individual letter on the glossary of an old book of maps I had left over from this project.  (You can find the Halloween font for the Pumpkin symbol here)

 

I created a triangle template out of a manila folder to trace over each letter after they were printed.

Once cut out, I dry- brushed goldenrod paint along the edges of the triangles keeping the brush dry and paint inconsistent. 

 

 

By the time my glue gun was warmed up my paint was dry and I was ready to glue twine to the back top of the triangles.  Almost instantly I was able to hang up my new Fall Banner onto my mantel.

 

 

 

It is a festive addition to my Fall Feather Wreath and goes perfectly with the handmade pumpkins I will be adding tomorrow!

See you then!

Linking up with WOW US WEDNESDAY!

Fall Feather Wreath

Hello Birdies!   I just wanted to let you know that it is mid-October and I have not done a single thing to decorate my house for Fall.  {Enter gasps and judgment here.}

Don’t get me wrong, I have been busy.  I jogged for 15 minutes last week.

But after seeing all of you Instagram pictures of the autumn trees, post your pumpkin recipes and pin your ideas for the latest and greatest painted pumpkin,  I decided I should put down the bottle (of cough medicine) and get to work.  So I set out to craft as many Fall themed crafts I could possibly manage in one weekend.

So I pushed through my sore throat (I don’t just drink cough syrup for fun people) and went to my local craft store for a couple of feathers and burlap.  As I was checking out the sales girl repeatedly told me how lucky I was that they actually had burlap in stock.  Apparently some Pinterest wreath is causing a burlap shortage everywhere.  I think my wreath is going to cause the same phenomenon.

 

I sewed some fabric and burlap flowers, cut out burlap leaves, gathered a wreath, found coordinating twine, heated up my hot glue gun and set out to work.

 

 

I’m not sure if it was my fever breaking, or me just being dramatic about the gorgeous outcome… but I have chills!

 

 

Join me tomorrow to see how I made a painted Fall banner for my mantel using a vintage map and twine.

 

Linking up with WOW US WEDNESDAY!