Makin plans, Living Room Style

Yep, more plans.

I just can't quit.

Y'all know I got a few to-dos checked off my looooooonnnnngggg list last weekend (what up, curb appeal and yet-to-be-posted-coffee table!)

Now that my to-do list is shortened by a few items, my natural instinct is to load it back up again.

Seriously, I need to be stopped.

Did you see the first to-do under the living room list? That's what I'm chatting about today. For a while now, I've been eyeing up my options at RugsUSA looking for the perfect BIG area rug for our living room.  It's actually a relatively large space considering the size of our house, so a small rug just wasn't cutting it anymore.  Style-wise, at least.

So I surfed.  I surfed and I surfed and I surfed until I found the rug I was looking for.  And the winner  (hopefully) is....

This delicious chevron/ikat combination was just what I was looking for!  I love the blue color and the fact that it is a large-print pattern so as not to be too distracting. Bonus, it has a tight, low pile so it will be easy to vacuum!!  My Fitz fur-hating, vacuum-loving self is so VERY appreciative.

Once it gets to the house, I'll just have to lay it out to make sure that it is as good in person as it is in my dreams.  I have high hopes that it will be just right.

Now, being the home decor blog-stalker that I am, I have always wanted to create a design board (virtually) to help figure out what colors, patterns and specific pieces would go best in a room design.  This was the perfect opportunity!  I'm going to give a brief walk-through of how my board came to be...so here it is!

My living room design board was actually created during the rug-choosing process to help me figure out which patterns and colors looked best with our existing couches and the coffee table I love.  It was a huge help to be able to slap the picture of a rug I was considering onto the board and instantly know if it was a contender or not.  I got really into it.  Like War-of-the-Rugs style.

I made mine in Photoshop, but you can easily do the same thing in Word, Powerpoint or another processing application.

My board started by opening a blank document and pasting in a picture of our current couch, bookshelves and 3-shade lamp.  I knew that these were all pieces that I wanted to reuse in the room as they are fully functional and I could style them to fit whatever "statement" pieces I decided on.  I removed the background of the images using the "background eraser" tool.  (The same effect can be done in Word by choosing the "picture" tab and then using "remove background")

Next is the fun part - searching for the new items to add to the board!

The pillows were the first things that I looked for - I knew I wanted to add some bright, fun colors in a way that would be easily and relatively cheaply changeable in the future.  Pillows are a great way to do that!  Since I don't want to spend a ton of money on new pillows, the ones I found were actually pillow covers that I can put right over our existing pillows.  More cha-ching to spend on other things! Whoop Whoop!

Then I perused the interwebs based on those beautiful pillows that I found to add some more color, texture, and overall awesomeness to the board.

And that's it!  It's easy and SO much fun to make these boards.  I already have one started for my craft room...and a few others as well :)

Linking up @:

- Creativity Unleashed

- The Party Bunch

- Inspiration Monday

- Monday Funday
- Busy Monday
- The Makers
- Sugar Bee Crafts
- Do Tell Tuesday
- Out of the Box 

Curb Appeal - Round 1

The weather in Minnesota these past few days has been just GORGEOUS!  You can feel the distinct "crisp" of almost-fall in the air and I'm totally diggin it.  Fall is my favorite season - boots! jeans! sweaters! crunching through leaves on walks!  What's not to like!?!?

Having some beautiful days over the weekend inspired me to finally give our front entrance the first parts of a multi-step facelift.  And boy was it needed.

Sunday morning found me sitting on the front steps in grungy clothes, happily painting away while watching old episodes of Grey's Anatomy on my iPad.  Quite the picture, huh?  I'm nothing if not a classy DIY girl.

By adding a few plants, some new house numbers and those fresh coats of paint, I made a couple solid steps toward a much more "Welcome to our house that we're working on fixing up bit-by-bit!" feeling for the front entry (instead of the "whatever, come in if you want" feeling it gave before...)

Here's a before....

(and, per the usual, Fitzgerald didn't want to be forgotten about)

Whoof!  It was a MESS.  The paint on the steps was chipping like a week-old manicure and that railing just wasn't helping the situation either.  I decided to paint the railing black to tie in with the new dark house numbers and the hardware on the door.  The stairs just got a fresh coat of grey paint that we found in the basement from the old owners.


And now....an after!

I smile when I drive up to the house now!  The railing pops in front of the house and it ties together the house numbers and hardware too.  Fresh grey steps make it look like people actually care about the house you're driving up to.  And a few plants don't hurt either!

Next up in the process is replacing or redoing the light fixture and painting the front door a different color (teal? navy? orange? I can't decide!) I'd also like to build a plant holder to take the job of that tall metal one in the picture...I happened to hide the fact that it's actually a stand that is supposed to be pushed into the ground.  Thinking maybe I can use some scrap wood to build a frame around the stand?  We'll see :)

Now on to a tiny little DIY project...

Over Labor Day weekend I made the wood board with the new house numbers on it. You may have seen the little glimpse on instagram!  Here's the process of how I did it:

The first step in the process was to choose a stain color for the backer board for the numbers.

My go-to stain for a lot of projects is Varathane Kona.  It's rich without being too red or orange toned, so it usually matches my style.  In this case, I wanted the boards to be a little lighter so the house numbers would stand out.  That brought me to one of my other favorite new stain colors, Varathane Sunbleached.  It's great for when you want a weathered look that isn't dark.

Neither Sunbleached or Kona were quite right for the project, so I decided to do a little mixing and create a color of my own.  I used about a 1/4 cup of Sunbleached and just a teaspoon of the Kona to get the color I was looking for.

After measuring and cutting down my scrap wood, I was ready to stain!  After 3 coats of my special mixture, the wood pieces were looking exactly how I had imagined them.

And holding one up to the house confirmed the color was right!

Once the boards were dry, I glued them together with some liquid nails.  Since they weren't going to be holding up too much weight or moved constantly, screws or nails weren't necessary.  Plus, it kept me from having to run to the store to get some kind of really thin board to screw them too :)

I gave the completed, glued together boards a quick coat of Thompson's Water Seal to protect them from the elements, and then let the whole thing dry for a few hours.

Next was the numbers!

The new house numbers came from my number-one BFF, Home Depot.  I swear I spend WAY too much time there.  I could browse all day.

Anywho, the numbers had caught my eye a while back and I thought they would be the perfect modern-meets-homey touch to the front entrance.  They come with templates for installation and screws to put them in either floating or flush.  I chose to use neither of those tools because I am a rebel. So there. (and also, it wouldn't have worked with the way I wanted it to.)

Since the screws were too long for the boards and I didn't want to screw all the way into the house, I decided to just glue the numbers to the board.  The spacing was just eyeballed because I didn't feel like cutting out the stencils.  

After adding 2 picture hooks to the back of the board and popping a couple nails in the house, the new numbers were up!  And I am totally in love with them.

I'll do an update post a few months down the road to let you know how the numbers are holding up and if I would do anything differently.  In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy looking at a spruced-up entry when I pull in the drive!

Linking up @:

- Sugar Bee Crafts

- A Stroll Thru Life

- The Makers

- Work it Wednesday

- Snap Creativity

- Ginger Snap Crafts

One Good Lookin Pup

As you may have already figured out, our puppy Fitzgerald is spoiled. Like REALLY spoiled.  His toys are scattered all over the house and the boy gets treats like they're going out of style. But how can you resist his adorable-ness?

Mr. B isn't a huge fan of pups in clothes, so I figured out a different way to make Fitzgerald look classy and put together all of the time - bow ties.  Plus, doesn't a dog with a name like Fitzgerald NEED a bow tie?  I think so!

When we first got Fitz, I found a bow tie for him at Target (you know, during one of my "I need milk, and oh, also a bow tie for my puppy" runs).  It is completely adorable and was actually pretty reasonable - I think it ran about $4.00.  I slipped it on Fitz' collar when I got home and he has been stylin ever since.

After a run in with a mud puddle and some other dogs, the bow tie needed to be washed badly.  As I was washing it, I realized that the way it is put together is actually very simple, and I decided to make some myself. Then Fitz could have a bow tie for every occasion! Yay!

Here's how I made Mr. Fitzgerald a very fashion-forward orange bow tie...

Supplies:

Fabric (duck cloth or something a little thicker holds up better, but you can make anything work!)
Measuring Tape
Felt
Elastic
Sewing machine (optional)
Scissors
Needle and thread
Hot glue gun

Start by cutting 2 rectangles of fabric for the main part of the bow tie.  I cut mine to 8 inches wide and 4 inches tall, and the smaller one to 2 inches wide by 4 inches tall.  These dimensions will give you a bow tie that is about 4 inches wide and 1.5 inches tall.  You can increase or decrease the dimensions to result in a larger or smaller bow tie as well!  You can set the smaller rectangle to the side, as we will work with that one later on.

Next, fold your piece of fabric in half with the right sides together.  Sew a straight line down the edge of the fabric to secure the 2 sides together and make a tube.  I used a seam allowance of about 1/4 inch, but it doesn't have to be precise (or even pretty!)  You could also do this by hand if you don't have a machine.

Then pull the fabric from one end through the tube to turn it right side out.

That's the base of your bow tie!  At this point, you can iron the tube flat to get crisp seams if you want (I'm lazy so I'm skipping that step, but it can help to make the next part a bit easier)

Take your tube and lay it flat on the table.  Fold one end in just past the middle point of the tube.  Repeat with the other end so that the two ends are overlapping in the middle of the tube by about 1/4 to 1/2 inch.  Pin through all layers, and then sew straight down the middle to secure the ends together.

Grab your smaller rectangle and repeat the steps to turn it into a tube, and then turn it right-side out.  This piece will be the middle part of your bow tie.

Here's where your bow tie will start to come together!

Cut a small piece of thread, and wrap it around the middle of the bowtie.  Pull tight, and then tie another knot so that the tie is gathered in the center.

Take your smaller tube for the center of the bow tie and lay it flat on the table, seam up. Put a large bead of hot glue in the middle and then stick your bow tie piece face down and push hard to secure (make sure you double check that the bow tie is facing the correct way!)

Then take your glue gun and put a large bead of glue in the middle of the back of the bowtie and pull one side of the middle section tightly around the center of the tie and push down to secure.  Repeat with the other end of the fabric

Yay! It's a bow tie now!!  Feel free to gloat about how awesome it looks to whomever is around.

All that's left is to add the elastic to the back that secures the bow tie to your pup's collar.  Start by cutting a small square out of felt.  Mine was 3/4 inches square.

Cut a piece of elastic to 2 inches long, and glue one end of it to the piece of felt.  Then wrap the elastic around and secure the other side to the felt.  (If you made your bowtie bigger or smaller than my dimensions, you may want to adjust the size of the elastic to correspond.  It should stretch enough to get around the collar, but not be too loose)

The last step is here!  Secure the elastic piece to the back of the bowtie with a nice large blob of hot glue.  Make sure that you secure it so that the elastic gets glued between the felt and the fabric.  That will help keep it extra tight and secure.

And that's it!!! Here's a picture of Mr. Fitz sporting his:

(Feel free to ignore the horrible composition of that photo, though!)

I hope you enjoyed my first whack at a tutorial.  Feel free to leave a comment or feedback about it so that I can continue to make them better as I add more!

Linking up @:
- Hope Studios
- The Makers Link Party
- Snap Creativity
- Lamberts Lately