Family Photos

For some reason, I've rarely incorporated family photos into my decorating in the past. I think it's due to the fact that I have a horrible habit of never getting pictures printed. They get lost in my camera card, eventually get transferred to the computer with the millions of other pictures that never got printed, and then I forget about them altogether.

But all that changes now!

Jesse and I have been married a year and 7 months, and just last week I printed wedding and engagement pictures for the first time. We have over 800 wedding photos and about 130 engagement photos so obviously I didn't print ALL of them, but just a couple handfuls of my favorites.

I love gallery walls, so I rounded up a bunch of matching wood frames and hung a collection of sepia photos of me and my man.

For a simple way to display photos without a frame, stick a few in the corners of a mirror.





Gone are the days of my camera being full - from now on, I'll start printing and enjoying instead of storing and forgetting. :)

P.S. All of our wedding and engagement photos were taken by the lovely Lisa Christine. She's awesome beyond words!

Color Spectrum

This little wall cupboard of mine has seen a lot of colors in its days!

It started out black...



Then for a short while it was white. So short of a while that I don't even have a picture of it.

Then it was mustard yellow...



And now it's a cheery shade of blue!



My favorite color by far... so far. :)

Happy weekend everyone!

A Temporary Fix

I haven't bought curtains for the living room yet, but I did manage to rummage through some boxes of stuff and find enough matching floor-length ivory panels to use in the meantime. They are, however, about half a foot too short, so it's kind of a stretch to call them "floor-length."

Yup, "eekishly" short. :) But they look nice enough for the time being.

As much as I love a living room full of curtains, pillows, and heaping antique bowls of pine cones, there is one decoration that tops them all; one that I never get tired of looking at; one that compliments any decor in any season. A room is just not complete without...

...a sleeping husband. The ultimate couch ornament. :)

Trash Hide-Away

 A plain white plastic trash can sitting in a kitchen probably wouldn't bother most people, but I am not most people. The obsessive-compulsiveness in me took over and something had to be done! My solution? A laundry hamper from Target. The trash can fits perfectly inside, almost like the two were made for each other. Practical and pretty; just how I like it!

Operation: Window Treatments

Well, the house is officially de-Christmas-ified. I'm usually a little sad when it comes time to take down that big lush Christmas tree but after looking through the new spring Pottery Barn catalog, I was instantly motivated to de-winterize the house. Yes, it's barely into January and I am already thinking about spring. Sad.

Once the Christmas tree and all the other winter greenery was taken down, the living room looked pretty bare. It could also be because there is still one major thing missing in our living room...

Curtains.







There is a major lack of window treatments, but definitely not a major lack of windows. One of my favorite parts of living here is the huge amount of natural light the place gets. Everything on the main floor is always so bright and sunny!



Ahh! Just lovely. :)

So right now, I am totally focused on dressing my naked windows. (And that big empty wall above the couch- I've got a few ideas for that.)

I actually have lots of curtain panels; they're pretty much coming out of my ears, but none are the right color, size, or quantity. (I smell a garage sale coming this summer.) I would love to have these burlap drapes from my beloved Pottery Barn:



But at $89 bucks a pop, that's not even an option. (I need 8 panels for the living room alone.) So I'm on the hunt for inexpensive curtains. Ideally, I would like to find some in the same color family as those from PB. I played around in Paint to show you what it could look like (As always, click the picture to see it bigger):



Pretty, right?

Or what about off-white?



I could get wild and crazy and opt for a print:



Or maybe not.

I'll let you know what I come up with!

Is There Anything Better?

Is there anything better than buying a bright yellow ruffled and polka-dotted tank top in the middle of January just because I can?



Or maybe finding a pair of jeans that fit like a glove, then looking at the price tag to find a neon orange sticker with "$11.99" stamped on it?



What about getting the very last adorable ruffled gray coat on sale - and in my size, nonetheless?



Or how about topping off a perfect day of shopping with a hot and minty Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks?



I think not. :)