Behind the Scenes

Since most of the pictures I've posted of our house are obviously styled, I thought it would be fun to show you a little bit of how our house normally looks on a daily basis. Jordan and I are usually pretty good at keeping things straightened up, but between full time jobs and a 4 month old, it doesn't always get done. 

Our bed is rarely made.

And half the time we share it with a dog and 4 month old.

Where I throw my clothes,

and where Jordan throws his.

Always laundry to be put away.

Let's face it, Lucy runs this house.

Two things you never see in living rooms pictures: Lyla's dog bed, and Lucy's Pack 'N Play. 

I now share 'my' bathroom with Lucy.

Our guest room (which I have big plans for!)

My messy counterspace. And Jordan's iPod player.

I'm in the midst of reorganizing my closet.

I'm really tempted to paint over the blue with leftovers of my favorite "Sharkey Grey."

Now in our defense, this was in the midst of the great flea incident.

But sometimes our laundry room is a bit messy.

(Stay tuned to see how I've implemented my $3 art!)

Leftovers from late night TV on the couch.

Our dining room AKA my craft space AKA where we store cases of water and pet food.

Oh, and more Lucy stuff. :)

Stay tuned for some goodies this week including a yummy pork taco recipe that we had for dinner last night (and I'm eating for lunch today)!

Blog Takeover: Neat & Tangled

What are these? 

And how did I make them?

Head over to Danielle's blog, Neat & Tangled, to find out.
I'm doing a guest blog today to let her spend some QT with her new bundle of joy.
Thanks Danielle for letting me takeover Neat and Tangled for the day!

Dining Room Wall Art

While catching up on some Rachel Zoe a few weeks ago, I noticed this really cool piece of wall art in the background of a shot. It's a scene in the hotel room of a hotel in New York, although I'm not sure which one. 

I snapped a few pictures with my iPhone. 

(Sorry for the terrible Molly Sims profile shot.)

Side note: I just looked up the lyrics and apparently the song is Bryan Adams' "Heaven." Could have been a cooler song... womp womp. 

It reminded me of the anniversary gift I made for Jordan back in April, which is probably why I was so attracted to it. I just love the look of handwritten art and had so much fun creating Jordan's surprise anniversary gift with our wedding song.

Regardless of the song, I thought the art piece looked very cool - simple, but unique. I have been determined to duplicate it ever since. As part of my Fall to-do list I've been trying to spruce up our dining room, and the walls are pretty sparse (excluding my photo-booth art). I thought this would be the perfect solution to fill one of the large empty walls. I ran my idea by Jordan and he loved it.

Armed with my 40% off coupon, I stopped at Michael's craft store last weekend and picked up a 3'x4' blank canvas.

Originally $39.99, at 40% off this canvas ended up costing me $23.99.

Indecisive what color to use, I also stocked up on these paint colors:

First is a dark taupe color, the second is a gray and the third silver.

Here's Jordan playing Vanna White for me showing where the art piece will go once finished.

I put Jordan in charge of selecting what will go on the canvas. He went back and forth between a few ideas, first quotes about food/wine, then a few songs. I think we've finally settled on some lyrics. But you'll have to wait to find out what song!

I'm excited to start this project, although I already know from doing the anniversary gift that it will take me some time to complete. I'm a little nervous that if I try to do too much of it at once my hands will tire and my handwriting will suffer. I'll need a few nights with 1-2 uninterrupted hours to work. Which right now is near impossible with Lucy. (Also the reason I've been putting off repainting our guest room. Just no time with the bug unless I ship her off to her grandparents. More on the guest room at another time.)

Regardless, I'll keep you posted on the progress.

I'm hoping to get start sometime this week!

Girl Crush: Elin Kling

Thanks to WWW I have been introduced to my new girl crush, Elin Kling.
She's a model turned fashion blogger from Sweden who runs Scandinavia's biggest fashion blog, Style by Kling.
I came upon her blog last night and I'm hooked.
In fact, was pinning several of her looks on my pinterest as inspiration.  
(See the link to the right to follow me on Pinterest!)

via

She makes something as simple as jeans and a sweat shirt look chic.

I've been wearing my blazer like crazy lately.

Love seeing jeans with a blazer.

Makes me want to start wearing my chucks again.

Those purple booties are the perfect pop of color to an all-black ensemble.

Love love these gold pants.

I've been craving a pair of black leather skinnies for quite some time now.

Effortless.

Check out her blog here.

$3.00 Laundry Room Art

For those of you who may think I've forgotten about my Fall To-Do list, this one's for you. 

I am making progress on my goal to spruce up our laundry room with some new art work.

Remember these frames I got for FREE at work?

They were sitting in the trash pile practically calling my name.

This weekend I put them to good use with the 3 vintage prints I bought at Goodeals.

Two of the prints I specifically chose because they had soap ads. I couldn't find a third "soap-related" ad so I purchased one that simply matched the style of the other two. It is an ad for teas instead. I had in the back of my mind as I was picking them out that these prints would be going in the laundry room, hence the theme.

The two frames I got from work were actually professionally framed, so I needed to break out the screwdriver and do a little Macguyver work to take them apart (and remember how they go back together).

It was actually much easier than I had anticipated.

I mentioned before that there was some writing on the front of the mats (you can see in the first picture) so I needed to flip them and use the back side of the mats when I reused the frames. 

The only snag I hit was when I did so, the original print was actually glued at the top to the back of the mat and left some damage when I removed it. 

It worked out in the end since I needed to attach the mat to the back of the print instead of actually using the mat how it normally is used. If I properly matted the print, it would have cut off a good chunk of the ad. So I lucked out that the art was large enough to cover the tear when the print was mounted on the mat.

Then I simply put the frame back together.

I repeated the same with my other frame and a second print. 

I also reused a frame I already own and framed the third, smaller print.

I am SO happy with how things turned out. 

The prints actually look better than I had anticipated when I purchased them. 

I can't wait to find a home for them in our laundry room.

And of course this whole project cost me next to nothing:

2 frames from work - FREE

1 frame already owned - FREE

3 prints (at $1.00 each) - $3.00