Hi There

I finally made a new door mat! I told you guys that after making the new wreath for the front door, making new no-sew pillows, and getting new outdoor furniture, it was about time to have a happy, summery front door mat to finish out the cuteness!

Our old one was functional, but that's about it...Here it is:

It's not like it's ugly...it's just not what I wanted :) So I bought a door mat at Ikea for $4.99 and made plans to spray paint something cute on it in a cute color (very detailed, I know). After looking around Pinterest and google for about a week I decided I just wanted words on it in the bottom left corner so it looked modern and relaxed. I decided on "hi there" because Blake and I say that to each other from time to time while joking (it's from Doug in Up!). Once I decided on what I wanted I went to Microsoft Publisher to help me make it real (I would have used Photoshop, but I know Publisher better therefore it was faster).

I measured the door mat and put the dimensions in publisher so I could get the words the size that I wanted. Once I determined how large I wanted them, I copied and pasted into Word and printed them out! Here's what they looked like:

Then I took my X-acto knife and cut out the letters so that there was a stencil left behind and I taped it onto the door mat like this:

 Then I spray painted that with Krylon's indoor/outdoor spray paint in Blue Ocean Breeze. I also added paper around the edge of those pages once I realized spray paint was getting everywhere (unfortunately it was a bit too late for me to not have a little outline...darn) Anyways, here's how it turned out!

What do y'all think? Should I paint a pattern on the mat to cover up the extra spray paint outlines I made? I've also considered adding a border around the letters using craft paint to make them a bit sharper (definitely should have used painters tape..darn) Have y'all seen this idea on Pinterest and have tried it out? How did yours turn out?

I Heart Shopping

This past weekend was Blake and my first wedding anniversary and so we went to Atlanta, GA to celebrate! I took pictures and made a couple of videos so I'll be sure to share them all once I get them edited and what not. But today I wanted to show you what I got while we were there! I LOVE going to Atlanta because that is where the nearest Ikea is and I'm in love with Ikea. But I'm not in love with the fact that almost none of their stuff is available to purchase online. Blake and I actually had a lovely conversation over an Ikea hotdog about why this is, but we didn't really figure out anything...sigh. Anywho! We went to Ikea on the last day of our trip and so we had already reached our budget for what we wanted to spend while we were in Atlanta so I didn't get to buy everything I wanted to buy, but I did get to buy enough to have some fun with!

I bought two sets of Merete curtains for $19.99 each (which are the same ones that I bought for the office on our first Ikea trip). Here's a picture of them:

I got them in white so that we could dye them whatever color we want! We bought these for our bedroom and I couldn't decide what color I wanted...originally I was going to go with a brown and orange theme for our bedroom, but then I changed my mind and I haven't really made it up yet. 

Right now we have a dark gray comforter that we both aren't really fans of, so we're going to make a change eventually we just haven't decided to what we will be changing. I'm leaning towards a blue and gray room...but that may change soon...so basically all of that to say, we bought white curtains so that we could dye them whatever color we want when the time comes. And I'll give y'all the play-by-play when we do, but if you want to know how to do it now, the guys over at Young House Love have already done it and you can find that tutorial here.

We also picked up this door mat for only $4.99:

The plan for that little guy is to paint it! After we purchased the new patio furniture, made new pillows, and made a new wreath, the old gray and very manly door mat just wasn't going to work anymore! So I'm going to paint this with probably some bright happy colors to welcome our guests! :)

And finally we bought four 5x7 white frames (found here for $3.99 for two) and two 8.5x11 white frames (found here for $1.99 each) so I can do some fun stuff with scrapbook paper, printables, and anything else I can find on Pinterest :)

I think I'll have bunches of fun with these things (if I can decide what exactly I want to do with all of them! That's my worst enemy! Indecision! Well, that and procrastination) :) 

So what do y'all think about the million questions I posed in this post? What colors do you think would be good for our curtains? Any ideas on what to paint on our new door mat? Or how about ideas for the frames we bought?

Kitchen Art!

I have been trying to get some art up in my kitchen for like a million years now! I'm currently making something that will go on a wall (and one day when I complete it, you guys will get to see it), but I needed something to go here, above the stove (where a built-in microwave would be if they weren't so expensive!)

I've had quite a few plans for this area. At first, I was going to make a cute clock and put it there with some little details around it to fill up the space. Then, I went to Ikea and got two 8x10 Ribba frames, so the clock idea was out because it wouldn't fit and I wanted to use my new frames! lol

So then I was thinking printables! That took forever to figure out what I wanted (like a solid two weeks to decide and then I had to make it in photoshop!) Here's what I ended up with:

I didn't finish the other one, but it was going to say something about the perfect pair with a picture of a pear. The reason I didn't finish the other one was because I printed this hippo print out at my school (UAB)'s library (we are out of color ink...sigh) and when I got it home, it just didn't look good. My mat was more yellow than I realized and on white printer paper, the print next to the mat just didn't look good. And I printed out an 8x10 version, but the colors were off (I think it's my monitor...I need to figure out this whole changing my color thing!).

So, back to the drawing board I went! I found these free printables on Thirty Handmade Days which are super cute:

   

She had quite a few including Dr. Pepper, Frosting, Diet Coke, and a couple of others, but they didn't match my color scheme, and weren't actually true for me...I am a Mountain Dew addict. I looooooove Mountain Dew! So I made my own!

But I couldn't think of what to put in the other frame, so that too was saved for a rainy day (in a safe place of course, because I totally want to use that!) Then I came across this on Pinterest:

And I was like, I have buttons, I have frames, I can do this! And so I did! It was super easy, and only took about an hour and a half! (I was watching a Day9 Daily about Starcraft 2, which is a super cool game that Blake plays, and Day9 is a hilarious and brilliant commentator so it made time fly by!) Anywho! Here's how they turned out:

I have to admit that by the B, I was running out of buttons, which is why there are a lot of transparent buttons on that one, but it will be super easy to change them out with bright, opaque buttons once I pick some up (I'll just peel off the transparent ones (because I glued them on) and replace them with new ones!) I also didn't cut the black cardstock to fit, I just cut it small enough to fit on the mat and taped it to the mat (I'm terrible at cutting a straight line, so I thought this would be safer since I only got one sheet of 12x12 cardstock so not a lot of margin for error). But I heart them!

What do you guys think? Have y'all tried out the ol' button monogram? Or anything from Pinterest so far?

Weekend Happenings: Success!

I mentioned in this post that Blake and I were going to Ikea for the first time and I am super excited to say it was a success (and we are officially impressed with Ikea)! Here's what we got:

These curtains (which were the less expensive ones mentioned in Friday's post, because Blake said the others were too girly lol) we got for $19.99 for two panels! I am so impressed with these, they don't feel or look like I paid 20 bucks for them! (Pictures soon to come!) :)

We also got these: They were only $4.99 a piece and I am going to be diy-ing some art for the kitchen soon!

And finally we got these! (I knew we would get the better looking table!) We got the chairs for $24.99 a piece and $34.99 for the table. When we first put the table out there, we thought the table was a bit too tall for the chairs, but after we kept looking at it, it grew on us (and it really is the perfect height when you're sitting in the chairs). I think the wood color is perfect also! It brings in enough red to coordinate with the lava rock but still looks great next to the house. We'll be bringing in some more color soon to help it stand out more like maybe some pillows and some flowers!

 

And here Blake made me sit in the chair...he wouldn't let me not do it! So here it is ;)

We ended up getting all of this stuff for $124! Yippee! We're super excited! It is safe to say that Ikea has my heart (unfortunately, the closest Ikea is 2 and a half hours away...sad face), but now we know how awesome Ikea is (and their prices...wow!) so if we're ever in the Atlanta area, we are sooo there! :)

I hope you all had an awesome weekend! What did you do? Get out and work in the yard? Just relax? Went shopping? Focused on The Brighter Things? (I know you did) ;)

For The First Time!!

That was a Taylor Swift reference, but I'm pretty sure that only my hubby and I would get it (until you now!), but Blake always makes fun of Taylor for writing songs about "the first time" (We were both young when I first saw you...You put your arms around me for the first time...and I'm sure there are others, but I can't think of them off the top of my head!)
Anywho! Back to reality!
Blake and I are going to Ikea tonight for the first time and I am sooo pumped!! I am always looking at their website and it seems like every blog I read talks about Ikea at some point, so to be able to go see for myself all the awesomeness in person makes me feel like I swallowed a teddy bear! (all warm and fuzzy on the inside)
There are a few things that I am definitely going after tonight! Here are a few:

We have decided to do a blue color scheme in our office, and I just can't find the right blue....

until I looked on Ikea's site!

These are only $19.99 for both panels!! How awesome is that!?!

These I like because of their pattern! They bring in more than one blue and have a really modern aspect to them, unfortunately, they are $59.99. That is for both of them, but when comparing the ones above...the price difference is really monumental! So, we'll just see if Blake and I fall in love with the more expensive ones!

 We have also been keeping our eyes out for some outdoor furniture for our porch to compliment our new curb appeal, but everywhere we've been looking has been a bit more than we want to spend for what we're wanting. We don't want it to look like we spent next to nothing, we want it to look awesome and only we (and you guys of course) know that it was super cheap :)

So, tonight we're going to look at these things for our front porch! 

This table is only $19.99! Can you believe it?

 This one is $29.99 but I have a feeling the hubby is going to like it waaay better than the other one. He's pretty picky sometimes ;) Which, hey! I'm always up for having something that looks more legit!

 And I'm totally in love with this chair! And its price! Only $19.99! Too exciting! I have a feeling this little guy will be coming home with me tonight :)

I'm also going to looking around for some frames for an upcoming kitchen artsy stuff and scowerring the clearance section for anything that's totally awesome that says "BUY ME!" :)
So, that's the excitement of today (other than the general awesomeness that comes from it being Friday YAY!) :)
How is your Friday going? Any big plans for the weekend?