New Yarn Storage

So I bought these storage things from Walmart a while ago with no ideas about what to use them for. They were about $3.50 each and I bought 6 of them so we're talking about $21 here. They kind of lock together so there isn't a worry about them sliding off of one another.

Anyway, I was cleaning my living room and these crates were just sitting there with no purpose and then it came to me! I had seen many yarn storage shelves that seemed so permanent and I love the way they look, but I need something that I can move for now. We're not done building my craft room/office yet. So here it is!

I think it looks pretty nice. Plus, I can see all the colors that I have. It case you can't see, I have 5 skeins of grey heather. I'm not sure why I kept buying it, but at least by viewing everything this way, I know that I don't need to buy that color for a while.

When there's no room for a side table...

...just add a shelf. There are always options. We have a small living room upstairs and a small bedroom. We didn't think there was enough room for another side table in either one of these rooms and then I came up with a brilliant idea! We had some leftover wood from a different project so we just had to buy some L-brackets at the store. I painted two boards and then we rounded off the corners to make it a little safer. After all, we all know that 3-year-old boys are really good at hurting themselves.

Then, I painted the shelves. I found some studs and screwed the shelves into place. It was seriously as easy as that! The take up hardly any room, they're very functional, and they don't look half bad.

Our Regifting Bin

Some people may find this in bad taste, but others might find it ingenious. We didn't start this on purpose. It started out as a place to stash things that we didn't know what to do with. Then, it became the place we put gifts that we couldn't return. Now, it's our re-gifting bin. The trick is to remember who gave it to you and to not give it back to them!

In our bin we have a glass mixing bowl from Pampered Chef. It's in there because I registered for one for our wedding and we received 3. As it turns out, I really enjoy having 2. I use them all the time. However, I really don't need 3. After I got them, I researched returning them and found that it was incredibly difficult. Bad Pampered Chef! That is not a good thing to be known for! Oh well. It's a really good gift though, so I won't feel bad for the person who eventually receives it.

Next we have a wine stopper. It has a giant 'diamond' on the end. Again, we received 3 for our wedding. I really like them, but I don't need 3! When we first started getting wedding gifts, we put them in a box in our closet while we waited to get a house so we didn't even realize we had 3 of them until almost 2 years after we got them so we didn't return it. Again though, not a bad gift.

Another item we have in there is a mirror. It's one of those that swivels and fits on a desk or something. It's nice for putting on your make-up, especially since when you flip it over, it's magnified. The problem? I already have one. I got one from IKEA right before I left for college. Why can't I return it? Because I got it for free from Bed, Bath, & Beyond. It's a really nice thing they do for newlyweds! They have this 'party' where they invite multiple couples in the area about a month or so after your wedding and you get 20% off anything left on your registry (although they told us you can pretty much get anything, not just stuff on your registry). They'll even order things for you. They have cookies and drinks. They give you a free gift of your choice (something small-they have a couple things to choose from-we got a drying pad for dishes) and a mystery gift (this was our mystery gift). These things have a slash through the barcode so you can't return them.

I know you all love hearing my life story, so we'll move on to the next item. It's a blanket. My husband wanted this blanket on Amazon that has his favorite college football team on it for Christmas one year so my parents got it for him. Well, about a month later, they received another one. I guess there was some kind of mix-up. The sellers said to keep it if they wanted, but since they aren't fans of the team, they gave it to us. We have no use for 2 of the same blankets so it's in there. It's a very nice woven blanket.

If you are one of those people that thinks having a regifting bin in my house is in bad taste, I ask you, what should I do with these items? Donate them? Maybe. Sell them? That's worse in my opinion. And what about the people that receive these unwanted gifts? Well, in my personal opinion, they're lucky. Clearly, I like every single one of these items because I already own them. I would never give someone something that I wouldn't love to receive.

Thanks for reading! Do you have a place in your home where you keep items to regift? I'd love to hear about what you've received or given.

DIY Lightswitch Plate

When we moved into our new home, we inherited a couple Spiderman lightswitch plates. They're cool and everything...if you're a 10-year-old boy who LOVES spiderman, but that doesn't describe anyone in my house. One of them is in my son's room so that one doesn't really matter, but the other one is in our guest room and I'd really love to change it up. Now, the easiest way to do this would be to go to the store and buy a new cover. The bright side? That costs next to nothing. We're talking about less than 50 cents. But what fun would that be? As far as I can see? No fun at all. So what did I do? I Mod Podged a picture on it. Yes. It is seriously that easy!

1. Print out a picture.

2. Put the lightswitch plate upside down on the back of the picture and draw around it. Cut.

3. Mod Podge the lightswitch plate.
4. Put the picture on the lightswitch plate and Mod Podge over the top.

Seriously! I'm done! That's it! Easy!

Pictures of Kids in the Bath in the Bathroom

When I first saw this on Pinterest, I thought it was very cute. Then, during the Christmas season, I took some pictures of my son making Santa beards while taking a bubble bath and thought they would go perfectly in my bathroom. So many times, it's hard to find good things to put in the bathroom! There are a couple word art things you could do, but that didn't really fit our style. Sometimes it's weird to put pictures with people in them in the bathroom. I mean, it's almost like someone is staring at you while you're doing your business! I feel like having a child in the pictures makes it MUCH less creapy! I had a couple scenic pictures in our bathroom in the old apartment. They looked nice. Then, when we moved into our house, I put up a small framed painting. That also looked nice. What kind of art do you have in your bathroom (if any)?

Say Cheese (Decorating with a photography motif)

If you, like myself, have an interest in photography and want to decorate a studio or just a hobby room or something, I have some ideas for you. I can honestly say that I want ALL of these!

Smile Retro Camera Art Poster Print ($9.99)

Camera Vintage Style Pop Art Poster ($9.99)

Sterling Home Portrait Camera Decorative Accessory, 12-Inch Tall ($48)

Ojia Decorative 18x18-Inch Cotton Blend Linen Throw Pillow Cover Cushion Case, Vintage Cameras ($14.95)

Camera Bookends ($39.95)

How do you decorate with photography in mind?

Literary Genius!

Do you love books as much as I do? I have always been incredibly jealous of Belle. She get's to be in that beautiful library because she was able to accept the beast. I would accept the beast if I got that library!

Well, I was reading my Family Circle magazine this morning when I saw something amazing. It was on page 25 (so pretty early in the magazine). It was a page of décor items for us book lovers. I know a lot of you probably don't get this magazine so I want to share with you what I found! Enjoy!

You can find this pillow at society6.com for $27.

These 'bookends' can also be used as vases since their tops are open. You can find them at elizabethsembellishments.com. They cost $20.95 for one 'bookend'.

You can find this mug at us.penguingroup.com for $9.95.

You can find this set of 8 coasters at outofprintclothing.com for $20.

You can find this amazing clock at uncommongoods.com for $24. I actually shop here a lot.


I love all of these things. Are you going to buy any?

Striped Wall

I have another paint project for you guys! We painted our bedroom this time. We decided to go for stripes.

You should first paint your 'background color'. We used the color of our other 3 walls as the top, middle, and bottom stripes, making it our 'background color'. Then, we measured our wall, and drew out the lines. We then taped everything off.



We painted one color, waited for it to dry, taped off the other stripe, and then painted our third color.



Show me your paint projects in the comments! I need new ideas for the rest of my new home.

Argyle Bathroom

Alright guys! I'm super excited to finally show you something that we've done in our home. Today, we're going to start with the basement bathroom. We painted it when we painted the rest of the basement. Here's what the wall looked like before:



Before we bought our house, I found this on pinterest (of course). I NEEDED to put something similar in my house. At first, I didn't know where, but I eventually found a spot. The basement. Some people may think "really? the basement?" but you have to understand our basement. It is basically a HUGE living room with a half bath. This is the place that we're going to spend most of our time.

Ok, so the first thing I did was make a plan. You'll have to take measurements of your room and plan accordingly. My plan looked like this:



We painted the bathroom the same color as the rest of the basement. Then, we added the diamonds of the argyle. I would say the worst part of this whole thing is the taping. All of your measurements need to be exact! Here, I taped off the lines.



Once I painted those lines and took off the tape, we finally had our finished project! I love it!



Share your painting projects in the comments below! I want to see what you've done. I love seeing other people's ideas. Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned for more projects!

I'm buying a house!

I have lived in my current apartment for 3 years now. It's not in the worst neighborhood by any means. However, no matter where you live, if you're renting an apartment, you WILL have some trashy people living near you. People are so rude sometimes. The family that currently lives across the hall from me has a couple kids. That's fine. Except I have no idea how many children they actually have because it seems like there are at least 5 children going in and out of this apartment like 20 times a day. Keep in mind that this is a 2 bedroom apartment so there's no way all these people actually live there. Anyway, we live on the second floor and the stairs go along the other side of the wall as my apartment so when the boys RUN and STOMP as loud as humanly possible up and down the stairs every single day, I get headaches. They seriously have to try to be that loud. The people that live below us frequently play some racing video game and of course they have to play it INCREDIBLY loud. Again, headache.

Needless to say, I am so ready to be living in a real house! This also means that I'll be posting as many things as possible about redoing our house! I already have so many ideas. Let me share some of my awesome ideas with you! The following pictures are ones that were posted on the internet while we were looking for houses.


This is going to be the guest bedroom. It's pretty small, but we'll make it work. My idea with this room is to decorate it with all of our souvenirs from the many travels we've been on.

This will be my son's room. Clearly we're going to paint it a different color. Purple doesn't exactly scream BOY! (which is totally weird because apparently two boys slept in this room.)

It has pretty good curb appeal, huh? We did have a small issue with the roof that was discovered during the inspection, but they fixed it so now it's all good! Always take your inspection seriously!

This is the basement. It is a seriously huge room. I don't know what we're going to do with this space yet, but my husband has some ideas. He wants to add a bar. We'll definitely put our dartboard here, but other than that, it'll probably have some comfortable seating and a big TV.

My husband wants to finish off this area in the basement. Right now it's just stacked cement block walls and a cement slab floor. It could potentially be my office and photography studio. Then, when we sell, it can be considered a bedroom.

Right now, this half bath in the basement is super plain. I want to add some kind of cool painting technique and add some shelves for storage.

This is the living room upstairs. It's not huge, but if it's more than just our little family, we'll go to the basement so I want to make this area very comfortable. I just imagine us spending nights watching some TV or something.

The deck area is very nice. It's right off of the kitchen/dine-in area and it looks over the entire back/side yard. It even has a gate already so that our son can't go down the stairs. He actually just had his 3rd birthday party this past weekend. My parents bought him a picnic table. I hope it fits nicely on our deck.

This is the play equipment that they're leaving behind. My son is super excited to play on it!

This is the eat-in kitchen area. My husband and I were thinking about putting a built-in bench underneath the window on the left. This can also double as a storage area. The bench can flip up and we can keep things for the deck and games in there. Then we'll have a table and chairs to go with it.

There isn't a whole lot that we NEED to do to the kitchen, but there are a few things that we WANT to do. My husband wants to replace all the appliances. If we do, we'll probably get black ones. The kitchen is a little white for my taste. Also, we need to replace the hardware on the cabinets. I'll have to post a close-up picture of them later. They look like vines with leaves at the end. That's just not my taste.

I actually kind of like the bathroom for now. Our current shower curtain is brown with green circles on it so the color scheme is working for me. I'm sure that I'll eventually change everything.

and this will be my bedroom. Clearly we won't have our bed like that. That's just weird. Also, we need to paint. Seriously. This bedroom has the most boring color on the wall. It could definitely use a change.

Hopefully, I can show you all the amazing changes that we'll do to this house! I can't wait until it really feels like home. We close on April 12th. That is a mere 24 days away!