Imagination Getaway: 2011

Friday, September 2, 2011

Streets we've called home

I got thus idea after seeing signs at stores that had the steer names of different major cities.. I thought it would be a good idea to do o e of all the streets my husband and I have lived on. Here is the result even though its not perfect.... I like it :)

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Wheeland Brothers - Just Take it Easy

The latest discovery... One of these guys used to be the roommate of a guy that I went to highschool with... I think I'm in love.... with the music ;) ( I'm happily married thank you)... The vibe and the lyrics of this song just make me feel giddy inside. I really miss California and this song really makes me feel like i am sitting there on the beach with these guys just relaxing and admiring their music. This video has made me a huge fan. I Love them and their Jack Johnsonish vibe.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The latest

My husband probably doesn't understand why I am constantly changing up the house, but he ultimately loves the majority of projects that I do around the house. Here is the latest... :) painted on wall paper (sorry for the blurry picture.. it was taken with my camera phone)

My inspiration... officeentrynew

from Jones design company.. I LOVE this blog, and I loved the idea... even though mine didnt turn out as neat, i still like that it adds character to one of the walls in my office.. next time I will have to take my time with it.. i think i was just too excited to get it done that come of my lines didnt turn out quite perfect.. but i still like it. :)

Friday, July 29, 2011

Furniture Revamp

When my husband and I purchased our first home we received a bedroom set from my in-laws. It is a very nice queen bedroom set with a dresser and armour. We parted with the bed in '06 by placing it in our spare bedroom after we received a Cal King mattress from my parents. Just this year we finally decided to make our bedroom look like a 'grown up' room by purchasing matching furniture. We bought a 4-post bed and dresser from Thomasville.. I am in love with it. It is all black with a slight distressing to it. (This is the bed except ours has 4 tall posts)

Instead of purchasing new end tables and armour I decided to just go ahead and paint what we already had.
I started off by picking out the color of paint that I liked.. I decided to paint the end tables an off white to offset the bed, and the armour black to match the rest of the furniture.

I started off by applying liquid sander to all the pieces of furniture. With the end tables I primed before painting (only b/c the original finish seemed to be a little glossier than that of the armour), but with the armour I bought paint with primer already in it.. (it made the process go faster since I was able to 'skip' a step w/o actually skipping it).. I waited a few hours in-between coats just to make sure that all the paint was nice and dry before I reapplied a second coat.

sorry for the horrible picture... I snapped it quickly and didn't edit before posting... but you can get the gist of what it looks like.

This is the old dresser that was in our room... It now sits in the hallway and is being used for some extra storage to hold sheets, towels, etc.

Overall I am very happy with how the pieces turned out. We now have 4 new pieces of furniture...Not bad for about $40.00.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Day after the 4th.... no burnt fingers or hair (thank the Lord!)

This year my husband and I decided to take on hosting duties for our 'hood's' neighborhood party. Even though it wasn't the entire neighborhood, we still had about 50 people here at our house. The day started with a visit to church (to pray to the Lord that everything turn out OK), then breakfast, then back to the house to start the decorating and cooking. I had several ideas leading up to the party on things that I wanted to do.. I wanted to make lemonade cupcakes, chicken BBQ sandwiches as well as broccoli slaw and regular coleslaw. Everything came out great except for some slightly burnt cupcakes.
I am happy to say though, that the one thing I was most nervous about, the pulled chicken BBQ turned out better than i thought it would. I threw it in the crock pot at 8am and took it out at 3pm, just before the party... It was a HUGE success.. I have to give full credit to the Famous Daves Rich n Sassy BBQ sauce for giving it such amazing flavor. It is my ultimate favorite BBQ sauce, and it really did make the chicken taste amazing.

After everyone ate it was time to start the firework show.. I should have guessed that with hosting duties come firework responsibility. Between my husband and a buddy of his, they were able to put on a pretty decent show. I wasn't too thrilled about him being partly responsible of the fireworks, but
I could tell that he was very excited about it. There were a couple times during the lighting that couple fireworks exploded before they took off into the air.. I thought that I was going to see my husband running around in flames after that, but luckily there was no such thing. Once the show was over I felt like I could breathe again. I can honestly say that I love firework shows, but not when being done by my husband..

Friday, July 1, 2011

Thank goodness for Facebook...

There are several reasons as to why I love facebook.. Not only is it a good way to keep up with people I havent seen since high school and even middle school, but it serves as a great reminder for important dates... like birthdays and even my wedding anniversary... Yes, I'm serious. I was doing the daily "facebook check-in" on Monday when I saw up in the corner a little announcement telling me that this Friday was my wedding anniversary. I don't know if I would have forgotten about it completely, but with planning a 4th of July party and keeping up with my etsy orders (which can be found here) :), I probably would not have remembered until the day before. Whew... I wonder if my hubby would have remembered as well.. Oh well... i guess we will never know... but seriously... thank goodness for facebook! Oh, and Happy Anniversay Baby!

Thursday, June 30, 2011

I'm Back in action...

So I know i've been MIA for a really long time... But believe me, I have thought about returning for a while. Having two little girls under the age of 4 really keeps me busy and ALWAYS up to something. Lately I have had a lot more of a desire to blog all the ideas I have had in my head.. Its actually a great way for me to keep track of what I want to do around here... I guess I can look at it as my place for organized chaos. My ideas change daily, so hopefully by putting them all in one place I wont change my mind as often.... But I doubt that.

Just recently I was able to finally convince my husband to paint our house.. It has taken almost 2 years, but we finally did it!! He agrees that paint really does make a HUGE difference in not only the appearance of the house, but also the "vibe". He loves how "warm" it feels, and I completely agree. But aside from having this "warm" feeling, I am excited that I do not have to see greasy little finger prints all over the flat paint that we had on the walls before. I can now actually clean the walls without worrying about a section of paint coming off. Wahoo! (its the small things that excite me).

Now that the painting is done, I have "design fever"... I now want new furniture, new wall decor as well as new landscaping... yes, I know.. I need to slow down. As my hubby tells me I just need to relax...I guess I'll just focus on the inside of my house first. The landscaping can wait.. I'll jsut have to keep all my blinds closed so i don't have to see the lack of flowers and trees that are out there. I guess it can wait until next year

Here are some before and after pictures of our house.... keep in mind not all of the decor is back up on the walls.. this is just to show what a difference paint color can make.