Half & Half

These mums on our fireplace have been cared for equally and yet one is dying.
This sums up how I feel these days:
half of me is blooming, thriving and eager while the other half of me is stressed, wilting, and giving up.

Something for Free!

Are you familiar with One King's Lane?

It's a online site that allows you to buy designer décor and home essentials, entertaining and travel needs, fantastic gift selections and more for up to 70% off retail.

I have heard of the site before, but it wasn't until The Nester over at The Nesting Place posted about an awesome deal that I finally signed up.

And for doing so, I got this gorgeous BIA Cordon Bleu stoneware baking dish FOR FREE!

Ok, I had to pay $7.95 for shipping...but the baking dish was free. And you can get one for yourself, too! Or maybe you need a nice gift for someone for a great price? (You get a $15 credit to spend toward whatever you want on the site...so if bakeware doesn't tickly your fancy, check out their other awesome offers.)

All you have to do is create a new account here at One King’s Lane and you will get a $15 credit to spend on whatever you want.

Be sure to spread the word! You can earn referrals and get another $15 credit {plus they still get their $15 credit}. More fun for everyone! Go ahead and sign up at One Kings Lane. Be sure to come back and let me know what you got.  (The offer is good through Saturday.)
 

Little Girlie Headbands

 I am STILL working on the various rooms we bought furniture for, so I'm not ready to share pics quite yet. In the meantime I'll share some crafty goodness that I've been up to!

Since I am expecting a baby girl in 3 short months, and several of my girlfriends either just had a baby girl or are also expecting girls, I had to give the adorable flower headbands a try.

I've used an assortment of headbands: cotton, crocheted, and the thinner non-slip ones.
I have used silk flowers as well as a few paper ones that I found in the scrapbook section of craft stores. And I like to add small rhinestones to the middle.

I chose to hot glue the flowers to the headbands since I read several tutorials saying this worked fine and I love how easy hot glue is. For the crocheted headbands, I cut a small circle of felt material and glued it under the area of the crocheted area where the flower would go to help hold it all together since there are holes in the crocheted headbands. But for the cotton ones I just glued right on the headband.

For the thinner, no slip headbands (that sort of look like ponytail holders) and I used the smaller paper flowers. These headbands have to be cut down to size and sewn by hand, which is sort of a slow process compared to the other headbands. But I like these type of headbands with small flowers for newborns. I like the daintiness of them on the tiny babies.

Here are my results!

 I am trying to learn to make hairbows next, but they are a little more challenging. If you have any tips let me know!

Show & Share Day at Just a Girl

Shopping til I Drop!

We took advantage of the long weekend and shopped, and shopped, and shopped some more! After spending the summer with the bare minimum in our house so it would show well, we are making lots of progress toward making our house our home again. The basement is coming along nicely, the kitchen is feeling much cozier, and our son's room is beginning to look like a big boy's room! I have also been pulling out fall decor from storage and doing a little shopping for some extra pieces. I'll have lots to show you over the next little bit but until then here's some of the major pieces we purchased.

Ikea:

Pottery Barn Kids:

Have you made any big purchases for your home recently? What did you splurge on?

Cheap Organization

I'll admit it...I'm cheap! And there is nothing I love more than cheap organization and home decor. (Ok, I do love my dear hubby and children more, but I wouldn't call them cheap. ha!) And what I mean by cheap is finding nice products at nice prices (on sale, clearance, etc). Therefore, the end caps of the aisles at Target are some of my favorite shopping spots.

Let me introduce to you my most recent cheap organization find.

It's a dry erase weekly magnetic calendar...and it was on clearance for $3.99! Now I can remember important school items, significant dates, big games, plans with friends, etc. (Ok...let's be honest, it's more to remind my dear hubby. But with my pregnancy brain these days I can use the help as well.)

What are some of your favorite cheap home organization finds?

New Sofa Seeks Pillows

I guess I should begin this post by saying that we have taken our house off of the market and plan to stay put for a while longer. Otherwise, I'm sure you would question why we are buying new furniture for a house that is for sale.

As we prepare for our 2nd baby we know we will be losing our guest room. Therefore, we knew we needed to get a sofa sleeper for our basement so that my family and our friends who live out of town will have a comfy place to sleep when they come to visit. So last weekend we spent an entire day visiting furniture stores trying to find a sofa that not only looked nice but that was comfortable as well.

The sofa was delivered this morning and I love it!

However, I am not loving the pillows that came with the sofa so much. Despite the fact that the colors seem to go well in the room, what you can't see is that we have accented with a lot of white and green on the other side of the room.

So I am in need of some ideas for throw pillows that incorporate green and white. Any ideas?

I am linking up with Help Me Wednesdays at White House Black Shutters.

Back to School Time!

 It's that time of year again! I love fall, and always loved shopping for back to school supplies. While my son goes to "school" (daycare) year round, he will be moving up to a new room on the first day of school next week. So we will be giving the 2 teachers he will be leaving a thank you gifts and giving his 2 new teachers "happy school year" gifts.

This year, we are giving the teachers school supply boxes full of some essentials! I originally saw the idea here. I'm going to add gift cards to the boxes for the 2 teachers he is leaving, but not to the boxes for his new teachers. (they will get gift cards and a little something when he leaves their room)

I got the boxes and all the items to go in the boxes for 4 teachers for under $30 at Michael's. I found all Laura Ashley stuff (pencils, paper clips, pens, erasers, etc) for 50% off. (everything was like 60 cents!) And, I got the boxes in the scrapbook organization area --2 boxes per pack for $6.99 and they were 40% off!

 I used my craft stash for all the supplies to decorate the tops of the boxes. I think they turned out really cute, and I hope all of the teachers enjoy them!

(Note: You can click on the pics to see them larger. I need to get around to redesigning the blog so I can post bigger pics!)

 Do you give gifts to teachers on the last day/first day of school? Share your ideas!

I've Been A Bit Busy

Oh my, time flies when you are having fun!
Or, maybe not so much fun, but rather preparing for fun!
I am so sorry that I haven't posted in forever and a day, but I have been really busy. I have 2 very big projects to share with you!

First up, I have been working on a little number I like to call Baby Girl!

We are thrilled to be adding a little girl to our family! Now we will have a prince and a princess.
And while I'd love to say the pregnancy has been a breeze, it's been a bit more like a hurricane. I have been sick. Very sick. In need to medication sick. So sick I havent' felt like blogging, or anything else. I seem to be feeling a bit better now that I am in my 21st week, but the nausea/pukies just don't want to completely leave. But, I know it will all be worth it! Our little girl should arrive on December 9 (scheduled c-section), one month before her already very proud big brother turns 4.

And our second big project:
Selling our House!
Lord have mercy, I never knew how much work it would take to even get the thing listed let alone sold! So through the morning sickness we have packed away and stored a ton of stuff, done some home maintenance that we kept putting off, had some painting done, etc. And don't even get me started on keeping the place "show-ready" at all times with a 3.5 year old while working full time and being pregnant.
I am pretty proud of the way the house shows. I even had a realtor ask the other if we had a professional stager! I was very flattered.

We have a few prospective homes to buy when we finally sell our place. Wish us luck!

And please do forgive me for not blogging in a while. There just isn't much going on in the way of decor at the moment. However, once we sell and are ready to move into a new place, I will be ready to do some serious nesting!

Making New Friends

Wow, I am being such a bad, bad blogger. I am so very sorry. I worked so hard to create a little community here and am so grateful for all of my followers, and now I have disappeared on you all. I haven't been feeling my best lately. I've also been traveling to be with family. And to top it off April and May are my 2 busiest months of the year at work. I will be headed to Orlando this week for business. Whew! I promise to try to be better, but if you don't see much of me til later in May please forgive me.

A while back Wendy from Relatively Unique graciously invited me along to a day of lunching, thrifting and antiquing in Lancaster, PA with some other bloggers. I truly wanted go, but I couldn't afford missing an entire workday this time of year. So I was incredibly happy when the week of the gathering Wendy let me know they had decided to venture to King of Prussia instead. That's my stomping ground! So I was able to meet the ladies for lunch!

I forgot my camera! How unblogger of me! So I stole this pic from Wendy's blog.

(left to right)

Jessi from Yankee Belle Home

Stephanie from Conversations from the Cul de Sac

Deb from Confessions of an Ugly Mom

Kim from My Domestic Bliss

Wendy from Relatively Unique (taking the pic!)

These ladies were all so sweet and welcoming to me. I wish I could have gone shopping with them! Dang job! But I hear they had a blast, so be sure to check out their blogs to see their scores!

Deckin' out a Deck with Bernadette!

I am incredibly happy to introduce you all to an uber talented friend of mine, Bernadette Uzcategui.

Bernadette is a fabulous on-location photographer in the Philadelphia/Main Line area specializing in pet, newborn, baby, children and family photography.

Please take a moment to visit Bernadette's site here.

When I saw Bernadette's deck prepped and ready for the summer, I asked her to be a guest blogger so that all of you can be as impressed as I am! So without further ado, here is the lovely Bernadette!


My back deck.

A place for oversized squirrels to scurry and mock my dog? Check.
A place for pollen+leaves+bugs to collect and hang out? Check.
Place for me to relax and put my feet up while enjoying the sunshine? Not so much!

With the turn of the season and the gorgeous sunshine filtering through the blossoming trees, I decided it was time for a mini-makeover. I have a 2.5 year old running around, so quick-turnaround was a big part makeover!
I decided to start with the basics: clean the deck. Go figure! A can of OxiClean and a brush broom did the trick!
Next: A table. I had an old vintage iron table base in my basement that I have been lugging around since college, so I pulled that up, along with a salvaged wooden YMCA sign and a HUGE piece of glass that used to be my tabletop…again, in college!

All of my furniture was the same: basic wooden chairs from IKEA. But I needed a real color POP. That is where one of my favorite design stores of all time comes in: Target. Seriously, everything that you see in the after shots that is aqua is from none other that Target! IKEA is the second contributor to the final look: the red accents including the cute lantern on the table are from IKEA.

I completed the festive look with some string lights around the fence to give us a glow while entertaining in the evening and some palms, which I am seriously hoping that I can keep alive this year! I threw weather-proof rug down for the kiddos to play and vio-la! A budget-friendly space where I can sit and enjoy in less than 3 hours!

Finally Hung the Crates!

So that took longer than I meant for it to take! But they are up and that's all that matters. And I am so happy with them!

The stool was Goodwill find. Sorry no before pics (they got lost on my cell phone) but it was originally  green and very banged up. I sanded it a ton, primed it with flat paint and topped it off with ORB. Honestly, it looks mostly black unless you get real close.

I wanted to only use large nails to hang the crates, but that meant I couldn't put the heavy white plates I had bought to go in one of them. And of course it threw the whole "filling" plan. I had to get creative and shop the house. Here's what I came up with:
Top Crate: 2 flameless candles (so I can actually have them "lit" in the crate!) and a fabric napkin.
Middle Crate: taper candle tied together with jute, a cookbook, and more fabric napkins.
Bottom Crate: Faux plants (that were in my hutch).

I didn't have room to use the smallest crate, so I had to find a new place for it along with the white plates I had bought to use as filler. Can you spot where the ended up?

There they are! Now...what to use as filler in this little crate? It is quite small.