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.