Fourth of July!

I hope all of you had a wonderful Independence Day! We sure did. My mom and my sister McKenna came over and then later some friends joined us for a meal. The guys grilled out while us ladies worked on some side dishes. We had hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled zucchini and squash, mashed potatoes and chips. I loved the grilled veggies and they were the easiest things to whip up! All we did was slice the vegetables, marinate them in Italian dressing and the guys grilled them. Seriously -- so easy!

For dessert, I went crazy. My friend Kelly and I spent the night before making oreo truffles, chocolate covered pretzels and chocolate covered strawberries -- all Fourth of July style! Kelly also helped me make some poms for decoration. Here's the finished product:

I made a little banner from different types of ribbon based on Pinterest inspiration. =)

I was happy to discover that the blue placemats I already had fit in perfectly with the color scheme.

And as you can see, I wrapped red ribbon around two of our glasses to add a pop of color.

Kelly pointed out that the pretzels looked like sparklers once they were covered and dipped in sprinkles. They really do!

We had so much fun making this and making it all 4th of July themed.

After we all had plenty to eat we played Cranium and poker. You know, classic Fourth of July games.

Guest Room Artwork

For the guest room I knew I wanted some inexpensive, DIY artwork that would bring in the gray and yellow I was using throughout the room.

A few weeks ago I went on a weekend trip to Atlanta with some friends and we hit up Ikea. While there I grabbed a bunch of white picture frames (love Ikea frame prices!) and knew that I could use them for guest bedroom art.

 

My friend Kelly, the artist, whipped up some art with paint chips (free!) in gray and yellow. She also used some cardstock that I already had. She is a genius.

Kelly used the quilt and pillows in the room as inspiration and designed the art around those things.

I am so impressed by what she did for this room! She also used a scrap piece of fabric left over from the curtains.

The art really ties the whole room together.

Above the bed she also drew two pieces for me and in the middle she used another scrap piece of fabric.

I wanted her to draw something personal to where we live so that it would be more meaningful. The piece on the left is a drawing of the Saturn V rocket since we live in "The Rocket City" and I work at NASA. You can't get much more meaningful than that!

More zig-zag-y goodness.

The piece on the right is a drawing of a Yellowhammer, which is our state bird. I think this little guy turned out so cute!

Kelly did an amazing job and I'm so thankful I have an artist friend to call on for things like this, because I can barely draw a stick figure... =)

The Guest Room!

The guest room is "finished!" For now anyway... I'm so stoked to have come this far with it. Feast your eyes.

 Here's another full shot with the overhead light on. I love all the pops of yellow.

Here you can see the curtains that I made for the room to go with my yellow and gray theme. I purchased the fabric from fabric.com on discount (I believe it was $22 including shipping -- awesome!) and I loved the modern, geometric print it had. I worked on these while my friend Kelly and I watched Arrested Development (amazing show btw). I'm so happy with how inexpensive they were and how nicely they turned out.

For the sitting area, I brought up one of our leather parsons chairs from downstairs and added an ikea throw and one of the pillows we had from Target. The side table was a birthday gift from my mother and I love the detail on the sides.

 My friends that came for the weekend loved it and most importantly we got to enjoy spending time together.

One of the greatest changes for me was the light fixture. Before it was this hideous round plastic thing.

But I picked up this beautiful light fixture at Lowes for $60 and got it installed. Now I can actually stand to turn on the overhead light in there!

Here's another look at the sitting area and the curtains.

The lamp shade was originally plain, but I wanted to jazz it up a little so I just took some yellow ribbon and hot-glued it around the edge. I think it's so much more fun and a great pop of color in the room.

So there you have it! The updated guest bedroom. I'm so happy with it and can't wait to do more down the road! I still want to add a dresser and some more art, but for now I'm just enjoying it as it is. =)

Update!

First of all, yesterday was my birthday. As I mentioned before, I play ultimate frisbee on a summer league once a week. Yesterday we had our weekly game and not only did we win, but I scored the game winning point (on my birthday -- woohoo!). Just thought you might like to know that. =)

I also thought you might like to see the new addition in the guest room. The bed! Well, a nightstand too, but mainly the bed.

Basically, I love it. I never thought I would actually branch out from blue and green (my two favorite colors), but I'm so glad I did. The yellow and gray are so pretty. Just ignore the wrinkled bed skirt....

The quilt is by Dwell Studio from Target and the pillows are from Target as well. Actually, pretty much everything is from Target.... The lamp is a clearance find from Target -- I love that!

I love how the quilt looks against the gray walls. 

I'm so pleased with how it turned out. And next up -- curtains!

Special Delivery!

The other day I arrived home pleasantly surprised to find a package!

Why was I so excited about this? Well that would be because it contained the fabric that I had chosen for the guest bedroom curtains! Wahoo! And now my mission (which I have chosen to accept) is to turn this fabric into drapes. I'm pretty stoked. No, I will not be sewing.

It's yellow to go with my gray and yellow theme for the room. When I get these bad boys done, I will be sure to share them with you.

In other news, I have been playing a lot of ultimate frisbee. I joined a summer ultimate league and we play every Thursday night. Our team is amazing and tons of fun, we've been getting exercise and we've been picking up new skillz. I love it.

If I play summer league for a few more years maybe I'll have picked up enough skills to be a candidate for the first ultimate frisbee Olympic team. =) Dare to dream, right?

McKenna Doesn't Have to Sleep on the Couch Anymore!

I posted before about how my sweet sister McKenna always had to sleep on the couch when she stayed with me because the poor guest room had no furniture. I developed a plan of attack to get this room whipped into shape when I found out that two of my good friends were coming to stay with me in a few weeks. That was an excellent kick in the pants to get the room started!

After I quit being indecisive and decided on a paint color, my lovely friend Kelly helped me paint the room and I thought you'd like to see it. Here's Kelly being awesome.

The color is called Filtered Shade by Glidden, but we got it color-matched to Olympic No-VOC paint. We painted this whole room with the window shut and we didn't get high from paint fumes. I call that a success. For fun I wanted to scribble something on the wall and then paint over it, so I did. Can you see it in the photo below?

No? Ok, what about this one?

I wrote "You suck Herb!" and if you don't know what that's from, watch this. You will laugh. After painting the room, this is what we had.

I suppose I could have moved the bed frame out of the room, but I was lazy.

However, I'm digging this color and I can't wait to get the whole room put together.

I'm stoked!

I Won!

Susan over at FGK hosted a giveaway a few weeks ago and I am the lucky winner! The prize was a beautiful necklace from Starfish Jewelry. Starfish Jewelry is run by a woman named Amber and she makes gorgeous sterling silver necklaces with charms. I was so excited to get mine in the mail!

It came in this adorable box.

Inside the box, I was impressed to discover that the necklace was nestled inside this little pouch.

It was really difficult to take a picture of it with my little ol' camera, but I got this shot of it.

And here it is on me. I love how simple it is, but it still looks fancy. =) I love it!

Thanks Susan!