By now I am certain you have been on Pinterest, or at the very least, heard of it. When Pinterest first got started, I really loved it and quickly became an "addict". As the years have gone by, I still have an appreciation for it, but am sometimes disappointed with the amount of misguided or misleading pins the rest of us fall victim to. We have all heard or seen the "Pinterest fails" and had ourselves a few good laughs. But wouldn't it be great if everything on Pinterest was actually realistic and feasible for the rest of us?! Today I am sharing a couple of my favorite "Pinterest hacks" that I have used in our house.
Hanging shoe organizer for cleaning supplies
G-E-N-I-U-S.
For real. Our kitchen is on the small side, so cabinet space is not a surplus for us. The idea of storing all of our cleaning supplies under our sink was not even worth entertaining. Plus, when you store your supplies individually, if one spills or leaks it doesn't make a mess of the rest of the bottles!
Towel bar for scarves
We installed this almost immediately so I could wrangle my scarf collection. It has worked wonders for me! The key to organizing is making systems that are quick and easy to use, otherwise you won't use them at all. I can always see all of my scarves at any given time and can quickly put them away. I think it also adds a nice visual element, almost like decorating with your accessories.
DIY his/hers/theirs mail sorter
I picked up this pre-made mail sorter and painted it to coordinate with our kitchen. The only negative to this project is I kind of wish the slots were a little bit bigger... but it still works great for us. When I sort through the mail, most of it gets recycled or put away for filing/saving. However, there are always those random pieces of mail we have to hang on to for a little while (coupons, items that need to be handled or mailed back). I love that this mail can be sorted neatly but kept in sight so it gets taken care of.
For whatever reason, we have a large assortment of mismatched sheets. I have kept these for the occasional overnight guest, but for the most part they remain untouched. Since I've started putting entire sheet sets inside a pillow case, it is always easy for me to grab a clean, full set of sheets and not end up with six pillowcases and a flat sheet.
Of course, there are so many more ideas I have pinned that I want to try out or am saving for our next house. Share some of your best (or worst!) Pinterest hacks in the comments below. Don't forget to check out my Pinterest boards and follow me to see what else I find!
Hey gang! How are you? If by chance you have stopped by the blog to check in, I apologize for my lack of presence lately. I have put in some crazy overtime hours the past five weeks which kept me from making great new content over here.
Needless to say, I've already busted my 2015 resolution of posting 4x a month... but that won't keep my from trying the rest of this year! I have some ideas for new posts, so keep your eyes peeled for some great new stuff.
What have I been up to, besides living at the office, you ask? Great question. One weekend we spent the whole time doing laundry and chores because we (I) had neglected them. Last weekend we went to see Disney on Ice: Frozen. It was phenomenal. And no, we don't have kids ;) I'm just a big Disney geek and loved it almost as much as the adorable 2.5 year-old behind us. For the record: I did not wear an Elsa costume (they don't come in my size...). I randomly stopped drinking coffee for three days, but don't worry, I got back on the bandwagon! Oh ya, I've worked on collecting our tax documents, but haven't actually gotten around the submitting them. Pretty much I've been really on top of things and life and stuff...
Check back soon, and I promise to have some new posts for you! Also, it has snowed a lot the past week or two, but I swear that Spring will be here soon-ish. And that means lots of fun outside projects :)
As I wrote the title to this post I realized I like collages... so, just go with it ;) k thanks.
I have loved quotes since I was a young girl. I'm not sure what got me interested in them or how it started, but as long as I can remember I have kept a list of them. Of course now that "list" has turned into several Pinterest boards, but I have old journals from middle school that I hand-wrote quotes for safe keeping. So naturally, when I had my own home to decorate, there would be quotes everywhere!
One of the first spaces I really focused on after we settled into our first home was our master bedroom. There were a couple of reasons: 1) it actually had matching furniture (from my bedroom at my parents house) 2) for guests to access the second bathroom they have to walk through our master bedroom 3) it makes me happy to lay my head down on my pillow at night in a space that feels finished. Its like my brain can finally stop working because the room I am in doesn't have a giant list of "to-do" items.
So I made this collage from some of my favorite love quotes: (don't judge me for the old crappy cell phone picture)
As soon as we hung the frames on the wall I knew it wasn't quite finished. The frames did not take up enough space compared to the headboard - there was too much empty space. After a lot of shopping and searching Pinterest, I decided to add some large letters to the collage of frames. The tricky part was, my husband didn't want to put a "bunch of holes in the wall" so he said we could hang up the letters as long as I could use all the existing nails and only add new ones. I've always liked a challenge :)
After a little re-working, this was the final result!
We finished this project almost two years ago and I still love it. I've considered either swapping out some quotes or adding more frames for wedding photos, but I think it will look crowded. So for now, it stays.
A lesson I have learned time and time again while decorating our house: if you like something, go for it. It may not be perfect right off the bat, but you have a start and can always find more things to make it work!
You can purchase these quotes from my Etsy shop to make your own collage! This would look great above a bed or in a hallway, even above a dresser.
*Disclaimer: these quotes are not my original quotes, however, I did create the designs
Christmas brings about a lot of emotions for me... about my house. (This sounds so ridiculous! Keep reading, you may be able to relate) When I get all of the Christmas decorations up I am happy because everything is so pretty and festive. The day after Christmas I always convince myself that it makes sense to leave the decorations up until after New Year's Eve because that is basically an extension of the holidays - but really it is because I am not ready to part with them. On January 1st, I admit that, sadly, they will have to come down soon enough. Then I mull over that for a few more days, and usually during the second or third week of January, the decorations are getting on my nerves and I am taking them down without much fight. It is like a weird roller coaster. I think most of it has to do with the fact that the decorations are a lot of work and time, but by the end of it I just don't care anymore.
My husband is always happy to get everything "back to normal". We have to semi-rearrange our living room to fit the Christmas tree, so I get it.
Because I always have a "mantle" up, out comes the winter decor right after the Christmas stuff is boxed away. My theme for winter: winter :) Blues, silver, white, a few pine cones, reindeer, etc. Christmas is full of twinkling lights and red and green. The change to a cool, neutral palette is quite refreshing. Plus, it can get pretty darn cold here in Missouri, which matches the cool metals of my decor.
Most of the items I have gathered are technically Christmas items, but I don't think it feels Christmas-y at all. I also love that I can keep this up until spring time and it always makes sense with what is going on outside. I do not decorate for Valentine's day because, well, I just don't. I mean, I have found plenty of adorable things on Pinterest that I like. But it just seems a little silly (personal opinion!)... Valentine's Day is not a big deal for us and I'm not sure my husband would appreciate hearts and such floating around our house.
I do not put up nearly as much winter decorations as I do for Christmas, but here are a few photos of what I do have up:
Isn't this antler bowl so cool?? I found it in the Christmas clearance and thought it was perfect for winter!
Often times, on December 25th, you will find me in my sweatpants and ponytail scrounging through the Christmas clearance at Target, Walmart and the like. Why do I do this? Because I am cheap. Really, that is the only reason. A younger version of myself got some sort of thrill out of digging through clearance racks and bins. Not so much anymore, but I do love finding a good deal! And that is worth going out with the crazies to dig through the racks and bins and screaming children who would rather play with their new toys.
So one year during my clearance shopping I bought this cute little jingle bell snowflake for 70% off.
I'm not sure why, but I really liked it.
However, I knew when I bought it that it was incomplete. The scale is just, weird.
It's too big to be an ornament or hang from a door, but it is definitely too small to be by itself. Plus I felt like it needed some dimension. I decided I would jazz it up to make it a final piece, so I jumped onto trusty Pinterest to see what I could find by searching "winter wreath". To save you time, let me just tell you what 99% of "winter wreaths" search results consist of:
snowflakes
snowmen
twigs
berries
pearls
pine cones
Sometimes, they even combine these elements to make really amazing creations!! (Can you hear my sarcasm?!) Occasionally you will also find poinsettias, yarn and/or wood slices. Yay.
Now, I am not "hating" on these wreaths, some are in fact quite beautiful. But the lack of variety is quite uninspiring. And yes, I do realize that twigs, pine cones, snowflakes and snowmen are all relevant to winter. But still...
Side note: before you accuse me of being a hypocrite for also having a snowflake in my wreath, keep in mind I purchased it like three years ago...
Related side story: Every year my office helps organize a charity event about two weeks before Christmas. We auction wreaths, menorahs, and ornaments that are original creations. Being that my profession has many creative people, we get some unique submissions. A group of girls and I usually make a wreath to donate and this is my favorite one we have made:
It was super hard for us to give it away because we all loved it so much. So I got to thinking, why not recreate this for my winter wreath? My winter decor does not have a lot of twigs, snowflakes, berries in it, so adding any of those things wouldn't make a lot of sense, and this would be easy on time and budget!
So I bought a plain wall frame and some ribbon from the craft store. I spray painted the frame silver.
I took some of my ribbon and looped it around and through so that it would act as the hanger. I tied a simple knot at the top.
Then I needed to make a bow. I have experimented with bows before, but in general I don't have a natural knack for these things. So onto youtube I went, and I found this amazing and easy tutorial.
I made my bow much smaller than she did, but the tutorial worked just the same. After my bow was complete I took a dab of hot glue to attach it to the frame.
Then I used more hot glue to attach the snowflake to the frame and BOOM, I was done! Probably the fastest wreath I've made (once I figured out how to make a bow!)
I love the way it turned out! It is simple but pretty and definitely coordinates with the rest of my winter decor.
