Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Hair....

I am super boring with my hair and haven't really done anything drastic and different to my hair... ever. Except for in Oct of 2012 I did the ombre, which I loved. But right now I need help. I want something different, but not TOO different. Should I go short? Add highlights? Ombre again? Go dark? Leave it long? Lets run through some of my brave choices throughout the years. 
2008-2009
July 2009
January 2010. I got brave enough to give it a good cut.
April 2010. This is the au natural look with the short cut.
September 2010. Birthday in Vegas.
May 2010. Vacation to NYC.
November 2010
October 2011- The night my honey proposed!
November 2011
November 2011- Engagement Party
May 2012- Little dudes Preschool Graduation
July 2012
September 2012
October 2012
November 2012- OMBRE
February 2013
March 24, 2013
April 2013- Honeymooning in Jamaica
December 2013- No more ombre
April 2014
Thoughts? I am thinking something like this...

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Planning our Easter Crawfish Boil on a Budget


When I have lots of family and friends coming over for a holiday get together I have certain steps that I HAVE to take so that I don't go crazy. I am very type A and slightly OCD so I always want things done a certain way. First I come up with a guest-list to figure out how many people will be coming. Harass said people to RSVP, dangit! Start a list of what you will be serving, ie food, drinks, deserts, sides, eggs, candy to fill eggs, etc. I usually will either start a list in my planner or on a word document and print it out. Print and cut your coupons from target.com, heb.com, coupons.com or your local newspaper. If you will be shopping at Target make sure you use the cartwheel app and get a dang red-card to save another 5%, also set aside five hours to browse the store- HAHA. An example of my list will look like this:

  • 20 lbs Crawfish
  • Shrimp? (check sale at HEB)
  • Sausage (already have)
  • Potatoes (5lb bag at $2.97 at HEB)
  • Corn on the cob
  • Seasoning (already have)
  • Carrot cake (coupon for betty crocker)
  • Cream cheese icing
  • Coffee creamer (coupon)
  • eggs (.99 at target)
  • Waters (cartwheel app for target water)
  • Soda (target has 4 for $12)
  • Beer
  • Ice
  • Salad
  • Croutons
  • Roma Tomatoes
  • Carrots
  • Red, green and yellow peppers
  • Lemons
  • Avacodos (for guac)
  • Chips (coupon, target)
  • Velveeta Cheese and Rotel (coupon, target) or (Buy Velveeta Cheese get chips free at HEB)
  • Easter eggs
  • candy to fill eggs (coupon)
  • Treys Easter basket- Pokemon cards, candy, grass, gold coins, 
  • Tulips ($9.99 at HEB)
  • Festive paper plates (HEB coupon)
  • Propane
I am by no means an Extreme Couponer because I really don't understand how people can get $200 worth of product and only spend like $16. I wish I knew. However, I do save at least $50 every shopping trip, which is nice. Now for the fun part... put all of these tips to work and get this party planned and shopped for!

Monday, April 14, 2014

Guestroom Reveal and Decordeaux Pillow Review

I don't think I have ever posted photos of our dreaded "purple" room on the blog before, but holy cow was it a bad situation... Like worse than Mike, The "Situation". When we moved in one of the upstairs bedrooms was painted a lighter color of purple with darker purple stripes. It looked like Barney had thrown up everywhere and so what should have been our guest bedroom became a dumping ground and cemetery for decor not being used. I literally HATED the sight of the room, so the door stayed close and only got cleaned up when we had visitors. We are going to have a house full next weekend for Easter so I decided to get a move on with the guest room and "just do it". Guess what??? I just did it! The hubs, myself and the sweet boy loaded up early saturday morning and headed for Lowes to find the perfect color. I am all about grey right now and I wanted to find a light neutral gray that is more in the greige family then the blue-grey family. Guess what else?? We found the perfect color in the "As Is" pile. I am always so scared to buy from the pile, but it was only $5.00 so I said what the heck, what could be the worse thing? We got to painting over that beautiful purple room and I did all I could to choke back sobs. (Sarcastic of course.)


Can you believe we lived with this room looking like this for um..... 9 WHOLE months??

I got scared after the first coat was still wet and drying on that first wall... really really scared. It looked bad. I was thinking we made a really bad choice by choosing that discounted paint for five bucks....
We cranked up the fan to help the process and I said a quick prayer to the Good Lord to please help this paint turn around and fifteen minutes later it was a beautiful beautiful thing. I loved LOVED the color. It was perfect.

































I won the black and white chevron pillow from a Centsationalgirl Giveaway. The pillows came from Decordeaux and they are so fabulous and comfy! They are made extremely well and are so cushy and pretty. I picked the black and white chevron for my guestroom and the havock pillow in the darker blue color for my living room. I am not kidding about how comfy they are. We each try to steal it when we are watching a movie in the living room. I will be posting a living room post featuring the havock pillow in blue soon. 

I found the FAMILY printable at Shanty-2-Chic for free. I just print and cut each letter out on thick card-stock, punched two holes in each one and threaded twine through the holes and tacked them up.  Easy peasy. I am wanting to either find or make a tufted headboard or add an old door for a head board. 

































Ugh I cannot get the wrinkles out of the comforter, I ironed it three times! I got the white curtains from Target, you can find them HERE.

































Their isn't much you can do around a big old tv and dvd player, but I didn't want to leave the guests with nothing, so I tried to disguise it as much as I could. I styled some books in the colors of the room next to it.

































I started a little gallery wall with a painting that my mom did, that I still want to get framed in a big black chunky frame and some printables and pictures. I try to change out the pictures with different guests. So for Easter it will be my mom and brothers and sisters and my sister in law and her family.

































I added a mirror above the dresser to serve as a little dressing area where they can do their makeup and hair and such.

I don't know the name of the paint color since it was an AS IS selection. :(

And just because before and afters are always so fun...





















Are you sprucing up your guest room for family that may be visiting over the Easter holiday?

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Baby Steps to a Fabulous Front Yard

I am so excited to get started on our front yard and really give our home some major curb appeal, but that has been getting tossed by the wayside. I tend to get caught up in other projects or just plain lazy un-motivated. I got off work today at noon and the weather was FABULOUS. Like, I wanted to sit outside and bask in the Spring glory all day. So we did. We ran to Lowes to get some black mulch and to give our front yard a MINI makeover. We didn't want to spend a lot, so we figured giving it some new mulch would be the cheapest route. We spent around $16.00 and I feel like it transformed the front yard in such a great way. 

     
   

So our to-do list looks like this:
  • Paint the front door (black, red or a teal-ish blue)
  • Plant some colorful flowers
  • Get rid of the rocks and either extend mulch or plant grass in its place
  • Paint the railings and ceiling
  • Replace the doorbell
  • Change out the light hanging in the covered area and next to the garage
 

Are you getting into freshening up your curb appeal? Starting your garden up? Planting some flowers?

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

FREE Spring and Easter Egg Banners

Spring is in the air in good ole Texas and today is the first day of April. I am so excited! However, I have not had any spring decor in my house until this past week. I was on the hunt for FREE Spring/Easter Decor and lo and behold I have just the thing for you. I cannot take credit for the ideas or creations, but will let you know who can. 

First up was the paint chips turned Easter egg banner. The Genius
She even provides the egg template for you. I decided to just use my one color paint chips, but she uses the multiple colors per chip that way the middle white section looks more like an Easter egg. Feel free to do it however you please.
After I got done cutting how many I wanted in my spring colors I mixed in the white egg templates just to see if I liked that better. My pattern was a shade of green, shade of purple, shade of blue, shade of pink, white, and repeat. 
I really liked how the white broke up the colors and added some interest to it, so the whites came into my banner. 

Next up is the "Hello Spring" banner which is so festive and adorable. You can get it from this genius
These are I phone pics so it's not the best picture, but you get the point. It is really the cutest thing ever. The graphics are so spring and cute. I love it so much.
I lined my backs with some paper from the Target dollar section just to give it some extra pizzazz. I punched a hole in each top corner and threaded through twine for hanging. 



I love the little pop of spring that it brought into my home. 


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