I Want to Go to the Ball

And by ball I mean gala, the Kemper Gala to be specific.  The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City is hosting their annual gala on October 13.  According to their website, the festivities will include dinner from Café Sebastienne, live music, a DJ, a graffiti artist, premium open bar, a swanky lounge, and late night food truck food, as well as access to all the galleries.

The best part though? They are hosting two very special guests:

Genevieve Gorder

picture via HGTV

and Jonathan Adler

picture via jonathanadler.com

Cleary this is going to ben an awesome party.  Tickets are actually pretty reasonable for an event like this; $150, or if you’re a youngin’ (under 30) like me, it’s only $75.  Now it’s just a matter of convincing my hubby that we NEED to go.  Or, if any of you wonderful readers want to sponsor me (that’s nicer than saying buy me tickets, right?), that would be lovely too  

Now it’s time to take a nap so I’m fully energized for the Ben Folds Five concert tonight!! Everyone have a wonderful weekend!

Big news for KC!

For those who either don’t live in Kansas City or haven’t heard the news yet (or both), we are getting an IKEA! IKEA announced plans this morning to build a new retail store in Merriam, KS.  The store won’t open until Fall of 2014 so we’ll still have to wait a while to buy our Rast dressers and Ribba frames, but I am excited!

For more information, read the Kansas City Star’s article here

All I Wanna Do

Is have some fun! Well my idea of fun anyway, which today is staying home in my PJ’s, cuddling on the couch with my pets, eating pumpkin themed snacks…

Brownie Cupcake with Pumpkin Frosting

Healthier Pumpkin Spice Latte

Baked Pumpkin Donuts

Pull Apart Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Bread

And watching reruns of “How I Met Your Mother”

Who’s with me?!

Gold Embellished Frames: Done!

As you might have noticed, I’ve been working on finishing up projects I started a long time ago, like my chevron table.  Well I also finally got around to painting my second gold embellished frame and they look great!

I used them to frame some prints I picked up in Italy this summer.  They are now both hanging in the powder room downstairs and I just love them! For the DIY instructions on how to paint the frames check out this post.

I also made a couple tweaks to the shelving display in the half bath.

Looks pretty good doesn’t it?!

Fall Mantle Update

Other than Christmas I’ve never been into decorating for the seasons.  Some people are great at it, like Kate at Centsational Girl.  In fact she is hosting an Autumn Mantle Link Party, so this year I decided jump on the bandwagon and give my mantle a little fall makeover. 

Here’s how the mantle looked last time you saw it:

Actually makeover might be a strong word; it was more of an update.  I kept my Paris map art up because a) I love it, and b) I didn’t have anything else that had the right scale to go above the fireplace.  I added a decorative platter that we got for our wedding last year and a really pretty orange vase that we got as a Christmas gift.  I also swapped out the pink flowers for some yellow ones, added a leaf garland I got at Michaels for about $4, and brought in a $5 mercury glass looking owl from TJ Maxx.

Leo wanted to pose for me in this picture.

Next year I might do a little more with the autumn theme but for now I like it, plus I only spent about $10 on updating it.  Now that I’ve tried it I kind of like this seasonal decorating thing

*Linking up at Centsational Girl*

How to Hang a Gallery Wall

Another project that I did last minute before my house warming party this weekend (besides finishing my chevron table) was hanging a gallery wall in the downstairs hallway.  Usually Ben hangs the pictures in the house, especially multiple picture arrangements, but I did this all by myself using a helpful little trick. 

I started by measuring approximately how long I wanted the arrangement to be on the wall and laying the tape measurer out on the floor as a guideline.  Then I played around arranging the pictures on the floor until I came to a configuration I liked.  I took a picture of the arrangement not only so I could show you on the blog but also so I would have it as reference for the next step. 

Then I moved the pictures and rolled out some wax paper.  For this arrangement I needed three widths of paper which I taped together with scotch tape.  The books were to hold the paper down so it didn’t roll back up on itself. 

Then I moved the pictures back onto the wax paper.  I took a sharpie and outlined each of the frames.  I did draw the outlines a little wider than the actual frames because I didn’t want to get sharpie on any of my pictures.  Also, because the mirror frame is such an odd shape I didn’t trace that one, I just left an empty spot for it. 

Then I took my whole giant sheet of wax paper and hung it on the wall with some painters tape.  This is the one point in the project when I would have really liked to have someone around to help me hang this.  It was hard to get it straight and centered on the wall by myself! 

The next step was to hammer in the nails for each of the pictures.  Once that was done I hung the pictures right on top of the wax paper and then ripped the paper out from under the frames. 

And there you have it, a slightly time consuming but easy way to hang a gallery wall of pictures.

The Chevron Table is Finished!!

For those of you who read this blog regularly you probably remember this post about my DIY chevron table that ended in disaster.

It started out wonderfully.  I took a simple white side table from Target and carefully painted gold chevron stripes on the top.  It looked great.  Then I decided to add nail heads around the edge of the table which was not only a huge pain in the butt, it also broke the table.


After the table cracked I gave up.  The table sat in my living room unfinished for the last two months.  Last weekend we had a housewarming party which gave me the motivation to finish putting the house together as well as to finish up projects like this lovely table.

I made asked Ben to take out the nail heads for me so I had a blank canvas, and then I added rope.  Yep, regular sisal rope from Lowe’s.  My mom actually suggested the rope after she had seen some similar projects on Apartment Therapy.  So Friday night I put on How I Met Your Mother reruns, plugged in the hot glue gun, and started wrapping rope around the table.


It was pretty easy.  I just applied a small line of hot glue to the table and pressed the rope onto it.  Since the rope is somewhat heavy I held it in place for about five seconds until the glue dried.



Then I repeated that about 100 times until the table was wrapped in rope.  I applied the hot glue about 4-5 times per side, and it took me five layers of rope (about half the roll) to finish the table.


The only part of this project that proved tricky was starting and ending the rope.  I basically just cut it off and hot glued it in placed so nothing hung over the edge.



There’s probably a better way to trim the rope but this works.  It isn’t too noticeable unless you’re looking for it.

All in all the table looks really good.  I still love the gold chevron top and the rope finishes off the piece nicely.  Here’s how the finished project looks in my living room. 





And there you have it!  I finally finished my failed Pinterest Challenge project from two months ago!

Newly Painted Guest Room

I’m so excited to show you all the newly painted guest room!  Here’s a refresher on how the room looked before.

Bleh.  Ugly ugly ugly.  So this past Wednesday during one of Ben’s vacation days we got to work painting.  After many hours and two gallons of Sherwin Williams paint in “Springtime” the room is now beautiful! 

The room looks so much brighter and fresher now!  It’s a interesting color for sure.  It’s a very light green with a lot of yellow in it.  It makes me think of lime sherbet, even though that’s a different shade of Sherwin Williams paint.  I would also describe it as a pastel neon if that makes any sense.  I was worried that it would be too bright and overwhelming once the whole room was painted but it definitely isn’t.  The color is subtle and soft without being boring. 

Finnley likes it a lot too

Sooo….what do you think?

Serendipity

I found something good today.  Something really good. 

First, a little backstory.  I have been a fan of campaign furniture since I started seeing it on my favorite blogs in the last couple years.  I’ve tried searching craigslist for months to try to find a piece of my very own but I never had any luck.

Yesterday I was talking to my mom, who happens to be an antique shop/auction/consignment shop junkie expert, about my search for campaign furniture.  I told her to keep an eye out for some pieces for me.  I mentioned that night stands would probably be the best because I actually need some new night stands and they would fit in the car so she could bring them to me when she visits from Illinois.

Well last night I was browsing craigslist just for fun and of course I didn’t see any campaign pieces.  I decided to search “night stand” to see if I could find something with a similar shape that I could refinish it to resemble a campaign style night stand, like the DIY I project that I featured here. 

And then I saw it. 

Can you believe it?!  I called on it this morning and by 11 it was mine for a mere $25.  The hardware alone is worth more than that!

It isn’t in perfect shape.  I already cleaned it with some Orange Glo and my rag got really dirty.  I also used Goo Gone on the hardware which cleaned up some of the junk on them but they’ll still need to be polished.  I think it’s wood covered with laminate because it’s super heavy and solid, but there are several chips in the finish and the top is bubbling some so that will all have to be addressed. 

But it’s pretty and it’s mine!  And after some TLC is will hopefully look like one of these pieces.

all images via Little Green Notebook

Or this pretty little cabinet that Emily Henderson fixed up and is going to be selling next week!

Now it’s back to work.  I have a lot of cleaning and house-readying to do before our little party tomorrow.  I haven’t forgotten about showing more pictures of my repainted guest room; I’m just going to wait until next week so that I have more time to get it prettified. 

Have a wonderful weekend my friends!