Brass is Back

Guys, I might have a problem. In the last year or so I’ve become obsessed with brass. Brass animals, brass candlesticks, any brass accent piece is fair game. I’ve found most of my pieces for next to nothing at thrift stores. My mom has also helped feed my addiction by giving me some really nice brass items she finds in antique stores or on Ebay. I’ll be back tomorrow with photos of my collection.

Like any good addict I don’t take responsibility for my own actions. I blame the blogosphere. Many of the awesome design bloggers I follow are also obsessed with brass trinkets. I think I first became interested in brass after seeing how Emily Henderson uses vintage items to style her and her clients’ homes, but there are a ton of other bloggers who are also into this trend. Take a look.

Tobe from Because It’s Awesome knocked it out the park with her One Room Challenge Makeover of her home office. All her vintage furniture is gorgeous, and I love all the brass accent pieces around the room.

Charmaine from My Best Friend Craig is another brass master. She is just amazing at scoring vintage furniture and decorative accents, and she uses them so well in her house. I love the brass pineapple collection on her fab dining table, and how cute is the elephant in her daughters’ room?

And of course I had to include pictures from the design genius that started my obsession, Emily Henderson.

Emily’s Bedroom

Emily’s Office

Curbly Bedroom Makeover

Make sure you come back tomorrow to see how I styled my house with my new brass collection!

Affordable Outdoor Furniture

On Wednesday I showed you my house’s landscaping makeover and I think you guys liked it! Thanks for all the kind comments on the blog and on facebook, I really appreciate your feedback!

The only major thing left to do is figure out some furniture for the front porch. I’m not sure what I should do so I’d really like to hear what you think. The first thing to decide is if I want a bench, 1 chair with a small side table, or 2 chairs. It’s a small porch so I don’t want to make it too crowded with furniture, but I also want to make it look inviting.

I really don’t want to spend a lot of money on our patio furniture since it’s mostly for curb appeal. Luckily there are a bunch of affordable options out there, especially over Memorial Day weekend when all the sales are going on. Here are a few pieces that I really like right now:

 

Threshold Holden 2-piece Metal Patio Chair Set, $111, Target / San Martin Chair, $100, Pier 1 / Eucalyptus 2-seater Bench, $152, Overstock.com / Maze Metal Garden Bench, $105, Wayfair / Sophia Hot Pink Dining Chair, $70, cb2 / Threshold Harper 2-piece Metal Patio Chair Set, $133, Target / White Durresi Metal Chair, $80, World Market / Threshold Harper Bench, $151, Target / Golden Rod Yellow Cadiz Metal Chairs, Set of 2, $120, World Market

*all prices listed are current as of May 23*

What do you think? Which option do you like best? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day holiday weekend!

My Landscape Makeover

Hello friends! Last week I told you I was working on a big post about my house’s landscaping makeover and today I am delivering on that promise!

Here is the “before” shot of our house. I love our house, inside and out, but the landscaping was not so great.

There were three big problems that we wanted to address:

1. The horrible, overgrown evergreen bushes.
2. The ugly flowerbed area that doesn’t have anything growing in it 90% of the time.
3. The empty area on the side of the house where we pulled out an ugly and overgrown bush.

I also wanted to replace the porch lights for something a little more stylish. The other arrow in the photo points to an existing flowering plant that is gorgeous when it blooms for about 2 weeks out of the year but looks like a giant weed the rest of the time. It had to go! 

We ended up hiring a landscaping company to take care of our makeover. Neither Ben nor I know much about plants and we didn’t the time or equipment to do the work properly. I’m really happy we decided not to DIY; it looks great and it was all taken care of while we were in Palm Beach!

Ready for the “after” photos?

 

Much better! It looks so much cleaner and intentional. The plants are all fairly small now but when they grow they’ll spread out and make more of a statement.

Looks great from the street doesn’t it!

The plants in the back are hydrangeas, they’ll be so pretty when they start flowering! And we did replace the porch lights for these cute bronze ones from Home Depot.

We also added some hanging flower baskets and potted flower arrangements to give more color and interest to the porch. We planted the hanging baskets ourselves and we were planning to do the same for the potted flowers but we saw these arrangements at our local Westlake Ace Hardware store for $35 each. Pretty, affordable, and ready to go? Perfect!

The front of our house feels so much fresher and brighter now, don’t you think?

I still want to add a bench or a couple chairs to the porch so we have a little seating area. I’ll be back tomorrow or Friday with some affordable pieces that I’m considering, I’m hoping you’ll weigh in and help me figure out which one to get!

Anthropologie Birthday Party

Hi everyone! I’m working on a big post with lots of pictures of my house’s landscaping makeover that I’m so excited to show you, but since it’s not quite ready yet I thought I’d share some pictures of a great event I went to last night. My local Anthropologie sent me an email a few weeks ago inviting me to a birthday party they were throwing for me, so I had to say yes! Ok, the party wasn’t just for me, it was for all their members who had May birthdays, but it still felt pretty special!

They had a section of the store dedicated to the party with the cutest table setup ever. It was decorated with giant pink balloons, confetti, pretty flowers, and a gold garland. The table was also decked out with yummy treats that included champagne cocktails, macarons, and birthday cake! Like all Anthropologie store displays, it was perfect.

For my birthday Anthro also sent me a 15% off coupon which I got to share with my friend Jenna who came to the event with me. We had a lot of fun drinking our champagne and browsing the store. I didn’t want to spend a ton of money but of course I couldn’t come home empty handed, so I bought this fab gold and glass lantern, this monogram mug with an “E”, and a sweet mini bottle of rose-scented perfume that was on sale for $5. My grand total was only $41! Pretty impressive for an Anthropologie shopping trip if I do say so myself.

If you live near an Anthropologie I’d highly recommend becoming a member so you get invited to great events like this! It’s free to sign up online or in store.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Beautiful Outdoor Spaces

It’s getting to be that time of year again: the weather is warming up, school’s almost out, and everyone’s ready to spend time outside. Our front porch and back patio aren’t very exciting and since we’re probably moving in about a year we don’t want to spend a lot of time or money fixing on them, but we are putting in a few new plants and accessories to spruce things up.

In my next house I’d love to have a spacious back patio where we can hang out on nice summer nights. Below are a few outdoor living spaces that I adore; if someday I can create a patio that looks anything like these I would be thrilled!

Summer porch by Nancy Person Interior Design

via Centsational Girl

via Homepolish

via Domino

Backyard Makeover by The Hunted Interior via Home Depot

via Better Homes & Gardens

via House Beautiful

via House Beautiful

Birthday Wishlist 2014

My birthday will be here in less than two weeks (May 20!) which means it’s time for my annual birthday wishlist post. Here are a few things I’m loving right now in case you’re looking for something to buy me

• Threshold Urchin Shelf Sculpture, because I always need more gold/brass accessories around the house. (Target, $13)
• I’d love a new jewelry box, and this one from Z Gallerie is the right size, style, and price (which has been surprisingly hard to find). (Largo Jewelry Box, $40)
• Have you heard of these Charlie Hustle t-shirts? They’re getting really popular, especially in Kansas City which is where they’re made. I love this light blue KC one. (KC Heart, $32).
• I always need more cute summer outfits right? I’m obsessed with this bright tribal print skirt from Target, and I think it would look really cute with a white tank and this lightweight knit vest. (Merona skirt and Mossimo vest, $23 each)
• The nautical theme is really big right now, and this rattan tray would be an easy way to incorporate the trend and bring a little bit of summer into my living room. (Target, $20)
• Who doesn’t want a pretty new pair of earrings for their birthday? I think this pair from Stella & Dot is beautiful and they would look great with almost any outfit. (Fiona Earrings, $39)
• I’ve loved Anthropologie’s latte bowls for a long time. I have two dark blue ones and they are so versatile, but one of them got chipped recently. I think that’s a perfect excuse to add this colorful set to my kitchen! (Assorted Latte Bowls, $20)
• No wishlist is complete without something Kate Spade! This great little tote from Strand Books is perfect for a day of shopping, and at only $15, it’s the cheapest Kate Spade bag out there! (Strand Books, $15)

Dining by Design 2014

Last Monday I mentioned that I had an extra busy Saturday: I spent the morning at an awesome HomeGoods shopping event and the rest of the day at Dining by Design. For long-time followers of the blog, you may remember I worked on this event last year. If you’re not familiar with Dining by Design, it’s the signature fundraising event for DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS). Designers from different disciplines (interior, floral, retail, etc) create unique table designs for a big gala dinner. Gala attendees get to sit at one of these amazing tables for a delicious dinner as well as enjoy entertainment and bid on some incredible items during a live auction.

I volunteered at the gala dinner as the lead on china change-up, which is when a group of volunteers remove the expensive china and silverware a designer doesn’t want the guests to actually eat off of for dinner. I didn’t snap any pictures during the night event, but I did get a chance to mingle and enjoy myself more during the afternoon’s Conversations on Dining.

Here are a few of the gorgeous tables at the event:

A panel of experts from Kansas City gave their tips and tricks for entertaining like a pro. Another highlight for me was hanging out with Katy Sullivan, my former internship boss and design mentor. She’s also the genius responsible for the table with the navy tablecloth and gorgeous pink flowers as well as the table with the gold sequin tablecloth and sparkly donuts.

A few yummy treats from the day: a Patron cocktail (Patron was one of the night’s sponsors), a red velvet cake pop, and some pretty red ribbon cookies.

For more (and much better than my iphone) photos, be sure to check out the photo galleries on spaceskc.com. You’ll see more of the gorgeous table designs as well as some of the attendees (you might recognize the people in photo 28!). And for even more pictures of the tables, here’s a drop box gallery of photos by Crissy at Dastrup Creative Group - Photography & Design.