Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The Mindy Project Apartment: Part Two

Guess what day it is?! No, not Hump Day. It’s Mindy Day!! One of my very favorite TV shows, The Mindy Project, airs tonight and I am so excited for it! What is going to happen with Mindy and Danny??! I can’t wait to find out! And as a special treat Mindy Kaling is going to be live tweeting tonight’s episode, yay!

It’s no surprise that I love Mindy Lahiri’s apartment. It’s colorful without being overwhelming, feminine without being too girly, a good mix of modern, traditional, and eclectic…I could go on and on. I blogged about Mindy’s apartment last February and it’s been one of my most popular posts to date. I’ve been wanting to do a follow up post for a long time now and today it’s finally happening! Enjoy!

MINDY 5

Photos from Mindy’s house party in the episode “Be Cool

MINDY 9

Aww how cute does Morgan look?! I’ve grown to love this quirky and weird character.

MINDY 11

Puppy! And Jonathan Adler pillows!

To recreate the look of Mindy’s living room I needed a clean-lined white sofa, round mirrored accent tables, and some white or gray gourd lamps. I love the oversized scale of Mindy’s lamps but I couldn’t find any exactly like it so I went with some more traditional gourd lamps. I found almost the exact same throw pillows though: the Jonathan Adler pillows are the same print, just a slightly different color way, and the blue velvet pillow from a Pier 1 is a great match to the one on set.

Mindy Project Living Room

White Nova Sofa, Bryght / Marilyn Mirrored Round Accent Table, Lamps Plus / Safavieh Amy Gourd Table Lamps, Wayfair / Multi Flame Bargello Throw Pillow, Jonathan Adler / Teal Velvet Pillow, Pier 1 / Multi Diamond Bargello Throw Pillow, Jonathan Adler

And now for the bedroom:

MINDY 7

MINDY 8

If you’ve seen this episode then you know how heartbreaking this photo is!

The last few episodes have featured some new springy orange bedding. I loved the old Chinoiserie duvet cover from Dwell Studio but I also love the updated cover. I also love the teal and lucite bench and I’m so excited I found the same, or almost exactly the same, bench! Mindy’s love of Jonathan Adler extended to the bedroom with the Aquarius pillow. That abstract art print is fabulous, and I found a great print with a similar feeling from Etsy artist Cortney North. The largest available size is 13” x 19”, but many Etsy sellers are willing to print custom sizes if you want something closer in scale to Mindy’s art.

 

Mindy Project Bedroom with art

Coral Lamu bedding, Serena & Lily/ Aquarius pillow, Jonathan Adler / Teal Glamour Bench, High Fashion Home / Blue and Orange Abstract Art, Etsy

Be sure to check out my first Mindy Project post for more ways to recreate Mindy Lahiri’s apartment in your home!

 

P.S. I really love creating these posts, so if you have a favorite TV or Movie home that you’d like to see recreated let me know! I already have one request for Olivia Pope’s apartment from Scandal!

Monday, April 28, 2014

HomeGoods Blogger Event Recap

This Saturday was a busy, busy day for me. I got up early so I could attend a private shopping event at HomeGoods that started at 8:00 a.m. That’s much earlier than I like to be up and about on the weekend but it was totally worth it. Angela from Handmade in the Heartland worked with the HomeGoods on Ward Parkway in Kansas City to put together an awesome shopping event for her friends and followers. Everybody got a $10 gift card just for attending, and we had opportunities to win extra shopping money by playing “The Price is Right” and by instagramming photos of a favorite item in the store. This photo won me another $20!

Of course I took advantage of the private shopping time before the store opened to browse the store and pick up some new goodies. Look at all the fun stuff I spotted there!

HG CRowley Chairs

HG Benches

HG Rugs

HG Cushions

HG Dogs

HG Pillows

HG Tea pot

HG Blue

I wanted to buy just about everything I saw but I limited myself to only one cart’s worth of new treasures Winking smile. I bought a set of nice new plastic water glasses and some birthday gifts for my sister in law: a pretty picture frame, a scented candles, and a box of French chocolate cookies.

I also bought a new pet bed and some new throw pillows: 

HG Bed

HG My pillows

In addition to the gift cards, Angela also gave everyone a nice handmade present. How cute is this sign?!

HG gift

I’m so glad I went to the HomeGoods event, not only because of the shopping and free gifts, but also because I got to see a bunch of my new blogging buddies I met at Go Blog Social! It was great to see these girls again!

The rest of the day was spent downtown at DIFFA KC’s Conversations on Dining and Dining by Design. Come back later this week for my recap of these amazing events!

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Palm Beach Trip Recap

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend! I know I’ve been quiet this week, but I was out of town until late Monday night and then I had to take care of a few things at home. We took a four day trip to West Palm Beach, Florida with my parents to visit my brother and sister-in-law. They were wonderful hosts and they took us around to all the best areas on and around Palm Beach: the Intercoastal via a boat cruise, the Breakers Hotel (my favorite!), Worth Avenue, and some excellent bars and restaurants. It was such a great time, I can’t wait to go back!

IMG_2904

IMG_2905

IMG_2909

IMG_2910

IMG_2913

IMG_2916

Palm Beach Breakers

IMG_2932

IMG_2936

IMG_2945

Palm Beach Drinks

IMG_2948

Palm Beach

IMG_2967

IMG_2976

IMG_2982

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Spring Tablescape + a DIY Failure

I finally finished my Spring tablescape, just in time for Easter weekend. Actually we won’t even be here for Easter; we’re flying to West Palm Beach, Florida tomorrow morning and staying for the long holiday weekend! But I still wanted to add some spring décor to the house before Easter. Here it is!

Spring Table 6

Spring Table 3

I’ve done a seasonal tablescape for the last two seasons (Fall and Christmas) but I hadn’t done one since December so it was definitely time to add a bit of spring to the house. This season’s table décor consisted of three main parts: a DIY fabric table runner; blue metal baskets filled with Easter grass and candy eggs; and some vintage brass candlesticks with taper candles.

Spring Table 2

Other than the DIY table runner, which I’ll share a tutorial for next week, there’s not very much explanation or instruction needed for my table décor. I found the brass candlesticks at a local thrift store last month and I really wanted to use them as a centerpiece. The blue tins were $1 each at Target, and I made them perfect for Easter by filling each basket with a mix of green and pink plastic Easter grass and then topping them with some Whopper’s Robin Eggs candy. I made the table runner out of two yards of a cute spring green Moroccan print fabric from Hobby Lobby.

Spring Table 1

Spring Table 4

Spring Table 5

Spring Table 8

Cute, right? I love simple and inexpensive décor like this. Here’s a rundown of what I spent:

  • Fabric: $10
  • Straight pins for fabric: $3
  • Candlesticks: $9 for a set of 7 (I only used 5 here)
  • Metal baskets: $2
  • Easter grass: $1
  • Candy eggs: $2
  • Taper candles: $5
  • Total = $32

Not too bad! I have plenty of fabric leftover to use for another project (maybe a spring wreath?!), and I will definitely reuse the candles and candle holders in other areas of the house or other table décor once I’m done with this season’s table.

You might be wondering what the “DIY Failure” mentioned in the title is. Well, the same day I got the brass candlesticks from the thrift store I also got three very ugly Easter bunny figurines for a total of $2. Here’s a “before” pic.

IMG_2885

Not horrible, but definitely not for me. The white bunny was almost ok as-is but it was super dirty and stained. I thought they would look really cute spray painted, so I got some spray paint primer and a pretty buttercream yellow can of spray paint. I thought that the repainted figurines would look nice as party of my Easter tablescape. Easy little DIY project right? You be the judge:

IMG_2891

Yuck! And this is after 2 coats of primer and 3 coats of yellow paint. I think the two brown bunnies were just the completely wrong texture to try to spray paint: they have too many tiny nooks and crannies. The white rabbit could have turned out okay, but instead it just looks like my dog peed all over it. Not so pretty.

So no Easter bunnies for my Spring tablescape this year, oh well. At least I’m not out very much money due to my DIY failure.

Do you decorate your house of Spring and/or Easter? Do stick to traditional décor like bunnies and eggs, or do you do something more unexpected?

Monday, April 14, 2014

Instant Art for $0.99

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a lovely weekend. I’m sorry I didn’t get to my spring tablescape last week like I said I would. I came down with a nasty cold that pretty much knocked me out from Wednesday to Saturday, so I didn’t get to my crafting like I had planned. So stay tuned this week, as long as I remain healthy I should get it done in the next few days!

While I was sick last week I spent a lot of time on the couch, playing on my iphone and ipad, and I downloaded a new app that I think might be my favorite app of all time. It’s called Waterlogue, have you guys heard of it? It costs $0.99 and while I don’t download very many apps that cost money this one is totally worth it. It will turn any photo into a gorgeous watercolor painting! Check out what I did with some of my pictures from Paris:

Notre Dame Waterlogue

Paris Flowers Waterlogue

Sacre Coeur Waterlogue

Paris Locks Waterlogue

Eiffel Tower Waterlogue

Aren’t they pretty?! I want to frame every one of these! I love that the app gives you a bunch of choices of filters so you can create a print that’s more detailed (like the flowers), or more blurred out (Notre Dame), or one that has heavy outlines (Sacre Couer). These are just a few of the effects available, there are a lot more that I didn’t end up using.

I also created a watercolor of my living room to see what the app would do with a more every day photo:

Living Room Waterlogue

So fun, right! I haven’t printed any of the watercolor prints out because my cheap printer runs through ink like it’s air and I didn’t want to burn through my ink cartridge, but if you do have a good printer you should definitely try printing out some Waterlogue pictures! I would print them on to a nice cardstock so it feels more like a real painting. I’d imagine that they’d also turn out well if you you got them printed through a photo printing service. Just make sure to get a matte finish on your photos.

Have any of you tried Waterlogue yet? I’d especially love to hear from someone who printed some of their images to see how they turned out!