Summer Blogger Meetup Recap

Hello friends! Sorry for my absence last week; Ben had the whole week off from work so we took a little vacation, or should I say “staycation.” Kansas City has so many wonderful things to do and we wanted to save some money so we decided to take our vacation in our home city. I have lots of fun photos to share so stay tuned for my staycation post later this week!

I did take a break from our time together to attend the KC Blogger Meetup June event. I’m really lucky to be a part of such a great group of local bloggers! It was so good to see some of the friends I made at Go Blog Social and to make some new blogger friends. I can’t wait to see everyone again at the next event!

Amigoni winery hosted the event. It’s such a gorgeous space, it was the perfect place to host a group a stylish blogger gals. If you like wine (silly question, of course you do), you definitely have to check it out sometime!

Emily from Emmy-Ray provided the beautiful flower arrangements and Urban Table supplied some delicious snacks.

There were several giveaways from our great sponsors; guess who won a bottle of amazing Amigoni Urban Bianco wine? This girl!

I can’t wait to crack it open sometime soon, it would be perfect with a summer dinner on the back deck don’t you think?

Make sure to stop by tomorrow to see how I spent the rest of my vacation week in KC!

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday everyone! Here are a few things I’m loving right now.

The Kate Spade Outlet

Two things on the top of my “obsessed with” list are Kate Spade and finding a great bargain, so it’s no surprise that I’m completely in love with the Kate Spade outlet store. I stopped by the new outlet mall in Chesterfield, MO (right outside St. Louis) on my way home from a wedding there a few weeks ago. It happened to be right before my birthday so of course I had to pick up a couple birthday presents for myself! And the store itself is so adorable, I could have spent all day there!

Trader Joe’s Flowers

Fresh flowers are such an easy way to add color and life to a space, and it’s easy to justify buying them when they’re as cheap as they are at Trader Joe’s! In the last two weeks I’ve bought two big bunches of snapdragons for $6 each and an arrangement with the most beautiful roses for only $4! I’ve split them up into various arrangements so I get an even bigger bang for my buck. I also bought a big, gorgeous orchid plant for only $13. I’ve heard they’re tricky to keep alive but so far so good, and if I do happen to kill it I’m not out too much money.

I also picked up a super cute blue striped table runner and some bright yellow napkins from HomeGoods to decorate my table for a summer dinner I hosted for a couple friends. I love how much they liven up the table!

Katherine Vo’s Orange County Home Tour on The Everygirl

I love most of the Home Tours on The Everygirl but I’m especially impressed with Katherine Vo’s house. The color palette is perfect: white, black, gold, and peacock blue with pops of pink thrown in. I love the glamorous feel and the fact that she achieved her look on a budget and with the help of a lot of DIY projects! See the whole house tour here.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

The Brass Menagerie

Last week I blogged about my love/obsession for brass and I showed you how some of my favorite bloggers have decorated with brass. Today it’s time to show you my brass collection and how I’ve incorporated it into my house, starting with my office then going through the living room and finishing with the cute little nook in the kitchen.

Pretty much all of my brass collection was bought at thrift stores, consignment stores, or antique stores, with a few gifts from my mom thrown in. All of the candlesticks were really inexpensive: the skinny ones on top of the hutch are part of a set of seven that cost $9, and the big ones on the mantle were $3 each. Other cheapies include the pitcher on the lamp shelf that I bought for $3 and the brass and mother of pearl duck that cost $4. I think the most expensive item was the elephant which cost $19, but it’s really big and heavy and worth a lot more than $19 IMO.

I have a few more pieces that didn’t make it into the pictures but that’s most of my brass assortment. Anyone else into collecting vintage brass?

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!