gardening for a cause

Tomorrow morning, rain or shine, I will be planting bulbs.

image from http://www.flower-garden-bulbs.com/

83 to be exact.

And nope, they won't be in my yard; because, once again, I procrastinated on ordering my bulbs.

I'm actually really excited to be helping with the landscaping of a local Habitat for Humanity home build! I'm in a local service sorority, and we are landscaping the home as our Make A Difference Day project for this year.

We threw an awesome Cinco de Mayo party last year to raise enough funds to landscape two homes (unfortunately they were only able to fund one home this year), and now our project days are here! I'll take my camera and share some pictures tomorrow.

Have you had the opportunity to serve your community lately?

window dressings

As I alluded to earlier, I now have a pretty firm plan of how I want to treat the windows in the great room.

Here's what I started with:

these curtains came with our home, I'm so over them

The walls are now a yummy butter yellow, and I've kept the crisp white trim.
I have decided not to use shears, I can add them later if I feel we need more privacy, but I honestly don't think I will. I was also super happy to see those flimsy rods go away (note to self - list them on Craigslist!).

For now I have hung up one set of "drapes" - I used drop cloths like I keep seeing everywhere in blogland, what can I say? I loved the idea!

drapes in progress
(it's really hard to take a picture of a window!)

I really like the new rods I picked - I found them at Lowe's, so the price was right and they have the feeling I was looking for. At first I was going to just go for the dark, round finials, but I ended up with fluted amber glass balls. They go really nicely with the wood tones in the ceiling and mantle.

I had to hang up a set of the drop cloth panels because we needed drapes at least on the front of the house for privacy (the neighbors don't need to see me before I've had my coffee!), and because my husband was less than excited by the idea of drop cloths as drapes.

I'm pretty sure he was picturing clear plastic sheets on the windows.

I'm not sure if he really likes these, or was just really happy with the price (I've been brainwashing him into believing that Potter barn is the only place to buy drapes - hee hee!)

I'm very happy with the texture of the drop cloths. I'm going to sew on (green) ribbons to tie the drapes to the rings, because I love these drapes from Potter Barn:

Pottery Barn

And I'm also going to do something to the bottom of the drapes.

At first I was thinking of sewing a chunk of green and white fabric (maybe a trellis pattern?) to the bottom of each panel, but now I'm thinking of stenciling the panels instead - I figure if I don't like the stencil I can always go back and sew on some fabric later.

So that's the direction I'm headed with the drapes.
I'm excited for the change!

back to the grind: goal time

I like posting my goals for the week. I find it helps me to stay focused, and I love hearing your goals! If I started a Monday Goal Party, would you join?

I am planning on going out of town for a few days this week, so I have just a few goals for this week (a few are repeats):

1. Start decorating the tops of the kitchen cabinets.
There are basically three chunks of cabinets, I'd like to decorate one, and round up all of my decorations.

2. Finish my spray paint project.
I need to do this - I really want to join Kimba's DIY Party (it's moving to Tuesday starting this week!), and I think this is going to be really cute when it's done (of course, it could also be huge disaster). Regardless of the outcome I need to be able to mark this project done.

3. Clean out the linen closet.
It's become a black hole.
I can't find the toilet paper or kleenex without a huge pile of fabric falling out, and I can't smash my sewing machine back in there.
The great news is my little sister is still here (just until tonight), so I'm going to let her distract my little man while I get this bad boy under control.

What projects will you be working on this week?

goals: a recap

I was a little ambitious in my goals last week.

1. Start decorating the tops of the kitchen cabinets.
I didn't do a thing with the cabinet tops, although I did find a Longaberger basket for $3 at Goodwill that will be very nice above my cabinets.

2. Cozy up the guest room/office.
I dusted and vacuumed, swapped out the nightstand and lamp and edited the shelf that runs around the room. I really wanted to clean off my desk - but I didn't touch it.

3. Finish my spray painted masterpiece.
I ran out of primer. This project is never ending.

4. Plan new drapes for the great room.
I have a plan! And I will post about it later :)

5. Continue to work on the front porch.
It's not done (not that anything is ever truly done), but I picked up some pumpkins, and some fall decor and it's really starting to come together. I'm sure it'll be great in time for Amanda's next Design Dilemma Party!

How did you do last week?

goals for this week

It's good to have goals.
Follow through is also important....we'll see how I do on that end ;)

I have five little goals for this week:
1. Start decorating the tops of the kitchen cabinets.
We are done painting! Now comes the fun part :)

2. Cozy up the guest room/office.
My little sister is coming to visit this weekend, and the guest room/office has seen better days. it just needs a little refreshing, and I already have some ideas.

3. Finish my spray painted masterpiece.
This piece is taking so much more time than I thought it would - I hope I'm happy with the results.

4. Plan new drapes for the great room.
We took all of the old ones down, and they are NOT going back up (in fact I'm listing them all on Craigslist today). Right now our house is rather open, and I need some privacy!

5. Continue to work on the front porch.
All of the ideas you gave me during the Decorating Dilemma's Party were great, and I've been working on a few of them, I just need to kick this project into overdrive so i can share my progress with you :)

What are some of your goals for this week?

i'm inspired

As I mentioned before, I'm participating in the Scavenger Hunt at The DIY Show Off - as part of my entry for the giveaway I needed to find a post that most inspires me.

It wasn't easy folks.

There was this.

And this.

Have you seen this?

I know. I need a drink.

So I figured it out! I am most inspired by Debra's Kitchen Island Transformation.

Right now we are redecorating our Great Room, a big part of that is our 5' x 5' kitchen island. The previous owners had stools around two sides of the island, we only have them at one side and I have been trying to decide what to do with the other, empty and boring, side. I think I would like to put bookshelves under the overhang to store my cookbooks. But that would probably require measuring. Plus, I have a very busy 1.5 year old - there's no way cookbooks would last 4 minutes placed within his reach.

But I still want something to pretty up the empty expanse of cabinets (have I mentioned that the cabinets are from Ikea? The sides are not pretty). I think the wallpaper that Debra used might be my solution!

So now I'm trying to imagine my kitchen with bead board wallpaper on the island.

And I think I like it :)

Want to be inspired?
Head over to The DIY Show Off.
There's so much goodness going on over there, it's crazy!

famous little pig

Zippy, my beloved guinea pig, passed away last Fri.

When I heard that Roeshel at The DIY Showoff was having a Pet Parade, I knew it would be the perfect way to honor her.

Check out all of the cute pets!