Southern Hospitality's Top Projects of 2008 Party

Rhoda is having a before and after party and I thought I'd join in. Be sure to check out her blog to see more. Maybe you'll find a project you'll want to do this year!

First up is an old rusty tray that I painted white and then I painted a harlequin with a fleur di lis on it. The green is some leftover paint from when I painted my kitchen - it makes it easy to tie into my kitchen. The after is the top picture.

The next before and after is an old patio table and some chairs from the thrift store that we use on our screened in porch.

This is just a regular old binder that I used some scrapbook papers on that I use to organized my recipes.

The before of the small bookcase I use as a buffet in my dining room which I got at Hobby Lobby at the beginning of the year.

I painted it white.

Then last fall I decided to add that little curtain. I decided I needed more storage space not display space. So behind that curtain are all of my placemats, extra candlesticks, napkins, and cake stands!

My black china cabinet when it was sage green

Then I painted it black and distressed it.

At the end of last year I decided to cut out the divided window on the top and replace that with chickenwire. Better don't you think?

I like for even my coupon organizer to be pretty! So last year I glued some gift wrap on to a small file folder and set up my own categories. I'm still using it and it works great. I can't tell you how many people stop me in the grocery store to ask me where I got it!

I also painted the insides of my kitchen cabinets last year. That was a job! I painted the back yellow, I put some pretty green paper on the shelves and I painted the insides of the doors the same color as my walls. I love that surprise of color when I open my cabinets!

By now I'm sure you realize that paint is my BFF! A little side table that if you are a regular reader of my blog you've seen a million times with various things on it! Before I painted it white.

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Those are storage jars from Target and I painted the lids almost the same color as my kitchen walls. I had a little sample pot from Benjamin Moore and wanted to use it up! I also covered a jar lid in fabric.

Not every project has to be a huge undertaking to have impact. I like to do little things to make ordinary objects just a little bit special!

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the things I did last year. I have a lot planned for this year so stay tuned!

A Fresh Start

Sometimes the best of plans don't work out and it winds up being a good thing. I had plans to start painting today, but the weather had other ideas! Looks like rain through Wednesday afternoon.

So I killed about an hour blog hopping this morning. There are so many blogs....So many blogs that I've never even heard of who's homes are being featured in magazines! You really could get a complex AND spend hours going from blog to blog to blog!

Crochet Pillow slip from IKEA

I finally made myself stop and clean off my desk. I put away all the receipts I had sitting on my desk (I file them alphabetically by store name in a little plastic file box), then I paid some bills on line, and then I made myself print out a Quicken Report for 2008 so I could do the budget for this year. Yep, it's budget time (finally - I've been putting it off).

I actually could do a budget in Quicken but I prefer to write it out by hand. Somehow it seems more real to me.

In an effort to make this whole thing more pleasant for myself, I lit a candle my husband gave to me for Christmas - Boulangerie Sweet Vanilla & Cinnamon. Isn't the bowl perfect! Made myself a pot of coffee (eggnog creamer)and hopefully I'll be able to stay away from the cinnamon cake I baked yesterday. Although I'm a stress eater so I don't make any promises!

I don't know why I dread this very necessary task! Well I do know, I'm sure I'll be astounded and not too happy with some the financial choices we made last year. For one, although we cut back on Christmas presents, I know we ate out more during Christmas break and I'll probably have a heart attack when I see the dining out numbers!

So, even though I had plans to do something a bit more fun today, I'm getting around to doing things that I really should have done anyway and that's a good thing. Wish me luck!

P.S. Did anyone else get an invitation from the University of Washington to participate in a study about bloggers personalities and style of writing? Just curious.

Monogrammed Pillow

It's been a busy weekend so far! I totally reorganized my Christmas decorations - I went through every box I had (and there were a lot of boxes). I tried to put things together that seemed logical to me like the dining room tree ornaments with the tree I used in there and so on. I also made labels for all my boxes. Oh, and after years of using mainly cardboard boxes we splurged on some more see through plastic ones. I think it'll make things a whole lot easier next Christmas!

I got rid of quite a lot of things. We took a packed car full of stuff to Goodwill (that included about 10 pillows I had in storage that I know I'll never use again). I thought about having a garage sale but I just really want this stuff out and I hate all the preparation of garage sales. There will be some happy shoppers at Goodwill when they put my stuff out! We're going to continue re-organizing the garage today. All that to lead up to the fact that I usually write a frugal post on the weekends but I'm just too pooped to do so.

Instead I'm going to show you one of the things I bought at IKEA - this monogrammed pillow.

I really love anything with letters and monograms! Vintage monogrammed linens are usually really pricey so I was happy to find this pillow so inexpensively. They only had two types. This and the other one was "JF" or something like that.

There was nothing explaining why they chose these letters. Maybe they mean something in Swedish or maybe it's just random. I love that it's not fussy. It's a foggy day so it's hard to get a good picture of it but it looks really great in that chair next to the red toile!

I've been thinking about painting my fireplace mantel in the living room for weeks now, so I'm going to do it this week (that way I can stop obsessing about it ~ smile)! My husband put my storage thingie that I bought at IKEA together and I have to paint that - lots of painting going on this week in between re-organizing and cleaning. Fortunately, I already have lots of paint I can use (I could open my own paint store)!

I like to have different projects going at the same time - I get bored easily! I always have several books I'm reading. I can't just do one thing and stick with it till the end without breaking it up! How about you?

My IKEA Trip Today

All I can say is Whew!! It was so busy at IKEA today! I really thought nobody would be there today and boy was I wrong. I bought a pine bookcase that has a pull out bin on the bottom to organize some of my craft stuff. My husband thought I'd like the pine especially "because you can paint it" wink wink wink! He likes to tease me about painting stuff since I paint so many things! Of course it has to be put together so I'll take a picture when that's done. There were so many neat storage and work surfaces I would have loved to have bought! But I'm just going to use the table I already have and my sewing table I got at Goodwill.

I couple of people said they don't have an IKEA so I took my camera and took a few pictures.

I was going to get that unit above but it wasn't in stock and I didn't want to have wait for them to get some in. The glass in the upper part is optional you can just have open cubes

Those shelves have a lip - I'm thinking about getting a few.

These were some decorative bowls that they put on the wall that I thought looked very pretty.

For all you fans of pink - they have a light pink couch!

I think this would look great in my bedroom with all the black toile I have in there. Plus it's scale is small so it's good for a small space.

This one would be good too!

Some dining chairs. Very pretty but I personally thought they were kind of low.

I loved this bench! I really like the way benches look with dining tables but I wonder how comfortable it would to be seated right next to someone. Could you get three people next to each other on a bench like this and be comfortable?

This I just thought was kind of odd. They had these round pieces of cowhide & some other faux animal hides that they just placed on chairs like cushions. Only they have no cushioning so I guess it's just for looks!

They really have some of the best kitchen storage ideas I've seen anywhere!

How neat would it be to have fresh herbs growing under your cabinets!

They have a really interesting lighting department, especially if you like a more modern look. I thought this light fixture was interesting because it looked like icicle lights wrapped around a circular frame (of course I thought "I can make that!).

A cute petite chandelier!

It was a fun couple of hours which we topped off by having lunch in their restaurant. I bought a couple of things that I'll show in another post since this one is so long! I would have bought some fabric had I been able to find an employee anywhere in the store to cut it for me! They were sorely understaffed today. Maybe next time! Have a great weekend everyone!