St. Patrick's Day Decor

Happy MONDAY! 

I hope it's a happy one for you! 

I did not want to get out of bed this morning, but I've managed so far. 

I just wanted to share my St. Patrick's Day shelf with y'all.

I've had part of it up there for a couple of weeks.

I knew I wanted to put some subway art up there, but kept forgetting. 

I finally remembered! YAY!

So here's the completed project!

I'm digging it. :) So, as always let's break it down.

I made the little green candle holder the same way I always do. :)

I podged the fabric onto a a little votive holder.  

The fabric I used is actually part of a sheet I bought at the goodwill. It's a toddler sheet that I'm going to use to make an apron. :) Can't beat $2 for over a yard of fabric.

I also tried to make the green not as bright by mixing mod podge and brown acrylic paint together.  

I needed a little more height on the left and found that pillar candle in my kitchen. 

It was a gift from my brother and his wife.

I got this lovely subway art from eighteen25!

They do subway art for almost every holiday. 

I used one of my trusty black target frames and some Bazzill polka dot card stock for the background.

 

You've seen this K before.  

Gotta let folks know who's house they're in. :) 

I got these books from my father-in-law.  

They're pretty special.  

The little brown one was one of Charlie's grandmother's English II books.

It has notes in the margin and looks like it was published in the 1920's! 

I love that I didn't have to buy anything for this project.  

I just used stuff I had around the house!

Enjoy!

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I'm baaaack! :)

Hey folks! 

Sorry I've been MIA lately.  Life has been busy/time consuming lately. 

I found out that I wouldn't be starting my new job until 2/21 so I was going to have a week off from when I left my current job and when I started my new one.  I was super excited because I thought I'd have TONS of time for crafting. HA! Wrong! Charlie broke his foot and had to stay home for most of that week. So, I was the loving wife and nurse.  Or at least I tried to be. :) I also had some car trouble and had to take care of that, so I got NOTHING done. 

I started my new job on the 21st and I love it! Everyone is super nice! I really think I'm going to like it here.  I have my own office.  YAY! So, I decided to do a little decorating. I haven't done much and really most of it I didn't make but bought. I still need to bring in some pictures. Here's what I've got so far. (Excuse the pictures.  I took them with my phone.)

Pretty sad so far, but it's getting there. So, I'll break it all down for you.

I got this vase at the grocery store 50% off after Valentine's Day! It had a little chain around the neck that said "Be Mine", but I snapped that little puppy off. :) It was only $3!

I love this little guy. He makes me smile.  I went to the Dollar Tree the other day just to see what they had and stumbled upon this little guy while I was standing in line.  I found these other birds, but wasn't crazy about them.  I saw him on the top shelf behind the counter and asked the cashier if she could get me two! Originally he was beige with some tan distressing-ness.  I used some acrylic paint to paint him blue.  You can't really tell it but I etched a houndstooth pattern on the votive holder.  I cut the vinyl with my silhouette machine to use as a stencil. I got the books from my Father-in-Law's flea market stall.  I kind of like that one of them's Dracula because I love most things Vampire.

I know I need to work on the placement of these things, but that'll happen soon. Hopefully. I got the white dove from Goodwill for $1.  He has a brother at home that I'm going to use to decorate with at home.  It's actually a candle holder for a taper candle.  The brown bird is from the Dollar Tree.  I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with him.  He has a holder for a tea light on his back. I just can't decide if I want to paint him or not. 

You will recognize the red and silver candle holder from my Valentine's Day decorations.  I made the houndstooth holder the same way and have had it done for a while, but didn't know where to use it.  So here it is! I love it! 

I hope you liked it! I'm pretty excited about having my own office and space to decorate how I want it. :)

<3,

Marlie

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Valentine's Day Art

So the day of love is less than a week away! 

I feel like a bad wife, because I have no idea what I'm getting my husband for Valentine's. 

I'm sure I'll figure something out. 

Time for V-day decorations! I'm usually not a holiday decorator, but I saw SO many cute ideas on different blogs that I decided to do a little something. 

Here's the coat rack in my entryway! (Please excuse the pictures.  They were taken with my phone at night)

So let's break it down. I got the "K" at Michael's.  It was $3! I actually got it for less than $3 because I had a 40% off coupon and this was the only thing I purchased that wasn't already on sale. lol. 

 

I got the two silver candle holders at Target on clearance for $1.50 each.  I really love the mercury glass look.  I made the red polka dot one! I got this idea from Prudent Baby's website.  Here's the link for the tutorial. This is SO easy and cute! 

I've seen lots of different framed "All You Need is Love" pictures.  I decided to make one of my own.  I found the font on dafont.com.  It's the Impact Label font. I printed it on plain printer paper. The frame is one of the plain wooden $1 frames from Michael's that I painted black and added some felt hearts to it. Easy peasy!

 

I made this one the other night. I've seen lots of Scrabble letter art and decided to make one of my own.  My Nana bought us a premium edition scrabble board from and estate sale and it was missing some letters so I decided to use the letters that were left. :) I love that they're maroon. I also checked e-bay and you can buy 100 letters for less than $10 with shipping.  Not bad.  I used some scrapbook paper for the background and attached the blocks with scrapbooking adhesive tape so that I can re-use the letters.

So that's it! I have some other plans for the scrabble letters and I'll post those projects as soon as they're done. 

Thanks for reading!

<3,
Marlie

Craft/Office Area Color Palette

So, I found the colors that I want to use in my craft/office area.  I'm super excited about it.  SO, here's the story.

Someone posted on facebook that Valspar was giving away free paint samples.  Their samples are pretty nice.  They come with a little paint tray and a roller.  They start the giveaway at 9am CST every day, and it's still going on. Check it out. I went to their website at exactly 9 am and needed to pick a color.  I wanted some color, a happy color. What color could he happier than the color of butter? None. :)  I saw the color "Like Butter" and thought it was a nice yellow. Unfortunately, I can't find a way to post a picture of the color, but I'll post something later that will give you a good idea.  You can also go to Valspar's website and search "Like Butter". Anyway, I'm not painting the walls since we live in an apartment, but I thought it would be kind of cool to get some free paint

to paint small things.   

Today while I was looking at fabric online.  I came across this fabric by My Mind's Eye.  I knew they also made scrapbook paper.  The line is Called Andrea Victoria.  It is perfect for this Like Butter color.  I may order some of the fabric, but I'm definitely ordering the paper.  Here is one of my favorites.

That light yellow color is the buttery color.  On my laptop it looks a little pale, but you get the gist.

There are some beautiful damasks in this collection, too.

I really like the combination of light yellow, gold, 

gray, and black.  

I love it so much! It also all goes with my super 

awesome lamp. :)

I'm really happy I've figured out the color scheme.  Now, 

I just have to find a craft table and paint my sewing 

machine table.

Stay warm!

<3,

Marlie

Big News!

I got a new job! YAY! 

I bet you all thought I was going to 

say I was pregnant. 

Sorry to disappoint! lol.

I got the call yesterday from the University of Missouri-St. Louis! I'll start 2/14.

If you know me personally, you know how much I dislike my current job.  So, this is really exciting for me.  I feel like this is more on track with what I want to do in the long run.

Sorry I've been neglecting the blog lately.  I had a killer cold last week and I've done nothing but work and come home.  I also went to Michael's recently and got TONS of stuff for future projects.  Now that I'm feeling better, I'm sure I'll get back to crafting it up. 

Until next time!

<3,

Marlie

Snow Day!

We had over a foot of snow fall at our house Wednesday night and Thursday morning! 

I've never seen so much snow.

This was all the snow on our patio.

I work at a college and they canceled classes and closed the office on Thursday. YAY!  Charlie works for a school district and I swear they close school if the wind blows the wrong way.  So, we got to spend the day together. I decided that since I was off I would be productive and organize my pantry and the cabinet under the sink.  It's not as exciting as it sounds, because my pantry is crazy tiny and we need to go to the grocery store so there wasn't much in there. lol

Here is are the before pictures:

Mess, mess everywhere.  The first thing I did was take some stuff to the basement.  Like the Supershooter cookie presser thing.  I've used it all of 0 times.  My in-laws gave it to me and I hope to use it someday, but it doesn't need to stay in the pantry. 

Here are the afters!

The top shelf has our alcohol, mixers, and our immersion blender (?, not sure why I decided to put that there).

Second shelf houses my baking stuff.

Third shelf has staples like rice, pasta, and canned goods.  And Ramen noodles, the meal of champions!

Fourth shelf is for crock pots, I guess. 2 of the 4 that I own are there. 

Then on the bottom is my blender and our plastic grocery bag stash.  I'm ashamed at all the plastic bags I have. ASHAMED! We have re-usable bags, but keep forgetting them. 

That's going to change.  

I decided to move a lot of my appliances off the counter because my kitchen is really small.  I'm kind thinking of re-doing it.  Not that I'd really done a lot with it anyway, but you know.  Once I actually make some progress, I'll do a post. 

Now, onto the horrible cabinet under the sink.  Shudder.  I keep my trashcan down there.  It's kind of cool the way the built it because I can fit a full size 13 gallon trash can under there.  Anyway, here is the before, minus the trashcan.

It was a giant pain because every time I took the trashcan out to replace the bag, stuff fell and I had to move fix the bottles all the time.  I also had a random assortment of crap under here.  A silver teapot (I think I put that under there because I was going to decorate with it after I polished it) a candle, and a planter. Weird.

Anyway, here's the after!

I also moved my trash bags to this cabinet so they'd be easier to get to when taking out the trash and to free up some space in my pantry.  I also cleaned out one of my drawers in the kitchen for tin foil (yes, I know.  Foil hasn't been made from tin in a very long time, but I'm southern and this is what we call it), saran wrap, and ziplock bags.  

So, I feel like I was pretty productive, even though I was slowly dying from a cold! 

Our kitties enjoyed us being at home with them.  Here's a picture of Lucy laying on me.

And here's Sophie watching over things from the stairs.  

Yeah, we have open stairs.  Luckily, they haven't decided it would be fun to jump on our heads, but they do like to climb the stairs on the backside of the stairs.  My cats are so silly.

I went to Michael's on Saturday, so lots of fun projects are on the horizon! 

<3,

Marlie

Crafting Area/Office/Sewing Area

We have a HUGE basement in our place.  It's a TON of space.  The room is 16 x 21.  Charlie wanted to make it the living room, but I didn't think having the office on the main level off the open dining room would look good.  So, the office is in the basement.  Thinking back, I probably would've just put the living room downstairs.  It would've made Charlie happier and we would've had more space.  Also, it's my house what does it matter what other people think. However, I'm not helping lug his solid cherry L-shaped desk back up the stairs. 

The current set up is a vast improvement on what I had, but is nowhere close to what I want, but that's another post. 

*Warning* These pictures were taken in a basement.  There is ZERO natural light, and they didn't put over head lights down there.  Real smart. 

Moving on! Here is my area!

So, let's break it down. This is the bookshelf that houses most of my crafting stuff.  

This is the top shelf of my book shelf.  All my paper scraps, paper cutter, and a few of my scrapbooking supplies are stored here. The rest of my stuff is still in the basement.  I need to go through it. 

This is our super awesome printer we got on Black Friday for $50! 

We've been without a printer for a while so it's pretty nice.  This is also where Sophie likes to sleep while in the basement.

This is where I keep my scrapbook paper.  I got these boxes from Michael's when they were 40% off!  I also have any non-scrapbooking crafty items on this shelf.  I'm not going to post a picture of the bottom shelf, because it's just a trashcan. 

This is my desk.  I liked it when I got it.  Now it's aight, but I haven't found another desk I like.  My Silhouette machine and laptop live here.  Along with some plastic storage containers.  

Yes, I did cut out a giant vinyl damask and put it on my laptop.  I have a problem. I'm addicted to damask. 

I got the idea here.

This is my sewing machine! I got it at a flea market for $10! I kind of want to paint the desk, but I'm not sure what color yet.  That's my mother in law's sewing lamp.  She brought it over for my sewing lesson.  She forgot to take it back with her, but I'm not going to tell her.  I kind of like it. :)

Here is the desk opened up and the machine.

I was able to find the manual online on Singer's website.  Thank goodness, or I'd have no idea what to do.  The machine was sold in the early 70's.  So she's a golden oldie.  Literally.

One of the best parts of my office is my super awesome damask floor lamp I got from Target on clearance! woot woot!

I hope I'm able to get my area all decorated soon, but it's a LOT better than my old space.  

Hope you enjoyed it! 

<3,

Marlie