Fabulous Friday Features!

Hello, friends! I know I do not always get around to doing features from Fabulous Friday, but when I can, I love to leave you guys a little lovin! This week was a great turnout. Here are a few FABULOUS projects that were linked up!

Kristen @ My Covered Bridge shared this amazing Coffee table makeover!


Andrea @ OasisAccents Shared this fabulous stenciled pillow!


Bridget @ BabblingsandMore Shared these scrumptious looking Pumpkin Muffins! You all know how much I love me some fall!


There you have it. Three wonderful projects from three lovely ladies! Thanks so much for sharing! If you would like, you can grab my button to show off your feature!

Also, I have a HUGE announcement coming later this week and it is going to come with an AMAZING giveaway for one of my lucky pals! Make sure to check back!!!

Man-Cave Man-Wall!

Happy Monday, friends! I hope your weekend was great! We had an excellent turnout to this week's Fabulous Friday! I will have to get some features up here one day this week. I am seriously impressed!

I figured that I would finally get around to showing you guys the new Dallas Gallery in the den that I made Michael for his birthday! (I made him hang the shadow boxes...I stink at those wall anchor things!) You may remember seeing the canvas when I made it. I posted it about a month ago (HERE). Well here it is in all of its glory on the wall in the man cave!

 This is an actual piece of game-used turf from Texas stadium, the old one, before they imploded it. I found it online and knew we needed to have a little chunk! It looks great on the wall with the new stadium!

 We sort of just filled the shadow boxes with random Dallas paraphernalia that we had sitting around. I really like the way that it turned out though! We have an old Dallas jersey that we don't wear that I would like to somehow incorporate into the wall grouping as well, I just need to find it! I am pretty sure it is still in a box somewhere from before we were married and living in one house! (Yeah that was almost 2 years ago...terrible!)

I know that was not the most thrilling post to read, but I wanted to share a little piece of our den with you guys! And to show you how great the art looks actually on a wall!

Fabulous Friday #6: Message Plate!

Welcome to the 6th Fabulous Friday! We had a great turnout last week! Tell your friends to link up this week!

Today I have a super easy, super cute, super functional tutorial for you guys! I don't know about you, but I am a lister. I forget things really easily, so I always try to write them down. Whether it be messages to my husband, or more often messages to myself, I leave lots of messages. So when I saw these cute little vinyl stickers at EAD Designs, I HAD to have them! (CLICK HERE to see them and get your own!) For those of you that are newer here, I made a gift for a friend using one of there HERE. When I ordered the first one, I actually ordered 5! I love them and they are such a cute/easy gift idea! But I had been reserving a couple for myself.

At TJ Maxx about 3 months ago, I got this cute little rectangle shaped plate on clearance for $1.99. I have been holding onto it for quite a while. The other week when I was cleaning out my girl room, I decided that I was going to use this plate for my message plate.

 The only issue was that the decal was a little bit big for the small plate. I loved the little swirl under it, but it just was too much for this smaller plate.

So I cut it off!

Next, you simply peel off the backing, leaving you with your vinyl on the transfer paper.

It will be a little sticky. Place it where you want it on the plate. I centered mine at the top.

If you order from EAD, they will send you a popsicle stick like this. But you really could use just about anything like this (penny, credit card, etc). You want to use this to rub on the vinyl until it looks lighter, this means it is pulling away from the transfer paper and sticking to the surface, much like a temporary tattoo.

Once you are sure that it is stuck on there (you can check a small corner if you are not sure), carefully peel the transfer paper off of the plate (or wall, or whatever you are sticking the vinyl to).

It should look a little somethin like this! I think it is soooo cute! Now I just need a cute dry-erase pen to write on it with!

Okay, friends! Let's see what you've got! Please don't forget to grab my button so that your friends can join too!


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Earthy Victorian Wedding Invitations

Little known fact about me here in blog world, I own a Stationery business that I run out of our home. It is called Love is in the Air Stationery, a sub-company of a fantastic Wedding decor and catering business, Love is in the Air (www.Loveisintheairevents.com)  Its just one of the many hats that I wear and I don't blog about it often (not sure why because I LOVE it!). I have a Bachelor's Degree in Graphic Design, and this gives me an outlet for all of that training.

My cousin came to me asking for help with her wedding invitations, and she had a very unique style. Very Victorian, shabby-chic with a hint of earthy. I definitely think that this is my very favorite invitation suite that I have ever created! A lot of it was her creativity as well, but I LOVE the way that they turned out!

We did a vintage postcard RSVP and she tea stained them. This process is super easy...maybe I will write a tutorial for you guys! I love the way that it made it look truly old.

 Here is the back (postcard part). She did a great job choosing stamps as well!

 Wrapped in that lace doily is a map with directions! The doilies were perfect to bring a little elegant class into the rustic look.

 

 Here is what the actual invitation looks like when slid out.

 The little tags were cut using a cricut and embossed with a stamp and embossing powder.

 She used a lace punch on the brown paper. I say "she" because she did a lot of the work on this one! It happened to be the same weekend as my sister's wedding that she needed to send them out. I was really more of a collaborative designer on this one. Everything was tied together with a piece of twine to make a nice, neat little package.

Really, I just wanted to share these with you guys! They are so fun! I did the design work, and Michelle did a lot of the actual execution! Such a fun set of invitations! I will have to make sure to share the programs, etc. with you!

Change is good!

Just wanted to give you all a little update....

I now have dark hair! Its perfect for fall and I love it! :)

Love you guys! (this includes all of my fun new visitors!)

You Must Zip-it!

Betcha you sign that song for the rest of the day! You're welcome. You are even more welcome for what is next. If you have a weak stomach, you may want to stop reading now. But seriously, this will save you money on a plumber for sure! (And no, I am not getting paid for my opinion. This is my totally unbiased experience.)

So I do not think that the drain to our bathtub has been cleaned in years. It is an older house, so I was chalking that up to why our tub usually held about 3-4 inches of water when you shower. Or it drains really slow after a bath, thus leaving a lovely scum buildup. Seriously, we could scrub it and a day or two later it would look like we never did. Nasty! Just to keep it real (and personal), here is a good example. I shed a lot, so my hair catches on the drain all the time too. Anyway, gross, I know.

Enter this guy. The Zip-it. You can get one for $2 at WalMart. They say "one-time use" but I also used this on our bathroom sink after the rub and it still worked. Nothing looked different. So I washed it and saved it for another occasion! The one-time thing is probably for people who can't bear to clean it.

 I had to take our drain cover off, but that was super easy. Just a matter of unscrewing the screw.

 This is where I had to put a little muscle into it at first. I had to figure out which way the pipe went. You would think straight down, but this clearly is not always the case. Ours goes toward the front! Once the zip-it met the blockage, I had to push really hard to feed it all the way in. I was scared it was getting stuck in the pipe and then we would really have to call a plumber. But it didn't! Make sure you push it all the way in...

And then pull out slowly. Reason number one, so that it does not break off part of the blockage and leave most of it. Reason number two, splatter. Ew! The first time I pulled it out wasn't so bad. I knew I must not have pushed it far enough, because it clearly did not fix the problem. So back in for round two.

 A MUCH large wad of hair and funk came out. And it smelled bad!

 I went back in a couple more times and got some smaller wads, but that was definitely the worst. I put the tub back together and tested to see if it worked. For the first time that I have ever seen, our tub gets the little drain tornadoes! It actually unclogged the whole thing!

 Here's to hoping that it stays unclogged. But now I know what to do if not! No more plumber! You should try it. Seriously. Sorry if I grossed anyone out!

Easy Peasy Curtains!

My girl room is in the basement, on the back of the house. It has a window that does not have any blinds or window treatments on it at all. And me being the little chicken that I am, it creeps me out to spend time in there at night with a big black window gawking at me. Even if Michael is downstairs with me. I have been meaning to put something, even if it was just a sheer curtain to make me feel less creeped out. But it is kind of hard because it is a half window, and we have a drop ceiling in there.

The other day I was hit with a stroke of genius! My friend Priscilla had gotten me these light lime green sheer curtains at a church yard sale a while back. The original intention was to hang them in our master bedroom, but I have not gotten curtain rods for that room yet. The color matches the new file cabinet (well enough) so I decided to use them in the girl room instead!

This very well may be the easiest curtain-hanging project that I have ever done. Now I know...its not for every window type. But in this situation, it was the best solution, due to the fact that I did not want to spend a penny on this little jobby of mine! I had this big fat ball of twine-rope. Its a bit sturdier than most twine. Perfect!

 The curtain panels have a small pocket at the top, that I think would have been tight for a curtain-rod anyway!

 Stringing the string through by itself proved to be futile. It was taking forever to wiggle it along. About 5 inches in, I got another bright idea! I tied it to an ink pen and used it like a big needle to thread the rope through the opening!

 Like so:

 Now here is what necessitated this style of curtain hanging. We have a drop ceiling that comes down about 2 inches in front of the window. This makes it hard to have a curtain rod, but works out perfectly for what I wanted to do!

 I placed a flat headed nail at the same height on both sides of the window, just high enough that the drop ceiling would hide it from sight.

After that, I simply tied a good, tight knot to each nail, stringing the rope and curtain across the window. I did not pull it quite tight enough, so I actually taped the center! Ghetto, I know! I just didn't like it to sag...

And here is what I ended up with!

 I betcha wouldn't know that is a string from a distance! Especially if I had not told you so! I am really happy with the way that it came out. The panels really are more green than they appear here! I promise!

 I tied the sheers to the side with an extra piece of the twine-rope. This way I can just untie it if I want them to close at night. I know, I know. You can see through sheer curtains. But it gives me some peace of mind!

 It is so cozy down there now! I just love the way that this room almost always has sunshine. It is probably the sunniest room in the entire house. The way that the sheers pick up the sunlight is so bright and cheery. And I love that the room is slowly, but surely, getting less and less nekked!