A View I Would Kill For

I would not say I am a big city girl, but I would not object to moving to Chicago, Boston or New York for a few years. It is no secret to my husband that I would love to spend a few years in the Big Apple while we are young and childless (I wouldn't raise a child there for their sake, and mine). I know space is VERY limited, but the food is amazing, there is so much to see, so many free activities, different and wonderful people, and just a whole different experience I would love to have.

I've gone a couple of times to spend a week with my good friend Hyeku who lives out in New York. She is my favorite person because she takes me to all those little places that only locals would know about. My trips are never touristy and I meet the greatest people and have the most creative time of my life. She has a tiny apartment, but it works and makes for cozy and entertaining parties. Many nights we'd end up sleeping at whatever apartment we were visiting when 3 a.m. hit. It was a blast and I want to have more experience like that, but with my wonderful husband now.

What got me on this big kick was a New York home tour I saw on Madebygirl of Melanie's from Luxury Monograms. I would give almost anything for a view like this

 I'd die to have windows in my apartment that large.

 Can my office desk look out onto an amazing street/city view like that please? 

I had to throw this last shot in because she has a great space that she has really made her own.

P.S. We are moving to St. Louis at the end of July which many keep telling me is a "big city". I'll take what I can get. I've heard there are great things in that city too.

A Goodlooking Island- Little Green Notebook

An island in a kitchen is used for many things. It's counter space for food preparation and it's a space for eating. Each person has specific needs for an island and some people have no reason for an island. I assume, in my future home, I will have an island in my kitchen. I love the idea of me preparing dinner at our island while my children sit on stools at the island and tell me all about their day. That's what I did with my mom growing up.

That being said, I loved this island built and decorated by Little Green Notebook. She did a bit of piecing together and the look turned out great. Obviously this island is not for eating meals at, but it does the job it was meant to do when it was created.

Decisions Decisions- Lampshades

I have been bouncing ideas around for my lampshades that are on the lamps on the bedside tables. I covered them with paisley fabric from a local fabric store, but never loved anything about the fabric. I just needed something to cover up the white shade. Now that I have ripped the fabric half off I am figuring out the new look. If I had painted walls I would leave the shades white, but with white walls our bedroom is screaming for some color.

I love the designs from Shades of Light

 These are all nice, but I feel that they are too soft and not the right kind of color I need. If color wasn't what I was going for I would totally do this 

to get this look

 Remember that my lamp bases are clear.

Since I need to really stick to not putting black in our bedroom I am leaning toward my husband's request of green in our bedroom. I am thinking perhaps some kind of solid blue/green/turqoise color on the outside of the shade and then doing gold inside to tie in the hardware that will someday be on our nightstands and that is on our sunburst mirror above our bed.

I'll let you know what we end up deciding.

Our New Old Couch

We've rented our couch from our apartment complex since we got married because we didn't have the money to spend on a couch we loved and we weren't going to buy a gross with who knows what's on it  couch that we could afford. So, Royal Blue became apart of our family. It has held up great, is clean and that velvet fabric just screams classy, doesn't it?

The Old

With a move to Law School coming in a few months, I decided we needed to find a couch to own. Everyday I would skim the local online classifieds, but no one's junk ever appealed to me. I would not purchase anything that was sagging, lived with any pet or was an ugly color.

Then I found it. The couch. It was gray (nice neutral color), no saggy cushions, only 2 miles from our house and only $50. We'd missed out on two other great deals the week before so my husband jumped on it and within an hour of it being posted that couch was

My husband and I spent the next couple of days washing the cushion covers, lint rolling the entire baby, vacuuming, febreeze-ing and repeating that process until I felt comfortable sitting on a couch that had been previously owned. BUT we sat down only to discover that the back was broken. I was bummed. I had come to like the couch a lot. We thought about fixing it ourselves and I was a bit against it. We didn't know what was underneath that fabric and if we could even fix it once we found out the problem, but my husband took charge and within 20 minutes we had the back ripped up.

I don't have pics of the before or during process, but my husband snapped this picture on his phone. It was after the surgery, but before he closed up the wound. I went to work yesterday morning with a couch that had no back sitting upside down in my living room and at 2pm I got a text from my husband telling me it was done. I was so surprised to hear it had gone so fast, but then to see the couch in person and have it look like it had never been ripped apart was a shocker.

This is the after picture my husband texted me while I was at work.Check out that straight back. You'd never know it just had major surgery.

Our New Old Couch!

That puppy is tough and I can't wait to get my new colorful pillow covers on it. That gray will look great in whatever apartment we move into next and that couch will definitely hold us through 3 years of law school. I also owe a big thank you to my husband for being wonderful enough to take on a job I was scared to do and thought couldn't be done by inexperienced us. Thanks Babe!

If I had a pet. . .

I decided if we ever got a fish that it would have to be a goldfish and it would have to live in this. . .

via here
Is that cruel? I love the look.

Tutorial: DIY Caitlin Wilson's signature pillows

Happy Friday Everybody! In celebration of Cinco de Mayo yesterday I decided to give my blog an all day Siesta. Now on to today's post:

I have always loved the look of Caitlin Wilson’s signature pillows from Caitlin Wilson Design. She has done a few orders here and there for people requesting on her blog and I never took the plunge. They are gorgeous and can be used in so many design styles, especially with all the different colors available.

A while back I decided to tackle my own DIY for these pillows and I thought I would finally share the tutorial.

I chose to make a navy blue pillow and dark pink pillow. I made those with just a normal envelope opening in the back (Caitlin's pillows have zippers). I bought some iron-on heat bonding tape and ribbon from JoAnn's.

To get the greek key design I just kind of eyeballed with a measuring tape about where I would like the ribbon to go. I then measured and cut out 4 strips of the three sizes I needed. I can't remember the length of the long pieces, but the little pieces I cut 3 inch strips and then 4 inch strips to wrap a 1/2 inch around the 3 inch ones. I'm sorry that might sound really complicated.

 

I assume The Caitlin Wilson pillows actually have the ribbon sewn on to them, but I thought I would give the heat bonding a try. I cut one inch squares of that heat bondingtape and bonded the four long strips together.

 I then added a 3 inch strip and a 4 inch strip. and bonded those together.

 

 This is what the back looks like.

Here are all of the ribbon strips bonded together.

I then covered the entire back of my ribbon greek key design with bonding tape, flipped it over, positioned it where I would like it and got to ironing.

Voila!

And Voila!

 

And yes, I do not have inserts in them yet, but I still love them.

Paper Mojo

I fell in love with the Michael Kors python tote a while back and when my dollar didn't stretch that far I decided to settle for a python key chain that I couldn't bring myself to purchase in the end either. So, I have settled on python paper.

Paper Mojo has python paper that I would love to cover a few of my books in. I thought I would definetaly love the look and then I stumbled upon this picture on Made By Girl a couple weeks ago. . .

 via here 

See it? That python covered book? I am in love with it and definitely need to have one. She also used the Paper Mojo python paper so mine should turn out like Jen's (That's the hope).

Paper Mojo has amazing textures and colors of paper that can be used for all sorts of projects. A big trend lately has been marble paper.

Check out these cute ideas:

This Etsy shop has cute products that you could make yourself using these Paper Mojo products

 via here

You can use it as backing for cabinets or for the inside of drawers

via here

via here
As Art

via here
To cover furniture

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or accesories

via here

I'd be interested to see what other uses any of you could come up with.