5 Pins

This has nothing to do with the rest of my post, but since everyone else is giving their two cents, I figure I'm gonna give mine.  How amazing was Kate's Catherine's dress?! 

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I love the lace sleeves and her teeny bouquet!

Well, here I go, about to give my two cents on something else a lot of people have already chimed in on.  I'm loving Pinterest right now.  I don't have a ton of stuff pinned because I'm fairly new at it, but it has been very helpful.

I can't count the amount of times in the past that I've seen something online, then wanted to refer back to it only to realize that I can't remember where I saw what I'm looking for.  Now if I see anything I think I may want to remember I pin it and it's there whenever I need it.  No random Google searches or trying to remember what blog I was on.  It all goes to one neatly organized place. 

I highly recommend signing up.  (It can take up to two weeks to get an account.)  I'm really trying to use the site as a tool and not let it turn into a huge time suck.  So far, I'm doing OK.  For instance,  I'm trying to find a paint color for our guest room, so I've been looking at rooms in different shades of gray and pinning them so I can refer back, and maybe go get the paint chip when I'm ready.

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Here are a few more things I've put a pin in just because they are pretty or I'd like to try one day :

 

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Have a wonderful weekend!

Dead Ringer: Pottery Barn Studio Wall Shelf & JCPenney Aubrey Leaning Shelf

I found another great look-alike on sale at JC Penney.  Originally it was the same price as the Pottery Barn shelf, but now it's on sale for $170 less! Same size and everything!

This is the 34" Studio Wall Shelf at Pottery Barn and it's $299.

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This is the 34" Aubrey Leaning shelf at JCPenney and it's $129.99.

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p.s.  the smaller shelves are 25" and they're $89, and JCP has free shipping on orders over $69.

More Stuff I Saw at Target

First, look who's got a jug lamp!  Sorry if this is not news, but I hadn't been to Target in a while and I just saw this yesterday.

It's $49.99 and it's available online.  The picture on the website looks different, but I'm pretty sure it's the same lamp.

Second,  the whole aisle of end/accent tables and little ottomans (ottomen?... just kidding) was on clearance.  Some were marked down as much as $40.

And last,  Target has black framed cork boards for $4.14!  We have two of these in our house.  One in the kitchen and one in our office area.  I bought mine a while ago when they were $11 though.  If only I had waited a couple of years I could have saved $14!  Oh, well.

I love the board in our kitchen.  Our kitchen/living room floor plan is very open and our fridge is one of the first things you see when you walk in the door.  I put all the stuff that would normally be stuck to a fridge on our cork board and our refrigerator stays clutter free.

I didn't get a great picture in the store, but it looks just like the framed cork board at Pottery Barn.  This one is an inch or two bigger and it's $99!

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Spotted: Yellow Rossette Pillow $20 @ Target

FYI:  The ubiquitous Dwell Studio for Target yellow rosette pillow is temporarily on sale for $20 right now.

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Hooray for the Jappling!

Our new Ikea Jappling leather chair was the most expensive purchase I made in my little living room re-do. We really needed something to go in a corner that used to have a ladder bookcase.  When our son started pulling up it was obvious that we needed to get rid of it.  We also decided it would be nice to have another seat for guests.

I first saw the chair in December when we made a trip to Ikea, but it wouldn't fit in our car so we had to put it off for a while (4 months!).  We put the $200 aside and waited for a good time to go get it.  I've seen other little leather chairs at places like HomeGoods for the same price, but none of them was as comfortable as the Jappling.  To keep this post short, I'll just say that I'm really enjoying it and I highly recommend it.

One more thing...the chair is no longer available online so I couldn't find much info about it, and I really wanted the measurements.  I kind of took a chance that it would fit where I wanted it to go, and I was so relieved that it did.  Just in case anyone else is interested here are the details:  29"x29" and 31" high.

Home-made Pottery Barn/West Elm Lamp Knock-Off

I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter weekend.  Mine was great, and in case you missed it on Friday, I have the next three weeks off!

For the next couple of weeks I'll be sharing details from some of the projects I've done to finish up my living room revamp and by the end of this week or the beginning of next week I'll have pictures of the whole thing.

This first project (finished product pictured above) was so easy and cheap, and it turned out great.  I love home-made things that don't look home-made.

I had been looking for a lamp like these since I put my living room mood board together.

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The first one is from Pottery Barn and it's $100 and the second on is from West Elm and it's $150.  Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places, but in over a month of searching I never came across a (much) less expensive knock-off. 

 

So I decided to make one myself.  I've had that glass jug for a few years, I already had a shade I wanted to use and I've seen lamp kits in Lowe's.  The last piece of the puzzle was to figure out how to put a hole in the bottom of jug .  With only a few minutes of research I learned that I needed a ceramic cutting drill bit.  I made a little trip to Lowe's, spent about $18 to get the lamp kit and bit (I got the 5/16" bit), and I was ready to work. If you don't have a Lowe's nearby,  the following items are similar and can be found on amazon. 

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Time to drill!  I put a piece of tape on the jug in case it cracked while I was drilling.  I was pretty nervous at first and I imagined the whole thing shattering in my hands. 

Thank goodness it did not shatter, but it did take for-ev-er.  I'm talkin' about five minutes of holding the drill in the same place to make one hole.  Finally the hole was big enough for the cord to fit.

From there all you have to do is follow the directions on the lamp kit packaging.  I only had to make one adjustment  The stoppers that are included in the kit were all too small for the opening of my jug, so I used a little hot glue to create a seal so the stopper would fit.  The hot glue worked great and you can't even tell it's there.

Here's the finished product again:

And here's what it cost me:

New money spent:

• drill bit: $8
• lamp kit:  $10

$18 is pretty good for a solid PB or West Elm knock-off.

Here's what it would cost if all the parts had to be bought new:

• bit and kit:  $18
• jug:  $10-$15  (The shelves of HomeGoods, T.J. Maxx and Marshall's are littered with glass jug thingies.  Mine was $15, but I've seen ones the same size for $10.)
• drum shade:  $15 from Wal-Mart's Canopy line

$43-$48 is still less than half of what it would cost to buy the Pottery Barn Eva lamp.  

***OOPS!: I forgot to mention that you may need a lamp harp and the prongs depending on the kind of***

          shade you have.  The harp and prongs aren't included in the lamp kit, but they're also sold at Lowe's.

I'm super excited about how the lamp looks in my living room and I'm looking forward to sharing more projects and eventually the entire room.

*This post contains affiliate links*

Have a great Monday!

I'll be linking up to...

 

A Few Things...

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#1  Go check out my bud, Kristin's blog.  She just started and she's a wonderful writer, photographer and overall super cool person. 

#2  We made it to Charlotte and back today and had a successful trip to Ikea.  I'm looking forward to sharing my mostly complete living room later next week.

#3  I'm really disappointed that the JC Penney mirror I posted about a couple weeks ago is now no longer available.  

#3  I HAVE THE NEXT THREE WEEKS OFF!!!  I work at a year round school, so we're in for 9 weeks and out for three.  I love the schedule.  Full summers off are soooo overrated.  I'm really looking forward to pretending to be a stay at home mom and getting some stuff done around the house.  This is pretty much how I feel right now:

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Cups in a Row

Look what I found at T.J. Maxx!  I've been searching for stainless steel sippy cups for over a month (read about why here).  They are soooo expensive, and while it was easy to find cheap, glass food storage, it was not easy to find a cheap stainless steel cup....actually now that I think about it, I never really saw any in stores.  All of the cups I looked at were online and no cheaper than $17 + shipping.

When I came across these in T.J. Maxx for $5.99 each I grabbed every one of them that I could find.  (The pink one is for my niece.)  These cups are originally $13 and allegedly sold in stores.  I say "allegedly" because in all my digging through Babies R Us and the baby section at Toys R Us I never saw them.  

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When I first started looking for stainless steel sippy cups I read some not so great reviews about the Munchkin.  So, I only opened one cup and it's currently being put through a leak test.

No drips yet.  Hopefully I won't have to return them!
 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar First Birthday Party

I'll get back to my living room redecorating later this week.  Until then, here's my son's first birthday party.

We kept it pretty simple and only spent about $40 on the decorations and paper goods.

The party was a couple months ago and it was such a sweet time to celebrate with family.  We even had my husband's parents, sister and our niece drive up all the way from Louisiana to be with our little guy on his special day.

We had had the date for the party all lined up since November, but I hadn't planned a single thing until the party was about 3 weeks away.  A girl I work with, whose son turned one about six weeks before mine, told me about their Very Hungry Caterpillar party and the idea just stuck in my head.  When the party was two and a half weeks away I decided I should start looking for some invitations.  At first I looked at Etsy.  I was planning on doing the whole print your own thing.  I soon realized that most Etsy vendors required payment by PayPal (confession:  I've never bought anything from Etsy :-/).  I didn't want to go through the hassle of setting up a PayPal account so I decided I was going to attempt to make my own invitations, thank-yous, cupcake toppers and banner all by myself.

When I created these birthday invitations it first time I'd never used our Adobe Creative Suite to do anything.  It took me a while to figure stuff out, but with a little frustration and trial and error this is what I came up with:

It's nothing spectacular, but for my first try and only the cost of printing ($10 @ Sam's!), it did the job.

The rest of the party stuff was really easy.  Having the fancy schmancy software is nice, but the cupcake toppers, favor tags, food cards and banner, could have all been done with PowerPoint or Publisher since it was just printed from our inkjet printer.


cupcake toppers



Banner



favor tag

I ended up mixing store-bought decorations in with my home-made ones.  I bought plates, napkins and plastic table cloths from good ol' Target.

I didn't get a picture of the plates and napkins at the party, but I snapped a picture of them on my last trip to Target.

Here's the run down of our party paper-ware and decorations:
1.  Package of card stock:  $4.99
2.  Pack of colorful tissue paper for pom-poms:  $4.99
3.  Invitations: 25 5x7's @ $.38 from Sam's:  about $10
4.  Lollipop sticks:  $2.50
5.  Plastic table cloths: 2 @ $3:  $6
6.  Paper plates:  4 packs @ $1.60:  $6.40
7.  Napkins:  2 packs @ $2:  $4

Party supplies and decorations for under $40!

But wait, there's more!  The painting on the gift table was a freebie!  My talented mother-in-law painted this for James, and it's something we'll use for many years to come.....

....aaaaaand here's the super cute cake-on-the-face shot.

14 Months

Little Man turned 14 months yesterday.  I finally got around to writing a post about his birthday party and it'll be done and up by tonight!