The Lion, The Deer and The Bookcase

We visited Vintage Market Days held in Bixby, OK last weekend where a bunch of vendors set up antique goodies and refurbished finds. I not only left with a bunch of ideas and a fuel to get my craft on but also a handful of small pieces for our bookshelf. I was able to restyle the shelf with a lot of stuff we had on hand and got to squeeze in my new friends. 

First, I have to show off my new lion head friends. I grabbed them out of my mom's garage sale pile and decided to give them a face lift. Before I spray painted them a glossy white they were a distressed ivory. And yes, I do think it's a little humorous that my lion head helps hold up one of my vegetarian cookbooks. 

This deer antler was one of my VM finds for just 3 bucks. I think he looks pretty fancy sitting on a stack of books. And yes we still have some stranger danger going on in the background.

 I scored this milk glass bowl/vase and the jumbo jack for 5 bucks.

And how about that small globe? I picked him out of a vase of other globes and saw he was marked down because of a small dent. Well that very dent allows the round globe to stand freely on my shelf. Win, win.

We also moved around our Target wedding gift console table. It was originally in our room as my side table, but we needed another entryway table for keys and coins. Underneath we have a basket (still empty) and our wedding albums. I hope this picture shows how funky this little area is to style functionally. We have a bookshelf that is mostly in the end of our living area but still somewhat sneaks into our mudroom/bar/nook area. And the wood floor drops off right on the edge into the tiled nook so it makes for some funky placements.

Lastly we moved the secretary to replace my side table in the bedroom and brought in the metal cart that used to hold our printer in the office. I like this much better since it's open and less bulky for this little corner. The boxes below hold all our wine opening accessories and extra napkins and other small bar necessities. I would like to add some wine bottle holders to the side to free up some space from the top shelf. 

Anyways that's where we are. Always shuffling furniture in this house. Nothing is safe!

Paper Goods

You can check out over here how we put together parts of our DIY wedding that was both a little rustic and a little tandem bicycle-y. We lucked out huge and had all of our wedding paper needs taken care of by my aunt, uncle and cousin who own a print shop in Missouri. My cousin Amy was super amazingly awesome and designed all of our paper goods off of emails full of crazy ideas from me. All together Amy created our Invitation bundle, our wedding programs, and the cards that held our wedding favors (and another paper good, but I'll share that later!). And I cannot say enough how great they turned out and how crazy patient she was with me through the entire process, we love her bunches!

Below you can see our wedding favors that Amy created. The card says "Plant These Hearts and flowers will grow". In the center are two biodegradable teal and mustard hearts that are loaded with wildflower seeds. All our guests had to do were remove the hearts from the card and plant them in some soil and water and they would be blessed with beautiful wildflowers. This all would have turned out wonderful if.....we had remembered to set them out for guests to grab on their way out. Whoops!. I'll be bringing some to family events as the year goes on so we can get those passed around the family.

You can check out the KaBloomz shop where I got our flower hearts on Etsy here.  

Here we have our wedding programs that I actually made into fans with pop sicle sticks and some craft runner tape. Our ceremony was outside in September so it was a bit toasty (110 degrees, toasty) so we thought our guests would appreciate a little relief. This part of the program has our tandem bicycle (which became our little theme as we went on) and says below "Fact: 5 years ago on this day, Emylee and Bryan had their first date". Yes, we got married on our 5th year anniversary - less dates to remember, holla!

Here's the program as a whole. We mixed a bunch of fonts and graphic elements along with the antique edge to give off a whimsical old age style.

This is what our wedding invitation bundle looks like as guests open them. 

When they opened their bundle they got their main invitation, their RSVP postcard, driving directions and a registry card all which was wrapped in a striped mustard band.

We looked online and in our wedding planning book for copy ideas for our invitation. We wanted a relaxed and fun copy that didn't come off as too stuffy. 

Here are the rest of the pieces that came in the bundle. As you can see we used the bicycle on the RSVP card so it was something that could help remind the guests the feel of our wedding.

Again, we absolutely loved our wedding paper goods and cannot thank our family enough for their huge contribution to our wedding. You can check out this project here to see how I memorialized our wedding stationary. 

Also check out Amy's Esty shop here. Amy also took our engagement pictures - she's a wonder woman!

Thanks, Craig[list]

We craigslisted. And we weren't kidnapped won. Our bedroom is the last possible space I would normally be working on since it still has carpet in it. We are hoping to add hardwoods that match the rest of the house since it's the only space with carpet and sicks me out. Carpet also makes everything look closed in and small and dingy so it's really difficult to for me to spend time making this space pretty because everything will make me groan until I have crisp hardwoods under my toes. HOWEVER, things happen. Craigslist happens. Pier1 headboards at 87% off happen. And then of course Instagram happens. 

First it started here, with this posting under Tulsa listings on Craigslist. I had been milling around headboard ideas for our king size bed for future future times. I had looked at fabric (too heavy for the space), wood (too expensive), wicker (too themey) and then I turned my eyeballs to Craig. And he gave me this. A king size, metal, Pier 1 headboard for....wait for it....FORTY DOLLARS. I immediately sent this picture to my bestie who has lived worked at Pier1 forever and she said yes, this piece retailed three(ish) years ago for around $300 smacks.

After some emailing, large vehicle arranging, and fear for my safety thoughts happened that hunk a chunk of metal was soon all mine. The sale actually went really well, the woman I bought from was just as concerned for her safety as I was mine and we both sighed some relief when neither one of us turned out to be axe murderers. Oh and her and her husband were selling this piece because they kept popping out babies and babies don't sleep well in king sized beds not because it's haunted or something. 

Here's a close up of the lovely gunmetal shade. Initially I had thoughts of white spray painting this beast but we wanted to check it out in the space first and both B and I love it this way. And hey, no extra work means even more inexpensive steal of a deal.

We like how the lines in the metal headboard play nice with the geometric shapes in our Target lamp shades that we got as a wedding gift. This shows you my side of the room where the only two windows live as well as my console for a nightstand from Target.

This is B's side. We were saving up for a minute to get him a matching console, but then we just kept using this dresser as his nightstand and it works well. We have limited closet space so any extra drawers help out a ton. I think (once we get new floors) I'll give the dresser a new look, but that will be later. Now of course we need some artwork and junk, but you know. Time. Money.

This awesome mirror is on my side right when you walk in to the right and was my birthday gift this year. As you can tell from the reflection we have some issues with the undercarriage of our beastly bed. We have this thing on risers to we can store things underneath but that also means we need an extra long bedskirt and those babies ain't cheap. And from the looks of this our comforter may or may not be on backwards. Whatevs.

While we're showcasing part of the room I might as well own up to all of it. This little Hot Mess Cove needs work. It's this odd little vanity area but has horrible lighting so I don't use this area to get ready in. Currently it holds a bunch of my everyday jewelry and B's old college nightstand underneath. I dream of a built in dresser here that goes all the way up to the ceiling in storage. One day. Maybe.

And this is what you see if you are on the bed. We are testing the idea of having a chair in the room, but usually it's covered in clothes. The black dresser was once wood and belonged to my parents. I like it's shape and drawers but it needs a new life.

So there it is. The only development of the week. But hey I think saving 87% is pretty cool. Even if it was for something that wasn't necessarily on the top of our priority list.