Some New Things

If there's any excuse to change up my mantle, I'll definitely use the fact that I got a gold mirror as one of them. This particular mirror used to be black when I picked it up from Michael's at 70% off. Brought it home, put my Goldfinger on it and called it done. Paired with black framed gold feathers (a b-day gift from bestie) and my Big Lots wooden vase, I think it likes life. 

I picked up this "live simply" card during a First Friday junking day in Kansas City back in October. I've been trying really hard to eliminate the unnecessary (whether it be accessories, clothes, food, sleeping in...). When I drop off a ton of stuff at Goodwill or the consignment shop I physically feel lighter and I think our house can breath easier too.
p.s. this gold mirror replaced the large rectangle avocado mirror that now lives at my mom's; just swapping things out for something more our style

I have been looking for some fake artichokes...call me crazy but I think they're so funny. But, hello, they can cost an arm and a leg. I found these on long stems and fall clearance at Michael's for $1.50 each. I brought them home and yanked the stem off and now they sit pretty on their own.

I also swapped out our living room lamp shades thanks to a b-day gift card to Target (thanks, angie!). I plan on garage selling the old ones. I don't know the proper terms but you know the difference between lamp shades that require the harp and the ones that don't? Well the ones that don't, the one's that the lamp shade just rests under the light bulb, well those suck. They wobble around too much and get crooked all. the. time. We were constantly adjusting them and trying to get them to stay straight, but to no avail. I didn't know such lamp knowledge when we picked them out for our registry, but they have to go.

Also, how about some dried flowers for fall decorations? My bestie got married and had the most beautiful live flowers. Since it was my duty to return borrowed containers to the florist I also got to deconstruct some of her centerpieces and kept what was cute to dry out....maybe she'll get some :) But these here are called Billy Balls. This is what they will look like forever.

And I'm not sure what these yellow guys were called but they are so pretty. It's the same flower that sticking out of the wooden vase on the mantle.

Another unknown here, but just simple and cute. That is all that is necessary to make it in my house.

Last new thing...this beautiful grey wood grain pillow I picked up from Homegoods. Along with the best accessory ever...sweet Toby's tail.

Globes of Light

When we moved in all of our light fixtures were builder grade - you know the boob looking ones. This is only our second change (the fan in our master, the first) [here and here] and I absolutely love it. 

It's the Large Wire Globe Light in Smoke Grey. For a light this size to be under a 100 smacks, I thank YHL and all their awesomeness. 

Oh, and the best part? Nana and I hung it all. by. ourselves. But don't go calling me as your electrician yet, I had to call in my uncle (who also helped us with the fan) to check some of my wires and have the muscle to screw in the base to the ceiling mount. Doing things above your head while standing on a 50+ year old dining table is kind of anxiety inducing. But it turns out just one of the wire caps came loose - other than that we did everything right - without instructions! 

And obviously I had to get an old-timey industrial bulb that you can find at Target. The globe is really large and oversized for the room, but since it's a see-through wire cage and not a solid mass it doesn't weigh anything down. And literally weighs like 2 pounds. It also comes with three feet of chain in case you're putting it in a lofted space, but I wanted it as flush as could be so we only used 2 links of the chain.

Let me tell you, the second best part are the shadow casts at night. Super cool.

282 Shapes

If you follow me on Instagram/Facebook then you might've seen a little peak at what I was working on this long weekend. We recently painted our master bathroom a gorgeous mustard color - Valspar Fields of Gold. So with the color addition I thought I'd add some artwork over the throne. 

I wan inspired by this project done by YHL and they were inspired by this print. I picked up a canvas from Micahel's with a coupon for $3.50 and used only paint I already had on hand - leftover primer white for a dilute, a sample of Valspar Iron Frost (a contender for our bedroom), and a tube of acrylic paint in Raw Umber. 

I followed basically the same steps that YHL did and ran a ruler....ok, truth, I actually used the flat end of a stir stick...I realized this weekend we do not own an actual ruler...anyways, I made even-ish lines across vertically. Then I just used whatever hard-ish paper I had near to make my shapes. I did add in a bunch extra (282 to be exact) just to kind of mix it up a bit. 

Then with a squirt of each color of paint on my paper plate I just dived in. 

Here it is after day one where I think I spent about four-ish hours on it in one sitting. That darkest, almost black color, is the Raw Umber with no dilute. That darkest gray (in the upper right hand side) is the Iron Frost with no dilute. Everything else in between is a mix of all of the colors or one or the other with the primer. The second day I think I spent maybe 3 total hours on it mixed in with other tasks.

And here it is all done and hung up! There's a little overlap in the two photos but if you visually squish them together this is the whole piece. By the way, cameras hate capturing any yellow-gold properly. The real tone is much more wheat-y and not yellow by any means. 

 

Since we're hanging out in our bathroom I guess I'll show you around some other spots.

I love it. I love our bathroom color and the painting. The carpal tunnel was worth it :) I think we just need to hang some towel hooks and figure out how we're going to change our janky light fixture then this room will be...wait for it..FINISHED.