To illustrate the sometimes complex path that leads me to an end result I love I’ll lead you through the process of creating the painted storage boxes I posted about earlier this week. It all started with a need. My laundry room shelves were empty because they just weren’t working for me. I wanted to fill them with baskets or bins to corral smaller items, but they would have been expensive to buy all at once. I searched the internet for affordable options but couldn’t find anything that worked. Then I got the idea to cover cardboard boxes in fabric! So I posted on facebook and within a few days had a bunch of empty diaper boxes donated.

When I put them all up on the shelves to see how they would look, I realized that A) it would look much better if they were all the same shape and size, and B) it was going to take me forever to cover all those boxes in fabric! So I waited. That was two months ago.

Then when I started taking pictures of the house for the updated house tour page, I realized I really, really needed a new picture of that side of the laundry room. It was still painted blue in the old picture, which was confusing if you saw photos of the other side of the room painted white. So I started thinking about the shelves again. I even considered taking them down and replacing them with some large-scale art (maybe using this technique). But when I got back home (that brainstorming session happened on a long-ish car ride to visit my parents) I looked at the shelves again and decided to try different arrangements of boxes to see if I could make it work. I settled on just using two rectangular boxes, but then I had to figure out what to do with them!

I thought about painting them first, but I wasn’t inspired by the idea of a solid color. Then I saw this and thought about covering them with colorful/patterned duct tape.

My Fave 4 Letter F-word

But when I searched online I didn’t see any duct tape I found appealing. But I DID see this, which was done with washi tape. So I started researching where I could get some washi tape for cheap.

Elise Blaha

But the washi tape was going to add up to more than I wanted to spend and it didn’t seem like it would be all that durable, so I actually went back to the idea of using paint, but this time I would use painter’s tape to create uniform stripes. I raided my paint collection and pulled together a palette of blue, green, pink, and purple.

I even mocked up the layout on my computer.

But when I started painting the blue I decided I wanted to do a colorblock instead, with blue on the base and a pink band around the top. In that case it would be easiest to paint the pink first, then wrap the top with 2″ wide painter’s tape before adding the blue. So I started painting the pink.

THEN I decided I really liked the loose, wavy stripes with the pink, blue, and white primer showing between them. So I tried adding a white stripe. But it looked too much like this:

image source

So I painted over the white and that’s how I got to here.

So if you’re perusing pinterest or reading blogs and feeling bummed because you think you’re just not creative, have hope! Inspiration is not always something that strikes in a moment of eureka. It’s a process that’s sparked from a problem, and having limits like a small budget or whatever materials you already have on hand can really be a catalyst for coming up with something special that works for you.

I hope you all have a lovely long weekend! I’m really, really looking forward to it. I’ll be taking the day off from blogging on Monday to indulge in some family time, but I’ll be back with regularly scheduled programming come Tuesday! Happy Memorial Day!

The front porch. Somebody needs to sweep that floor! It’s not gonna be me. I want to paint the floor gray but I’ll probably never get it clean enough to paint.

Nick and I can be found sharing a beer out here at least a couple evenings each week. He listens to LSU baseball on the vintage radio and I read a magazine or play around on my phone. There’s a ceiling fan to combat the heat and that sweet olive planted just on the other side of the railing perfumes the whole area in late summer. I’d like to plant a whole row of them eventually to create an open screen between us and the neighbors.

The front door opens right into the living room. I created an entryway of sorts using an upholstered storage bench and a shelf with hooks.

The living room opens into the dining room, which I’ve divided into two spaces for eating and sitting. To be honest, we rarely use that seating area and I’d love to someday replace it with an upright piano and a cushy rug for Jack to play on while I work in the kitchen.

I love the dining area. We have a portable high chair that we strap onto one of the dining chairs for Jack.

The kitchen is pretty much exactly the same as the day we bought the house. I changed the window treatment and added the stemware rack under the cabinet, but that’s it.

I’d love to someday replace the tile backsplash with beadboard and install upper cabinets or open shelves on either side of the stove vent.

If I had a million dollars I’d also look into opening up that pass-through to expand up and to the right, creating a bar that we can pull up stools to on the other side. It’s hard to put into words but I can envision exactly what I want.

The laundry room is at the way back of the house behind the kitchen. There’s a door just to the right of this photo that leads to the backyard. The washer and dryer are ancient and dying but we’re making them work as long as possible.

On the other end of the laundry room, I built that skirted counter to hide the cats’ litter box and a bunch of other random crap. It’s really one of my favorite projects. The dog and cat food are in glass canisters on top of the dresser and the trashcans on the right are labeled with chalkboard paint for trash and recycling.

I didn’t bother with an updated photo of the guest bath as it really hasn’t changed much, but here’s the old one for continuity’s sake. I recently ditched the cork bathmat and am still on the hunt for the perfect replacement.

Jack’s room. The only thing I’ve changed since he was born is adding more art and accessories we received as gifts.

Our bedroom is upstairs. It’s sort of a loft setup. I think it was added after the house was built, but long enough ago to have the same style windows. It’s a large room and difficult to capture on camera without a wide-angle lens.

Back downstairs at the very front of the house is the office slash playroom. I’m trying to simplify things by just calling it a den but I can’t get my mouth to say it. I always just call it the office. This room and the laundry room are definitely the ones that have changed the most in recent months. It’s come a looooooong way from this.

This is where I sit blogging at this very moment. I use those shelves to store office and craft supplies as well as items I have listed for sale in my etsy shop.

The rug is usually covered in baby toys.

And last but not least, the backyard. The deck has become a much nicer place to spend time lately thanks to the fresh coat of paint and colorful umbrella I added to the table and chairs.

We have a vegetable garden, clothesline, two compost bins, and I’m working on putting in an herb garden (the grass is cleared, I just need to rent a tiller to get the rest of the roots and then build a raised bed. I learned from my veggie garden that just laying down some cardboard under the bed will not kill my grass.). That galvanized pail near the deck steps collects rainwater for me to water the garden with. I’d love to get chickens someday, but I’m worried about keeping them out of my veggies and herbs. And also predators. We live in a densely populated area with the standard assortment of stray cats plus a surprising number of possums, raccoons, and even a family of hawks. I’d like the chickens to be able to free range if I can figure out the logistics.

So there’s our place! Not pictured are the guest bedroom and master bath, which still leave quite a bit to be desired, but if you’re just dying to see what they look like you can check them out in this post and this post. I’ll be working on getting all these new photos up on the house tour page today, so if you click over before I’m finished you can see what’s changed (and what hasn’t!) since the last tour. I fell in love with the house the first time I saw it and it’s so cheesy but I love it a little more every time I do something else to make it more beautiful, functional, and livable. And if you’ve made it to the end of this super long post then I love you too! Thanks for reading!

Just moving in all the jars and bottles I collect somewhat compulsively gave the space a little more interest and purpose. All that glass used to just clutter up my cabinets and counters so it’s nice to have it all in one place slash on display here. But things were still looking a little boring, so I whipped up some free decor to jazz it up a bit. I started with this piece of scrap wood I already had.

Then I gave it a super thin coat of pale gray paint leftover from Jack’s nursery.

I created a little sign pointing to the backyard on the computer, then printed it out and used my go-to technique for transferring simple images: rub pencil on the back of your paper, tape it to your surface, and then trace over it with a firm hand to transfer the pencil.

Voila. The lines are faint but they’re there.

Then I just went over it with a sharpie! Perfection was not the goal here, seeing as I am pretty much never interested in perfection and even less so when it comes to decor for a utility room. Plus I like it kind of rustic.

I hung it up with a command strip, then popped this free printable into a white frame further down the shelf and admired my handiwork.

It’s nice to have things looking so much nicer in here, especially since I do laundry pretty much every day. And now I can finally update our house tour page with photos of the room painted white!

First step: spray primer.

Then I painted them. I went through a whole process of deciding how to paint them and that’s a post in and of itself–how I get inspired. But in the end I decided to do a casual colorblock/painterly stripe combo. Easy was important since I’m just trying to pretty up some storage boxes, not create a family heirloom. I used paint I already had and didn’t even bother painting the inside.

I’ve been working on making the laundry room shelves a little prettier slash more functional so I can finally update our house tour page. More on that tomorrow. The diaper boxes are perfect for storing lightbulbs, rarely accessed cleaning products, etc.

Looking pretty, right? A few weeks ago I was thinking of ditching these shelves entirely because they were just not working for me, but my love has been rekindled.

Both colorblock and painterly effects are very trendy, so I’d probably only use them on something like this that can be changed easily or thrown away without a second thought. But for now I am totally loving the bright and functional addition to this space.

The pots on the ground have been there longer and I’m amazed at how well they’ve held up. Bird’s nest fern and snake plant (sansevieria?) have proven nearly impossible for me to kill! There’s ivy growing in the bed nearby that I’ve trained to come up onto the porch. When we first bought our house the ivy was out of control, but we keep it in check now and I actually kind of like it.

That metal birdcage thing was a gift from my friend Laura and I love the way it looks with the ivy. I’ve got a pot sitting inside it but nothing’s planted there. I need something easy that’s shade and drought tolerant, and preferably a creeper or climber. Any suggestions? It’s so nice to have some plants that aren’t dying on me. I’m trying to get better about watering, too. Maybe I can keep the big ferns by my front door looking nice for a while instead of allowing them to die a slow and painful death before replacing them with new ones.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! We got some stuff done around the house and spent time with friends. It was really nice!

I was not really digging the black frame I got at the Dollar General, so I painted it gray (again, just using paint I already had) before hanging it alongside the other items already clustered together on that wall. I used command strips to mount the J. I really love the way it looks!

Moving on, this adorable wooden airplane is from my friend Jane and her son Ollie. Jane lives in my neighborhood and is new to town (her husband is working on his PhD at LSU). They are going home to Portland for the summer, so she dropped this off as an early birthday gift to Jack before leaving town! So sweet!

It fits right in with the vintage wooden toys I got at an estate sale, and the third new addition that I wanted to show y’all–the children’s rocker from Nick’s mom. I think she said it was hers when she was a child. Now that Jack is crawling, he makes a beeline for this spot whenever we’re in his room. He loves playing with the wooden toys and gets a kick out of pushing the chair to make it rock. Someday he’ll be old enough to sit in it and maybe then I can pop a basket of books nearby.

It’s so sweet to have these little meaningful touches in the room, especially since none of them are so precious or fragile that Jack can’t enjoy them. It still totally feels like a little boy’s room. I can’t wait to see how the space continues to evolve as he gets older and puts his own mark on things.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! We’ve got a pretty low key few days planned, which will be soooo nice as we gear up for a busy summer. Hopefully the sun stays out so we can enjoy some time outdoors!

The biggest, number one, most important thing I can say is to never, ever, ever, EVER, use flash. Leave it to the professionals and their fancy bounce cards and diffusers. Even with my DSLR flash goes very wrong, very fast. Below is a photo that I took this morning in one of the darkest corners of my house on an overcast day. The left is with flash, the right is without.

That one on the left is BLEH, am I right? I have yet to meet a camera that didn’t have an option to turn off the flash while still shooting in auto mode. It’s usually a little lightning bolt with a line through it. On the iPhone it’s in the upper-left corner of the camera screen.

Now if you’re thinking that your photos will be too dark without flash, you might be right. Welcome to the wonderful world of photo editing. I use the basic program that came with my computer. On the left is the photo straight out of the camera and on the right I’ve tweaked it a bit.

Check out the difference between the photo lit with flash, and the photo brightened on the computer. There is so much more depth and just overall not-suckiness to the one on the right.

As for what I did, here’s a screenshot. I used the “fine tune” feature to up the brightness, increase the contrast and shadows just a smidge, and lower the highlights. I just play around until it looks good but most photos get a similar treatment. I also often increase the saturation by clicking on “adjust color”, but not for this photo.

Now that we’ve got that under control, the next big frontier is embracing the crop. This is a photo that I took of Cassie and her mom at the baby shower I hosted last weekend. In addition to brightening it a smidge, I cropped it to get rid of all that wasted space around the perimeter and focus on the people. It’s an easy step that can really make a photo more frame-worthy.

Here are some more photos that I cropped from our visit to my sister’s baby goat. It’s a subtle change that can really make a difference. (btw these were both taken with an iPhone!)

And now for the final whammy–skipping flash, playing around with editing, and cropping to take a photo from “eh,” to “impressive!”

Big difference, right? And it takes maybe 1-2 minutes per photo (and of course turning the flash off takes no time at all). So, in summary:

• abolish the use of flash
• say yes to editing
• cropping is your friend

I hope you find these tricks as easy and helpful as I do! Like I said, I’m certainly no expert and I’m actually really lazy so if I can do it you can do it. Even a cell phone camera can churn out frame-worthy pics if you’ve got a few tricks up your sleeve!

Do you remember this post about putting a plant near the TV to hide the wires? Yeah, this is what happened to it. I blame Pistachio and my lax watering habits.

I picked up a new plant for $10 and I’m going to try hard not to kill it because I really like this one. I sprayed it with some of that stuff that deters cats and had a friend who is good at gardening advise me on watering. So far so good!

Can you believe how far this space has come since we got the expedit cube console last fall? You should’ve seen it before then! It was really junky. I actually really like it now. If only I could get Nick to give up that ancient Xbox…

As Jack gets older I can rearrange the contents of the chalkboard boxes to be toys, books, musical instruments, and costumes, and even rotate out the toys as needed to keep things interesting. I’m planning to eventually refinish the small pedestal table to the right and let him use it as a play table. I’m really excited about having a space that is both functional and stimulating for him to play in and easy on the eyes. I’m really interested in the Waldorf school of thought that children’s spaces and toys should be beautiful to behold because kids can appreciate beauty too. The globe is a perfect example–when he gets older he can learn about geography in a tactile way by touching and spinning the globe, and in the meantime it’s a really pretty addition to the room. Everyone’s happy!

Every other shower I’ve ever hosted has been just me and maybe 1-2 other people, but having four hostesses for this shower really made such a difference! I wasn’t nearly as stressed as I normally am and we were able to do more (many hands make the work light and all that). From left to right: Jen, Tarah, Cassie (the guest of honor), me, and Amanda.

Over the years I’ve slowly developed a standard shower menu: cucumber sandwiches, strawberry cake from Ambrosia Bakery, chicken salad served on croissants (this time we got them from Calvin’s Market but my mom swears by Sam’s chicken salad), hummus with pita wedges and vegetable spears, and my signature tea punch. We also served caramel apple bites, spinach pastry puffs, and this pasta salad that’s definitely getting added to my menu in the future (Jen made it and it was crazy delicious)!

Tarah brought over vintage dishes that belonged to her grandparents to mix in with more modern pieces. It was a really sweet touch, especially since Tarah and Cassie met working together in a vintage boutique years ago.

Amanda got the flowers at Whole Foods and arranged them herself in mason jars that she already had. We got lots of compliments on them, and after the shower we sent them home with Cassie, her mom, and each other. I kept a really pretty bouquet of pink roses to give to my mom for Mother’s Day.

We set up a drinks station in the kitchen pass-through with punch and cucumber infused water. I had this punch at a shower years ago and I emailed the hostess afterwards to get the recipe. At the time I didn’t even like tea, but this stuff is delicious! Even Nick likes it. I’ll share the recipe at the end of this post.

None of us are into cheesy shower games, but this one was so darkly funny that we couldn’t resist. I got a bag of plastic king cake babies from a local party supply store (I think there were about 30 in the $2 bag) and froze them in ice cubes. We distributed the cubes to everyone’s drinks and the first person whose melted was to shout,”My water broke!” Cassie’s nephew won, haha. He said he was going to give the tulips he received as a prize to his mom for Mother’s Day.

We set up the gifts in a corner of the living room (so glad I finally finished reupholstering that chair!). Do you see those cute little lollipop flower looking things? Tarah made them from washcloths and baby spoons! She says she saw it on Pinterest. I love it when decorations can be repurposed as a practical gift for the guest of honor.

Yes, there are cats on that onesie. Hilarious, especially if you know how Cassie is about her cats.

How beautiful is this handmade afghan? I want one for myself!

And just as a note, I was worried about having enough seating for everybody but it worked out just fine. A couple of ladies squeezed onto the bench in our entryway, folks dragged chairs in from the dining room, and here you can see three girls seated comfortably on the chaise lounge. I’m soooo glad I got that secondhand Ikea chaise instead of a loveseat. It’s definitely much more practical. You can also see Amanda and her mom perched on ottomans in this photo. I was totally worried for no reason.

Overall, it was a great party and such a wonderful way to honor my dear friend. All of the guests were so sweet. It truly was a joy. I’m feeling much more confident now about hosting Jack’s birthday party next month, even though I won’t have my team of hostesses!

Here’s that recipe I promised:

7 Family Size Luzianne tea bags
4 cups cold water
2 cups sugar
1/2 of a large can of pineapple juice (or 4 small cans pineapple juice)
1 medium sized can concentrated frozen lemonade
2 bottles ginger ale
Fresh mint leaves
Fresh fruit

The night before:
Fill a mini bunt pan (or any other container well-suited to the purpose, such as concentric tupperware bowls with a weight in the middle) with fresh fruit and mint leaves. I like to use chopped strawberries and pineapple. Fill with gingerale and freeze overnight.

A few hours before the party:
Place the 4 cups cold water in a pot and add tea bags and some mint leaves
Bring to a boil and remove from heat, let steep.
While it’s still warm, remove the tea and mint leaves and add the sugar, stirring until it’s dissolved.

Just before guests arrive:
Pour tea into punch bowl and fruit juices and remaining gingerale.
Taste and add additional water if too sweet.
Garnish with ice ring.

Then I printed out my letters in 300 point Cambria font (there are prettier fonts out there for sure, but I needed something that would be easy to trace with paint). How beautiful is the name that Cassie and Nic have chosen for their daughter? I hope that Jack and Olive grow up to be friends.

It was hard to resist the temptation to buy every bottle of pink paint Hobby Lobby had to offer. They were all so pretty! Even Jack was a fan–he yelled until I let him hold the bottle while we finished shopping.

I laid the paper letters behind the burlap and used a stiff brush to apply the paint. It went more quickly than I thought it would and was actually a really relaxing activity to take on the day before the party. Jack was napping and Nick was still at work so it was just me and my paintbrush in a quiet house.

After letting them dry for a little while, I peeled the paper off the backs, laid them out to get the spacing right, and then folded the top of each pennant over a length of cotton cord with a line of hot glue to secure. It’s the exact same technique I used for the banner I made for my sister’s wedding, except this time I didn’t get the letters mixed up!

My original plan was to hang it in front of the dining room curtains behind the food table, but I couldn’t get it to look right and it’s just as well, because I actually LOVED the way it looked over the drinks station we set up in the kitchen pass-through. I just used white thumbtacks to secure it to the wall (they blended right into the wood trim, but I used a dab of taupe paint to camouflage the one stuck directly into sheetrock).

My hope was that Cassie would like to bring it home to use in the nursery, but I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want her to feel pressured if it just didn’t jive with the look she was going for. Imagine my excitement when she said she wanted to hang it over the crib! Cassie is truly one of my oldest and dearest friends so I’m honored to have something I made on display in her daughter’s room. I am so so happy with the way everything with the shower came out and I can’t wait to post about it tomorrow! I hope you all had as lovely a weekend as I did–it’s not every weekend I host a fabulous party at my home AND celebrate my first Mother’s Day!