Need Help with Decorating or Organizing?

 I love the process of decorating, the brainstorming, figuring out how to accomplish it, shopping (home or stores), executing it and enjoying it. I know there are some out there think this is a frivolous activity, not worthwhile, etc., but I disagree. This is a creative outlet, a form of art for me. I also like to take care of the home I've been blessed with. I am happier when my home is in order and a relaxing place to be. And I love beauty and since I'm a SAHM this is where I spend the most time and I want it to be beautiful.

While I love decorating my home and sharing the process here for everyone to see, it's started to not be enough. I've been spending some time lately helping my mom decorate her home. After 30+ years with children at home and most of her furniture and pictures and decorations worn or out of date, she needed help. I've had the time and an eye for decorating (I am by no means on par with the professionals!), so we've been shopping and brainstorming as she's had money (no kids at home = $$)
I 've really enjoyed the process with her. I'll suggest ideas and we go from there, seeing what she's drawn to and talking about the where or how.

Decorating and organizing are things I'm passionate about and they go hand in hand. But I love to focus on bargain decorating and organizing. I don't spend thousands of dollars working on my home, I look for inexpensive ways to get what I want: painting, hand-me-downs, Craigslist, Goodwill, shopping my own home, garage sales and saving up for bigger items.

So, all of that said, I'd like to offer my help to anyone out there. I want to help others that have no idea where to start or need someone to throw out ideas. I want to share inexpensive ideas that I've used to make my home what I want it to be, beautiful, comfortable, relaxing and just our style.
This offer is FREE!

If you would like my help with decorating a room or organizing a space, please email me at: marixawillis@gmaiil.com and send some pictures of your space and some info.

As I get some emails, I'll share ideas here and, with consent, share spaces.

If you have questions about specific problems feel free to comment or email and I'll work on answering those questions to help.

Comments make me Happy!

Organizing DVD's Part 2

Ok, so I'm finally getting around to sharing the second part of how we are now organizing our DVD's. Here's Part 1.

So, when I left off, I was able to get them all into one drawer in the dresser but they weren't organized past that. After brainstorming a lot of ideas, we decided to go with photo boxes. The DVD sleeves fit just right within photo boxes that I picked up from Hobby Lobby (on sale of course).

I picked up 6 boxes because that's all that I could get into the drawer. I removed the lids, and just popped the sleeves in the boxes according to category. Our categories are: Man/Action, Family/Kid, Learning (LeapFrog, Curious George), Inspirational, Romance/Comedy, Classics and Christmas (all our seasons or boxed sets stay in their original packaging).

I then needed to make some labeled dividers. I used some large scrap pieces of cardstock cut to size, making sure they stuck up high enough to see the label. Then I used my Dymo labeler to make the labels and then I used packing tape to "laminate" the paper. It's nothing fancy but it works.

I still can't  believe I can get ALL of our DVD's in this one drawer with room to spare! The back middle box is pretty much empty ( I still need a few more sleeves for those last 6 DVD's ).

I have to say after using these sleeves for about a month, that I totally LOVE them! They are easy to use and easy to flip through to search. And of course hardly take up any room! LOVE them!!! And check out how thin they are.

So, that's the official how we organize our DVD's. How do you organize your DVD's?

Comments make me Happy!

Organizing DVD's Part 1

For those of you that don't know David (my husband) in person, he is a movie fan. He loves movies and before we had Trey we'd regularly go see them in the theaters. But he also loves to collect DVDs. Now for those that don't know me in real life, I hate collections. It goes against my organized, clutter free ideas. So as you can imagine this has been a source of some tension. And they are outgrowing their space.

One of the reasons I bought the dresser for the living room was to have concealed storage for all those DVDs. Trey was beginning to crawl and pull movies down off the shelves that they were housed on. So having drawers that he couldn't open, and would hide all those DVDs but keep them accessible was a perfect solution. That is until we started running out of room. Oh and we also have 2 small cabinets on either side of the fireplace and one was full of movies as well as the full dresser.

So, when I read a blog post a few months ago about how one woman organized her 200+ DVDs, I fell in love with it. I brought it up to David and he liked it. The system is basically thin plastic sleeves that hold 2 DVDs and the cover paper(s).

So, we spent a couple of hours pulling out every DVD and counting them. Since a lot of movies have an extra disc, I couldn't just count the cases. Oh, would you like to know how many we have? Well not counting boxed sets and TV show seasons which would stay as is, a whopping 460! That was about 100 more than I anticipated!

Here's a pic of most of the movies. Not shown are the Christmas, Workout, boxed sets, TV series seasons.

I ordered the sleeves through Amazon, I did hear that Target sells them but I didn't have any luck finding them there. The brand is Atlantic and they are called Movie Sleeves. Each box has 25 sleeves in them and each sleeve holds 2 DVDs so that's 50 DVDs for one box.

When I got them in I was so excited to get started so the next day I planned to get them all switched over that morning. By 5pm that night I still wasn't finished! I sat on the floor in the living room from 9-5 switching the DVDs. Trey and I watched movies all day to pass the time and we only do that when we're sick. And I had miscounted and still needed 2 more boxes.

Ok, so let me show you what 280 DVD cases looks like on our couch (some cases were the cardboard cases, some were 2 to a case that's why the number is different)

And here's a pic of all the little inserts in all those cases.

If you look at the pic above with all of the DVDs on the floor, the stack in the foreground is all of our Man/Action movies. And once they are converted to sleeves this is the stack.

And if that's not awe inspiring enough, check this out.

That's 21 cases, with 21 DVDs in sleeves with cover papers, taking up the space of 3 cases. Um, YES please! So far we are loving this!

So this is where I have to leave you with this wonderful makeover. I need to work on my sleeve storage next so I'll share that when I get it done. We will most likely being storing them in one of the drawers in the dresser with some additional organizing to make it user friendly.

Ok I need to know, how many DVDs do you have? Does anyone have more than us? How do you store your DVDs?

Comments make me Happy!

Christmas Pillow Covers

Last year I saw some pillow covers on Etsy that I loved. But I didn't love the price especially since I thought I could make them myself. I never got around to it before Christmas last year, so it was on my list for this year.

Here's my version.

I have 2 throw pillows on my couch with removable covers and that's where I wanted my new covers.

I found some scrap fabric in the remnant pile at the store. I think it's a soft burlapy kind of fabric. I had enough to make 2 covers and whipped those up pretty quick. Then they sat on my desk for a long time.

I knew I wanted to use my cricut to make some stencils and then use fabric paint. I used some freezer paper to cut the stencil and then used my iron, without steam, to get it stick to the fabric temporarily. I'd never used the freezer paper as a stencil before but it worked really well. I guess since I ironed it down it kept paint from seeping under it.

I didn't have the exact color green I wanted so I just mixed 2 together to get what I wanted. After painting the words I just peeled the paper off easily.

All done!

Here's a couple of other views.

I really like how they turned out. I wanted them to add a little Christmas without being busy and they look great! And very inexpensive to make since I only bought the fabric and it was super cheap. Yeah!

Comments make me Happy!

Christmas Decor '11

Ok, here's my Christmas decor for this year. I have to say I'm enjoying it much more this year. I've parred down and added simple items. I used a lot of pine cones and some Christmas tree branches cut from my sister's tree for most areas.

First our bedroom. The white is salt, used for making ice cream, in a glass bowl that was my grandmother's. I did buy a couple of packages of glass balls in the turquoise and teal. The bowl is sitting on a very old reprint of The Night Before Christmas and a copy of I Believe (it actually was a botched print as there are 3 copies of the story bound in one book).

Just a simple set up which brings a bit of Christmas to our room without making it cluttered and heavy. Glass balls, pine cones, tree branches and this lovely little sign.

This set up is in our master bathroom. I really love how this looks with some tree branches, a vase I found this summer at a garage sale, a canvas I painted last year and a clearance glass ball. So simple, light and natural. LOVE it!

This is in Trey's room. The house was given to me by my grandmother my first Christmas. It's suppose to plug in and be a sort of nightlight and a music box that winds in the back. It has pics of Santa and elves and reindeer on it. Over the years the cord has been damaged and so it won't light up but the music box part still works. One day I want to get the cord fixed. I had the pics of me receiving the Santa house framed years ago, so I always set them up together. And of course it seems fitting to put it in Trey's room.

We put our tree by the fireplace this year. Since we don't have any furniture right there usually I liked the idea of not moving something out. I like it there by the fireplace especially when we light a fire.

My glass nativity set on a china plate with greenery and my coffee table basket with left over glass balls in a bowl from my great aunt with greenery.

Our piano. The green frame is up all year long, I just found a Christmas printable on Pinterest and stuck it in there. The silver vase I bought last year and just stuck some fake branches in it along with some more greenery. The candlesticks were glass that I spray painted to look like mercury (I'll share about that some other time). I used some extra glass balls on a china plate under a small cake dome. The sign in the back is hard to see even in real life, it's a canvas I painted last year, it says Believe.

This is not a very clear/good pic but I still wanted to throw it in. The bottom shelf is another free printable from Pinterest, with my nativity snow globe. The next shelf just pine cones, glass and greenery. The picture is the original print of one of the pictures from David's book. The artist we hired was so kind in sending us all his original works for the book. I wanted to use some of them around the house since they are special to us and I love that they are black and white so they fit in easily.

The top shelf. I just stuck a bunch of greenery in the vase that's usually up there, a clearish Santa sign leaning on the books, a large Santa ornament and another book illustration. The next shelf is the stacking dolls my parents got while in Germany. It's sitting on a red plate with some antique glass ornaments from my grandmother.

And last but not least my mantle. It looks SO much better since last year! I was so excited to decorate it this year since I redid it in May I used an apothecary jar from last year and used some more salt in the bottom then added pine cones and 2 shades of green glass balls. A pine smelling candle with some greenery. The 3 glass jars are mason jars from my stash that have more salt with a votive on top. I got this idea from Pinterest as well and it looks great at night when they are lit with the glass and the mirror reflection. And it was cheap and simple. The joy canvas is one I painted last year as well and one of my favorites.

Overall I'm very pleased with how things have turned out. I've mostly achieved my goal of a simple, natural Christmas. I wanted to bring in Christmas without it being busy and cluttered. I wanted to have light fresh colors, greens, whites, turq/teal, silver and then the rustic browns of nature.

Love it!

I have one more thing that I want to put up, that's in the works, I'm hoping to be able to share before Christmas! I'll be sure and let you know!

Comments make me Happy!

Plant Pot Cover Tutuorial

Happy Thanksgiving! This will be my last post till next week, while I spend time with the family and work on completing some projects to share next week!

A couple of weeks ago I shared about some things that I'd received from my great-aunt, one being a plant stand. Well, I just found out that it wasn't originally a plant stand. It was my great-great-grandmother's pedestal that she kept in her foyer with a basket on top to collect calling cards from her guests! I thought that was so cool!

Anyway, I had 2 plants in the living room sitting right next to each other on the little stool. But the pedestal only has room for one plant so I took the other to our bedroom and moved the stool.

I've been trying to figure out what to put on the dresser and I really like the plant there.

However.

I did not like the pot it was in, so I decided to cover it.

Several years ago, we were at a Christmas party and they were having a dirty Santa/white elephant thing going on. And one of the "gifts" was a plant cover supposedly from Pottery Barn. I snagged it because I knew I could use it. I've always liked it.

So I set out to make something similar.

Here's what you need:
concrete form
knife (not a good kitchen knife)
spray paint (optional)
painter's tape or masking tape
fabric
hot glue gun/glue
fabric glue (optional)
trimming (optional)
lavender oil

I picked up a concrete form at Lowe's for about $8, it was on the side wall in the lumber dept. It's more than you will need for this project but you never know what you could use the rest for in the future!

Then at home I checked to see if it would fit around my pot and it wouldn't. SO, I decided to change pots to a skinnier version. The new pot didn't have a water catcher thing on the bottom so I found a plastic party plate to put under it. My pot is intended for outside use not indoor plants but that's all I had on hand. The concrete form only comes in one size, so it was either come up with another option or get a new pot.

After moving the plant around, I measured how tall I wanted the cover to be. In my case I chose 9" tall. And then marked the form on one end all the way around.

Then I used some painters tape to mark a horizontal line around the form.

Now take an old knife or one you can sharpen, I have what I call a garage knife (old kitchen knife) and started cutting along the tape, using it as a guide. I also used the tape to help keep the edges a bit smoother. It probably isn't that big of a deal but if nothing else it helped give me a clear line for cutting.

After cutting it I kind of smoothed the raw edge as much as I could (it's just heavy duty cardboard). Then I took it out to the garage to paint it. Since the form is an orange color I didn't want it to show through my fabric, so I grabbed a can of grey primer and just gave it a quick coat. The lettering will still show through but I wasn't worried about that, just covering the orange.

If your fabric is dark or thick you could skip this step.

It didn't take very long to dry. I sprayed it then jumped in the shower and it was completely dry.

Now the fun part!

I got my fabric in a remnant pile for less than $1. It's a small weave, soft burlap type of fabric. I measured out it out, I wanted at least an inch of an overhang on the bottom and a couple on the top, so I cut it 12" tall. As far as how wide I didn't measure, I did a dry run with the fabric around the form and made sure I had enough to overlap.

I then ironed a "hem" of about a 1/4" on both ends. I didn't want a raw edge to show when I overlapped the ends. Then I used some fabric glue to glue the hem down. You could use hot glue if you don't have fabric glue. I used the fabric glue because I knew it would hold the fabric down flatter than the hot glue, which can leave bumps. Of course the edges would be in the back but sometimes I get picky about these things.

Then I started hot-gluing the fabric around the form. I glued the first edge, then every few inches I'd glue a little more. I wanted to make sure it didn't slide or gape. Then glue the second edge down.

Next start gluing one of the ends. I ran a very small amount of glue along the edge of the fabric. Then do the other end.

Now, you are probably wondering why I put lavender oil on the list of things you will need. When working with hot glue, you WILL burn yourself. So be prepared to treat that burn. Two days after making this I still have a blister.....

Lastly trim it out with some ribbon, twine, rope whatever you want.

Now it fits in with the room a LOT better and adds a bit of character. When this plant grows some more and fills in at the top it will look better.

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. For less than $10, it's a great solution.

Now to figure out what else to put on the dresser! I'm on a bit of another master bedroom workover. I'm excited about the new changes and can't wait to share them when they are completed. I'm hoping to share them next week. And one of them is BIG!

Ok, so do you have ugly plant pots that need to be covered? Have you already covered any? Any master bedroom decorating plans?