House tour {Living Room}

This is my third House tour post this month.  I've already shown you my Master Bedroom and the Dining Room.  Now it's time to move on to the Living Room.  This is the room that we spend the most time in.  

When we first moved in we decided we wanted all new furniture because our old stuff was looking really rough and honestly it was REALLY uncomfortable.  So that is the main thing we looked for in a furniture set: comfort!  We also wanted to make sure it was neutral colored so it would go with things much easier.  It looks so different than when we first moved in!  See for yourself!

(this is actually an older picture, we took out the black table when Paige first started crawling)

I know a lot of people LOVE hardwood floors, but I can't stand them.  They make everything echo and I can't stand walking around on a cold hardwood floor first thing in the morning.  I think it's just way more comfortable with carpet.  I'm a big floor sitter too so I like the extra padding.

We really need a nicer solution for the tv stand, but we have to save up for something better.  I would also love to figure something out with those wires...without drilling holes in the walls.

The brown wooden cabinet in the corner is a built-in, so it saves us a ton of room.  Right now it's just filled with my husband's different gaming stuff.  He's a pretty gamer.

 The brown basket under the television is where we keep all of Paige's toys when she's not throwing them all over the place! Soooo basically, it's normally empty.  At the end of the night I throw everything back into it but that's the first thing she goes to in the morning.

We have A LOT of DVDs too.  Like, too many!!  Right now they are taking over both the brown cabinet and the shelving next to the television.  I'm thinking about keeping them somewhere else, but I haven't figured that out yet!

 My "wall art" really needs some help.  That's all there really is to say about that.  I'm keeping some of these things up as space savers until I get brave enough to do one of those amazing wall colleges that I've seen all over Pinterest. 

The "Paige" canvas is actually something that I painted for Paige's first birthday with all of her little stats on it.  Eventually I plan on moving it to her bedroom, but for now it's saving that space until I create something to go there.  I painted the dandelion and my husband decided to hang it up on the wall.  

And that's all there really is to it!

How do you hide wires in your house?  Do you have a wall collage in your home?

House tour {Dining Room}

I'm going to be honest with you...this is NOT what our dining room usually looks like.  It ends up being the place where we throw all of our coats, bags, anything!  I WISH  I could keep our dining room looking like this.

But I would have to say that I think it is a huge upgrade compared to what it looked like when we first moved in...

This sign is in the entry way that connects the living room to the dining room.  I love this phrase and I feel like it describes how we are as a family very well.

I would love to update our chandelier one day.  It's a little old fashion looking for my tastes, but I don't even know what to look for in a new one....so I guess for now this one works.

 I use the build-in cabinet to display all of our wedding memorabilia.  I've been thinking about changing around this cabinet a bit but never got around to it.

And just to keep it real on this blog, this is what my table usually looks like throughout the week.  We use it as a "catch-all" for just about everything.  It's bad.   Yep, that's a little embarrassing...

 I need some good organization solutions.  Any thoughts??

and just in case you missed my previous House tour post you can find it here, Master Bedroom

Also, if you have been around my blog for awhile, then you may have noticed some changes around here.  Ashley from The Grits Blog is an amazing blog designer and completely redid my entire blog.  She even installs it all for you so you don't have to stress about anything.  Take a look around and let me know how you like it!

DIY Wedding Invite Ornament

This year I've decided that I want to start making a lot of the bulbs on our tree.  We normally have a blue, silver, and white theme but now that my little one is getting older I want to add personal ones to the tree that I can pass down to her.  I also wanted to start the tradition of making one together every year.  I have a more kid friendly one scheduled coming up, but I wanted to share an easy one first!

I'm a bit of a hoarder, so I still have a lot of our wedding (from 4 and a half years ago!) mementos and decor in boxes in the basement.  I've been trying to find ways to use some of them.  Remember my DIY Wedding Card Album??  Well, I have a bunch of wedding invites that were extra still sitting in a box and wanted to find a way to use them.  So, I got the idea to make a cute bulb.  This would also make a great Christmas present for a friend if you saved their wedding invite!

Supplies:

Wedding invite

Ribbon

Scissors

Pencil

Ruler

Clear glass bulb

Step One: Measure where you are going to cut the invitation

Flip the wedding invitation over and use your ruler to measure every half inch on top and bottom and make little dashes with your pencil.  Connect your dashes by making a straight line across.  This will be your guideline for the next step: cutting.

Step Two:  Cut and Sort

Now you are going to cut out all of your little strips.  If you have a paper cutter then use that, otherwise you can just use scissors like I did.  After you finish cutting out all of your strips, you can start pulling out the ones that you want to use.  I pulled out the pieces that captured the words that I wanted to see peaking through areas of the bulb.  Unfortunately, I can't remember how many pieces I ended up using.  Just use your own judgement.  More pieces for a fuller bulb, less for a bulb that's not completely full.

Step Three:  Curl the strips and start stuffing

Now that you have the pieces picked out that you want to use, you can start curling them.  I simply winded them, with the print facing outward, around a pencil.  Once you have it curled around the pencil, you can slide it off the end and start feeding it into the open end of you bulb.  I would do this right away so you keep the tighter curl.  Keep curling and stuffing until you have the desired amount of strips in your bulb.

Last Step: Finishing touches

Almost done!  I cut a piece of ribbon and made a bow on the front of the bulb, and also at the top for hanging.  And that's it!  You did it!  Really simple!

Optional extra touches:

You could add a little charm on the ribbon if you would like

At the very beginning you could paint the back of the wedding invite a pretty color (silver, gold, etc.) before cutting out your strips, to have the inside part have a little pop.  (I didn't think of this until I was all done, Poo!!  I bet it would look awesome!)

You could paint the silver cap at the top just to add a little something..

So what do you think??  Will you give it a shot?