Workin' on that Curb Appeal

These gals were in desperate need of a trim.

You have no clue what I'm talking about, do you?  haha.

THESE....

What I'm Lovin' - from Ikea

What I'm Lovin'

from Ikea

Aspelund

This is basically the size of two lateral filing cabinets, for only $179.  I haven't looked at it in store, but if the drawers themselves are deep, and not just the fronts, you could probably...

The Dirty Truth. Everything You've Wanted to Know About White Slipcovers.

Ahh.  White Slipcovers.  We love them don't we?

Windsor Smith

Homemade Thank you Notes.

I knew that I wanted to include a photo of the kids that attended Brodie's party in their thank you notes.  Each photo was a 5x7 (I used an online photo service), so many of the normal thank you cards you find in the store....

Baseball theme party Wrap Up.

Wow, what a weekend.  I think I need another just to recover from it.  :)
We celebrated Brodie's birthday on Saturday and it was a ton of fun.

As most of you know, we had his party at Minute Maid Park in downtown Houston.

Here's a little video in case you're interested in our fun.  :)  It's only about a minute long.



The cupcake cake was provided by the famous Three Brothers Bakery here in Houston.  Thanks to that yumminess...

Baseball birthday bunting

Baseball Birthday Bunting.

Birthday Baseball Bunting.

Try saying that three times fast.  :)

Making a personlized birthday shirt.

There's going to come a day when my sweet little boy isn't going to let me plaster his age on the back of a special shirt, just for him to wear on his birthday.  I'm guessing that day will arrive around the time his age starts ending in -teen. 

However, that day isn't today... so here we go!  :)

It all started when I was in WalMart last week, in the baby/toddler department, picking up some diapers and some new Pjs for little guy.  I spotted this shirt, and thought it would be great for Brodie to wear for his birthday party.   Check out that price tag- only $3.50.  So, it is a 5T, and it isn't going to fit for long, but for less than $4, I don't really care.  :)

Plus, the front design goes Oh-So-Well with our baseball theme.

I mean, seriously, how cute is that?

I decided to make it even better and add his name to the back.  I actually went to Hobby Lobby, and almost purchased individual iron on letters, but then I remembered I already had printable transfer paper at home.  Of course, you know I picked up something for the house while I was there, with my newly justified savings.  haha!

So I went home and created a document with his name and a large six.  If you've never printed on transfer paper before, you have to change your settings to print the mirror image.

I then cut out the 6 and the letters, and ironed them on.  I probably would have chosen red, to carry over the design from the front, but Brodie wanted blue- and birthday guy gets what he wants.  :)

So, for less than $4 we have a personalized shirt for Brodie to wear this his baseball party!  He loves it!

:)   Courtney

Style Evolution!

Color, Color, everywhere.  :)

I'm participating in the Style Evolution Link up party at Jenniferrizzo.com.  Party link HERE. I suggest you link up too!  I see a common thread with everyone's photos.   We've all lightened up a lot over the past few years.  :) 

My photos are a bit different when it comes to comparing.  Since we've moved houses, you're not going to be seeing the same spaces and the way they've changed as my tastes have changed.  However, we still have a lot of the same furniture, and you'll be able to see how I've adapted our look, despite keeping many of our larger pieces.

Let's begin, shall we?

This was the kitchen of our first home.  We (okay, I) was so happy to choose colors for the first time, and we went really bold in most of the rooms.  The result was dark, but this was around 5 years ago, and darker was in and bold.  It did make it very cozy and part of me misses that house.

You can see peeks of the living room, facing the front of the house (it was a classic shotgun layout), and you can also see peeks of my exposed brick on the wall.  Oh yeah.  Remember when that was really in?

The other side of the kitchen.. with a better view of that painted brick.

Our RED living room.   See how I carried that green from the kitchen into the livingroom via curtains.  Oh yeah.  Decorating genius I was.  :)  haha.

Our furniture was big.  Our furniture was Brown.  Honestly, it had to be.  We had SO much color on the walls, that we had to have neutral furniture so we wouldn't go crazy.

Recognize the couch and the ottomans?  We still have them.  We just bought a new white slip for the couch.

The photos I have on this computer are limited, but here is a peek at my youngest son's (youngest at the time) room.  Once again, I insisted on painting things on the wall everywhere.  However, I pride myself now that we had chalkboard walls before chalkboard walls were cool.  haha.   In hindsight, I do think they may have made the house hard to sell.  When you skim coat the wall flat before you paint, and liquid nails/nail trim to the wall, it becomes semi-permanent. 

We had another large one in our only eating area, attached the kitchen.  Not a direct shot, but this one shows a peek of that chalkboard.

Like a lot of people at the time, we were really into our grape/wine theme/Tuscan look.

Lots of red, green, and gold.

Our bedroom went through several phases, and thankfully I don't have photos of most of it.  haha.  We painted it a deep brown when we first moved in, then I added stripes, then we painted it out neutral.  The neutral was really my favorite look for the room, and led us to paint the house we're in now more of a lighter shade.

Here is the way it looked right before we moved.  This is definitely a sign showing my style was changing.

Loved those curtains.

Our bathroom then:

Very theme-y.

Actually, our whole house was pretty theme-y.  Wine/grapes.  Tuscan.  Vintage Yellow Guest bath (no pic), Paris master bath. Firetruck nursery, log cabin bedroom.. which you can see a tiny peek of here.

I won't go too in depth with my style now, because most of you are familiar.

Here are just a few photos of our home now.  Once again, notice a lot of the main furniture pieces are the same, yet the look is completely different.

This already looks different, but we'll go with this photo.

See a blue trend here?  We had no blue at our old house.  :)

The boys share a room here and while we still have a theme for their room, it's done only with things that can be easily changed.  Although, who are we kidding?  We all know I'd repaint anyway if we changed the room.  Most likely, :).

Thanks for dropping by!

:)  Courtney