Life's Frosting...

It's the little things that bring such happiness

I can't even begin to articulate the excitement that I felt when I FINALLY hung my new Living Room curtains.  I literally did cartwheels...OK...not REAL cartwheels...but i did some internally.  For just a moment I was 12 again doing flip flops...if only in my mind.  That counts for something though...right?  I swear I was sore then next day from doing them though :)  (not really...I'm not THAT old).






To truly appreciate my excitement, you need to see them before...

Curtains Before

It's not that they are awful...it's just that they did NOTHING for the room.  Absolutely, positively NOTHING.  They were a snore...zzzzzzzzzzz.

I was inspired by Miss Mustard Seed's dining room curtains and so I took the plunge and bought my own fabric!  You Go Girl!  (pats on the back...air high fives).  I followed her tutorial on how to make these totally impressive looking panels to a the "T" with the exception of how I hung them.  Instead of creating a rod pocket, I cheated and used these clips I found at Pottery Barn.

Aren't they cool?  I'm sure you've seen or even used them before but these were a totally new find for me.  I'm so glad I found them...I heart them very much! 

This room is difficult to decorate with all the dark paneling so it was imperative that I find something that would bring an airy, open feel to the room.   (Which would be sooo much easier if Mr. AKM would let me paint the paneling or ...ahem... remove all the paneling.  I'm just say'in is all).

But back to the fabric...I bought the fabric for these babies about 6 months ago here at Fabric.com.  I also found all the fabric for my pillows there too.  I totally fell head over heals, gotta have it now, like RIGHT NOW in love with all the orange and blue!  Aren't they lush-ous?

I decided to make a pillow out of all my fabric scraps to tie the colors together.  Be still my heart!

This room is still a work in progress (i.e. need to convince Mr. AKM that it is OK to rip the paneling from wall, insert dry wall, float said dry wall, texture and paint).  But I think the new curtains are the perfect amount of "frosting" on the cake for now...don't you?

What do you think...should I paint the paneling or go all DIY and demolish it all and start over?  Come on ladies...help a sister out here.  I need all the back up I can to convince the Mister (if you know what I mean).

Linking up to the following fun!

Savvy Southern Style

Blue Cricket Design

Someday Crafts

Finding Fabulous

Chic on a Shoestring Decorating

Fingerprints on the Fridge

Shabby Nest

Whipperberry

Skip to My Lou

Craft O Maniac

Touches of Halloween - The Laundry Room

It's official...I have decorators ADD!  Nothing in my home stays the same for more than a month (sometimes less)  I'm NOT the only one with this problem...right?!?  Seriously...tell me I am not alone in this.  I need some support here! 

In light of this recent revelation, I am continuing on with my Touches of Halloween House tour.  Because what laundry room isn't complete without pumpkins and candy corn?  I actually struggled with whether or not to post pictures of this room because I absolutely HATE the color of the walls (and I picked the color...UCK!).  Please don't judge me...I promise I will be changing this room and I will tell you all about it.  Are you starting to see a trend here in my posts?  All my promises of making changes and posting about it later?  I will, I will!  I PROMISE!  So, lets just call all these pictures the BEFORE shall we?   With that in mind, here is my laundry room in all its Pumpkin and Candy Corn glory! 

Mr. AKM built that shelf for me right after we moved in.  I LOVE that shelf!  It houses all my laundry supplies in pretty little baskets when the holidays aren't in full swing.

This is what the laundry room looks like when you walk through the kitchen...just keeping it real here folks. This is the door we use to come in all the time so EVERYTHING gets dropped off in here...and by everything I mean this room is usually filled with shoes, motorcycle gear and lots o' muddy foot prints!  I did manage to clean the floor before I took these pictures (go me).  After seeing this picture I realize that I need some nifty little baskets to hide my stuff in the shelves up there.  That would be item # 6,923 on the must get/do list for this room. 

Notice my Trick or Treat Subway Art has found a new home in here too :)  I actually moved it back to the bar but I thought it made for a cool back drop for for my candy corn jars in this picture :)

I found these adorable candy corns here from Thrifty Decor Chick.  She gives an awesome tutorial on how to make these.  They were so simple my 11 year old son decided to join in on the fun!  He is the designer of the little one in the front with the "yarn pouf" (as he calls it) on top.  I thought it made for a pretty unique candy corn myself :) 

And there you have it folks...the Laundry Room sporting this season's pumpkins and candy corn!   

xoxo Angi

Touches of Halloween - The Half Bath

I decided to implement a little bit of a house tour into my 31 days of Halloween posts.  Today I will be featuring our downstairs half bath.  Before you start to judge me on the quality of my photos lemme just share with you the size of this room.  It is whooping 4 ft. x 5 1/2 ft space.  That doesn't leave a whole lot of room to maneuver for the proper lighting not to mention the fact that the hallway just outside of it does not have a light fixture...something that we Mr. AKM will be correcting in the very near future.  I love Mr. AKM.  He is the BEST EVER!  And I'm not just saying that because he is reading this over my shoulder.  Oh no I'm not.  Love love LOVE him :)  Ok, back to the Half Bath. 

So here is a full shot of the room.

This is standing from the door way.  When the door is open it comes within an inch of the vanity.  Talk about a tight squeeze!  I have visions of removing this door and adding a sliding barn door to open up the space a bit and painting the vanity or perhaps building a new one and adding some board and batten to the walls and...oh how I could go on.  But that is a different post all together.  Today I am showing off my touches of Halloween.  Notice the candy corns and haunted house candle and the pumpkin soap dispenser? 

I tried to get a close up of the candy corn here..but again lighting sucks due to small space.  Check it out...

I put a little LED light that I found at Wal-Mart in with the candy corn to give it a little "candle" glow action.  It looks really cool at night :)

This is a shot of the other side of the room...not the greatest but you get the idea.

And there you have it folks!  The half bath in all it's Halloween glory.  There is not a single room of my house that isn't sporting some sort of candy corn or pumpkin action! 

Ok, one more shot of the whole room and we will rap up this post.

So what are your thoughts?  Are you as addicted to candy corn and pumpkins as I am?  Any ideas on how to brighten up this space?  I'm all ears, er uh eyes!

~Angi

Touches of Halloween

For those of you just joining in, my name is Angi, and I have a OCD  mild addiction to Halloween, candy corn and brownies.  I just can't help myself.  There is something about all the pumpkins and the bats and the spiders and the sweet, yummy goodness of the candy corn...the yellow, orange and white of it all...the sparkly, glittery decorations the...Oh My!  I could go on and on.  But I won't. 

Instead I will show you my favorite little room in my house...the wine bar.  Could it be because it is the keeper of all my wonderful bottles of wine?  Perhaps...or maybe due to the fact that I just completely rennovated this room bringing it from the 1970's to the 21st century??? I mean seriously, you will die when you see the before and afters of this room...but that is a whole other post I will be sharing with you :) 

So back to Halloween and decorating.  Its difficult to get some good photos of this room since it is, well, a bar.  But here goes...

Notice all the little spiders hanging out in there?  Maybe this is a better view...

Aren't they cute?  The pictures don't do them justice but they are all sparkly against the purple lights. 

I added some of my glittered pumpkins to really ramp up the sparkle factor.



Here is a close up of it all...I'm not sure why the color is off on this picture.  Oh well...it adds to the ghoulish effect...right?  Yea, we'll just say it was on purpose :)

Look!  My trick or treat subway art found a home!  Looks like the spider likes it.

And there you have it folks!  My little corner of Halloween for today.  Do you like it?  Tell me what you think of it.  Now I'm gonna excuse my self to go munch on a bag of candy corn!  

Toodles!  

~Angi 

This post is partying at the following sites...go party with them!

My Uncommon Slice Of Suburbia

Vintage Wanna Bee

A Stroll Thru Life

Blue Cricket Design

Savvy Southern Style