rejected

I can't lie - I'm more than a little hurt that my living room didn't make it to Apartment Therapy's Room For Color contest.  I mean, would you reject this?

Of course not.

One of their FAQs is "I received confirmation that you received my entry, why wasn’t my entry posted?"  I never received a confirmation.  So I'm consoling myself with the thought that maybe they just never received my entry.

Though maybe they were confused that my room looks so green in the above shot and so blue in this one:

But that's how my living room rolls.  It changes color based on the amount of light and the type of light.  Sunlight is different from the lightbulbs that came with the house is different from the lightbulbs I've bought is different from dusk is differnent from morning.  And, of course, flash vs. no flash.  My house is a chameleon.

By the way, these pictures look waaaaay different on my monitor in the office than they did on my laptop at home.  So I kind of have no clue what you're seeing.  This next shot is still in the blue family.

But I'll make it through. 

There are things I'd like to fix anyway, like my coffee table.  I want something with a glass top.  And since I'm probably not recovering the orange chair anytime soon, maybe I just need to add some more orange to the room.  Like a pillow for the wicker chair.  I want a new one anyway.

I also need to dress my entryway a little more.

So I'll make the changes and take new pictures and be ready for next year's contest.  I'll enter right away and will make sure I do it correctly and I'm sure I'll be selected.  And win, of course.  I don't even know what the prize is.  I just want the world to love my colorful living room.

That, you know, I want to repaint.  But we'll keep that a secret.

And check out my lamp!  The best thing that came out of this contest - I finally go around to fixing the lamp.  I had to glue the socket a little more and I added some lime green ribbon to the shade, which makes it look SO much better.  The brown trim just yelled out "70's!"  In a bad way.  Now it's all fresh and pretty.  The glue I used shows through the ribbon so I do need to fix it, but I'm not worried.  I have lots of ribbon leftover.

 
Enjoy the pictures and get ready to vote for me - next year. 
 
In the meantime, vote for your favorite rooms here.  But don't vote for this one.  It's too close to my living room.  Yeah, I'm bitter.  Whatevs.  I've accepted it.  I do think my favorite is this bathroom.  That green!  I love it.  I also rather love this purple living room.  I think it best reflects the spirit of this contest.

total convert

Check out the status of my closet

Notice anything different?  Like space on the bar?  Part of this is because my winter wardrobe is smaller than my summer wardrobe, but a good chunk is due to my new hangers!

I'm sure you all have heard of Huggable Hangers.  If not, they're very slim and velvet wrapped to keep clothes .  A lot of hangers are thick so clothes will stay on better, but then they take up all this extra space in your closet.

My sister used to work at Express and I inherited a lot of their hangers.  Other hangers came when I ordered stuff online and it came hung up.  Some of these hangers have rubber grippers on the ends that really help keep clothes on the hangers.  Then they have notches for tanks and camisoles.  Fabulous.  But then for Christmas a few years ago, my mom asked for some Huggable Hangers.  And I started mulling over the idea of getting some for myself.  My current hangers worked pretty well, but my closet often ends up squished and jammed. 

Then I saw some faux-Huggables at Marshall's.  20 for $12.99.  I bought a pack and used them in my spare bedroom closet for my out-of-season clothes.  I fit so many in!  The next time I was at Marshall's, I bought another pack, this time for my closet and the other night I started hanging thing up with them.

Check it out - three of my old hangers (my measuring tape was downstairs)

And in these pictures, you can see that in the same space, I can fit four, almost five of the new hangers!

How fabulous is this!  I need maybe one or two more packs before I can safely get rid of all of my old hangers.  I can't wait!



10 little onesies, sitting in a row

Last night I printed out the letters for my onesie banner after much drama involving laser printers vs. inkjet and old versions of Word, but I got it done.  Then I came home and washed the onesies and hung them up to dry on my favorite drying rack.

Tonight's plan is to buy the champagne and liquor for the punch and then iron on the letters.

getting crafty!

This coming weekend I am throwing a baby shower for my best friend.  She's having twins, which, of course, makes it twice as exciting.  And I'm actually pretty excited about throwing this by myself.  I've helped throw showers before, both bridal and baby, but always as part of a group.  The last shower there were 5 of us and we were divided into committees.  On one hand, it was great because I didn't have to think about games or the RSVP list.  On the other hand, I like to have my hand in all of the details! 

Well, this time I'm making all of the decisions.  The mother-to-be decided she wanted a co-ed shower and it's going to be about 1/3 male.  So I decided to forego all games and the little prizes that go along with them.  A guy isn't going to want a scented candle, you know?  And at that last shower, it was also co-ed so the prize was a bottle of wine.  Nice, right?  Except that there were a good number of kids present and of course one won and it was a little awkward.  So instead of having this be a traditional shower that happens to have men, it's going to be an afternoon party that happens to have a baby theme.  And presents.  Have to open the presents.

The parents-to-be have painted the nursery a really pretty light green.  Very Spring-y and apparently green helps babies grow.  Plus it's gender-neutral and they are having a boy and a girl.  So I decided to go with green as my color theme.  And I'm all about decorations that can be used later.  My sister had the BRILLIANT idea of making a banner out of onesies and I'm going to have them say the twins' names.  And then maybe they can actually wear the onesies after they're born.  Each onesie will have a different letter and you know the crazy thing?  The names don't share letters.  So even though the girl's name doesn't start with R, if she's wearing the R onesie, it will still be applicable only to her.  Kinda cute.  Oooh - maybe I'll make my friend put each onesie on each baby and then we can do a collage of that or something.  Told you I was getting crafty!

I saw on Katie Brown's Workshop a doughut croquembouche and it was the cutest thing ever.  She did it with doughnut holes and strawberries and then draped ivy over the whole thing, but I think just the doughnut holes would still be pretty cute.  Especially since I just found this blog post while looking for Katie Brown.  So I bought some styrofoam cones and some clay pots.  If it ever stops raining, I'm going to paint the pots white with the leftover spray paint from my lamp project and then tie a ribbon around them.  If it doesn't stop raining, well, I think the pots in their natural color will still be pretty.

I also decided to make a wreath out of tulle.  I had bought a 12" styrofoam circle back before the by-committee baby shower but didn't end up using it.  I thought about returning it but figured I'd get some use out of it sometime.  That time is now!

I bought two rolls of tulle at Jo-Ann's and cut them into 12" strips.  Then I tied them onto the form two at a time.  I tested out double and single strips and just liked the way the double looked better.  It took about an hour and a half to cut out and tie it all on.  It was super super easy, but kind of mind-numbing and felt like it would never end.  But whenever I got discouraged, I would just hold it up and look at the fluffy tulle and get another wind.  Can't say a second wind because I did this 3 or 4 times.  Seriously mind-numbing.  But totally worth it.

I was going to hang it on my mirror to display, but that reflected the mess of my living room - Target and Jo-Ann's bags EVERYWHERE.  It doesn't show up as well on the painting, but at least you can't see the mess.  No one should have to see the mess.  Everyone should have to see my wreath.  All it needs now is a bow.  I'm horrible at tying bows, but my friend Shelly rocks at it.  And she's coming early to help me set up.  Perfect!

And yeah, the picture is awful.  I lost my camera so this was taken with my phone.