Guest Prep & Vacay Pictures

This is a little late of a post since my fam-damily was here visiting this past week! I was cleaning the house like a mad woman, and didn't get a chance to post my last minute decor ideas. Initially, I had a cleaning schedule planned, but then I decided to not even ask Dustin to help me clean, because it wouldn't be clean enough. You know HOW I know this? After he shaved his head, face, and god only knows what else in our extra bathroom, he came out with a wet towel in his hand and said, "Do you want me to knock out the bathroom, and just wipe it down?" God bless him. First, how is "wiping down a bathroom" sanitizing it?? AND sweet Mother Mary of God, how is wiping down a bathroom with a towel you just used to dry off your nether regions a good idea at all!??!? MEN. I hate to think of how the barracks on base are being cleaned if my husband was supposed to have taught marines all they know last year at boot camp. There's probably marines all across the country "knocking it out" and wiping down their entire rooms with wet, ball-sack ridden towels!!!

EEK....

Anyways, I cleaned my entire house, by myself, and little Guido hid upstairs in the F.R.O.G. waiting for my madness to end. You see, I can be a tad bit crazy when I clean. I like to quote my psycho father-in-law and claim that rooms are "closed." So once I've cleaned the kitchen, that shit is closed, don't even think about going in there for a snack or a glass of water. It's closed! I'm the cleaning nazi, honestly.

Anyways, here are some more pictures of our extra bedroom. The decorating is as good as it's going to get until I can devour another antique store. I really miss the Long Beach Antique Flea Market.

I have so many old suitcases lying around the house, so I decided to prop open this green one on the nightstand and fill it with stuff. I put my guest towels, their itinerary (yes, I know), and their welcome gifts. I made everyone mason jar cups, and mod-podged the tops with left over scraps from the quilt, so everyone got to take a piece of our home with them. I also recreated these mugs for them, so they have their own little NC souvenoir. My family is full of coffee drinkers, so the gifts were perfect!

We found this little shelf at a flea market in Murrieta, and I need to start collecting more teacups! It's hard out here because they sell them in sets, and I just want one!

This dresser was my dresser from high school! When I was in high school, my mom and I redid my room into a shabby chic type of room, and I painted my brown dresser green, and my closet for some random reason. I think originally I painted it with that crinkly white paint, and had an epic fail, and then decided to just paint it straight green. When we were moving my mom asked me if I wanted the dresser, and I said HELLS yes! I literally came up with all the decor and quilt on the fly, and it ended up not looking too shabby...chic!

These curtains are hard to see, but they're actually a super cute sage green color, with polka dots! I've never had a curtain in my life, but all of our asshole neighbors leave their outside lights on at night, and they shine directly into our windows, so we sort of need them.

We took my family errrywhere while they were here. I was excited because even though I've been living here for 3 months, I really don't know much about the area still. We went into New Bern, and took a trolley tour, went to the cemetery, Tryon Palace, the whole sheebang.

Cedar Grove Cemetery - New Bern, North Carolina

We laughed our asses off while Dustin played the guitar.

Tryon Palace with my favorite (shhh don't tell anyone) cousin Amanda

New Bern has 52 of these bear statues! We only conquered 6 of the 52, but when my girlfran Sevi comes out, we are going for all 52!!!

The Old Burial Ground - Beaufort, North Carolina

Google this place, AMAZING

I also hit up some antique stores with my mom and Aunt, and look what I got! I'm smitten! I have been eyeing some Pyrex/Corelle plates for far too long on Etsy, and I picked these boys up at the antique store, and my mom swooped in and got them for me. They're the beginning of my soon to be new plate collection. I really want to switch over all my plates and bowls to these!

I also found what could quite possibly be known as the best looking quilt of my life. This thing is in PERFECT shape, and the backing is white. It looks like it was for maybe a girls twin bed, so how it stayed pristine after all these years is beyond me. It's gorgeous, it's perfect, I love it! Thanks mom!!

My aunt told me an idea about getting an old ladder to hang my quilts on display, and I think that's a fab idea! I've also decided to recreate any quilt I buy, so I'm going to attempt to make this quilt this year. It's on my list with all my other projects!

That's it for now, for a while! I am going on crafting strike! Haha! But no, seriously, I have a few more projects up my sleeve, but I need to plan them out and get some fabric. I've also got a few baby projects to make for friends, WINK WINK WINK. You biotches know who you are!

Spring has sprung! Outdoor space revamp.

Nicer weather has finally arrived in North Carolina! One of my favorite things about our new home is the screened in porch. Coming from California, I thought that screened in porches were the epitome of southern living. Random side note, in California, all the southerners I knew would set up shop in their garages. Seriously. They'd have couches, tables, BBQs, and would almost set up a second living room in their garage. It makes total sense to me now, they were just looking for their screened in porch! That has to be the reason because I haven't seen a single person in the dirty south hanging out in their garage like the people in California did...

So, this post is a little bit about a DIY gone wrong, but has a happy ending (no, not THAT kind of happy ending :) See, we have four chairs with seat cushions and back cushions, that looked like this...

Gross right? We bought this patio set at Lowe's probably 4 years ago when we moved off base and into our little beach house. We wanted an outdoor space and paid a hefty penny for this set. I'm disturbed, shocked, and disgusted with how much outdoor patio sets can cost. Even the ghetto ones from Wal-Mart are expensive! Anyways, we left them outside, year round, for 4 years. I'm pissed at myself for letting this happen.

Anyways, what had happened wasssss, I had an idea to just remove the old covers, dye them a darker green, and slap them back on, and laugh at how much replacement cushions would have cost me.

Well, I def messed up, two things:

1. I thought the cushions had zippers, they didn't. I know. I know. I should have looked before I left the house, but this epiphany came to me in the middle of the laundry section of the store, and I just went with it.

2. The covers didn't dye. I'm an idiot. Patio furniture cushions are waterproof, AKA they ain't soaking up shit, Tina!

So, there was I was. With all these chairs, and all these cushion insides taking up valuable real estate on my porch, and no cushions. If you've ever looked at replacement cushions, you know those can be pricey. For instance, the ones I wanted, and didn't even like that much, would have been $300 after all was said and done. Yeah, screw that.

So, I was walking around the store, and saw this rug, and the sky parted, and the angels starting singing, and I KNEW what I was going to. I grabbed this rug, and headed off to the sheet section. I ended up buying two King sized flat sheets in two colors, and came up with my replacement idea. See, since it's a screened in porch, I didn't need to have fancy water proof ish, that stuff isn't going to get wet. In a few years when we move back to California, and have had this set for probably over 7 years, I'll just get a new one. But, for now I needed a quick fix.

So,  I just reused all the old stuffing, which was like brand spanking new due to those fancy waterproof cushions! The old cushions were sewn insides out on three sides, turned to the right side, stuffed, and then sewn closed on the forth side. So, I just measured out the old pillows and cushions, and sewed my own.

As you can see, the dog loves them, that's his chair, but I thought that the chairs just looked too plain, that they needed a little throw pillow or two...

So, I had some leftover red from the pillows and canvas material laying around the house. I drew a paisley print on the canvas material with a pencil, and then went over it with some acrylic paint.

Then I pinned it wrong sides together with the sheets.

Cut it out, and sewed around three sides, turned it inside out, stuffed it, and then used this video tutorial on how to do a closing stitch. I think it's the best sewing tutorial I've ever seen.

Then I was happier with the outcome of the cushions! I think it just makes it look a little less homemade, and ties the colors together.

Here is the whole set! See that weird little metal thing? It's from the fireplace in the house, it vents onto the porch to heat the porch as well. Weird, right?

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, overall it only cost me $30 to completely redo the cushions and create a happy new outdoor space area.

And last, but not least, who's the cutest cattle dog you've ever seen?

That's right Smokey.