Sunday, December 4, 2011

curtains to dye for

Lately I've been feeling like our white Ikea curtains aren't living up to their full potential against the white walls.


It's just so much...white!


Since we can't paint the walls here (rental), I had the idea to go the other route and try dying the curtains instead. I thought they would look great dyed a very light shade of gray. My goal was to help them stand out from the walls, without changing the overall look too drastically.

While I was at Michael's this weekend picking up some party supplies (more on that later!), I grabbed two boxes of Rit dye in Pearl Gray. It was the only shade of gray available, so I just took the plunge and hoped for the best.


I read all the directions on the box, then got ready to dye (no pun intended). First, I mixed one box of dye with two cups of hot water. Then I started filling up the washing machine with hot water. When it was just about full, I poured in the dye mixture.


Next, I added a cup of salt.


And here's a picture of me saying "Tony, you're not getting me in this shot are you?? I'm wearing a grungy hoodie!"


And last but not least, I dropped the curtains into the water. (They were pre-soaked in hot water to keep them from soaking up the dye in uneven blotches.)


About 20 minutes later I checked on the progress. The curtains looked...not much different. The dingy gray-white color reminded me of the "before" sock in those Clorox commercials.


Boo. Luckily, I had reserves. I repeated the whole process with the second box of dye. Good thing I bought two! Then I watched a little Sunday night football with Tony and Chloe while I waited with baited breath. (My fantasy football team is kicking butt, by the way!!) We tried to teach Chloe the heisman pose.


About a half hour later, I threw the curtains in the dryer and hung them back up. They turned out great!


I love how the shade of gray is just a subtle change from the white, but they really pop against the walls now. The change is a little hard to see in these photos, but I promise they look great in real life!


Yay for ideas that work!

In other news, while Tony was surfing at Westport on Saturday, Chloe and I took the opportunity to go out and buy his birthday and Christmas presents. (His b-day is not until Dec. 10, but Chloe won't be here that day so we wanted to celebrate early.) Chloe really wanted to throw her dad a surprise party, so we stocked up on streamers, balloons, party hats and the works. Chloe was so excited that she wore her party get-up almost a full hour before Tony even got home!


She also got all of our "party guests" ready. Can you find the human?


She also practiced her big "surprise!"


Finally, the birthday boy made it home. He loved his surprise!





Happy early birthday to Tony! And hooray for gray curtains!







ModCloth.com

Sunday, November 27, 2011

chloe's new bedroom: the final chapter

It's about time, right? We've officially been residents of Gig Harbor for three months now, and an update of Chloe's room is long overdue! In my last post about her room, I said I was going to use peacock colors to decorate. As much as I still love that idea and may use those colors in the future, we ended up slightly tweaking the idea, and went with turqouise and white, with purple as an accent color. So, without further ado, here ya go!



The pictures hanging above the bed are from Etsy (big surprise!).


This chair matches the loveseat we have in our living room. It didn't fit in the living room, so we decided it would look cute in Chloe's room. Turns out it makes a great launch pad for her to jump off and land on the bed.


I bought the purple curtains online from Best Home Fashions, Inc., an Amazon store.



I just love the ruffle detail on the top!


All of Chloe's books are stored next to the bed. The white nightstand is the one we found on Craigslist and stained. The smaller shelf is my old nighstand, but works perfectly to hold her books, coloring books, and crayons.



Look Laura, "Each Peach Pear Plum"!


Believe it or not, these two bears are six times older than Chloe! The one on the left is Sunshine Bear, Tony's childhood pal. The smaller one was mine, his name is Teddy. Very original, I know!


Chloe even did a little of her own decorating. She arranged all of her
"special treasures" on the Ikea dresser we stained white, and on top of this shelf, which was a hand-me-down from my friend Natasha.




Chloe also added some flare to her mirror by adding a photostrip of the three of us.


One of my biggest concerns was having enough storage space in the bedroom for all of Chloe's toys. And trust me, she has a TON! Luckily, all of her toys have a special place, so it hasn't been a problem. The toy chest at the foot of her bed holds a lot, and it's not even half full.



We also put my old dresser in her closet, and each drawer is full of toys, and she keeps her play sets on the top.



If you haven't noticed, Chloe is obsessed with stuffed animals. She keeps her favorites out for display, and the rest have a permanent home on the top shelf in her closet.


And last but not least, there is another set of plastic drawers full of miscellaneous toys and her tub full of Legos in the little nook behind the door.


So there you have it, folks! A very detailed description of Chloe's room. I love how it turned out, but most importantly, I'm glad Chloe loves her new room, too.


  Baby Clothes From Ruche

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

prints & pillows.

Thanks to some fun accent pieces purchased over the past couple of weeks, our bedroom is almost complete! Of course, I wouldn’t consider it totally finished until the walls get some color, but that’s not an option at our current place. (In hindsight, we probably shouldn’t have put up white curtains against white walls…oh well!) In my recent post about our bedroom, I mentioned some wall art and some throw pillows I liked, both from Etsy. Well, they’re finally here!


Although I like the overall look, I was a little disappointed that the shades of yellow don’t match as well as I thought they would. I’ve been using Pinterest to help plan out ideas for each room, and the colors all matched perfectly on my computer screen. (Side note: If you haven’t tried Pinterest yet, you need to check it out!! It’s perfect for decorating ideas, wedding planning, and even putting together outfits! I’m 100% hooked and use it almost daily.)


In real life, the yellow on the prints was a bit more of a mustard yellow, and the yellow on the pillows is a lot lighter than I expected.


They aren’t an exact match, but they work for now. We can always use the pillows on the couch if it really starts to bug me! We’re just glad to finally have some color in our room. The black, gray and white thing was getting a bit old. Yay, color!



Wednesday, November 2, 2011

boo!

I don't know about you guys, but I've been on a three day sugar buzz that I can't seem to kick! Gotta love Halloween candy. Last weekend we took Chloe to Patterson's Market, a really neat produce stand down the street from our house that we've been wanting to check out. She loved it, and had fun racing rubber duckies, jumping in a bouncy castle, and looking at chickens and bunnies. (Sorry for the horrible picture quality!!)



The pumpkin Chloe originally wanted weighed well over 400 pounds. Sorry, kiddo, not gonna happen.


Chloe and I found medium sized, average-looking pumpkins. In true Tony-fashion, he chose the creepiest looking pumpkin he could find.


Chloe and I decided we wanted to paint our pumpkins, while Tony said carving was the only way to go for him. First we decided to spray paint our pumpkins silver just for fun.


Inspired by a recent post on YHL, I wanted to try making a stencil using painter’s tape, and painting around it. I decided to do a PacMan-inspired ghost.


After peeling the tape off, I didn’t love how it turned out. The tape peeled off most of the silver spray paint, leaving a silver and oranged speckled look that blended in with the rest of the paint too much. So I painted the ghost white to make him stand out more.


Doesn't it look like Fruity Pebbles?? That was completely unintentional, but now I'm really craving a bowl!

Chloe did the same for her cute little ghosty.


While Chloe and I went with a spooky-yet-cute theme, Tony went an entirely different direction. This direction included using my enemy, the drill, and a few zip ties.


The finished product was extremely disturbing! Chloe didn’t even like looking at it.


On Halloween, we went trick-or-treating with some of Tony’s co-workers and their kids, which was a lot of fun. Chloe was Minnie Mouse, although you can't really tell from this picture. It was freezing out there! She insisted I wear a cosume too, and even lent me her fairy wings.


Chloe made out with about three times more candy then I ever remember getting as a kid. Luckily she shares! All in all it was a pretty successful Halloween this year. I hope everyone else had fun too!