Pillow Shams for Guest Room

Finally stuffed the navy Schumacher Betwixt pillow shams and added them to the bed!  They've been sitting empty in the guest room patiently waiting for some attention, so I feel like I owe it to them. 

I love the shams, but not sure that I love how the bed is made. Thinking the pillows make too much of a triangle. Now that I look at it, I know why I don't like it... it reminds me of the pin set-up at a bowling alley. Argh! Not good. I will have to play with it more. Lots more! 

Walking into the guest room reminded me how much is still needed in there. It's so easy to forget until you have company coming!

Seriously haven't even started looking for something to hang above the bed, but when I see the room in a photo, I can see the glaring empty spot that is so easy to overlook in person. 

Painting the Townhouse Gray

Eeeny meeeny miney mo! 
The colors look very different in the photo but it just shows how you can have five fabulous recommended colors and it's still a tough decision.

 

Since we've moved cities a few times, our first home has since became a rental.  The townhouse was originally painted in beige/cream color (called Ceyon) but we wanted to update it with a neutral gray to give it a more contemporary look.  Paint color and carpets would need to be picked out in person, so I flew down to check it out.  Eventually picked Sherwin Williams Amazing Gray paint (SW 7044)!

Guest Favor for Baby Shower ~ Homemade Sugar Scrub

A few weeks ago, I co-hosted a baby shower for a university friend who is due this August with an adorable baby boy!  The other hostess and I decided to give guests a sugar scrub because it was something we would want to take home ourselves.

Update for printable files and instructions: Click here to use this free printable for your event.  You can customize your text and label size to fit any Avery brand printer label.   Graphics are available in pink or blue.

Here's how I made these adorable little jars.

Grabbed the Ball 8 oz wide mouth mason jars at Target.

Filled the jars with Shaina's Ginger & Coconut Oil Sugar Scrub recipe.  As you can see from my photos, I extended the recipe a bit for the amount of baby shower guests. Plus, I could only find coconut oil in a tiny jar or a big jar, so I made the recipe to match the amount of coconut oil.  Where the recipe calls for essesial oil, I picked lemongrass.  And opted for non-comedogenic almond oil.  Organic ingredients were used whenever possible.
When I make this again, I would use more ginger than the recipe asks for because I love ginger and can never get enough.  It was fun to make, especially with a bottle of wine. Total Breaking Bad moment while "cooking" the scrub.

 

I've used the scrub myself and I really liked it.  My skin felt like it was naturally moisturized after it, not super oily - but the results were even more amazing in the winter when it can be difficult to moisturize enough.

Printed the jar labels using Avery's 2.5" round glossy labels.  I created the graphics and then uploaded them to Avery's Design & Print Online system.  While it was super easy to use and print from the Avery online layout (even allowing me to save a .pdf version), the graphics in their software were quite basic and disappointing.  The nursery has an animal theme, which is what we used as a basis for the baby shower, hence the elephant and giraffe print on the back ingredients label.  Awe!

EDIT TO ADD LABELS TEMPLATE (click here for more detailed instructions):  It's the first time I've made something like this,  so I'd love to hear any feedback!

Last step was to use the 3/8" ribbon to tie the bows.  I used about 22"-23" of ribbon on each jar (if that helps anyone calculate how much ribbon to buy) and the sheer ribbon I tried first, did not look nearly as nice as the grosgrain ribbon.
Tying a bow seems easy, but my first tries had them looking like my shoelaces, messy and not so precious.  Google-fu lead me to this super helpful tutorial on tying the perfect bow. Silly, but necessary.  And a quick flame to seal the ribbon's cut edges and viola, all done!
If you wanted to really get detailed, you might consider using a glue dot behind the bow to keep the ribbon attached to the lid.  It was easy to pop off which made tying the bows slight more time consuming because you have to be careful.

If my math is accurate, each jar cost about $5.65 each to make (but this includes the left over ribbon and extra labels, so maybe cheaper depending how many you make).  This project would make an excellent gift for Christmas.  Maybe made with a peppermint scrub?  Could use white sugar and dye a portion red for a candy cane stripped look in the jar?  Endless possibilities!

This was so fun to make, hope I remember the next time I need gift ideas!

Chinese Chippendale Chair Before & After

Found it! A Chinese Chippendale (bamboo) style chair has been added to the guest bedroom's desk this week.  Yay!
After searching and searching, style chair was either only sold in sets or was quite expensive (Jonathon Adler's version starts at $500).
One night, a forum poster on DecorPad.com also suggested the Chinese Chippendale style for my Natura desk, so I thought I'd try looking just one more time. This time my google-fu stumbled on this chair being offered by One Kings Lane.  It was not the right color and I had been hoping to find a $10 Craig's List chair, BUT since it was the first reasonably priced chair I had seen that was not sold in pairs, I jumped on it.


Lessons Learned

• Customizing the chair is as easy as "they" say!
  A little paint and fabric and the chair was my own style.  While it took time, the level of skill required was minimal.  I could see this chair being many different colors long into the future!
• Painting with a brush works too.
  Since I am in a high-rise building, spray painting is not an option (sad face!).  If I hadn't already painted my dining chair legs, I would have been nervous about streaks and brush strokes, but those turned out really smooth.  And the chair looks great too!  No brush strokes at all.
• Work fast with latex paint!
  The white high gloss paint dried so fast that I had to be extra careful not to go over recently painted sections. Attention had be taken to smooth out paint bumps or drips right away, since it might be too tacky to smooth out later.  With other paint types, I never had the hurry and do it right feeling like I did with this.  =)  One tip given to always keep a wet edge of paint when using latex.  Good advice.
• Be strategic about the order you paint sections.
  The chair back took a lot of time to paint because of all the small nooks and angles, and a lot more touch up was necessary because it was really hard to get good paint coverage in certain spots.
  I found it worked best to start by painting a thin layer of paint on those difficult spots first, then paint the remainder of the chair and then go back to the difficult spots again.  By the time I worked my way to the trouble areas, the were dry enough for me to paint again. 

Materials Used for Chair Re-Vamp

• White gloss latex paint (dried super fast, just needs 2 hrs between coats)
• fine grit sand paper
• 1 1/2" synthetic paint brush (had at home)
• this chair needed 3 coats (minimum).  I bought an 8 oz paint can, and used less than half the can.  Since white isn't a saturated color, I would have been find with a sample size 4 oz container. 
• About 3/4 of the yard of fabric I purchased at a local fabric store
• Staple gun to secure fabric to seat (had at home)
• Drop cloth to protect floors and collect dust from sanding

As I'm typing this list, I realized I only sanded my chair and didn't get paint with primer mix it (my usual method).  Ugh.  Fingers crossed it doesn't start to bubble or crack.  Regardless, I love my chair!

Guest bedroom 

The room is still a work in progress, still looking for

• artwork for above the bed
• navy euro shams (scheduled to ship this week)
• nightstand or small chest of drawers for the side opposite the desk
• large scale artwork for the wall opposite the bed.  Or maybe a dresser?
  Obviously a guest room doesn't really need a dresser, but I was thinking I could use 1/2 to stash some sewing goodies.  Ha!

Love a bag of rice!

It's all true - a bag zip lock bag of rice can save a phone! 

While showing my hubs an adorable video of my 2 year old cousin, the phone slipped out of my hand... and right into the glass of water below. It was a comedy of errors! I tried to shake out all the water. Immediately I knew the speaker had stopped working. Unfortunately I didn't know you are supposed to power off right away. I was still using it and "testing" to see how much had died. Then I googled what to do and followed directions to power off and seal the phone in a bag if rice. 

I could only stand to leave it for 36 hours, but it works perfectly now!!! Whew!!!

While we were out and about I realized how much I rely on my favorite apps. Last night I jumped into a taxi without even knowing the address of where I was going because I was just so used to always having it on my phone. Luckily the guy was in a good mood and let me wing it, "Um, drop me 4 blocks south of the X sculpture." What a mess!

And while hubs was sweet to oblige my "can I use your phone, real quick?" requests... His apps were different than mine and so unorganized. It made me miss my phone even more. He hasn't complained about the rearranging & organizing I did on his phone, so he must like it!