Apartment Life: Fall Decor +Halloween Print Freebie

So living in a small space is often a struggle for me. I see all these cool decor ideas online and I just think, "Ughhh why don't I have more space?" However, I do love decorating for the holidays.

I mostly keep my decor limited to the living room, where I spend most of my time, and really the only place guests spend their time. My main floor is just the living room and kitchen, and I've just never gotten too into decorating the kitchen seasonally.

My fall decor is mostly small touches, but I love them so much that I would be sad to see them go- if Christmas wasn't up next!



Orange Pillows- Marshall's
Hey Y'all Pillow- Hobby Lobby (no longer available online)



I made this chalkboard print myself (available below), and these pumpkins have been around since I was a kid



This pumpkin is a new addition this year from Hobby Lobby, I love the look if it!



I found and framed these prints (Wreath, Pumpkins) from pinterest, and I feel like they look like they are meant to go together!



These silk flowers are from Walmart, and I won the vase in a local auction fundraiser. It came from a local store in town, I thought it was beautiful and looked very Kate Spade-esque. I'll definitely keep the vase out and change up the flowers for the seasons!



I'm WAY more into fall decor than Halloween decor, but I love this little skeleton guy! His pumpkin is from Hobby Lobby.



These little guys are from Walmart and meant to be Salt/Pepper shakers, I liked them for decor and they match my big white pumpkin!



This is from Hobby Lobby as well, but also not linked online.



Lastly, my blanket ladder gets some cute plaid blankets!


Here's that chalkboard print for you guys!

Happy Fall Y'all!

DIY Decor: Wood & Fabric Cross Wall Decor

Look who's back, about 14 months later. Oops.

I actually have a few crafty posts to do in the near future, so maybe I'll stick around for awhile, no promises though!


So recently my Grandma saw these beautiful wooden and fabric crosses online and fell in love.



They are totally beautiful, but pricey at $70 a pop.

I decided to try my hand at making her one and honestly this may be one of the easiest DIYs I've ever done. Literally the most difficult part is cutting and sanding down the wood.


My Grandma was so excited she cried! <<I'm not even joking!



The fabric was from Walmart, and very much compliments her house, the flower came from Hobby Lobby.


My best friend teaches at a local Catholic school, so I decided to make her one that would compliment her classroom. In her case both the fabric and flower came from Walmart.



Seriously a simple, cheap and beautiful DIY. My mom has requested that I make her one to hang in a gallery wall! (Hopefully a post to follow when I finish designing her gallery wall!)

Desk Organization

My desk at school has a super big and very shallow drawer. It's somewhere in the neighborhood of 24x24. For the last two years I've been in the constant struggle that no matter how many times I organize that drawer, everything just rolls around in a jumble.

Natural I sought the help of Pinterest for this problem. And I found this idea which I was in love with!

However, I was super bummed because I could not find jewelry boxes anywhere! So I went to walmart in search of more organization ideas and I found the Madesmart Interlocking Drawer Organizer Bins. I bought 2 packs and figured out a layout I would be happy with.

The corner is missing, why I have no idea :)

 I still wanted to replicate the scrapbook paper in the bottoms so I picked out some different colors and prints that I liked.

I traced the bottom on each bin and then I Mod Podged the paper to the bottom.

 Once I put it in my drawer I realized that the draw was a bit too big. I put a small amount of sticky tac on the bottom of each bin to stop them from rolling around.

Now that it's filled with my supplies I'm definitely happy with it!!!! Here's to an organized school year!

Teapot Makeover

I've been wanting a decorative teapot for more than a year. I'll be honest I didn't look very hard for one, and the few that I did see online were too expensive for my budget, I had mom on the look for one at yard sale, bit then I saw this one on a local facebook swap shop page. It cost me $2 and while I wasn't even sure what I would want to do with it, I couldn't pass it up.

This teapot then proceeded to sit on top of my bookshelf for months. Untouched and totally not my style. Lately I've been in a crafty mood so I decided to take a crack at it. At Wal-Mart I found these Folk Art enamel paints and I thought I'd give them a try. Telling myself that if I screwed it up, I was really only out a few dollars. Our store didn't have a lot of enamel color options, but white and gold are the perfect colors to match my bedroom anyway.

I started painting the whole thing white, at this point I wasn't sure what design I wanted to go with, so I just started with a base coat. This is it after one coat, at the point when I realized I was going to be getting several coats deep into it.

After 4 coats, which I know doesn't seem like a lot (but it felt like it), it was a nice white. I waited 30-60 minutes between each coat. The bottle says 1 hour between coats, I have a hard time following rules.

After the white coat had died (or dried enough) I started decoarating with gold accents. I'm not an artist and I don't have a super steady hand, so it's not perfect, but I'm happy enough with it! This is what it looked like before I baked it:

I let it sit for an hour (for real) and then as per the instructions on the bottle, put it in a cold oven and baked it at 350 for 30 minutes. I also let it cool in the oven. I'm pretty happy with the results!

It goes nicely with this little teacup I got as a wedding favor!

Notes: Baking the paint makes it top-rack dishwasher safe (according to the bottle), but not food safe. I can't validate this, because I won't have a reason to wash it. Baking it cures it, but does nothing else. It should come out of the oven looking exactly as it did when you put it in. After baking I touched up a lot of the gold where you could see brush strokes. It will also cure after 21 days so I will not be putting it back in the oven.

Wonderful Wreaths.

Tonight my mom, grandma and I had a somewhat impromptu wreath making session. We've actually been trying to plan it for awhile, but just decided to do it tonight. I'm actually pretty happy with how they all turned out! We all had different inspirations that we found on pinterest and put our own twists on. My grandma had bought all 3 grapevine wreaths, seriously years ago.


My mom's wreath was inspired by this from pinterest, it doesn't link back to a source, so if you made this, it's sooo cute :)

She decided to go with a white initial (her front door is actually turquoise) and used a little but different flowers. I think it turned out super cute!

My grandma's wreath was inspired by this wreath I found on Etsy:

My grandma's favorite color is blue so we really tried to focus on blue hydrangeas and used a white initial as well Grandma also wanted to use some of the greenery from the flowers.

The wreath I made was partly inspired by both of these wreaths from Etsy:

I basically took parts that I liked from both of them and give it a little bit of my own spin. The flowers on it were from etsy! I wasn't sure about how it turned out at first, but it grew on me and now I love it!

Classroom Crafts: File Cabinet Makeover

I feel like I did a thousand DIY projects for my classroom this summer. Okay maybe not a thousand, but a lot, which means I spent a lot of time there this summer! I also did some fixer upper things, like painting nasty bookshelves black. I'm picky about having a cute classroom, not just for the kids, but also for me. After all, I have to be in there every day too.

I don't even have a "before" picture, but I had an UGLY grey file cabinet in my room. Firstly it was boring, and secondly it was "bulldog grey" which is the exact same color as the walls. After painting 3 large bookshelves, and a podium, I so was not about to paint the file cabinet too (plus I didn't want to buy more paint).

I had seen tons of file cabinet makeovers on pinterest that I loved, but the whole thing about that was that every cabinet is different, so tutorials weren't all that possible. Figuring  out how to get the harware off without breaking it was challenging, but possible.

I picked simple black and white scrapbook paper (so I could leave the cabinet gray) and I spray pained the handles black. After mod podging on the paper, and reattaching the harware I used some leftover turquoise paint for the center squares.

In the end, I went from hating my cabinet to it being one of my favorite parts of my room!

More classroom crafts coming in the near future!

Diaper Cakes: step-by-step tutorial

I when I posted "Baby Shower Bonanza" showing off my diaper cakes, they were pinned on to Pinterest a thousand times, so I thought I would come back with a step by step tutorial, and some pictures of the three most recent cakes I've made.

So this step-by-step is from the cake that I made my amazing cousin Sheila, who coincidentally gave birth to a beautiful little boy yesterday.

So for the base of the cake, you need: Diapers, a skinny dowel rod, rubber bands and ribbon, and then you can choose add ins as well.

Notice Zoey creeping into the picture, hoping that Mom has new toys for her

She's so cute though :)

So basically the first step is to roll and rubber band all of the diapers. For me this is the most tedious part, and also the part that takes the longest.

The first step is to lay the diaper out, which the folded side away from you.

You're then going to roll the diaper away from you toward the folded end.

Once rolled it should somewhat resemble a swiss cake roll

secure with rubber band

At that point I would go ahead and roll all the diaper in your package. Next its time to start banding them together.

"Hey Mom! Those diapers look like toys to me!"

I band the diapers together in groups of 4. Pushing the ends toward the center makes for a cleaner look.

You'll need to start forming cake layers and banding them together. Within the rubber bands you'll be able to shift the diapers around to form a circle. You'll use one rubber band to band the whole layer together.

Stack the 3 layers and put a down rod down the middle to keep them together

 Next you get to add in the fun stuff. For this I used baby wash cloths, a rattle (the topper), a teething ring, a Johnson&Johnson travel kit and a baby nail care kit (not pictured).

Usually the color of the washcloths I find basically inspire the look of the cake. I was really excited to find these color schemes because usually I find typical, pink for girls and blue for boys. 

You're going to want to roll the washcloths just like the diapers, I secure them with a piece of clear tape. Some brands come pre-rolled.

I love this pattern set. I believe the package came with 2 of each pattern.

Next you really just start placing the accessories around the cake until you get the look you want. I try to evenly space out the washcloth patterns, and get the ones I like best close to the front.

Along with the washcloths stick the other accessories in the cake. I open the J&J kit and stick each piece in the cake.

Once all the accessories are in it's time to finish the cake off with ribbon.

It's really only necessary to do one layer of ribbon, but I like to do a smaller layer as decoration.

I found this cute "It's a Boy" ribbon on sale!

I top cake off with some homemade bows for decoration!

Moms always tell me that the appreciate these, because they can tell I've put a lot of thought into their gift :)

Here is a cake I make for a co-worker having a boy:

And I made this one for a co-worker having a girl:

The great thing about this cake is that it has the exact same "ingredients" [except for a pink and not blue teether] as the cake I made my cousin Becky, just with different colored ribbon!

Switching out the teal and pink ribbon, makes it look like a completely different cake!