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Archive for the ‘Outdoor Living Space’ Category

Currently Coveting

Posted in Currently Coveting, Home Decor Ideas, Outdoor Living Space, tagged , on May 10, 2013|

Today, I’m currently coveting a more vibrant back patio. It is perfect patio weather right now and I want ours to be fun and funky. The backyard is the perfect place to have a lot of fun with color and pull inspiration from the colors in your yard. I have several ideas of small updates to make to our seating area but the main thing we need is a rug to pull it all together.

anniversary2bfurniture3This is a picture of our patio from 2011. Conner got me the set for our anniversary. I still love it – a great price and pretty comfortable – but the area is lacking and doesn’t have our personality in it.

IMG_5869_thumb5I saw Emily’s updated patio last month and instantly loved it. Look at that color! Fun and funky and so fresh. She made several small updates, starting with that very cool rug. I clicked on the link and it led me to the Fab Habitat website. Of course I loved Emily’s rug! I fell in love in 2011 when I first saw this company and wrote about it here.

smaller_laguna_orange_peel_and_white_lifestyleBut as I scrolled through, you know what I immediately fell in love with – orange. chevron. It just doesn’t get any better than that, does it? The price is amazing and is so perfect for our patio. I am definitely coveting the largest size of this rug!

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Outdoor DIY Planters

Posted in DIY, Garden Inspirations, Outdoor Living Space, tagged , , on April 9, 2013| 3 Comments »

Conner and I spent this past weekend enjoying friends and family but also doing a lot of yardwork. It was the first ‘weed pull’ of the year and my back tells the story – it wasn’t fun. It always looks so much better when we’re finished but what a bear to do! I’m now in outdoor mode though and when I saw these planters on Pinterest, I knew I wanted to make them.

diy-criss-cross-x-pattern-plantersKate over at Centsational Girl is an amazing DIY’er. She has great style and is super brave with her projects. I would love to have these, make these, plant in these…whatever it takes to own them! I love the style and the price. (planters are expensive!) Have you attempted something like this? I think I need to add these to my spring DIY to-do list.

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Crafty Pumpkins

Posted in Fall Decorating, Outdoor Living Space, Paint, Spray Paint on October 17, 2011|

Before I start, thanks for the sweet emails and comments from the last post. I was very overwhelmed by news I had received from several friends and needed to put the breaks on doing too much. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be a part of as much as possible and with the blog especially, try to live up to someone else’s standards. I took a big breath and remembered this blog is purely fun for me. I’m not paid to do it and I can’t worry about how much I’m posting, what I’m posting and how many followers I’m gaining/losing. Thanks to each of you for reading and leaving sweet notes – this used to be something that only my parents read!

On to the topic at hand – I finally painted some pumpkins!! I really think this year has been the most fun fall I’ve had post-college. (You really can’t beat the fall season in Stillwater – Homecoming and Freshman Follies were big deals in my life and I loved it all so much!) I love how my pumpkins turned out, especially my two OSU pumpkins outside.

I printed out an image of our logo but ended up just winging it and free-handing the letters. I used black on the letters, orange surrounding it and a silver border that was so much easier to paint with the back of a paintbrush! This took about 20 minutes total and I love how it looks!

I was stumped for what I wanted to do for pumpkin #2 so I went with the easy saying of Go Pokes! This was a total freehand as well and only took about 10 minutes. I used acrylic paint I had on hand from previous projects and it worked out perfectly. A coat of glossy clear spray paint was applied after I painted to protect the pumpkins from the weather and hopefully get them to last a little longer than expected.

Inside, I tried to do our monogram. I’m not completely satisfied with how it turned out but I’m going with it for now! I spray painted the pumpkin with copper paint and then free-handed our initials in white. I used a pen to draw it out first and even with four coats of white, you could see the pen underneath. I used a black Sharpie to outline the letters and draw an inside line to hopefully detract from the pen showing through. And yes – this is absolutely why there is only one picture of this little vignette – hah!

See ya later, alligators! I’ve got several projects on the brain so I’ll be back when I’m ready to showcase one of them.

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Fall Outdoor Fun

Posted in Fall Decorating, Fall Fun, New House, Outdoor Living Space on October 5, 2011| 4 Comments »

I am thoroughly enjoying fall this year! Last year at this time we were running around like crazy, trying to finish painting our kitchen cabinets before our housewarming party. This year, I get to experience and enjoy fall in the most laid-back, fun way possible! We never did a lot at our old house so this year has been a blast with lots and lots of pumpkins, mums and pansies.

This is the garden cart in our backyard and I am so happy with the way it looks! The hay bale, pumpkins, gourds and mums get me more excited than objects like this should – hah!

This display makes me even more happy that we made the decision to remove the ugly, overgrown evergreen that used to be in this spot and instead have an area to accessorize outside! The garden cart that Conner’s mom got us works perfectly and is a great prop for the fall decor.

I had the two pots already and the hay, mums, pumpkins and gourds came from a variety of greenhouses, home stores and even grocery stores! The grocery store down the street from our house had the best prices on pumpkins, acorns and squash. I love the colors and textures they add to the display.

In our front yard, I am beside myself with our planted pansies! This is my first time to attempt this and I think I enjoyed doing it a little more than one should while planting an annual like this. I planted tulips in between the pansies and can’t wait to see what it looks like in the spring! Our poor Japanese Maple took a beating this hot, hot summer but the red leaves are coming back and she is looking like her old self again!

I put another hay bale on our front porch and layered more pumpkins and gourds all around it. Conner’s mom got me the two lanterns for Christmas last year and they are the perfect accessory with leaves from Dollar Tree and candles inside! My favorite pumpkin in this display is the double-decker on the top right. I think it is so cute!! The pumpkins at the pumpkin patch are expensive but they do have some really cool, original things like this and it was totally worth the splurge.

I totally missed the fall craft linky party, but I am definitely joining Sarah’s outdoor party! Maybe I’ll get to finish the crafts this weekend?? Yup, that’s what I always tell myself…

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My First Feature!

Posted in Featured on the Blog, Garden Ridge, Outdoor Living Space, Spray Paint on July 16, 2011|

I am so excited that Cassie over at Hi Sugarplum! featured my spray painted garden stools yesterday! It is my first feature ever and I was thrilled and honored. She was impressed with how easy it was to take those ugly $25 Garden Ridge stools and make them fabulous for way less!

I’ve had several friends compliment them as well and am happy they are holding up, especially under this heat! I noticed that the back of the right one is bubbly in several spots but I think that is because I painted these after it was too hot for the paint to dry. When it cools down, I’ll sand that off and re-spray the stool. Definitely take the advice on the can and don’t spray paint when it is above 90 degrees!

Thanks again, Cassie! I’m so excited for my first feature on another blog!

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Steal of a deal!

Posted in Before and After, DIY, Garden Ridge, Outdoor Living Space, Spray Paint on July 6, 2011| 11 Comments »

I have been searching high and low for the best deal on an Asian Garden Stool. My favorites came from Wisteria but retailed for $129. No thank you!

Last week I was at Garden Ridge (I was inspired by Sarah’s recent post and hadn’t been for a while) and found these stools! They aren’t that pretty and I wasn’t sure about the price until I saw the special red sign. “All red-lined items additional 50% off.” Talk to me!

Each stool was only $24.99! Can you believe that?! They had several other colors that weren’t on sale so I hunted on the shelf for two that were red-lined. These were definitely Asian-inspired and not my style but I knew a $3 can of spray paint would help that immediately. I grabbed two as quickly as possible and headed home one very happy girl!

Here they are, after several coats of spray paint! I am in love. Seriously, I think there is no difference between these and the ones sold for much more online. I loved the way they turned out and how easy they were to paint. I loved them so much that I went back and got another one for our bedroom – hah!

I turned the stools upside down to start painting the bottom first and realized using the paint I had on hand was a huge mistake. I had the spray paint sitting around because it wasn’t Rustoleum’s brand. That is the only brand I should ever use! It covers so well and is actually cheaper than other types. After correcting this mistake, each stool only took one coat of primer and one coat of glossy white indoor/outdoor paint.

The painted garden stools are perfect to serve as our ottoman/coffee table outside. The tables that came with the patio set have glass on top and aren’t conducive to the end-of-the-day, put-your-feet-up-and-relax style that I wanted. This is exactly what I wanted and just the right price! Run to Garden Ridge and grab your own stools before they’re gone. This is a steal of a deal!

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Before & After: Outside Mini Makeover

Posted in Before and After, Garden Inspirations, Outdoor Living Space on May 23, 2011|

We had a great weekend that included dinner with friends, a golf tournament, a bachelorette party and the best: a chainsaw!

I couldn’t stand this over-grown red tip photinia that had taken on a life of its own in our front yard. Last year it wasn’t so bad so we left it when we took out the tree and old bushes when we moved in. The bush looks okay from the front but had gotten very straggly and limby (if that’s even a word) in the back. I was ready to get it out!

My parents were in town this weekend so we did a little heave-ho with their amazing chainsaw! Ten minutes and several cuts later, our front yard opened up and looked so much bigger! The scariest part of this process? Conner wasn’t home when this happened. Luckily he loved it as soon as he pulled into the driveway but you never know the reaction my projects I envision will get!

Side note: that ugly utility box? We have the utilities for our house plus two others in our front yard. This summer we plan on making a wall of plants around those utility meters to make it a lot prettier!

My parents had to leave shortly after the front yard was done but they left their chainsaw for more demolition! This is a corner of our backyard, in front of our shed. The previous owners planted some pretty great flowers and plants but you couldn’t see them anymore because this monstrosity of a cypress bush had taken over!

Less than four minutes after Conner had the chainsaw running, the huge plant was gone! I was so excited and even better than that, Conner was too. He had put off this project because he thought it would look weird but loved the way it turned out. Conner’s mom had given us the garden cart last year and I knew this would be the perfect spot for it! We found extra mulch in the shed and it created the perfect bed for the cart and newly seen plants.

Next on the agenda is water-proofing and weather-proofing the cart then filling it to the gills with pretty flowers! I can’t wait to play with colors and textures in this cart each season. I already see hay bales and pumpkins filling it up in the fall.

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