Reader Paper Portrait

My dear friend Laura made a special valentine's gift for her Valentine this year. It's inspired by LivingwithAnnie and Paul Overton's DudeCraft. Check out the most amazingness below! I love her choice of photo. These portraits tend to work best when you use close-ups!

To check out my paper portrait projects, click here.

Quick Bedroom Makeover - Adding and Subtracting Furniture

My dear Valentine reminded me this weekend that I need to get back into the swing of home decorating for the blog. With that little nudge (and a little help from Wishpot), I began a long dormant makeover of my bedroom.

Here is the dreaded, incredibly messy BEFORE...

Now let's subtract Lovely Little Nightstand and the $10 Nightstand, clean, fluff, and add TWO beautiful accent tables on major sale at Target...

AFTER

Literally, the only thing I added/bought for this room were two accent tables from Target, marked down from $60. They each have two small dings so I was able to get them for $40 minus 10% off. 

Ah, the power of a little cleanliness and some gorgeous flowers from my Valentine.

This is just the beginning for this room but it already feels sooo much more relaxing. I don't dare show you the other side of the room - that's where the giant mess is hiding! I'll keep you posted on the progress but at least this is a sweet step in the right design direction.

Did you know this about Target?

Happy President's Day/3-Day Valentine's Weekend to all :) 

Tomorrow, I'll be posting the beginning of my bedroom makeover. I'm pretty excited about the initial results. For now, I want you Target-shoppers to know the following...

If anything you want to buy at your local Target is damaged or the box it comes in is a bit damaged, the cashiers will easily give you 10 or 15% off depending on the level of damage. (Wahoo!)

Remember this accent table from Friday's post? Thanks to small dings I'll never care about on two of them, I got each or $40 then 10% off of that. Not bad for something that's only temporarily marked down from $60.

Stay tuned tomorrow to see how this one purchase has totally begun to transform my lovely little bedroom. 

Dreams do come true thanks to Wishpot

Apologies for anyone who checked in for a post yesterday- I was home sick and couldn't bring myself to do anything other than weep at the end of Sleepless in Seattle for the billionth time. Today I'm feeling much better and have decided to share with you the awesomeness that is - WISHPOT!


I woke up this morning to a delightful email from Wishpot (wishpot.com) alerting me that this table I'd been crushing on at Target was now $20 cheaper! How's that for good news on a Friday? Perhaps two of these are in my future for my bedroom as the perfect nightstands. 

Wishpot has a lot of useful features- my favorite being that you can install a button on your Firefox browser. When I spotted this baby on Target.com, I was able to hit the magical wishpot button and add it to my wishpot registry. I could specify the priority of the item and if I wanted the most awesome feature ever - PRICE ALERT! I selected this accent table over a month ago and wishpot took the place of compulsive Target checking. I highly recommend it for anything from tables to shoes to stuffed pandas!

Happy shopping and here's to a great Valentine's Day weekend!

The art of the heart

Houzz.com

I'm sure most of you are in the midst of your Valentine's Day planning (or planning to avoid Singles Awareness Day all-together). Personally, Gus and I are planning a day trip to Santa Barbara and probably skipping the presents this year in favor of the gift of spending time together and reflecting on our relationship.


If we were doing physical gifts, I think I'd want to do some kind of Valentine's-inspired art or make something "from the heart." I found some great projects/inspiration across the web for this so if you're looking for that idea light bulb- hopefully I can spark it today! Enjoy :)

Rose Petal Art

You could do this on a ceramic plate, a plank of wood painted white, cardstock, whatever ya got

Also Houzz.com

EcoBites has a long alphabetized list of DIY Valentine Gifts that are worth investigating
Check out Chocolate Lip Balm :)

Hand-sewn Valentine's Postcard
Featured at Curbly.com

 I've also done a number of projects that I think would be fabulous as Valentine's / From the heart gifts. Here are a few links if you're interested. Please send me photos if you make anything - I'd love to showcase your projects on the blog!

Paper Portraits
Vector Paintings
How to make your own board game
Personalized Wall Collage
Thinking of You Puzzle Postcards (Great for long-distance Valentines)
 Easy Framed Art Project
 

Home Decorating... by the numbers

from Houzz.com

I've been contemplating doing some DIY decorating projects involving numbers. If you've been in Pottery Barn recently or drooled over their website, you may have noticed a large influx of numbers being used in design. Today, I'm pulling together some of my inspiration and maybe soon I'll be posting a great project or two involving seriously awesome numerals. 

Plates with Numbers - Easy peasy!

 from the Old Painted Cottage at Houzz.com

I forget where this is from but how gorgeous and simple are those plates?

Pottery Barn Pillow Covers - $29-39 available now in stores

Queen of Numbers DIY - Lisa @ Pickles and Cheese
Drawing major inspiration from everything Lisa has dreamed up! Check out these projects and more on her blog - Pickles and Cheese.   

Have you spotted any Number/DIY greatness in the home decorating world? Please share.. I'm brainstorming as we speak!

Living with Annie featured on Better After

I'm back and better than ever from my short vacation. Today's post coming shortly but to tide you over, just a heads up that I was featured on BetterAfter! Click the button or the highlighted text to check out the post.

Stay tuned!