Hospitality

Nothing makes me more excited than personalized means of courtesy while you're sleeping away from home.  When I came into the hotel with my husband for our 8th anniversary vacation in California, we found this on the vanity in our bathroom.  So, to honor this towel origami before taking it apart, I had to figure out how to put it back together again.  

 Courtesy of Hotel Current, here's how you make a shirt and tie out of bathroom towels.  I'm a visual learner so if you need more than pictures to explain what to do, don't hesitate to ask :)

Here's what you need.  Start with the larger towel.

The tie is with the smaller towel starting in a diamond position. 

Put this in your guest bathroom and you are sure to get some smiles!  Great hospitality never goes unnoticed.

Master Bedroom Mood Board

Thanks so much for the challenge Cassity at  *Remodelaholic*!  

On my board I focused on a fairly monochromatic theme with one additional color.  I love the minor contrast it creates throughout the space.  It makes the room feel calm, cool, and relaxing, just the way I think a master bedroom should feel.  The graphic theme is an interpretation of a radial pattern shown in the mirror, artwork, the arms of the chandelier, and if you want to get real technical, the tufts in the ottoman and the legs of the floor lamp.  Here's a screen shot of the items I used in the room:

Make sure you get over to *Remodelaholic* to see many other wonderful Master Bedroom creations.  Hopefully you'll find some inspiration to make your bedroom your favorite space.

My Olioboard

I have several blogs I like to follow.  In fact, my list is so long I break it up throughout the week so I'm able to check up on all of them.  I'd have to say at the top of my list is All Things Thrifty.  I love Brooke's style and she has so many creative home decor fix it ideas.  I'll show you another day how I recreated her DIY Window Valances. 


Yesterday as I was browsing the blogs, I noticed Brooke had joined a group of bloggers in a Master Bedroom Good Mood Board Challenge hosted by Cassity from Remodelaholic (another fave!). 


This is the kind of challenge that I practice at least 3 times a quarter at school, but I'm limited to the resources at our school.  The site to create a Mood Board is found at Olioboard.com.  I think I'm in love!  Here's what I came up with for a couple of home offices:

This site is very user friendly.  It's fun to dream up these creative rooms.  I've included a widget on the side of my site so you can keep up with all the different room styles I come up with.  

As for life, I've just finished this quarter's classes and the hubby and I are off to Long Beach, CA for our anniversary vacation.  Here's to 8 wonderful years!  School starts up again October 3rd with more challenges and more designing fun.  

15 Minutes

My mornings are generally pretty busy on a school day. Take today for instance. 5:00 - Husband kisses me before he leaves for work
5:30am - My alarm clock goes off. I immediately set it for 15 minutes later (snooze is broken) 5:45 - Alarm clock goes off again and I roll out of bed. 6:00 - I'm dressed and ready and head to {B}'s room to get her ready for school. I leave {T} in bed hoping she'll stay asleep until I actually have to leave. (It's just better to help one girl get ready than two at the same time.) 6:03 - After some coaxing, {B} sits up in bed and I realize she's peed through her diaper ... once again. 6:05 - {B} gets in the shower while I get her clothes ready. 6:06 - {T} comes out of her room ... figures. ("Mommy, I awake!") 6:10 - {B} gets out of the shower and doesn't like the clothes I picked for her (I thought uniforms was supposed to make things easier) 6:15 - {T} is dressed, {B} is dressed, time for breakfast 6:18 - Fruity Pebbles made and sitting in front of the girls for breakfast. 6:19 - {B} spills Fruity Pebbles on her shorts and she has to get changed. I make my bowl of Bran Flakes. (Come on fiber, work your magic!) 6:23 - {B} is changed into clean shorts and refuses to eat due to her bad temper (My words not hers. She becomes mute when she's upset) 6:25 - {B}'s lunch is made, can't find her lunch box and has to use my old bag 6:26 - {T}'s shoes are on 6:30 - Girls in car with {B}'s shoes and socks in hand 6:33 - I'm in the car with backpacks (mine and {T}'s), drills to return to in-laws, tabs for a friend Crap, forgot the keys again 6:35 - Out of the driveway 6:40 - {B} is dropped off at a friend's with one shoe still in hand and frown still on her face ("I love you! Have a good day!" {B} "hmph") 6:45 - return home to get something a classmate needs 7:15 - drop off {T} at in-laws
traffic 7:45 - Pick up classmate who doesn't have a car
more traffic 8:15 - walk into class 15 minutes late. I shouldn't have reset my alarm.


Happy Monday!

Guests and Projects

I get so excited when we have guests coming over that I find the motivation to change things in my house.  There's a particular project that I've been wanting to do, but my husband hates moving furniture and equipment around so it's been put off for a very long time.

 My entertainment center is a big of an eyesore to me.  It was put together out of necessity when we moved in over a year ago.  I hate seeing the wires behind the TV, it looks like the monster in the room and it is constantly disorganized. I've had a new configuration in my head for a few months now, but never had the motivation to do it.  Apparently it takes guests coming in from Utah for me to find that motivation.

My mother-in-law's best friend was in town this week and my husband offered to make dinner. (He's my live in Bobby Flay. I'm so lucky!)  So the day that everyone is supposed to come over, I text my husband to see if he would be mad if I changed everything about the entertainment center.  He said as long as he didn't have to do anything it would be fine.  I put the phone down and went to work.

Four hours later and a break to pick up {B} from school, I was done.  Unfortunately, I couldn't finish the floating shelf above the TV before our guests came over because our drill doesn't have enough torque. (A new drill is on the Christmas list this year.)  My father-in-law came to the rescue with 2 different types of drills for us to choose from.  So after everyone left, I finished drilling and accessorizing so I could take this picture before I went to bed.

 The old shelf with doors needs to be taken somewhere else, but I'm glad the project got finished.  I feel much better when I watch TV now that everything is organized and I can display pretty things in a much nicer less messy way.

On account of finishing projects, here's another beauty I finished and posted to craigslist today!

 If you're interested in buying this, here's the official post:

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/fuo/2603966385.html

Now I'm off to enjoy the rest of my Saturday (aka finish homework before Monday morning's class)

My Favorite time of the day & recent Big Reveal!

So it's {8:00} and the kiddos are in bed.  THIS is my favorite time of the day.  I start it with a big sigh and quickly find a comfy place to sit.  Tonight's comfy place is the nice computer chair in front of "the big" computer (which is usually occupied by my husband doing homework).  I say big because it's a 27" Mac screen monitor.  When I sit at this computer I'm motivated to work on pictures.  So, I've decided to finally post my reveal of my first, full-on design project . . . {B}'s room!

My oldest daughter is 7 now and her newest adventure is loosing her front teeth.  Hopefully we'll survive tomorrow when I take her to the dentist and probably get a couple more ripped out . . . a job I will never do myself. *shudder*

So here are some before pictures and challenges I had before I started the room.

 First, the obvious.  The color came with the house.  We gave {B} the option to change it sine we were painting other rooms before we moved in, but she said she liked it, so pink it stayed.  It's like someone planted a pepto bismol bomb in the room and let 'er go!  Unfortunately, the bedding she had matched perfectly.  Another unfortunately is that the lamp was lined with pink inside, so it only projected more pink on the walls.

Piece of school education that led me to solving this hot pink mess:
Color Theory was a fun experience.  I found that mixing colors is harder than it looks.  I also learned about a study in red that experimented on prison mates and their exposure to the color red.  They put the prisoners in an all red cell to see how they would react.  Overtime, the prisoners became more aggressive.  Then my teacher asked what they found when they put the prisoners in a pink cell.

Anyone . . .

                                           anyone . . .

they had the same result.  That was the final straw.  I decided to design a room that wouldn't give my daughter any more excuse to become an "aggressive prisoner" because of her room.

So the problems are:
1. Hot pink paint color
2. Hot pink lamp
3. Damaged desk top
4. No shelves!

Solutions:

#1 I tried to tone it down at first adding purple.  I got the purple circles on the wall at JoAnn's and DIYed the dresser.  But still, like I said, it was a hot pink mess.

I also learned in color theory that green was associated with calmness and nature and decided then and there that {B}s room was going to be green.  Not just any green, a two toned horizontal pattern green.  You'll see in the pictures below.

#2.  Her desk in her room has travelled with us in at least two moves and has the wear to show it.  This IKEA desk was once a nice smooth top, but soon showed us it's "true colors" of particle board . . . not so pretty.

Solution:

CONTACT PAPER!

I got this paper from Home Depot for about $6 for the roll.  A little measuring, matching up, cutting and one Sesame Street episode later, this sucker was on there for good.  Now we're back to the nice smooth top with more of a decorative feature.

#3 The lamp from before came from Goodwill and was fun for . . . about a week.  Oh well, lighting for 8 bucks isn't bad.  Here's a fun little DIY I thought of when we were shopping for accessories together. We found this mobile at Hobby Lobby in the clearance section for $8 and I thought, "Well, I'm sure I can find a good use for this somewhere."  It wasn't until a week before I started painting till I thought of using it for a lamp shade.  All I needed was to find a good lamp base and a top to a drum shade or bars that would support the ring.  Thanks again Goodwill for my $12 find!  So this project totaled to $20.  Not bad for a 27" lamp :)

#4 I had a book shelf that we used before, but she always had it so cluttered so I bought some bins for those tiny things that made it so messy.  And now she has a floating shelf to store her favorite things that she doesn't want her little sister to touch.

Another side note:  I made the curtains and had fun doing it, but I think after my 2 weeks I spent sewing my own curtains for my whole house, I'm rethinking my career as a professional seamstress.  I better just stick to designing and let the professionals do their job.

So here is her room completed!  I kept one of the stripes from one wall and wrapped it around the whole room to make the space more cohesive.  Horizontal stripes also give a sense of stability and purpose, two attributes I hope {B} gains in life.

{B} loves her room and loves to show anyone who comes over what her "new" room looks like.  She does a very good job keeping it clean and doesn't complain so much when we send her to her room.

Thank you {B} for being such a good girl and letting me take over your room for a weekend!

{Welcome}

Hi everyone!

Welcome to my blog.  I get a lot of questions about what it's like to be a wife, mom, AND a student and how do I make it work.  So I decided to start this blog kind of as a journal so whoever might be interested can peek into my life as I try to make things work.

I'm a student at the Art Institute of Phoenix (thanks to my husband and his work benefits) and I'm working on getting my bachelor's degree in Interior Design.  I already have a head start on my "post-high school" education.  I've received my AA degree in Music from Eastern Arizona College in 2003, but since then I've become a wife and mother, which I know is the job I was created for.

With this opportunity to attend school, I'm pursuing a different course than what I started with.  I've finally found the degree that I've been practicing since my sister moved out and I got my own room.

When I turned 12 my parents decided my room needed a makeover. I was forever moving furniture and changing things.  I'm sure at least every 3 months or so, something was different. I got to help find bed coverings, curtains, paint colors, wall treatments, and even refurbished a dresser.  My room was dramatically changed as it went from rainbows, unicorns and teddy bears to dark greens, blacks and pinks.  Sure, most of the walls remained white to balance it all out. The dresser went from a beat-up white with "I Am A Child of God" primary stickers all over it (from the days of my youth when my mom wasn't looking) to a dark, hunter green with brass pulls.  I loved every part of that process and I'm so glad my parents let me be involved in it.  This was my first experience as a designer and I didn't even realize until after I started college that I could have a career doing just this.

I'm sure even from my first college experience, my roommates could tell you this is what I should actually be doing.  We were forever making furniture changes to our front room in our tiny apartment and when my roomies would let me, even the bedroom arrangement would change.  (Thanks girlies for letting me get away with that.)

So now here I am, traveling at least twice a week an hour each way into Phoenix to further my education. I started attending in November of 2010 and I'm set to graduate sometime towards the end of 2013.  Nearly one year down and two to go.  I'll catch you up on some of the classes I've taken and work I've done.  I've also got pictures of projects I work on at home since the school doesn't teach me how to refurbish or upholster furniture.  I'm available for free consultations right now and would love to take on any projects you can throw at me.

Until next time . . .