I MOVED!!!

I'm cleaning things up and starting fresh!  Check out my new blog over here:

www.jillianhaupt.com

I still have plenty of new stuff to add, but it's finally up and running.  Come check it out!

Making progress

Just a few more minor details to finish up in the bedrooms, like painting the door knobs, but basically ready to move in.  Here's a little before and after.  What a difference the wood floors and large base molding make.

BEFORE

AFTER  Bedroom #1 - This room will be my studio

BEFORE Bedromm #2 - Kayla's room (if she ever comes to visit, lol!!)










AFTER

Here's the inspectors Penny and Molly, keeping us on our toes!!

Being Frugal

Hi Friends ~ The hubs and I spent the whole weekend working on the flooring in the house and have finally made it out of the bedrooms and into the living room, THANK GOODNESS!!  I promise I will post some pics soon of the progress of that, but I wanted to pop in quickly and show you something that I had been wanting to try.
You see, the house came with all those construction grade light fixtures.  The ones we have all seen a million times....shiny gold and not so much my favorite.  I thought immediately about just pulling everything out and getting all new.  I'm drawn to all the exposed Edison bulbs and the industrial look and getting new would make life much easier, except I started adding up all the costs of the light fixtures and wow, I could easily spend over a thousand dollars replacing everything!!
I saw this spray paint by Rust-Oleum called Forged Hammered Burnished Amber and thought, well why not try using what I already have.  The only thing I had to lose was the $7 something I paid for the spray paint.  Can I just make the light fixtures that are there look industrial and add those cool Edison Bulbs to them???

Here is the result.  I'm going to keep it until I move everything in and see how it looks with my furnishings.  I'm also going to paint the shiny gold ceiling fans and I'll let you see how that goes.

AND......It works great on shiny gold door knobs too!!  I'm so excited (and a little addicted) about this spray paint!

Keeping Focused

Anyone else get distracted easily when designing a room?!!  I'm pretty sure I have it all together and then I get out to the stores and bammm, there I am walking out of Home Goods with a red ceramic elephant that has nothing to do with where I was going in the first place!!!  I mean Home Goods is one of the best stores on the planet,  but again, I'm easily distracted.

So when I'm working on a big project, like this new house, I have found putting together a design board works wonders and keeps me focused.  Ya, sometimes I feel ridiculous walking around with it, but it saves me time & money (2 things I am fond of) when I'm out wandering.

I'm still pretty busy giving all the rooms a fresh coat of paint and Kurt has been busy laying the wood floors when he can.  This house seems to be taking us the longest to get done, not because it's hard, it's just hard to find the time.  The plan this weekend is to get a majority of it finished....floors, new base trim and painting....so we can at least start moving.  

Then the fun begins, the actual decorating!!!!

FUN NEW THINGS!!

It's been a busy week here at the studio.  My head is so full of new ideas and things I want to make for my Etsy Shop. I really miss doing the Kane County Market back in Illinois, so I guess filling the shop on-line with things will have to do until I find a place here in Texas to sell.
While I'm trying to figure out the decorating plan in the new house, I knew I needed some basics for myself, like some fresh dish towels.  Nothing was quite hitting the nail on the head and then I realized, HELLO, make some yourself!!
So here they are with some of my favorite song lyrics..... They are also available in my Etsy Shop!!

I also grabbed a few of these wine totes from my distributor.  I thought they would make great gifts for Bridesmaids, Maid of Honor, or even the wedding couple!

And lastly, I absolutely LOVE these flowy tanks!  I have plenty of the gold and silver glitter vinyl, so I thought they would make a cute addition to the shop.  You can even add your wedding date if you like!

Hoping to have some pictures soon to show you the progress in the new house.  There's a LOT of painting going on right now!!

Here we go AGAIN!

Here we are off onto another adventure!  Today we signed the papers on a tiny little house in Texas.  We just couldn't stand renting because, well, it was making us crazy not having house projects!!!  To be completely honest, it's nothing that we were necessarily looking for as far as houses go.  If you know Kurt and I, then you know how much we love old, historical homes with quirky spaces and surprises around every corner.
Well, you can't ALWAYS get what you want, so you just gotta make the best of it!  We had a certain area we needed to stay in that was close to where Kurt is working and found this tiny, 900ish square foot home that is going to be perfect for the 2 of us and a visiting college student.

 

It's about as basic as you can get, so you know I'm itching to get rid of all the "run of the mill" light fixtures and baseboards.  The big bridge in the living room is interesting (haha) so I have a few ideas for changing that!We were in the place about 20 minutes after the closing and managed to get a few projects started. First was the awful carpet...bye bye!! 

We are going to put hardwood flooring throughout the house.  Hopefully all one flooring will make the space feel less chopped up.  I don't know if you can tell, but the ceilings have a really obnoxious plaster stippling effect on them.  Not looking forward to removing that, but not sure if I can handle the textured ceiling.  My neck is hurting thinking about it...YUCK!!!!!!

Next thing on the list was the fireplace.  It's ok, but could be a lot better, especially with the high ceilings.  I'm on Pinterest every night looking for ideas on that one.  We knew we at least needed to get the tile up for the installation of the wood floors.

The final project for the day was removing the island in the kitchen.  The space is not that big to begin with and this island took up almost the whole entire room.  Plus, it wasn't anything to write home about anyway.  I'm sure I can come up with something cuter!!

Oh, and you KNOW those light fixtures are heading to Goodwill!!  The cabinets are going to get a makeover as well.

So that's it for today.  I'll be back often to keep you updated on our progress as long as I'm not too sore to get to the computer to type!

How to make Flower Garlands

If you know me, then you know I LOVE the details!!  Here is a project that will make you look like an absolute pro for your next event.  It's the simplest of crafts, yet makes such a great impact when used for decorating a party or used in the background in a photo shoot.  The basis for this one, coffee filters!!  Yup, cheap ol coffee filters and few tea bags (if you want yours to have that soft cream color)

The basic supplies needed are:
Stapler
Scissors
Some ribbon (I make mine 10 feet long)
5 tea bags (will make about 10 or more garlands)
Glue gun
and of course, coffee filters!

Step 1: take 3 coffee filters and stack them up
Step 2: Fold them in half
Step 3: Fold over again into quarters
Step 4: Fold one last time

Step 5: You don't need to be perfect on this one, or even really draw the shape in.  I just wanted you to see how the tops should to be cut off.
Step 6: Showing what it looks like after the layers have been cut through.
Step 7: Take the layers and separate them.  You don't want to have the edges matched back perfectly.  Stack them back up together.
Step 8: Pinch the back together and staple it.

If you're going to make a 10 foot garland like mine, then you will need 24 of these flowers made up.  Step 9: Dip the ends (about half an inch to an inch) into the tea and then lay on their sides to dry.This is the worst part of the whole process, waiting for the flowers to dry.  I usually dip mine at night before bed and when I get up the next morning they are ready to open.

Open up all the flowers carefully.  Step 10: take your cut ribbon and lay it across one flat side of the flower half.  Apply some glue and press another flower to it and VOILA, the start of your flower paper garland!!

I use 12 full flowers for each garland....but of course you can make yours any size you like!