Times they are a changing. . .

I have moments when how much I've grown up over the last few years alarms me a little but in general I absolutely love my life exactly as it is now.  I hope that I continue to feel this way at each new stage in my life.  I've had a few “a-ha” moments in the last few weeks that really show how much I have grown up and settled down since I started the back end of my 20’s. 

My favorite moment was enjoying girl’s night with my friend Stephanie and her absolutely adorable little girl Emilee.  Stephanie and I danced together as part of Georgettes and Pamoja.  We also lived together for a year at college.  She is part of a lot of my favorite memories of Georgettes and going to school at UGA in Athens.  We have always had fun when we were together.  This past Friday I drove to Athens to spend the evening with her: we picked her daughter up from daycare, ate at Panera, and then hung out at their house and played games.  It also included a small fashion show and Emilee dancing for us.  It was a very different evening from our nights out in the past but it was so much fun and it was so special.  I think getting older for me has meant that I appreciate the little things a lot more and don’t need big flashy plans to appreciate the company I am with. 

Before:

Now:

At times I get nervous that so many of our friends are transitioning into the parenting stage of life and that we plan to be a few years behind them.  I worry that I won’t be able to relate to their experiences in the same way other parents would.  In some ways this is a valid concern but then I remind myself that we are not friends because our lives are the exact same, we are friends because we love one another and support one another.  I got married before several of my friends but it never hurt our friendship so I must trust that this will be the same way.  I try and remind myself that I will be thankful to have so many people to look to for advice and guidance when that time comes for us.  For now I will just enjoy spoiling and loving on their wonderful kids!

My Best Friend’s Baby Shower

Here is my Pinterest inspiration board: 

Here is the update from the actual shower.  I was so excited to help host this event.  There were 5 of us working together since it was a large couple’s shower and we all wanted to help plan this special event for Alyssa.  I was tasked with decorations and games which I was thrilled about! 

I loved all the inspiration pins I found so I got to work trying to make them a reality.  The most fun about making décor yourself is that you can really personalize it the guest of honor.  Alyssa’s favorite color is purple and she plans to use Purple and Grey in the nursery with elephants as part of the décor.  I made sure to include these in the shower decorations.  My favorite projects were the photo display, the paper pennants, and the fruit loop centerpieces. 

The photo display was very simple.  I bought command hooks and hung wide ribbon on them.  I used clear stretch cord to create a loop to attach to the command hooks.  Then I mounted all the photos of their baby pictures and their maternity pictures on safari animal paper in pastel colors which I bought at Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon.  To hang the pictures on the ribbon I used clothespins which I picked up at the dollar store.  It was such an easy project and the guests loved it because as they walked around and got food they could enjoy looking at all the pictures.  It also started conversations with people sharing memories with Alyssa and Will.   

The paper pennants were fun and whimsical and very reasonable to make.  I used the same safari paper bought in a paper pack from Hobby Lobby (with a coupon of course).  I create a guide using thick cardboard so I could cut the triangles on the exact same angles.  After creating the guide I cut all 120 pieces of paper into triangles using my guide and my paper cutter.  I cut the paper in smaller batches of 5-10 sheets at a time so that they would cut easily.  Then I bought thin ribbon that had colors to match the paper and cut them into 4 and 5 foot lengths.  I lined up the triangles in varying orders so that no two stands of paper pennants were the exact same and glued the triangles to the back of the ribbon – starting with the middle to ensure that the strands were centered.  On two of the paper pennants I added letters including “It’s a Girl” and “Gifts” for the gift area.  

Game Day!

It’s always bittersweet to see the summer come to an end.  Any sadness is eased by the beginning of college football season and the changing of the season to fall.  I am a huge UGA Football fan and my husband is a huge fan of any kind of football (high school, college, or NFL).  This year UGA began the season playing an away game against Clemson in Death Valley.  We didn't have tickets but since it was a night game and ESPN college game day was reporting from Clemson we decided to make the drive to tailgate for the game.  The Clemson campus is beautiful and reminded me in a lot of ways of the UGA campus.  It was fun to spend the day with friends and then late afternoon we started the drive home so we could watch the game at home.  Traffic had other plans so we missed the first half but all in all it was a really fun day!  The only thing that could have made it better would have been if the Dawgs could have pulled off a win, it was a back and forth match but Clemson ended up winning the game.  

10 Year High School Reunion

In some ways I can’t believe it’s already been 10 years.  In other ways I feel like high school was a whole lifetime ago.  There was quite a bit of drama leading up to this event.  The person planning it was faced with some complaints and so decided at the last minute to completely change the location for the event.  This drama was definitely a factor in some people opting not to go and the low turnout resulted in ticket prices being pretty high for the event which resulted in less interest.  I’m still glad that we decided to go.  Honestly I never considered not going, I think it’s important to stay connected to your roots and was interested to catch up with everyone.  Admittedly there was less mystery around what people have been doing thanks to Facebook but I still enjoyed catching up with some old friends and acquaintances.  As someone who never felt completely comfortable in their own skin in high school it was nice to go to this event as a confident and successful adult.  It was a reminder of how much we have all grown and matured over the years.  Sometimes being a grown up feels like it’s not all it’s cracked up to be but then I remember back to how dramatic and unsure we all were in high school and feel thankful for changes and people in my life.  

Endless Summer Sale – Lilly P

I love these twice a year sales from Lilly Pulitzer.  It’s the only time I purchase Lilly since their regular prices are too high for me!  I was a little disappointed this year since the sale prices seemed to be higher in general and they faced a lot of issues with their website due to such high web traffic.  I did manage to score a few pieces that I love.  My absolute favorite is the Love Note clutch.  It’s a metallic gold clutch with an enamel elephant on the front.  I love that it can transition through any season and how the metallic fabric really dresses up any outfit you pair it with.

I got the full outfit including shirt, skirt, necklace, and clutch for less than $80!  These pieces had an original retail value of $345 so I scored them for over 75% off.

Pencil Skirt (regularly $118)
Cleo Ruffle Top (regularly $49)
Sea Shell & Sand Dollar Necklace (regularly $68)
Love Note Clutch (regularly $110)

Things we do for youth ministry

Last night was the kickoff for Ignition for the new school year! I cannot believe that this marks five and years with this ministry. This was a special milestone since this year we have a youth pastor again for the group and the energy and momentum are really working in our favor. We are starting the year off with a series called Identity Crisis. The concept is that we all struggle with the pressures both internally and externally to fit a certain mold or behave in certain ways. This can make life very complicated and make it very hard for us to have a clear picture of who we want to be and even harder to see the picture of what God wants us to be. In order to introduce the leaders for this year and for entertainment value the leaders opened the service with an alter ego fashion show.

We had all kind of alter egos: a ghost buster, Pocahontas, an army captain, an older cat lady, a colonial mother of 9, a redneck trucker, a hipster, etc. My costume was a Louisiana beauty pageant hopeful named Gracie Lou whose platform is to beautify the people of the world for Jesus. My husband was a Mexican wrestler who wrestling name is el feugo de pantalones. It was goofy and mildly embarrassing but overall it was a lot of fun. It is proof that when you are part of a ministry you will often end up doing plenty of things you never expected. My southern belle and homespun beauty queen act now has me slated to dress up as honey boo boo for the next skit. All kidding aside I feel so thankful to be able to spend another year working with these awesome students. My girls are now upperclassmen and it is really sinking in how much they have grown since I started working with them two years ago. It also marks the fact that some of my previous girls are entering their last year of college and my heart swells with pride at their accomplishments and their potential for the future. It is nice being able to stay part of their lives and become a friend as well as a mentor. It gives me hope that even as this group of girls head to college in 2 years that I know I will always get to be part of their lives! God is writing some amazing stories with these students’ lives and I am just amazed to get to witness it.

Bedroom Redesign

One of the reasons I love interior design and home décor so much is that spaces continually evolve.  This is the story of the evolution of our bedroom from 2007 to now.  It has grown and changed just as we have.  When we first moved which I’ll title Phase 0 we were fresh out of college.  We did not even have a bed frame and used two twin mattresses pushed together.  Due to the lack of a bed frame we frequently experienced a phenomenon we named the bed butt crack.  I think subconsciously I knew this had to be a temporary phase because I do not even have a photograph that I can find from that stage of this room.  Our design tactic for our bedroom at this time in 2007 was that we had just bought our first house and we needed almost all new furniture.  We were able to afford enough to get through the common area of the house but ran out of funds for furniture for the bedroom. 

Phase 1: In 2008 after our wedding we saved up and bought a canopy bed frame from Overstock and a new duvet cover from IKEA.  In looking back this room still looked like it needed some serious TLC but at the time we felt so accomplished and grown up with our new bed frame. 

Phase 2: We left the room in that state for quite a while.  In 2011 we finally thought about the room in a new way.  When we bought the house the previous owners had the bed along the long wall so naturally that’s the only way we could imagine it when we first moved in.  It made the dresser/bookshelf feel cramped on the tiny accent wall but the previous owners had lived there for 5 years before of course we felt like they knew the best layout for the room.  One day we were reflecting on our overgrown dresser on the baby wall and how our bed looked disproportionate on the long wall even though it’s a king sized bed.  We were hesitant at first but we rationalized that we didn’t like how it looked at that time and that it wouldn’t take but a few hours to try moving things around.  After some intense maneuvering we had the switch in place and eureka!  Also in this timeframe we painted the small accent wall a bluish gray color and finally framed some letter art of our last name that we had purchased in Savannah. 

Phase 3: Now that the room finally had the right layout for the major pieces of furniture we decided to play with some details.  In 2012 we added accent curtains which I made myself.  The hardware came from IKEA and so did the fabric which I cut to the appropriate length and then used fray stop on the edges to keep them crisp.  I really should have sewn the edges since a couple of the panels were not perfectly even from my scissor handiwork.  This is ultimately probably why they got upgraded again in Phase 4 but at the time we were really proud of them.  We also refinished two accent chairs that we found at a local salvage and antique store.  I really wanted a chaise in that reading nook area but I scored the two accent chairs for less than $70 including paint for updating the legs.  The cheapest chaise I could find that I liked was a few hundred dollars and definitely did not fit the budget.  I also had concerns about such a large piece of furniture overwhelming that smaller area.  One day once we have a larger house I will finally have my chaise.

Phase 4: I love a DIY blog called Young House Love.  It is like a vacation for my brain when I read about all their projects and drool over their well put together design choices.  I am always impressed at the impact they get from the money spent on a particular space.  One of my favorite spaces in their second home wall their photo wall in their hallway.  I loved how it was well balanced but also quirky and seemed to reflect their personal style so well.  I knew I would struggle with creating the same look in our house because I have always defaulted to perfectly matching and even wall décor.  As I’ve matured I’ve come to long things with more character and thought my husband and I would really enjoy pulling some pieces out of storage to go up on the walls.  In order to clean up the space we really needed to finally invest in real dressers.  For the first step we scoured the internet and stores for dressers we liked.  We found ones that took my breath away but then also felt like a kick to the stomach when I saw the price.  We decided that IKEA has the best balance of form, function, and price for us.  We bought three of the 3 drawer MALM dressers in black-brown for $79.99 each.  We “splurged” on the glass tops at $14.99 each.  The total cost was $307 which was half the price of smaller options we had found elsewhere.  It took Kyle about 4 hours to build all three dressers. 

Anyone who has been to IKEA knows it’s a trap so we also left with new curtains which are gorgeous and much more polished than my home spun creation.  We paid $24.99 for the curtains and used our existing hardware. 

While he worked on assembling the dressers I took on the photo wall planning.  We bought almost all the frames at Michael’s.  They had a buy one get one free sale on frames plus an extra 20% coupon including sale purchases.  We came home with 14 frames for $106.  We spent an additional $24 at Hobby Lobby on other accent piece for the wall, all either on sale or using a coupon.  I also spent an additional $5.41 printing extra pictures to use for some of the frames. 

Phase 4 Project Total:
Dressers - $307
Frames - $106
Wall Accents - $24
Curtains - $24.99
Photo Prints - $5.41
Grant Total – $467.40

It was not our cheapest project by any means but after five and a half years I can honestly say that we both finally love the look of our bedroom.  It feels great to finally have enough storage space since that is a constant challenge for us in our loft.  For anyone looking to do something similar the photo wall portion of the project came in for less than $150 so our biggest expense by far was the new dressers. 

Here are the photos from each phase including our favorite the final after photos.