Halloween Decorating with my Silhouette...

So last year I knew I was going to be getting a Silhouette Cameo for Christmas, and after seeing those fun paper bat displays on pinterest, I was litterally begging Mr. B to give my gift to me early!  Didn't happen though.  But, I have my silhouette for THIS Halloween, and I've litterally been going "bat crazy!"  And I've been cutting out more than just bats... here is what my Silhouette and I have been up to the past couple of weeks...

 These pictures don't do these bats justice.  They were so hard to photograph!  My entry way is very narrow, but VERY tall.  I litterally had to step out my front door to take these.  (and don't mind the mix of summer decor on the mantle, the bats were the first of my Halloween to go up, and I was too excited to wait to photograph them)  ;)

 Yes, more bats.  Had to add some gold glitter to this little display...

 A black cat adorned in black glitter...  you really can't have too much glitter.  ;)

 And even though I went crazy happy with the bats, I think these trick or treaters may just be my absolute favorite!  The tiny details the silhouette can cut just amazes me.  I should've taken a better close up, but you can see how awesome their treat bags are.

I still plan on cutting just a few more silhouettes, but I have yet to find the right frames for them.  I'll be sure to update you when they're finished.  Thanks for stopping by!

Stairway Gallery Wall...

This little wall has been a loooong work in progress.  I have been collecting frames, one here, one there, over the past couple of years, and have been spray painting them all heirloom white as I got them.   I finally collected enough frames to fill the space and got them all hung up, but then it took me another long while to finally fill them all up with photos.  Tis how I work around here.  At one point I had so many empty frames hanging in my house, Mr. B told me he wasn't going to hang another single thing for me until I filled the ones I already had.  LOL.  I became the notorious empty frame hanger.

 My stairs have open railing on both sides, but only half way up, and then the one side stops at a wall.  And then directly at the top of the stairs is a closet door, so this wall space is relatively small.  As much as I'd love a GRAND stairway gallery, this is as good as it gets around here.  Although, I've been debating having the frames wrap around that corner there above the railing to the left of the photo. (picture above)

 My sister in law Cat, from Catherinas Creative Corner made me this beautiful genealogy fan, which was the start of this whole wall.  My initial idea was to have only old black and white photographs of my ancestors surrounding this framed fan.  While I have those photos in other parts of my home, somehow they all didn't make it onto the wall.  Perhaps I'm just too in love with my kids??  LOL.  Oh well, some of them made it there anyway.  ;)

I'm not one to cut out paper templates to hang my gallery walls.  I do lay it out on the ground first to get a general idea of how I want it to look, but for the most part I just wing it; telling Mr. B "Ok, put this next one here." as we go.  :)

DIY Paper Banner Cake Topper

With the new baby, the birthday shin-digs around here have been uber simple... My daughter and I made this cake topper together for her cake, while the cake was baking!  Yup, it's THAT simple.  Here's how we made it...

We found the paper we wanted to use; and we ended up using the cover of a 12x12 paper pack.  I loved the tiny prints, and the squares were the perfect size (some even pre-glittered)... allowing me to get a wide variety of triangles while only using one piece of paper.  Well... technically I didn't even use up any of the paper, since it was the cover, which is even more awesome!  :)

I cut out the strips, which were 2 inches wide using my fiskars sliding cutter (can't think of the actual term for that cutter??)...

And scored them down the back center with my score blade, allowing for easier folding...

While the strip was folded, I then used my scissors to cut out triangles like this: 

The top end being at the fold.  My triangles were 1 inch tall.  The nice thing about folding the triangles like this, is it makes the banner two-sided without using two sided paper, it's also easier to attach them to twine.

Then I used my glue dots: a medium one on the fold and a small one at the point, so it wouldn't pop open...

And placed the fold line onto some cute pink and white twine, and simply folded it over into place.

After getting the length and pattern I wanted, I tied the ends onto some wooden skewers...

And you're done!  Some of my squares already had glitter on them, but you can further embellish your banner with glitter or whatever else you can think of!  There is one down-side to having  a two-sided banner though... if you have a preference of what the "front" should be, be sure to double check you're actually photographing that side, before you take all the photos...  I didn't realize I was photographing the "wrong" side of the banner until after the birthday was over and I uploaded the photos onto my computer.  UGH!  I'm sure no one would've ever noticed but myself, but I know every time I look at these pictures in the future I'm always going to think that.  Dang it.  LOL.  Oh well.  (The photo above, before it's on the cake was my favorite side of the banner, notice the cute thick striped triangles, vs the plain blue ones on the photos below)    I saved the banner, so if I ever reuse it, I'll be sure to get it right next time... and then I guess it will kind of be like two different banners anyway??  (trying to find the positive in my OCD glitch here)  haha!

 The Birthday Girl was super happy with it anyway...

Stained Bar Stools

I've been in desperate need of some new bar stools for a while...

See what I mean?  The light blonde wood completely clashed with my kitchen, and these bar stools... well they were a bit pretty run down.  We obviously could care less for them seeing how we used them for paint projects (see far right bar stool) and stepping stools on a regular basis.  The funny thing is, they bugged Mr. B more than they ever did me.  He usually could care less about such things, but for some reason, he brought up how ugly those stools were quite regularly.  LOL.  I didn't want to just go buy another set of cheap stools though, so I kept my eye out for a good deal on some sturdy, good looking ones.  I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for, other than I wanted them to have a back on them.  (for the kids, and I loved the look of them)

I was hoping to find some that I wouldn't have to do any work to, but then I came across a sale at Four Sisters Furniture.  They sell unfinished quality wood furniture.  I decided to go ahead and snag them up.  They really are a great quality, solid wood stool!

I kept hopping back and fourth between staining them, or painting them.  So many options... if I went with paint, would I do a fun color, or stick with white?  Painting them was my first choice until I came across these pretty things from Kris Krafting...

I loved her bar stools!  And a classic stain I can live with for a long time, whereas if I had painted them a fun, trendy color, I think I might of got sick of them after a while.  So I went with her stain.  I followed her tutorial, just did a few things differently... like I used the dark walnut stain I already had on hand (and I didn't water it down), and a different brand of polyurethane spray.  But other than that, I followed her tutorial.

Here were the chairs in the middle of staining...

And here they are all finished...  We got three stools, but they were pretty cramped at the island, so we used the third for the high chair.  (you can see it in the top right corner in the photo below)

 I love the way they turned out!  I think mine are a little darker than Kris's, as I didn't water down my dark walnut stain, but I think they go really well with my floors and cabinets.  They look like a perfectly weathered wood.  :)

Here is the stain I used...

 and the polyurethane I used...  I did have to do a light sanding with a find grit sand paper once they were completely dried... they were a bit rough... I think it's because I did these outside in the HOT heat, and slight breeze... it was drying really fast.

I'm SO glad to finally have some pretty bar stools in my kitchen!

I want to use the same stain on my dining table... it also has the blonde wood (yet the table doesn't bother Mr. B at all, but it drives me nuts!)  LOL.  We're quite the pair. ;)   I don't know when I'll get around to finishing the table though... just these stools alone were quite time consuming.  Perhaps after school starts and it's not so insanely hot.  :)

Girls Room Reveal...

It's finished!!  And just in time too...  Our newest family member decided to make her debut a bit early.  :)  We are just loving her so much.  Big sister has a hard time sharing her with the rest of us.  Ok, who am I kidding, we're all kind of fighting over who gets to hold her over here.  haha!  She is one loved little darling, that's for sure.

Anyway, please excuse the quality of the first 5 photos.  They are pictures from my phone, as I wasn't able to capture wider angles with my camera.  The phone pictures make the walls look more yellow than they are.  The true color is a yummy creamy white, it truly brightened up this tiny space.

My SIL graciously let me use her crib she was no longer using.  It's a beautiful canopy crib!!  Unfortunately though, due to the space being so small, the tall posts seemed to be overwhelming in the room.  Mr. B discovered that the top decorative piece of the posts came unscrewed, so we did a little switcharoo, and the crib is now what you see in the photos above.  (it easily goes back to how it's originally supposed to be)  I had to take a picture of it with the tall posts though first, because it truly is such a pretty crib!!

The dresser is a pretty darn old one that I found in my local classifieds listings.  It just needed a little TLC.  Mr. B and I painted it together.  And then I distressed it a bit with a smokey brown glaze to make the details stand out a bit more.  The light blue makes me so happy!

Hardware was found at Hobby Lobby.

Lamp and piggy bank are Target finds.

Some fancied-up jars to store the girls hair bows and headbands...

 Inspiration for the gold bird jar came from Pinterest.

The baby's quilt was the start for this whole room.  I purchased it from THIS etsy shop.  I am in LOVE with Moda's Ruby line of fabric!!  Unfortunately they don't make it any more, so it took a bit to try to find some fabric to coordinate well with it for big sister's bed.  Moda's Scrumptious line was very similar, I just left out the orange tones from that line.  :)

Left over fabric from big sister's quilt were put into embroidery hoops to go in the wall collage.  I am loving the touch of gold in this room too.  This surprised Mr. B... I'm normally not a gold-loving person, but it just seemed to fit this space so well.  :)

My old entry way book shelf got a new coat of paint from the lovely Lindsay over at Country Girl Home.

The beautiful painting of the Rose and Wren was custom painted by the talented Niki Cox.  It's a "sister" painting!  (My girls' middle names are Rose and Wren)  ;)  I know, I'm kind of weird like that.

More gold and play on my girls' names...

I added some red pom pom trim to these simple white curtains...

And more embroidery hoop art and random unicorn picture to fill some awkward spaces.  I LOVE that unicorn picture, it took me nearly 4 years to finally get it framed!!  So better believe I was hanging it up, even though it doesn't exactly "go" with the colors or theme of the room.  :)

And that's the Girls' Room in a wrap!