Master Bath Update

My twin brother has been painting some rooms in his house, so I’ve had quite a few conversations about paint colors lately.  I’m one of those people who goes to the store, looks at the paint colors, picks a color and paints a whole room with it. THEN I decide if I like that color.  For the most part that process has worked out for me.  Sometimes the colors don’t work out exactly like I had in my head, but it usually looks pretty good and ends up fine.  With that said, I’m not sure what prompted me to break tradition in the master bathroom.  My original room plan had me painting the cabinets a dark gray and the walls a crisp white.  So I picked out two different color whites, and painted test swatches in 3 places around the room.

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After a week, I still couldn’t figure out what the difference was, so I just picked one and went with it.  My husband was busy and I had a free night so I invited my brother to come over and help me paint the bathroom.  In one evening we got about 3/4’s of the room painted before calling it quits.

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But the white didn’t turn out like I wanted it to.  It made our previously seeming white bathtub and countertop look yellowish.  Since I was busy the next few nights two weeks, we just lived with a mostly-painted-in-a-color-I-don’t-really-like state.  Once I settled on the fact that I wanted something different I decided a light gray would be better.  So I went back to my tried and true just pick one method at the store and came home with a gallon of Behr’s Gray Area paint and primer in one.  I was planning on painting it Saturday afternoon and Sunday, but Reese had a few free hours so volunteered to get it started for me, while my BFF and I did an owl craft project upstairs.  After spending several hours in my office/makeshift craft room we went downstairs to see his progress.

masterbathafter5 My best friend who knows me and my paint picking ways pretty well said… wait… isn’t that the same color as the office we were just in? And yes sure enough, this is the second room in my house where I have gone to HD, picked out a light gray that I liked and painted a whole room in it.  They were just two years apart and fortunately also across the house from each other… but hey, at least I know what I like right?  masterbathafter3

Reese ended up painting the majority of the bathroom all by himself by the time I was done crafting, but I love the way it looks now! Builder basic- no more!

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It definitely needs a few little pops of color in some wall art or accessories, so I may be replacing the giant clock sometime soon.  And with the gray, my bathtub and counter tops don’t look yellow anymore.

masterbathafter2 I have some plans down the line to add a little more interest to the tub surround by adding in some other tile, and I would love to change the gold shower surround, but that is all for another day! Thanks for following along with my little mini bathroom reno! Paint makes a world of difference.

 

 

Beaver Creek, Colorado

The husband and I took a quick getaway over the long weekend to Beaver Creek, Colorado.  Last year I bought a two night stay at the Park Hyatt in BC at  a silent auction, so we decided to take a break from the blazing hot Texas temps and go to the mountains.

The hotel was amazing, beautiful decor (they had a giant antler chandelier that Reese would like to have at our house… which will happen once upon a never) and they handed out s’mores takeout containers so that we could roast our own s’mores by their fire pits in the evening. Located right in Beaver Creek Village, we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect location for our weekend getaway. I’m pretty sure its the place on the far right in this picture, which I took on our hike.

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Can I tell you a secret? Even though I love to snow ski, I like the mountains in the summertime more than I like them in the winter.  I just love the crisp cool air, hiking, and the waterfalls.  It also helps that mountain roads are much less terrifying without snow and ice on them and yes I’m terrified of them even when I am not the one driving.  But we enjoyed being able to get away from everything for a few days and enjoy the outdoors.

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We took the easier hiking route and rode up the ski lift and then hiked the 4 miles back down on the Overlook Trail.  Even though we were doing the ‘easier’ half, both of us were still pretty sore the next day.

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The hike wasn’t difficult just a few minor steep parts, so we just enjoyed the Aspen trees.

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And the wildlife:

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I mostly spent the time playing with my camera and trying to learn how to take better pictures

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It also happened to be Oktoberfest in Beaver Creek, so there was plenty of live music and entertainment going on, and Reese definitely enjoyed the bratwurst they were selling.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many grown men in Lederhosen including my trip to Germany several years ago.

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 Overall we had a blast! We ate good food, got lots of sleep, and enjoyed each other’s company… a great end of summer getaway!

 

Wreath 2.0

After making this wreath for a friend out of old ribbon and fabric, I saw a friend who made a wreath out of felt flowers, and I loved it! So I googled around to see how to make felt flowers and found this blogpost showing how to make them.  I picked three to try out for my wreath

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I’ll walk you through how to make my favorite the one with curvy edges above.  And then I’ll show you how to start the other two, which are simple once you learn how to do the first.  First cut out a square of felt.  The bigger your square the bigger your flower, mine are about 4″ square to make the bigger flowers above and 3″ square to make the smaller ones.

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Now just cut wavy lines in a circle:

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Don’t worry too much about keeping them even or perfect, the imperfection makes them more fun! Keep going until you have one long line:

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Now take the end that was the center of your square (shown at the bottom of the picture above) and start rolling the felt around holding it with one hand as you wrap with the other hand, it should quickly start to look like a flower!

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When you are done just stick a dab of hot glue on your end and tuck it under to keep it together.

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To try out different looks you can vary how high your waves are and how tightly you wrap your flower up.

For the flatter flowers in the wreath do the same as above just with straight lines so that your string of felt looks like this:

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And for the loopy flower cut one long strip of felt (mine was about 10″ by 2″) fold it in half and start cutting strips half-3/4 of the way through your fabric like this:

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Now start at one end and just wrap it into a circle until you have the flower the size you want it to be! And now its time to hot glue your flowers to the wreath however you want to.  I like them clumped at the bottom right of the wreath:

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When you are done, hang on your door! I actually made the one above for a friend to celebrate her birthday (and the start of football season… Rock Chalk?)

I liked it so much I made another one for myself and hung it on my front door:

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The husband thinks we should add maroon and white flowers to the top left since TECHNICALLY we root for his beloved Texas A&M Aggies in the fall, but doesn’t he know that  Maroon and White clash with Crimson and Blue?