Hooray! New Guest Bathroom

This is a before and after of my guest bathroom. It was a khaki wonderland before I took this on. Tile, walls and floors. B.L.A.H. See if you like the new ocean-inspired result.

Before & After

 

Inspiring Interior Tuesday

Found this lovely bedroom and just had to share. All the colors go so well together, though there are lots. That's something I'm still mastering so it's good to see someone else getting it so right. Enjoy!





 To see the entire post, and more pictures from this lovely home, visit Bliss' website here.

French Country Goodness

Thought everyone might enjoy this fabulous French Country post I'm linking to from greige.

It's so gorgeous and it makes me want to paint my whole house white and buy more burlap. Ah, je t'aime.

Bad blogger, bad!

Sorry folks, I've been a bit behind on uploading some of my recent projects. I've been taking pictures, but found a couple of last minute things I wanted to add before I uploaded them. Please forgive me, but I can give you a hint--I've almost finished my new backsplash and created my new girly office. Look for pictures soon!

(BTW: the reason I've been so busy is that I've picked up some fab freelance work for my "day job", which of course pays the bills--and I love it lots. So, there's my reason for bad blogging. ;) )

Inspiring Mod/Rom French Country room

http://prettyspace.tumblr.com/

Well, that's what I'm trying to call it. Maybe interior designers would scoff at my description, but it's what it reminds me of anyway!

This is from one of my favorite bloggers over at tumblr. She posts the most gorgeous interiors. Covet-worthy designs that hopefully will give inspiration to everyone. Be sure to look for more, I just can't help but sharing some of her finds. She's great!

$1 Purse Organizer!

So I'd been looking around for a while for a purse organizer. I like to change things up, but I HATE transferring everything. I know several are on the market, so I decided to finally bite the bullet and buy one. But when I went to scout them out, wow, were they expensive--at least to me. If they were reasonably priced, then they were too tiny to hold much. So, I held off, waffling back and forth if the ends justified the funds so to speak. THEN, while shopping at Dollar Tree, I found a little gardening bag...

And here was the one they wanted $25 for online...

 

Score! So this little gardening bag became a cheap purse organizer. I bought a couple so I could have an extra on hand just in case. It takes like two seconds to pop it from one purse to another now. A-mazing. And I love it even more because it was thrifty. 

I have a lot comfortably in this: a full-size wallet, a medium makeup bag, and sunglasses, along with all the essentials--sanitizer, lotion, gum, brush etc.! See how it looks all put together:

Fall in Florida

It's hot here ladies and gentlemen. H-O-T. It's September 17 here, and we've had heat indexes of about 105 for the last three days. *swelter, swelter. Now, I love fall. It's my favorite season. But, I'll admit summer comes in as a close second. It's so weird being a FL transplant, and I still just can't cope with the lack of seasons. I'll admit, living in north FL, we get colder weather that mid and southern FL never see. The fronts come down from GA and sometimes it actually freezes here at night a couple days each year. But typically, we have Christmas either at about 45 or 75 degrees. It all just depends. I know right? How do you get into the cooler seasons when it jumps around so much?

So, I've decided I won't decorate for fall until October. I tried this last year and it was so much better. But maybe, I'll even wait until the two weeks before Halloween. My pool has a solar heater, so we swim at least through mid-October. Anyway, basically, I'm carrying fall in my heart and on my blog for now, but I'm sunbathing on my chaises here in FL until then...

My Idea of Camping

 Give me a little guest house!
 from Bliss

Look Forward!

I'm so excited to hopefully be able to show off some of my hard work, and inspire some of y'all in the process. This week I have lots of things planned:

1.  I'm adding a new backsplash to my kitchen using bead-board wallpaper (way cheaper and easier than cutting real beadboard). 
2.  I'm looking to finish up my last piece of my craft-room/office makeover. I have a little skirt to sew and add to a rod on my tall bookshelf. This should give me some open shelving for the pretty stuff, and then be able to hide the more random pieces, which are necessary but not necessarily pretty. ;)
3.   I'm also hoping to hem the ottoman cover I've made. I've found I need to add a little more batting, since it sinks a bit more than realized, so I'll plan ahead and add more so the length will be right after it squishes down from resting on it.
4.  I'm going to take some after pictures of some projects I've finished, which I just hadn't gotten around to doing.
5.  Lastly, I'm going to attempt to do so some crafts inspired by Dollar Store Crafts, along with a few they've actually posted. Also, maybe try out making some new pillows inspired by One Cheap B*tch's blog. We'll see how much time I have!

Hopefully, I'll make it to all of this, because I have to do a lot of gardening on top of getting the house ready for a get-together this weekend. Yipes! I'm going to need some coffee!

Great Mirror Idea from {show & tell}

This blog had an amazing idea for how to deal with those giant wall mirrors that seem to be in almost every home when you move in. I tore mine out and hung a new mirror, but sometimes it's either just not practical, or you want to keep the size yet make it look more finished. But let's face it you don't really need the entire thing. They're huge most of the time. Aha! This lady has the answer!

 

She added some different types molding around the edges with glue (for here full tutorial go here), then paint. She got a high-end look and kept the mirrors she already had. That's what I call smart! Hopefully, you can take this idea and run with it for your own bathrooms and make something really amazing. 

(She asks that if you're inspired by this, to share your designs with her on her blog. Please take a moment to do so, if you are!)

Fruit and flowers

Since I've moved my blog over to this new account, I thought I'd share some of this year's neat gardening stuff.

January: Our tangelo tree is loaded with ripe fruit to be picked. We had to give so many away; we just couldn't eat them all! *Notice the geranium on the right side!

February: The red and pink amaryllis are blooming next to the tangelo tree.

April: The wild black berry vine we transplanted has produced fruit and I poked my fingers a lot while collecting! Also, my iris is beautiful and spicy scented by the koi pond.

May: The agapanthus are blooming like crazy around the neighborhoods, my yard included! And my cannas have come up and are rapidly blooming. They'll be 6-7 feet tall by August!

June: The blue passion flower vine we planted is thriving and in bloom. And you'll see the water lilies are showy and full.

Random: Here are some great pictures of the hundreds of tree frogs around my neighborhood, which are basically everywhere in FL. That's what makes the sound of the Everglades! Here one is down the heart of one of our palm trees. They also like to hide underneath my patio umbrella, so I have to be really careful when I raise it to make sure they don't get squished!

Here is a picture of our pool and some of its surrounding vegetation:

Bananas!

We have a lot of variegated vegetation in our backyard. Right now our banana trees are producing and I just had to share a picture:

This is what they look like as flowers, and you can see the soon-to-bee fruit behind them. The pod beneath drops by layers, allowing new flowers to show in succession and that's how you get the layers of bananas on the trees, which are then chopped apart like how you see them in the grocery stores.

Inspiration from other blogs: Decor Chick

Thanks to Decor Chick for this inspiring pantry makeover. Even life’s little things can make every day better. Sure, it’s more functional, but wouldn’t this make you happy every time you saw it?
Hey, if we make most everything beautiful, everyday will seem more special and beautiful too.
To see her before/afters click on the picture above.

Country Living's Crafty Organization

Large magnetic memo board

Vintage metal tray message board

Chalkboard- & metallic-paint message boards

Jelly-jar storage solutions!

Shoe-box cord keeper 

As a follow up to yesterday's post, I thought I'd share some more of these cheap, crafty ideas from Country Living. Hope the get your creative juices flowing!
(I know I'm heading out to find a vintage tray soon--there is a antique store I adore that always has tons--for cheap!)



For a full listing go here:
Craft Projects to Help Organization
Click here for the full how to of each project.

Cute ideas with clothespins

So I was toodling around Country Living and they had some fun projects with clothespins.
I've been needing a reason to buy okiobdesigns' fabulous ones, and now I have a project worthy of showing them off (and giving them to friends!).

Here is the project from CL

"Recipe Cards

For your next dinner party, write out copies of your beloved recipes on colored notecards, then decorate with stamps. Use clothespins to hang them from a length of ribbon near the door so guests can take them as they leave."

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Now, wouldn't this be much cuter with Okiobdesigns'? And, it would be a perfect project for a garden party, where you could give away seed packets. Or pretty much for any holiday/birthday party as a way to display little party favors.

Hope this gives you some ideas and some inspiration for crafts of your own!

To see her Etsy shop, click here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/okiobdesigns
To see her blog, click here: http://onecheapbitch.blogspot.com/

Love.

New favorite site for some stunning, and sometimes way-crazy interiors.
I get totally lost sometimes following threads!

Sometimes, you just need to see gorgeous things, even if they're not exactly you, simply because they're amazing and beautiful. They might inspire you in a way you never thought about! (And hey, as they say, until you can do better--imitate.)

We've arrived!

I'm pleased to announce I've transferred my blog to an official Blogger page!

Unfortunately my tumblr account was lacking a few things. I'll keep my tumblroll for my other blog, which is just basically a list of really cool stuff found around the interwebs I'm sharing with friends. However, this site, like its predecessor, will be dedicated to tutorials, makeovers, frugal finds and beautiful inspirations. I'm a dollar store junkie no doubt, but still covet the luxury finds. I hope you'll find this blog inspiring, and I hope to meet a lot of new friends! I'll be bringing over a lot of the former blog over for you're enjoyment! Thanks everyone!

The House of Healy