Deployment Bucket List: Decorating the Master Bathroom

So we've lived in our house now about a year and a half... And I have yet to finish decorating all the rooms. So I've decided that while I've got so much extra free time over the next few months, that one of my goals will be to get it all done up and pretty before Charles gets home. So far so good. Week 1 I attacked the master bath!

BEFORE:

Ew. I call this 'Builder Beige' since the whole house was done in this color when it was built. Walls AND ceiling. And it was flat paint. Who the heck uses flat paint in a bathroom?!? The walls practically drank up the water. Also, I really hate beige.

STEP 1: Differentiate between walls and ceiling

Even just painting the ceiling white made a huge difference in the way the room felt. It felt much taller and less I'm-trapped-in-a-cardboard-box-esque.

STEP 2: The Color Reveal!!!

I feel like I'm on 'Trading Spaces'. Anyone remember that show? Frank was my fav.

(Also, just a suggestion: Use AT LEAST a semigloss paint in kitchens and bathrooms. I've used a gloss here. Gloss paint is so much easier to clean up when things splatter on the walls, it repels water and stains, and it reflects LOTS of light which is super useful in such high traffic rooms!)

Aaaaaand here it goes on the wall!

STEP 3: Paint ENIRE ROOM!!!

Gorgeous, yes!? It only took two coats! AND I got in all of the movie "Easy A" while I waited for the paint to dry :D

STEP 4: DECORATE!!!

VOILA! Finished product!

I wanted to get a very calming, spa kind of feeling. So I went with this very light and clean springy green and a light steely gray to compliment all of the fixtures in the room. Really loved how it turned out! I also took down the hand towel ring that was on the wall to the left of the vanity and replaced it with a couple of green glass shelves for extra storage. It seemed kind of stupid to have one towel ring for two sinks anyway, so instead I installed a couple command hooks at counter height on either side of the vanity so we can actually both have a towel now!

I smile every time I walk in here now and I'm so glad to finally have gotten rid of that nasty beige color! (Now to eradicate it from my bedroom...) Its so amazing what a difference a little paint can make :)

 Can't wait for my hubby to come home and see how handy I was!

 :D

-Lindsey

DIY Jewelry Display Cards

Hello! 

I'm back! Just like I said I would be! :) 

I'm as surprised as you are! Lol :)

Anyhoo, I've been trying to work out my packaging for my jewelry for a while now. I've been shopping around trying to find earring cards that I liked. Didn't want just plain ones but any of the decorated ones just didn't seem to fit my shop. In the end I decided to try and make my own so I started experimenting. Here's what I came up with:

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN JEWELRY DISPLAY CARDS:

I knew I needed some kind of heavy weight paper or light weight cardboard. I couldn't find anything really satisfactory at Hobby Lobby (Gasp!) which made me tre sad. In the end I came home and dug through my art supplies and came up with a pad of water color paper. Pretty sturdy. Figured it was as good a place as any to start.

But white? No. That won't do. I wanted them to be bright and colorful to go with the rest of my shop identity. I thought of using inks... buuuuut nice colored inks are kinda 'spensive. Solution? Make my own. But with what? Watercolors, duh. Watercolors on watercolor paper? It's ridiculous how long it took me to think of that. 

Formula:

tube watercolors + cheapo mini spray bottles + water = SPRAYABLE WATERCOLOR INKS!

Just squeeze a few blobs of paint into the water-filled spray bottles and SHAKE! These yellows were are pretty light colors so it took a good bit of paint to get to the color I wanted. Darker colors might need less. I just kept adding, shaking and testing till I got the color I wanted. 

Next? Pull out the paper and spray! Spray! Spray! (be sure to cover your surface. It's water soluble but still messy!) Comes out looking something like this: 

 

After spraying several sheets I left them to dry. Wet paper has a tendency to curl though, so after they dried I pressed them between a couple heavy books over night which worked pretty well to flatten them out. 

Next day I pulled out the good 'ole paper slicer and my corner punch. I cut the paper down to 2x3 inch pieces with fit quite nicely inside my earring boxes. I rounded off the corners with my punch more or less cuz I thought it looked better.

(Ugly carpet shot! I have work surfaces... but I still

tend to do a lot of crafting sprawled in the floor...)

Not done yet though! They were still too plain for my taste so I pulled out my tool box o' stamps and added a little design.

 Then just use a small hole punch and voila! Custom earring cards!  I think they came out pretty neat :)

They also work well with necklaces if you cut a slit from the punched hole to the side of the card so you can slip the chain in. If you needed to hang them you could just add another larger hole punch in the top center of the card!

 Tie it up with a bit of coordinating yarn and they're all packed up and ready to go to their new home!

 Hope you enjoyed! 

xo

Lindsey :)