Throw Pillows: It's All in the Mix

Have you heard the Exciting News!? Adventures In Creating is nominated for an Apartment Therapy Homie award! I'm so thrilled! I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd pop over and cast a vote. I feel like the little blog that could!! Thank you thank you!!




So as you may or may not know I've been slowly but surely fixing up our living room. Here are some progress pics:


Initial Plan

Some Progress:

Curtains & Credenza

Coffee Table & Rug

The last big thing I need to do is reupholster the orange chairs in a neutral beige fabric. In the meantime I bought some throw pillows that were on super sale on Fab.com for the couch. 

I like how they break up Big Brown (AKA our couch) and I'd like to add a few more. I also want to get some for our lounge chairs. My problem is that I would like to bring in another accent color so everything isn't either brown or blue.

So I've been debating what sort of fabric. Another large geometric in another color? A colorful pattern? A solid? WHAT?! With so many choice and patterns it's a hard decision to make. So I found some guidelines and thought they were helpful. Turns out there are a lot of ways I could go about this.

1. Large Geometric Pattern + a Solid. The neutral background helps break up the bold pattern and color.

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2. Theme- here the theme of Tribal brings the look together. 

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3. Mixing small and large patterns. In this room they used the same large geometric in 2 different colors, and used a smaller geometric pattern to bring them together. Then the same colors are placed around the room.

Or below a large pattern is paired with a neutral, more textural pattern.

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4. All different patterns, all same color. Here different patterns are mixed together but because they are the same color with a neutral background it works.

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5. All Florals, all the time. Somehow mixing lots of floral patterns together seems to always work.

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6. Opposite colors and bold patterns. Here we have contrasting colors of blue and gold. The bold black and white pattern along with a neutral background helps bring the two together.

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7. Just make it work- as Tim Gunn would say. I'm not sure how these people made these patterns and colors work together but it sure does look good. So I guess when in doubt just break the rules and go with it!

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Now that I have lots of ideas and dream of a throw pillow wonderland- I still have one issue. My husband loves to but his big dirty man feet on my nice pillows! And sometimes even take naps on them if I can't catch him in time. So while I want to add a few more nice pillows to our room I still have a husband and child to contend with.

My best solution has been to keep an old pillow close at hand and try to remind them to dirty that one up instead of our nice ones.

Do you contend with "others" messing with your design plan? How do you feel about throw pillows? Are you minimalist- one or two does the job or maximalist- the more the better?

F is for Family and...

Falcon! 


I'v been slowly but surely working on our Family Photo Wall. I've been searching thrift stores for frames (I could just go to our local Walmart and buy some frames but the treasure hunt is more fun!). I've already started spray painting all the frames I have found the same color:

And last week we took a trip to the "Big City" and I got to go to Hobby Lobby! Oh it's been to long. I found this cute Fleur De Lis plaque for 1/2 off and bought it to go on our photo wall; since we're from Louisiana and all.

They also had some cute wall letters that made me think it might be nice to mix the Letter F (our last name initial) in the photo collage as well.

I created a Letter F Template and printed it out. If you want one for yourself you can download it here: Letter F

After cutting out my template I traced it on a scrap piece of wood then cut it out using the band saw at our local wood shop. If you want to try this project yourself and don't have access to a band saw a small scroll saw or jig saw could work. Or heck- buy one of the pre-made ones at Hobby Lobby! ;)

Since I'm painting all the frames white and keeping the Fleur De Lis plaque gold I decided to paint the F a shiny gold as well since I'm bringing in some yellow tones into the room to contrast with the blue; but still trying to keep everything overall pretty neutral.

Ta-Da!

To complete this project I started by sanding down the wood to even out any rough edges.

Next I painted my base color. In this case a dark brown acrylic paint.

To give it an aged look I used a Weather Wood Medium from Americana Paints I was lucky enough to win in a contest a few months ago. 

This was an easy process. Just paint 1 coat of the weathering medium, let dry, then brush on your contrasting top coat; in my case a shiny gold.

Now all I need is a few more frames, print some pictures and I think I'll be ready for hanging!

Did you do anything crafty this weekend? I'd love to hear about it!

Feature Friday: Awesome Projects Round Up

Happy Friday Everyone! 


Sorry this post is a little late getting out the door. Yesterday I had one of those pregnancy days where I was so exhausted at the end of the day I called it a night pretty early. I've been still doing things with the same intensity I did in my pre-preggo days. Like yesterday I went running, spent a few hours in the wood shop (Con-Man's Bed is almost done!), ran around with Con-Man at the park, went to the grocery, cooked dinner, ect. All things that wouldn't have made me tired before; but at 19 weeks along, my body was telling me to take it easy sister. 


So anyway- sorry for the late post. Here are some cool projects that caught me eye from around blog land this week:


Check out this amazing bathroom makeover from It All Started With Paint:

Wow wee!

You need to head over to Design OCD and see what this vanity used to look like:

What a clever idea!

Look at this CUTE coat rack from Garden Therapy!!!

Coolness!

This technically isn't a "project" or "DIY" but my pregnant brain just had to share it. 

Thin Mint Cookie Balls from Simple Designing!! I am running down the street right now and knocking on the Girl Scout who lives in our neighborhood's door.

Drool!!

I also wanted to remind everyone (and I'm sure you all know already) that GFC for non-Blogger supported blogs is going away soon. I've added the Linky Follower tool to my page if you would still like to follow me that way.

I've also started using Bloglovin' to follow all my favorite blogs. I think the reader is easer to view than Linky Tools. I've been able to find all the blogs I follow on it, just search for the one you want and click follow! And-- you don't have to manually update your own blog- it does it for you. Double Yay!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and thanks as always for reading!

Relationship Problems Solved By Design?

Designing For The Sexes. Do you guys remember that show on HGTV?

He wants modern, she wants traditional. She wants floral, he wants stripes. It something that has come up for most of us I can imagine.


 Designing for both men and women so we can all live in harmony. It seems like this is an issue a lot of couples/ significant others deal with. I've been pretty fortunate; my husband doesn't seem to mind much how I design our home. My taste is pretty simple and not very ornate so I'm sure that helps. Of course he did have an opinion this one time though....

I saw a recent article on Houzz that talked about this a little bit further. Not only designing your home to make each person happy and comfortable, it discusses using design to strengthen your relationship. I thought it interesting enough to share.


1. The first thing the article mentions is putting your relationship first. They suggest having a quite place in your home for you and your spouse to be together with no interruptions- to TV, no cells phones. This could be your bed room, a nice outdoor patio, or even a window seat with a nice view.

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The article also mentions having reminders of your relationship around the house. This could be pictures from your honeymoon or a special vacation, tickets from a movie you shared, ect.

2. Taking the communication thing further, the article talks about removing distractions from the home. Having a quiet place where you can talk to each other some misunderstandings become limited (see item 1 above).

The article also talks about being able to close off computer and TV areas so they are not a constant distraction.

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3. Finances. A source of stress for a lot of us. Keeping organized and having everything in one place helps keep things in perspective. (See item 2!)

4. Household responsibilities. Oh snap~~ this is a big one for me. Back when I was working full time we split everything pretty evenly. But since I've become a stay at home mom most of the household chores have fallen on me. Talking about what is expected from each other is important and will save a lot of resentment. 

I always have a smile on my face when I do chores. NOT!

The article suggests rotating chores and switching it up every now and then so one person isn't having to do everything. I like that idea!

5. Keeping the bedroom romantic. Bow Chica Wow Wow!! All kidding aside this is important. If your bedroom is a mess, your home office is in your bedroom, your TV is on all the time; these are all things that could lead to added stress in a relationship. Not to mention it can make it hard to relax and sleep at night.

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The article suggests clearing out the clutter, cool soothing colors, and keeping light out at night (black out shades, no bright alarm clocks, ect.) and keeping electronics out of the bedroom.

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Some other things I thought about were having 2 sinks in the bathroom. I know this isn't a luxury for everyone. We had only 1 sink we shared in our last home and I wanted to strangle my husband every day! 

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Ok maybe not that extreme but I would try to get ready for work or bed either before or after him so we weren't tripping all over each other. Now that we have 2 sinks in our new home the world is a happier place.

I also think having a King size bed is a luxury that helps relationships. We have a Queen right now but I'm hoping for a King soon!

There's nothing I'd like more that being able to spread out and not be elbowed in the face at night!

How about you? Have you designed your home to help your relationship?

Mardi Gras Mantel

Happy Lundi Gras Everyone! (If you have no idea what I just said it's ok!) Lundi is French for Monday. So Lundi Gras = Fat Monday. It is the day before Mardi Gras (a.k.a. Fat Tuesday which is tomorrow!!) 


I started celebrating a few weeks ago when I made my Mardi Gras Wreath for the front door. This weekend the Air Force base had a small parade that we participated in. We helped decorate a float for the Mardi Gras parade they had go through the base on Friday.

We used plastic table cloths and Mardi Gras decorations to fix it up. Not to bad considering most people around here have never even heard of Mardi Gras.

The Con-Man enjoyed himself. He caught some beads and chocolate!

I did some decorating around the house with beads and Mardi Gras items I've caught in past New Orleans parades to get into the Mardi Gras Spirit.

People often ask me if I "showed" anything for my large beads. The answer is NO! Absolutely not. I may have knocked over some elderly people and small children trying to catch them though. Just kidding (kind of...)

And we had an extra special surprise in the mail when we came home to find a King Cake on our door step!!!

My super awesome MIL send it to us all the way from Louisiana! Now our weekend was complete.

Now if I could only find a place that sold some of this out here in Middle of Nowhere Oklahoma:

My Lenten Season could really begin!

Do you celebrate Mardi Gras? Any Oklahoma readers know where to find boiled crawfish?? Seriously I need some-