The 2014 Ikea catalogue arrived last week and the new Stockholm Collection is amazing! So many pretty things..... but my favorite thing (and Matt's also) are these new dining chairs! They need to be in our lives ASAP! We were thinking they would be great for the dining room (big shocker there).

 

Currently we have a tall square table that extends to be a rectangle and two pleather benches that the cats love poking their sharp claws into. Here's a really old picture to help jog your memory. This also is helping me to realize that I need to update my home tour picures, but that is for another day. We have decided that a round table would probably be better for the space, and I'm pretty over the whole bar hight table thing. Sadly the Stockholm dining table is a long rectangle, so we'll have to find something else to our liking for this plan to materialize.

 

 

The chairs are not the only pretties that I am coveting right now, this mirror is gorgeous! I feel like I would've obligated to set something on the larger lip on the bottom, but I'm not sure what.

 

 

I also love this glass cabinet! I don't think we have room for it anywhere, nor is Matt a fan, but I still love it! I plan to live vicariously through the people that do end up with one in their home, just a fair warning.

 

 

I really want to get my hands on this flat woven rug. I think two of them would be perfect to put under our bed. With our drafty windows and a size able corner of our room walls being exposed, the floor on my side of the bed is noticeably colder than everywhere else. This would make dragging myself out of bed on those cold winter mornings slightly more tolerable.

There's also a little peak of one of the fabrics in the collection! I actually bought some on Monday because I loved it so much. Those yellow circles have a nice watercolor look to them, and we have been desperately needing some window treatments in the kitchen.

 

 

They're not full curtains, they don't even fill up the whole window. Ideally we would like to get some sort of roller shade that you can still see through, but I thought these would frame the window nicely.

 

 

I used the Deka curtain wire to hang them, and simply sewed four small hems around the fabric. Easy peasy.

 

Have you gotten your Ikea catalogue yet? What's you ew favorite thing?

 

Nikki Kelly

I've been a distant admirer of CB2 for a while now. I get their catalogue in the mail all the time, but I'm that kind of person who has to see things in person before I buy them. Since there's not a CB2 in Denver, I've only purchased small little accessories here and there. NO LONGER! I want all of the things!

While we were in San Francisco, I had a strong suspicion that there was a CB2 somewhere in the city. After a quick search on Google Maps I expressed my excitement because we were staying a mere 3 blocks away from it! Our last day in San Francisco I speed walked myself with Matt and Marcus in tow to go check it out.

 

 

My celebration was slightly premature. I didn't notice that the store wasn't quite open until after I had pulled on the door handles once or twice. Ok, it was twice. After a quick stroll through Old Navy to kill some time we were greeted with unlocked doors. Look how excited I am!

 

 

First up, these sofas! Matt and I have been longtime fans of the Aidan sofa from Crate and Barrel, but the Avec sofa looks really similar and costs less than the Aidan chair.

 

 

There's even a smaller apartment sized version! These two are staying on our list of potential upgrades from our big L-shaped sectional.

 

 

I also saw a lot of stuff that I'd like to upgrade our bedroom with. You remember that right? No? Well good! Anyway, I'd love a low platform bed, but without the protruding platform that is just begging you to slam your shins into. The Dondra achieves just that!

 

 

These Junction dressers are what I envision fitting into our room someday. One tall one and one wide/short one.

 

 

And two of these Slice storage shelves would be perfect for night stands. I like them because of their ability to hide crap, they're so sleek, and they are floating!

 

 

The rest of this stuff isn't bedroom related, but I thought the Torino desk was genius! The top slides out to reveal yet another place to hide all your crap. Are you sensing a theme? My desk is always a giant mess, so much so that we never use it. Hopefully we can get to work on the loft and remedy that after we're done with the painting.

 

 

This little Cuckoo clock is an adorable modern twist on the old classic. Say hello to the tiny bird that pops out.

 

 

I'm always a big fan of lighting. Signal Floor Lamp, Chord Pendant Lamp, and the Cloche Table Lamp. I think the cloche lamp would be cool on a bookshelf, maybe with this sneaky on/off switch!

 

 

I also am a big fan of tea light candles. They are just so magical! These Glow Candleholders look like they'd reflect the light nicely.

 

 

And I'd like about a hundred of these Whirley Hanging Candleholders because, well look! (Maaaa-gic)

 

 

I also love plants, and want this in my yard now! Teardrop Vase and Beaker Vase.

 

 

Oh, and there was this Washing Machine Hamper. Ridiculous!

 

Do you have a CB2 near you? Or are you Ike me and have to admire them from afar?

Nikki Kelly

 

Yes, I am currently stuck in the never ending project of painting and stenciling my studio. In fact I spent most of my free time this weekend salving away working on it. One teensy tiny update just for funsies, I finished two out of the three walls that I'm doing. I'm not doing the back wall (with the window), but I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet. So give me your suggestions!

 

 

 

Since I don't want to write a post that is basically the same as last weeks I went to craft night and made this!

 

 

It's another string lampshade, but this one is much cuter because it's baby sized! Eventually I'd like to make a little cluster of shades like this with different colors, shapes, and sizes. The shade was for a chandiler and has two springy loops that hold on to the smaller light bulbs. Snce there's not a hole in the top like the yellow one I'll do the same thing to the other little one so they match and sandwich them together kinda like this.

 

 

You must've wondering what I ment by going to craft night. Well there's this really cute local craft boutique (fancy right?) that has an open craft night every Tuesday from 6-9. You basically bring whatever you want to work on that you can bring with you. It's at the Fancy Tiger store on 1st and Broadway, I used to go all the time back before we had a house. I also used to knit a lot back then too and they even hosted a pumpkin carving party for Halloween. Since I don't really knit these days I was a little frantic Tuesday morning trying to think of what I could work on. Most of my projects these days are kinda attached to our house, or are too big to take anywhere. I remembered the chandelier shades that I had in my studio an quickly ripped all the fabric off them and sprayed one down with some pistachio colored spray paint before I left for work. The only other thing I needed was the crochet thread to wrap around, which I had plenty left over from the last shade.

Oh, and since they had just moved into a new store this year I decided to snap off some iPhone pics. They have tons of cute fabric.

 

 

Among all the cute fabric were these adorable cat fabrics for you or that special cat lady in your life.

 

 

 

 

This one was my favorite by far! It's apparently a lot of other peoples too because they were down to just a few fat quarters. You know the whole "Put a Bird on it!" trend from last year? I think this year will be cats!


 

 

And speaking of cats, look at this adorable embroidered cat pillow. The ball of yarn is the best part.

 

 

I'm sure you've seen that cute iPhone cover with the Mario Bros. characters cross stitched on the back and wondered where to get one of those cases. Well they've got them! Not only in white, but black and neon colors too.

 

 

This little bowl of neon thread was close by and caught my eye too. It would be cute to use for embellishing your fabric, kinda like I did with my iPad sleeve.

 

 

There's also this awesome collection of buttons above some of the fabric. I just love all the color and shapes.

 

 

Not only do they have awesome things to buy, but their store if full of great inspiration. Their check out table is clad in these rough and knotty planks of wood. I love how they are kinda random.

 

 

Back in their sewing room they have these frames at every station to keep scissors handy. I think adding a little container to hold your seam ripper and hem ruler thingy would be a really nice addition.

 

 

My absolute favorite thing in the store is this amazing ceiling fan! It's made out of a windmill. I even showed it to Matt and he likes it too. Who knows, maybe we will make one for our living room someday.

 

 

So if your finding yourself with nothing to do in Denver on a Tuesday night, pack up some craft supplies and go visit with some crafters at Fancy Tiger! Don't live in Denver? Maybe there's a cute little local craft store in your city with friendly where crafters flock. Maybe they even have an organized craft night, or if they don't you could suggest one. How about that cat fabric, what would you make with it? Oh, and I'm still looking for a volunteer to finish painting and stenciling if you're interested. Or how about just suggestions on what I should do on the wall with the window.

 

Nikki Kelly

I'll be linking up at any of these fabulous linky parties!

Primp Your Stuff - Whatever Goes Wednesdays @ Someday Crafts - Hookin' up with House of Hepworths - Friday Fun Finds @ Kojo Designs - Weekend Wrap Up Party @ Tatertots & Jello - Instagram Linkup @ a {little} dash of ash - Show and Tell Saturday @ Be Different Act Normal - The DIY Project Parade - The Sunday Showcase Party @ Under the Table and Dreaming

 

 

Or a more appropriate title might be: "Where You Can Find Me For The Next Two Weeks"



Recently (and by recently I mean 9 weeks ago) we ordered and received the all over Birch Forest stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils. Our plan for it was stencil one wall in our stairwell and maybe somewhere else. Well that somewhere else has now turned into my studio. In fact we haven't even touched that wall in the stairwell. Matt thought it would be a good idea to practice up on some stenciling somewhere less obvious and so that's what I'm doing.



Thanks to some free paint I won back around the holidays from a DIY Club contest, and some left over off the shelf white paint my studio is getting some long overdue attention. I started off with moving everything over to one side of the room, filled and sanded any holes and got to painting.



A little bright right??? The paint is Wow Power from Dutch Boy in their baking soda infused Refresh paint. Quick rant coming up, I'm not too impressed with this paint. Sure it doesn't smell, but it doesn't cover real well either. I didn't really think to do a coat of primer with paint being so awesome these days and the previous wall color was just dirty white. But once I move on to the other side I will. The problem is the scuff marks on the wall. This paint just will not cover them up. I even applied extra blobs on the ones I could see and they still showed through after 4-6 coats. Maybe the light nature of the color is the problem, but even our greys from the Olympic line at Lowes covered better than this. Ok, I'm done. How much can you really bitch about free paint. what was I saying, oh year it's bright! That's ok. I planned on doing the stenciling in white to tone things down. I taped up my stencil in the corner (maybe not the best decision because folding that plastic into corners is quite difficult) to get started.



I followed most of the instructions from the videos that they suggested on the information sheet that came in the package (here and here). I skipped the blotting on a paper towel thing because we were out of paper towels and that just seems like it would make it take longer. I did however press really hard on the paper plate while loading up my roller so I wouldn't have any visible paint globs on my roller.



It worked pretty well although maybe the paper towel thing is more important that I initially thought. Or maybe I was just pressing too hard sometimes. The bleeding is pretty minimal, nothing that a little bit of touching up cant fix. This is how much I got done in about 7 hours or so.



Thankfully I had my little new little piggy friend I picked up at West Elm this weekend and the Missy Elliott Pandora station to keep me company. Oh and thats not how much the trees bleed. I have been trying to figure out how to use Matt's DSLR and was getting a little fancy with aperture settings.



And speaking of picking things up at West Elm, Matt found this awesome chandiler while I was meeting a local Denver maker/blogger Taradara. We scored this chandiler for a measly $80 down from $300. At first we thought it was just for the floor sample, but when we went up to check out they had brought out a fresh one still in the box and all. Btw I looked online and it's still priced at $239.



Oh, and while I was writing up this post I noticed that we didn't have all the pieces attached to our chandiler. Lucky for us, we still had the box. Unlucky for us, we've been using it as a trash can this week.

Back to Tara, she was selling her various cozys, and I ended up with this one that's for your ice cream. It's one of those great ideas that you hate yourself a little bit for for not coming up with up yourself. I always have a kitchen towel wrapped up around mine. I'm not sharing mine, but you can get your own from her Etsy store.



So who wants to come over and help me stencil this weekend? Have you ever used a stencil for an entire room? What sweet scores have you picked up lately? Did you love Lost so much that you still try to work it in to conversations or perhaps sing a little made up song (Lost, lost. Losty, lost lost!) in your head? Leave me a link in the comments and I'll be sure to go admire your handywork!

I was not compensated by any of the companies mentioned above and the opinions are all mine. Especially the decision to call the pig speaker little, it's so cute and tiny!

Happy Friday! I hope you've been enjoying the spring weather lately. I love love love spring! Well as long as its a nice spring and not one riddled with late snow. Lucky for those of us that live in Denver we have had an exceptionally nice spring, which makes me want to be outside and work toward having a pretty back yard. So here we go!



A couple of weeks ago Matt and I visited a new to us nursery in our neighborhood called Highlands Garden Center to pick up some grass seed for our tiny yard. Since the area that we want grass is so small we decided it would be better for us to just buy the seed from those bulk bins instead of having 90% of a bag of seed to store. One of my clients works at the nursery, and she recommended starting the seed soon since its easier to keep it watered than in the summer. While we were there we took a look around and obviously left with more than we planned on purchasing.

I have no clue what the's things are, but they look cool. Maybe they are fancy vases. Anybody know what these things are?

We ended up getting this little guy because it looked like something Matt could train like a bonsai tree. The pot was from the nursery too!

As for the current state of our back yard, allow me to update you. First up, you might notice that we moved the white ground cover plants. They have gotten a lot bigger than last year, but we decided they would look better as a boarder to the sidewalk. That way we can plant something taller in that little round area behind them. The other ground cover has really increased in size this spring. You can't see them too well in this picture, but it's got little purple flowers all over. In spite of how well its growing we still thought there was a little too much dirt showing so we added a third one to help fill things in a bit faster. (Here's a link to where we left off last year if you want to compare.)

At the end of last fall we left all of our herbs as is except for the basil. I wasn't really sure if they would survive and come back, but apparently sage is quite hardy. I already need to hack a bunch off (want some?), but I would like to find a recipe that I could freeze first. Any suggestions??? Oh, and our catnip (in the cat shaped planter of course!) seems to be coming back. We have to make sure Tubbs and Barbara don't eat it all before it really takes off, which can be difficult at times. We also decided to plant basil in a pot as opposed to the ground like last year because it smothered everything. The pot also came from Highlands, I told you they have really nice pots.

These little flowers are totally Matt's doing. I came home last Saturday to these happy little blooms. What a sweetie pie!

And these ones too! We've had these Ikea pots for a while and have tried different plants in them over the last few years with no success. Lets just say herbs get too big, and maybe indoor succulents don't work so well outside. Our fingers are crossed for these little ladies though.

As for the grass, take a look-see for yourself.



It's looking pretty good so far. I can't wait for it to fill in so the dirt isn't showing so much, but that's just something that takes time. With all this green in our yard I'm pretty motivated to get things wrapped up back here so we can enjoy our baby yard. Who else gets the itch to buy a bunch of plants this time of year?

Want to see our yard from the beginning? Or see how we got all the rocks out of the dirt? Or maybe you're interested in the horizontal lattice we have along the garage. Go ahead, check it out!



I was not asked to write about the Highlands Garden Center nor was I compensated. I just like sharing local stores that I like.