Chairish Room Challenge

I was recently contacted to participate in a room challenge by Chairish, have you heard of them? It's a super cool site where you can buy and sell furniture. This is a dream come true for my unhealthy mid century modern obsession! The challenge was to take an accent chair found on their site and design a whole room around it fitting in the theme "White to Bright." Again, total dream! My whole apartment is "White to Bright." I envision this room with white walls and the furniture and accessories adding all the color! Below is what I came up with.

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I Won

Happy Thursday! Like my new scarf? I won it from Lucky Magazine! I never win things so when I got the email saying I won, I was a little skeptical. Then I received this little gem in the mail! I was ecstatic! I absolutely love scarves, and I love the colors and the length of this one! It's from Bindya. Check them out, they have some gorgeous prints!

Nautical Birthday Invitation DIY

**UPDATE- TO PURCHASE THE NAUTICAL INVITATION CLICK HERE!**

Happy Monday friends! How was your weekend? Ours was lazy, but it was great! Today II am finally sharing Mason's 1st birthday invitation with you, as well as how to create the same obre effect yourself.

For me, the basis of any good party is the invitation. It should set the overall tone for the event and give your guests a little sneak peek of what's to come! I knew from the beginning I wanted some sort of ombre effect on the card. First I tried painting different shades of blue, but since I don't know how to watercolor, it didn't turn out so fabulous (see below).

That's when I saw this post from Say Yes to Hoboken on how to dip dye tags, I thought it would be a great way to get the effect I was looking to achieve on the invitation. I, however, had to change some things up from her tutorial because: 1. I didn't have dye of any sort and I wasn't going to buy any, and 2. I didn't have a can/ cup/ vase or anything tall enough and wide enough to dip the 5x7" invitation. Below is my take on the dip dying process.

You will need:

A large enough baking dish to fit your paper, watercolors (not the dry kiddie kind), a paint brush watercolor paper, a rag, and of course water. (ignore the heart cookie cutters that was for another project).

Mix up your color in the baking dish with the water. Pour in enough water so it's about 1/4" deep. Add more paint depending on how dark you want your paper to get (you can also add more later if it isn't dark enough). Mix the paint with a paint bush to make sure there are no globs of paint on the bottom on the dish.

You will create the lightest color first. Dip your paper to the point where you want the color to start and giggle slightly to avoid a harsh line. Leave it in for just a few seconds and pull it out of the water. If it is the color you desire the dab the bottom on the rag to collect any pooling color and let it sit to dry. If you want that section darker, then put in back in the color for a few more seconds and let it dry.
When it's completely dry repete the process, but don't dip the paper in as far. This time leave the paper in the color a little longer. Continue this process till you have all the layers of color you desire. ** be sure to mix the color with your bush before each layer to avoid the globs of color on the bottom of the dish. If you don't you will end up with very thick, uneven layers of paint.

This is what my paper looked like when I was half done. Notice the little dark spots on the side? Those are globs that I missed!

That is you can dip dye an invitation!

I know what you are going to ask me, "You dip dyed every invitation?" No I did not! I dip dyed 1 invitation and scanned it in. I also painted a few sailboats to scan in so I wouldn't ruin my dip dying. After I scanned everything, I placed the in Photoshop and added my text. 

What do you think? Will you try the dip dying effect on any of your projects?

**UPDATE- TO PURCHASE THE NAUTICAL INVITATION CLICK HERE!**

Paper Nativity

This morning I'm leaving for our Christmas vacation, but I could not leave with out sharing this little paper nativity I found via How About Orange. It was created by Marloes de Vries, an illustrator and designer from the Netherlands. I LOVE nativities and I got really excited when I saw this one because this is one you could give to/ make with your kids! There is even an outline version you can color in! All you need is scissors, glue, and maybe some crayons and you've got holiday fun for the whole family! Download the pdf here. HAVE FUN!

Camp Family Christmas Cards

I finally can share our Christmas card with you! I sent them out late last week so I've been waiting 'til people received them to share this with you! I love how they turned out! What do you think?

We decided to go with this card because this will be our last winter in Idaho so we thought it was fitting.

I created a custom backer for us (which you can have too right here). I was inspired by the navy and green in Mason's newborn photos (taken by the amazing Rosalyn).

I also created a wrap around return address label to match (if you want one contact me through my custom page).
I'm proud of this little card and so happy to show off our little family. Thank you so much to those who have supported me in my new little business venture. It's taken a ton of energy and love, so thank you to those who have stuck by me and furthered the new brand!

Christmas Colors

When you think of Christmas colors you, I'm guessing, immediately think of red and green. Red and Green are classic and always look great for the season, but are you wanting something a little different? Today I've complied a few different color schemes that are modern, bight, and still festive to inspire your decor this year.

I love the "peacock blue" with the hints of red in this one!

Hello! Isn't the mint with the black and white chevron amazing! This color is so inspiring to me, in fact it inspired this card. I am CRAZY about this!

Have you seen work by Emily Henderson from HGTV? The girl in a genius! You have to see her globe snowmen, who thinks of that? She does! This color scheme is based off of her holiday special on HGTV, check it out!!

Hope you were inspired! Now go buy some hot pink ornaments and get decorating!

Original images via via via via via via via

I've gone Mad

That's right, I've gone mad and I have been dying to blog about it! A few weeks ago while we were in Utah my cousin Brittney and I snuck away to the mall to buy the hubs a b-day present. That's when it happened. While sprinting through the mall before closing time we flew past Banana Republic and with only minutes to spare I slowed down to stare at the window signage. They have created a Mad Men collection, and it is to die for! Have you seen it? It is gorg and I want every stinking piece in the collection (hello houndstooth print). Look at the perfectly tailored suit for the men, I think I would fall for the hubs all over in that suit.

Unfortunately only the collection for men is still available, but it is still worth checking out.

images via and via