Five Things

Okay, I know I just did a "Five Things" on Monday, but I have five more already!  1. Monogram Website I found this fun website where you can print out monogram designs for free! Look at all the pretty ones they have:

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You can pick whatever color(s) you want! I fully intend on printing a bunch of these for the fronts of my school binders, frames in my craft room, my Law Review office, etc. So fun! 

2. Tea Cart I have yet another furniture auction purchase to share with y'all. This time we bought this:

I know, I know... it's not very pretty. Haha. I'm pretty sure all the other bidders thought we were insane for wanting it, and I'm pretty sure the auction guys were totally stoked that we were actually bidding on it. But we had a plan for it, and we got it for super cheap! Here it is, as my new printer station for the craft room!

If you remember, the printer was precariously perched on top of the filing cabinet before:

This is definitely a large improvement. The printer fit perfectly on top, and it has plenty of space for our shredder (which used to live under my desk where the chair goes... SO annoying!) and some other things on the bottom shelf. Perfect! 
3. Ikea Blogging! Given how excited I am about this one, I should've put it as #1, but guess what... I'm going to be blogging for Ikea! Also known as one of my favorite stores ever. The Ikea Houston store just launched a new website all about "Inspiring Life at Home," and they were looking for Houston-area bloggers who write about home decor, DIY projects, and fun-for-the-family recipes. Um, hello... that's totally me!!! 

So starting in a week or two (I've already sent in my first post), they'll be posting some of my stuff on their website once a month. I still get to post it here too, so nothing will really change, except that I'll get a shiny new Ikea gift card in the mail periodically. :) 
4. Flowers from Jeff Remember how I made a deal with myself that I wouldn't start decorating for Fall until our holiday decorations storage was all organized? Well, after that I made another deal with myself... I decided that I wouldn't put up the Fall decorations until the whole house was clean. I'm talking all three bathrooms, upstairs and downstairs, the fridge and the microwave and the blinds and everything. I don't know what I was thinking, but now I'm committed (and I've spent every second of free time this week cleaning... so I can decorate this weekend!). Sidenote: to anyone living in a little apartment and dreaming of a big spacious house, just remember that cleaning one bathroom is no fun, but cleaning three bathrooms is three times as annoying (and time-consuming). 
Anyway, Jeff knew I was antsy to get out all the Fall stuff, but he was (of course) in full support of the house being all spic and span, so he brought me some fall flowers to tide me over. Isn't he sweet? So I got to play florist for a little while (one of my favorite things ever), and thanks to a little raffia (and some vases leftover from last year's Law Review banquet and that Mother-Daughter Tea I hosted in college), I now have two pretty little fall arrangements on my counter. LOVE. 

5. "New" Frames in Craft Room I have a pair of Pottery Barn photo frames that were purchased circa 2004. They lived in my bedroom in high school, then they came with me to college and lived there for a while, and then I just hung onto them and moved them around with me for a few years. I recently realized that they'd be perfect for the craft room, with the exception of the periwinkle-blue mats. 

The craft room is mostly deep purple and gray, and I've been wanting to add a little more color into the room (but not periwinkle... haha), so when I found a big pack of green scrapbook paper at Tuesday Morning (it's a discount store kind of like Ross or Marshall's), I grabbed it.  To re-do the mats, I used a scrapbooking adhesive roller to lay some stickiness on the mats:

Then, I just stuck a few pieces of scrapbook paper on top! This would've been way easier if the frames were smaller than 10x10 (which would've taken only one piece of paper rather than three), or if I had picked a solid paper (which wouldn't have required me to carefully line up the pattern on the edges where the sheets overlapped). 

After that, I just flipped them over and used a craft knife to cut out the openings. 

Ta-da! "New" frames! 

For now they're just perched on top of the sofa, but eventually I'll get around to hanging them on the wall! 
That's it! Now you can all run off to print yourselves some pretty monograms! Or you can go cover a photo mat with scrapbook paper. Do y'all love Ikea as much as I do? What should I buy with my first gift card?