Support Sneakers in the Room for Color Contest!

“I really want to become internet famous,” says Sneakers. “Here’s how you can help me out right meow.”

I entered my bedroom into Apartment Therapy’s Room for Color contest, and after much suspense, they finally selected my entry to be posted! Now, it’s up to the readers to vote on their favorite rooms. Won’t you show your support for Sneakers and vote so my room (and thus, the photo of Sneakers) makes it to the next round?

Vote here: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/stephanies-dusty-lavender-and-teal-room-room-for-color-2014-210811

You do have to create an account to “favorite” a room, but it’s free!

New Apartment: First Glimpse

Everyone can breathe easy, this will not be another post detailing my lack of closet space. But it is about my new apartment!

Here, in all its square, tiny instagrammed glory is my living room!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am pretty sure I broke most of these rug rules, but area rugs are expensive and I’m young and transitory and not quite ready to invest in rugs. However, I carefully cropped this photo so that you can’t tell I broke all the rug rules! Yay instagram 🙂

Shall we play “Something Old, Something New?” (It’s a new game I just invented for my own entertainment.)

Something Old*

• Couch
• Coffee Table
• Papazan Chair
• Cube Shelves
• Lamp
• Solid Curtains

Something New

• Rug
• Desk
• Ikat curtains

Something Old & New (a bonus round!)

• The chair in front of the desk is actually the 4th chair to my dining room table (pushed up against 1 wall because I never have people over for formal dinners), and it is “slip-covered” in my old shower curtain. At some point, I intend to buy cute fabric and make a more legitimate slipcover, but I’m actually really liking the look of this right now. So, not a new piece of furniture, but a new use for some old pieces.

Most of the decorative accent piece type stuff I already had, too. After packing it all, moving it here, and unpacking everything, I’ve come to realize I’m a total hoarder and I need to stop buying decorative things. Especially since there are many more cities I want to live in, and therefore, many more moves ahead of me.

What’s the SassCat’s verdict on the rug?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Something new to shed on…purrrfect.”

I have some craft projects in mind for some new wall decor, so stay tuned!

*By old I just mean, owned prior to this apartment.

Sunday Pinterest Inspiration 7/29/12

I was going to merge the two words in the title into a cute pun like “PINspiration” or something, but then it just reminded me too much of “perspiration” which is not cute or fun at all. So I went the boring route. Sorry, guys.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve been loving on Pinterest this past week.

Isn’t this stair step end table fabulous? It would take a certain decor style to pull off, but I like it!

This blog post about printing oversized prints at Staples for surprisingly cheap.

 

They’re called engineering prints and they only come in black and white, but I think it could be fun. I considered getting one for above my couch, but I’ve found a new art project idea for that. More to come later 🙂

Creative exercise: (Thrifty) Black and Pink Table Set Challenge

One of my college roommates is getting married this summer. The bachelorette party is in a couple weeks and I’ve offered my place up for pre-gaming fun before we head to the bars. Because I’m such a good friend, right? …It would be entirely accurate for you to detect an ulterior motive -> me wanting to throw a party/decorate.

The Maid of Honor and I agree on a color scheme of black and pink. And then I thought, “Shit, I don’t have anything black and pink. But I don’t want to go buy a ton of stuff. But I want this to be cute.” DILEMMA.

So tonight I challenged myself to come up with a cute idea for the appetizer/dessert bar table set, using only black and pink things that I already had. And then I would determine what I needed to buy to round it out.

I had a ton of fun!  Seriously, I don’t know why I don’t make practice table sets all the time. I love a good creative challenge. (Read: I am a total loser).

This side of the table I’m really liking.

Materials from back to front:

• Silver shoe box
• Margarita bottle and fake flowers (usually on my bookshelf lol)
• Vase and heart garland (leftover from Valentine’s day decor)
• Pink plastic cups and pink/black plastic silverware (this is just an idea based on shit from my drawers, I would need to purchase a full set of pink and black plastic silverware)
• Polka dot ribbon (purloined from an event I went to….the napkins were tied with pieces of ribbon and I may have snitched several and hoarded until now)
• Paper plate with folded up pink shopping bag from Charlotte Russe (this is to represent that there would be a pile of plates and napkins here – probably pink and black)

You can see a tiered dessert stand cut off on the side of the photo. That got nixed in my final arrangement – it just wasn’t going with all the black.

The next photo shows that it still needs a lot of work. For starters, definitely going to need to pick up a tablecloth. And it needs some sort of banner or backdrop behind the table. I have crepe paper streamers for that, but the SassCat would just tear them down, so I’ll wait until the actual event for that.

Try to visualize a black/white tray on top of that black square in the center. There will be cupcakes on that. The piece of black construction paper is also marking the location of a tray of food. I need to get me some serving platters.

The silvery things on the right are actually baking sheets/cake pans. Those represent the height layering I would like to do with whatever food we put there. The menu isn’t really set, so this is all conjecture at this point. Some more polka dot ribbon, and then the back corner would hold cups. Pink, of course.

It’s a start. Something to think about and help me narrow my shopping list as I plan the rest of the party.

Dip Dyed Stuff

Lately, I’ve been really liking the dip dyed trend. I know it’s not new, but up until now, I hadn’t found a way to incorporate it into my decor.

I really like these dip dyed mason jars (because everything crafty involves mason jars, right?) by the Beauty Department:

But I don’t have any mason jars (should have accepted my old roommate’s offer – we had a ton we used as glasses) and I don’t really need to organize my bathroom countertop. I keep as much of my stuff as possible hidden in drawers, partly because I like a bare countertop and party to keep it away from the SassCat. Many decorating decisions are influenced by the SassCat.

I also love the idea of dip dying table legs, like this DesignSponge post. Here’s an “after” shot, for the full makeover, click through to DesignSponge.

Sadly, I don’t have any end tables to makeover. And nowhere to spray paint things. 😦

So how is a girl to get her dip dye fix?

Well, that’s for the next post!