Archive for the ‘inexpensive design’ Category

slice of orange

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Posted by Rebecca, November 3rd, 2010

I mentioned in my last post that I had a new Sunny inspiration…

Since our bedroom is all fancy looking with it’s new floors, I’ve started to think about what I want to do with the room.  Okay, I’ve been thinking about it for months and changing my mind over, and over, and over again.

Originally, we registered for king sized bedding from Macy’s…

We only had a queen sized bed, but we weren’t sure if we’d be able to afford nice, new king sized bedding when we moved into the new house.  So when we spotted this, we both loved it and wanted it.  Problem was, it was discontinued.  Since we are picky, my mom ran out the next day and hunted down all of the pieces, had them mailed to her and gave it to me at my bridal shower.

I still love the refreshing teal tones in this bedding, as well as the crisp white, but I have a habit of decorating with blue.  Our family room/kitchen is blue, the dining room and living room have shades of blue.  I didn’t want to get trapped into the blues/browns again.  I love white crisp bedding and against our new dark floors I knew white would look great.  But with pets, white is very hard to maintain, as is anything too dark.  So I knew I wanted something primarily white, but I was leaning towards a neutral toned bedroom.

I first wanted this Marimekko Poloneese bedding from Crate and Barrel…

Then I saw it was similar to the bedding in the boys’ room on this season of Jersey Shore…

I was nervous about what was going to go down in those beds this season, so I decided to shop around.

(Btw, I loved the living room area on this season of Jersey Shore with the graphic red/white curtains…)

So some other neutral, patterned bedding I was considering was…

This West Elm bedding which was similar to the above Crate and Barrel bedding.  It’s apparently not available anymore.

I also like the organic factor of this Imperial duvet cover, also from West Elm…

So I was obviously favoring West Elm.  One day a week or two ago, I went to the West Elm website to see if they added any new bedding when I discovered this…

It’s the Octagon jacquard duvet cover… it’s orange and reverses to a side with more white than orange. Given my new love for orange and after spotting this, I decided that I wanted some white and orange bedding.  But this bedding wasn’t exactly doing it for me, so I set out to look around.

Crate and Barrel has an orange and white set, the Marimekko Madison Persimmon duvet…

But it was too orange and not enough white for me.  So I checked my usual places, Target, Pier 1, Ikea, Google, but I couldn’t find anything I loved.  Then in a last ditch effort, I went to Walmart.com…..

Exactly what I had in mind! It’s the Divatex Diamond Duvet Mini Set in Spice, and it also comes in black and white.  The great part is, it was on sale when I ordered it so I paid $35 for a king duvet and shams, plus like $2 to ship it.  The whole ‘mini-set’ aspect (just the duvet & shams) was appealing because I could still use my nice Hotel Collection white sheets and bedskirt that my mom gave us as a wedding gift.   A little mix of high end, a little mix of low end.  Throw some accent pillows on this bad boy and we’re set!

I plan on putting the teal bedding in the guest room, since I still love it and can’t bear to part with it.  And I figure since I plan on using white sheets, I may want to change around the bedding from time to time.  That is, if it goes with my fancy plans for the rest of the room 🙂

s’more office progress

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Posted by Rebecca, October 28th, 2010

Little Expedit bookcase is up and running!

The printer has found a new, much safer home.  Though we may move the bookcase to the other side, by my desk so that you don’t see the printer as much from the doorway.  We have yet to decide 🙂

flowery alternative

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Posted by Rebecca, October 27th, 2010

Yesterday, Sara from House Bella posted this entry about making pom flowers. What’s a pom flower you ask?  Well I asked the same thing and luckily Sara included a picture and some links…

I watched the YouTube video and saw how easy it was to make these adorable and stylish pom flowers.  I think I am going to have to make some because…

a) my cats eat flowers

b) Mike is allergic to many flowers

c) I kill all plants/flowers

Prior to Sara’s post, my solution was to buy some fake hydrangeas.  I don’t like fake flowers, but I love hydrangeas and though we planted some, I will have to wait until the spring for them to bloom. I figured fake hydrangeas don’t look all that fake, so I’d give it a shot.  I stuck two on our mantle in vases to test them out…

That vase is the Mira vase from Crate and Barrel, which they currently only have in purple. Which means I may have to buy another one in purple…

A close up of the fake flowers.  See, they’re not so bad afterall…

Some of my failed missions in flower owning include: (pictures via iPhone)

The time I bought these flowers, which you may recognize as the blue version of the flowers I used for my sister in law’s baby shower

Macky chewed them so they were photographed in the bathroom, where they were safe.  Until they caused Mike to have a sneezing attack so bad that we had to leave the house.  The flowers walked out with us and went into the trash.  I tried. The vase is from Ikea a few years back.

So then I got a few Ikea plants, which we had in the condo and I always called Miss Leafy.  We bought 3 when we moved here to line up on our mantle. As of 2 weeks ago, this is what was left of them…

The fake hydrangeas are my mantle substitute… for now.  I think I’m moving them… I have house A.D.H.D.

So special thanks to Sara for the suggestion and accompanying links!  Families like us need some stylish fake flowers. Especially since I once killed this Ikea cactus…

Really guys, I couldn’t make this stuff up.

more pretty peppers!

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Posted by Rebecca, October 14th, 2010

I went to the farm again to pick up our veggies yesterday and saw a bin of green, light green and purple peppers together.  I should have taken a picture of all of them because they were just so pretty.  But then again, if you’ve browsed our wedding pictures, you know that I love the purple/green combo.

I overhead someone at the farm say how delicious the purple peppers were last week.  We didn’t eat ours, but maybe we’ll venture out this week and give it a shot. But for now, I put my pepper friends in the usual countertop bowl, accompanied by a spaghetti squash, some tomatoes and some other peppers.

I say purple is my favorite color, but I’m usually more attracted to turquoisey-blue/greens.  But I think I need to get some purple in this house… Shh don’t tell Mike…

countertop eye candy…version 2!

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Posted by Rebecca, October 7th, 2010

I posted this picture a few weeks ago of some tomatoes we got from the farm we belong to. Well the farm just outdid itself by giving us a purple pepper!!!

Yes I know, one of those things is a pumpkin. But we also got that from the farm and I was going for the contrast 🙂

I took seriously well over a hundred pictures of these things. I don’t think I will ever eat them. But for now, they are sleeping tight in my favorite countertop bowl from Ikea…

Mother nature has outdone herself again. I am so in love with these pretty colored veggies that I may have to find a place in my house to hang one of my hundred pictures. Dining room?

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