Pinspiration 5/5 + a bonus project.

For Pinspirations 1-2 see HERE.
For Pinspirations 3-4 see HERE.

For my 5^th and final (well, not final, but the final one of at least 5 that I promised myself I would do) little Pinterest project, I made over an old shoebox to hold my many pens/markers/pencils, as well as a few extras like exacto knives and paint brushes.

The Pinterest caption: Shoe box + paper towel tubes = storage for pens and other office/art supplies.



I did mine in red/tan since it was going in the office/2nd bedroom and the color palette in there is cream/red/brown/tan.

Easy as pie, and a fair amount cuter than the Ziploc freezer bag they were previously stored in. I'll probably take those rolls out and cut them down some more so they're not sticking over the top, but the sun was setting and I wanted to snap some pics in decent lighting.

I covered the inside in a plain tan cardstock with some very light texturing just so things wouldn't slide around as easily. The outside looks like burlap, but it's just a patterned cardstock. I cut and measured individual pieces for each side of the box. It's totally up to you, but I covered the bottom of the box too even though nobody will ever see it, I'm just a little anal that way. After the paper was all on I just hot glued some twine around the edges and the middle to make it look a little more finished, and then just organized my writing/drawing utensils by type and color. fin.

When I went to put it away on the desk I looked at my bookshelf and decided that while I was at it, I was also going to attempt a fairly popular design element and organize the small bookshelf in that room by color. (Are you sensing a pattern? You should see my color-coded closet. It's ridiculous.)

Color-coded bookshelves are all over the blogosphere and design/decor magazines. A quick Google search comes up with a cornucopia of options.

I personally am not a huge fan of full wall rainbow so if I had a large bookshelf I wouldn't do it that way. I might still color block, but not in a rainbow pattern, and I would break it up with small decor items and books stacked in different directions. To each their own, though. I sort of caught some flack about this when I posted a photo of my finished product on Facebook, and then when I was looking for a link to show people that yes, this is in fact a thing that people are doing, I came across THIS Apartment Therapy article explaining why people do this. It wasn't the article that struck me though - it was the comments.

WOW. People get really unnecessarily mad at other people's design choices. Seriously, really angry and rude and judgmental. There were a lot of comments saying that this was a disgusting thing to do, and people who do this must buy their books strictly for looks and have no respect for books and never read them - so on and so forth. I mean... I like books, and I read all of the books that I have, and I happen to already have a fairly varied assortment of colored spines - but I also like things to look cute. So, you know, whatever. If any of my readers are the super angry commenters from that post then please feel free to skip the rest of this entry!

I took everything off the bookshelf and arranged the books into stacks based on color. I moved the piles around a few times before I was satisfied with them, and then added a few small pieces for visual interest like a Dwight Schrute bobblehead and beet stress ball, a Rubik's Cube, a photo from a friend's wedding, a souvenir box from our recent Seattle trip, and a small glass vase filled with bookmarks.

#ravenclawpride

I like it. I think it looks cute and cohesive and adds both some fun color and some much needed structure/organization to what is currently a very disorganized room. Now I did have to sacrifice some books for this to work - for example, I just really can't bring myself to separate books in a series, so anything like that (*ahem* like, oh, I don't know, 10 Harry Potter books) will wind up in a new home. It looks a lot better though. It was cluttered before and in addition to books held things like old cameras and previous years' taxes, which needed to be put away somewhere better anyway!

Suck it, haters.

 



Have you made any controversial design decisions? Have you ever typed up a blog post and felt absolutely ridiculous writing the words "controversial design decision"? Because I know someone who has...

Pinspiration(s) 3-4/5

For Pinspirations 1-2, click here!

It's been a busy couple of weeks here at the Reissig camp. In late August we took a super fun vacation to San Francisco and Seattle and since then have been in catch-up mode, both at work and home. I'll definitely blog about our vacation, but that's going to be a much longer blog post, so I'll save it for another day. For now, a couple more of my completed pins.

Pin 3 - Painted Knife Block:

I've seen this one floating around for awhile. The only color in my kitchen is blue - several shades of it. I have a lot of lighter blue/teal in there right now and have been trying to bring in some darker shades as well, so I decided to go for it with the painted knife block.

I bought 2 colors of paint. I liked the metallic blue and wanted it for a little extra oomph since the block goes in a shadowy area, so I also bought a darker, sort of cadet blue, and decided to just mix the two.

Mixing my colors.

Before, and during (1st coat, still wet.)

I painted down about a half inch into the two larger slots since they are just for scissors and shears, but I kept the paint out of all of the other slots for food safety. Not pictured - after application and drying of two coats of paint, I also painted a clear gloss coat over the top to both protect the paint, and just to make it glossy and give it a little something extra with that shine. After another day of drying, I put the knives back in and put the block back in his home on the counter. (well, most of the knives - some were dirty, ha!)

The block in perspective, and close-up. Left with flash, right with no flash.

Pin 4 - Food Inspired Prints:

Like approximately 5597848395065948392 billion other people, my favorite corner of the internet is Young House Love. There was an awesome post awhile back about adding personal touches to the decor all around their house that I absolutely adored, because I am a total sap. (See here for the post.) They had a super cute idea of putting not just food-related photos in their kitchen, but food items from their wedding! I pinned the link to one of my boards right away and today Clinton and I decided to go to IKEA, so I picked up a frame while we were there to get it done.

The original photo from YHL.

Knowing I only had room to put my frame vertically, I went for 3 horizontal pictures instead of the vertical ones the original shows. I picked a table setting, the gelato bar, and our cake (with the little crab topper I made!)

The frame I picked up at IKEA for only $9.99. Our dining table is brown, so that determined the color of the frame.

Hung! Please excuse my overflow of Food Network magazines, ha!

A close up from Instagram.

I love having a little reminder of our wedding day at dinner now! Anything I'm eating will taste a little sweeter looking at that groomy crab's jaunty little top hat!

So that's it - both very simple but both things make me smile when I see them, and what more can you really ask for? I only have one more pin to meet my goal, and I've actually started one but need to finish up before I can post it. Until then, I hope you can find some inspiration too!

Pinspiration(s) 1-2/5

At the beginning of each year, Clinton and I make a list of things we want to do through the year. Not to be confused with a typical "Resolution" list of things like "lose weight", "stop smoking", "eat a carrot everyday" or anything like that. Just a list of goals. Some are lofty and some, like this one, are not.

Like approximately 58,966,544,124,589,654 other people, I have a slight addiction to Pinterest. I like to think that I use mine pretty practically, and I don't use it to pin every pretty thing I've ever seen in my life. I only pin things that I can realistically achieve. I have several things pinned that I'm waiting on until we buy a house, mainly just because I don't want to build a piece of furniture or something and then just have to move it. However, I put it on my 2013 list that instead of just "someday pinning" I was going to actually do at least 5 things from Pinterest this year.

The first two I'm going to post were super easy ones but hey - if it's something I pinned and then actually followed through on, it counts!

Pin 1 - The Fruit Saver:

The original pin.

We buy a LOT of produce because I'm not a terribly big meat-eater, and we just prefer fruit and veg for snacks to chips and stuff like that. Sometimes we get a little overzealous in the produce department and wind up with some extra fruit that I have to make smoothies out of or something because it's getting too ripe - so I decided to give this a go. Can't hurt, right?

GUYS. IT TOTALLY WORKS. Seriously. That was my first attempt and not only was the water waxy, but the fruit lasted forever. I left it uneaten for longer than normal just to see if it actually worked and it did not disappoint. I do this with all of our produce now as soon as we get home from the store. I seriously cannot recommend this enough! Oh, and if anyone is wondering - no, the vinegar does not have any effect whatsoever on the taste of the produce. Pretty sweet and if you're not doing this already, I definitely recommend it.

Pin 2 - Love Notes:

I actually pinned this ages ago, but I just never got around to finishing it. I half started it a few months ago and then kept forgetting that I needed ink for our printer, so the frame sat in the spare room just waiting.

 The original pin.

 

I thought this was super cute - we already leave each other little notes sometimes so I thought having a place for it was a good idea. I knew I wanted to put it in our bedroom, which is full of black furniture, grey linens, and pops of color in the other decor (candles, vases, etc.) so I needed something fairly neutral. I used a black wood frame that I already had, and picked up some printed cardstock on one of my many trips to Hobby Lobby - only later did I realize that I had picked the same cardstock used in the pin - it honestly wasn't my intention, I just picked a neutral one that I thought was pretty! I can't remember where the flowers I used were from - they are something I had leftover from a previous project and I found them in my craft box.

 

When I sat down at the computer yesterday to finally print out the "I love you because..." part, I ended up getting super frustrated and failing a few test prints, so I just did it the old fashioned way - held the paper up to the computer screen and traced it. I traced with pencil first (so it wouldn't bleed through onto the computer), and then filled it in with a fine tipped permanent marker.

 

My version now sits on a corner of our dresser in the bedroom - and of course I had to get things started by mentioning my source of inspiration! I think it'll be a fun little thing to have, so I'm happy I finally decided to finish it.

2 down, 3 (or more!) to go. It's the little things, people. :)


Things I Am Not Good At

1) Keeping a blog. Ha! I have definitely started several blogs before that I let fall to the wayside - but I'm going to really try hard not to let that happen here! I haven't finished recapping the wedding yet (still have the reception to post about!) but I'm not in the mood to do that right now, so instead, this will be a "Here's What We've Been Up To" post.

Family. Lots of family stuff going on these days!

For those of you that don't know, I have 13 nieces and nephews - nope, that is not a typo. I have 5 older sisters and they all have kids, so there are a whole lot of babies in my family. Well, actually, a whole lot of kids - only two babies. The youngest two are Kennedy and Bently, my niece and nephew. Two of my sisters were pregnant at the same time and their kiddos were born less than a month apart. We haven't had any babies in the family for awhile so it has been nice having them around again! I can't believe it's been a year already since they were born - it feels like just yesterday that my sisters were pregnant and when I was there for both of their births. Kennedy just had her 1st birthday party last month, and Bently's party is this Saturday. I love them both so much I can hardly stand it!


Spending time with Kennedy Jean when she was still brand new.



KJ's 1st Birthday Party!



Bently Scot - chillest baby EVER.



1 Year Later.

Bently's the younger one, but look how much bigger he is than Kennedy! Even on his knees! Precious.

Aren't they adorable? I tend to think so. :) I have some of the CUTEST photos of Kennedy at the wedding. Why are babies so photogenic? My family sure does make some pretty ones!

This year Clint and I did two Thanksgivings - one w/ my parents and then one w/ his. We got to his parents' late and I was kind of stressed so I neglected to take photos there, but I took a few earlier in the day. First up, every year my dad deep fries the turkey, and every year I forget to take a picture of him in his Turkey Frying Gear. We live in Phoenix and it was like 85F degrees on Thanksgiving, but my dad winds up out there in gloves and a leather jacket (frying a turkey is dangerous!) and it just cracks me up. He actually fried THREE turkeys this year because we needed 2 for how many people we had, and then they wanted a 3rd one entirely for leftovers hahaha. Good thinking, family!

After we ate, a few of my nieces went straight to decorating the Christmas tree - that's right, someone who actually decorates earlier than I do! I waited until the day after, but they made a beeline for that tree right after eating! My kinda girls! I went in there to help for a little bit and then went to socialize some - when I came back the cutest thing had happened - my nieces were decorating my HUSBAND. And he was letting them! Haha! I definitely picked the right guy to have babies with.

Family photo time!

Also of note - another one of my sisters who lives in Oregon was visiting last week. She stayed with (yet another! ha!) one of my sisters so we went over there a couple times to hang out - I actually didn't take any pictures of my sister or her husband or my niece - I was mostly too busy just spending time with them! On the first night we were there however, we all ended up in the backhard roasting marshmallows and making s'mores over the standing firepit. It was really nice, a great family night.

Pinterest. Pinterest is addicting. If you're on it, you already know. If you're not on it you have two choices - 1) get on it, surrender the rest of your life to its mighty power. 2) Don't get on it, remain blissfully unaware of all that is awesome in this world. I've done quite a few Pinterest inspired things this year, here are just a few.

For Halloween I made a door hanger and a window decoration.

The Original Pin

My version - bigger, and longer, more prominent ribbon.

The Original Pin

My version - mirror image and added bats.

Pinterest is also good for inspiring gift ideas! Clinton and I went to a housewarming party a couple weeks ago and I wanted to bring the something other than a bottle of wine - something useful, but cute. I found a really cute idea and stuck to it pretty closely - I added a card and a tiny dog bone for their pup and a candle but that's it.

The Original Pin

My Version - Front View

My Version - Side View

Bonus - that gift only cost about $20! Cute, creative, and doesn't break the bank. Pinterest is awesome for that - I don't even necessarily look for "projects", I just look for cute decor and think that if I can make it for cheaper, I'm gonna go for it. I really actually got a lot of confidence from doing DIY projects for the wedding and realized I don't have to spend nearly as much as what stores price things at when I can make half of it myself.

I also recently made bread completely from scratch for the first time ever. I made it to bring to Thanksgiving at Clinton's parent's. The Original Pin had a caption that said "crockpot bread!", which I figured would be impossible to screw up - even for someone like me, who doesn't enjoy baking. I looked at the ingredient list to make sure I got everything I needed then went home, prepared to throw stuff in the crockpot and leave it. WELL. Turns out that is not the case, ha! When I clicked through the link it was just regular bread that you do the old fashioned way, in the oven. I approached this recipe with trepidation, but it actually turned out really good, and I think I'm going to make bread more often now. It's really REALLY cheap when you figure how much you can get out of one bag of flour, compared to buying two loaves a week!

The Original Pin

I can't find the photo of my bread, but it looked almost exactly the same except for the rosemary on top -there was enough in the bread. It was good - everyone ate it and I would make it again. It also gave me an excuse to use my pizza stone, which I am a huge fan of - thanks, Nick and Ashley!

Lastly, a Christmas decoration - I found this and didn't want to do flowers (too much upkeep!), so instead I just used a bunch of little wreath decorations from Michael's - and I switched to colored candy canes to match my red/green/silver decor.

The Original Pin

My Version - Side View

My Version - Top View

That'll be it for this week in Pinspirations, but expect more of them as time goes on! I have so many things that I want to try, I just need to find the time to do them!

I was also planning to cover Christmas and Movember in this post, but it's getting far too long, so I'll save those for next time. Hold onto your butts, it's about to get SUPER exciting up in here!