Minor upgrades for pennies!

If you don't know about Pinterest yet...I'm sorry. Its amazing! Its a website that has virtual pinboards that you fill with "pins" you like. These pins are added by people off the internet such as blogs, etsy, retail sites, and more. There is a ton to look at from recipes to home decor to photography to DIY projects! DIY is my little hearts desire and is where I spend most my time on Pinterest. (However I've tried a couple of the recipes and they aren't so shabby either!) My mind races with "Things I want to tackle"...which is my DIY pinboard name :) So as I sit on the couch and look at all the pretty things and easy projects on the computer, my eyes wonder to my own house. This week I found a couple of things that weren't so pretty and needed glammed up a little! Best part is they were on our budget!

First project was our old nasty scale. Don't let the picture fool you, up close it was started to yellow and look oh so gross! So I grabbed some old fabric scraps I had from my kitchen curtains at home and got an idea :)

Case in point. And the corners were peeling up and I'm sure all kinds of bacteria was growing...Yucky.

So I peeled the paper off the scale and this is what I found :)

So I took the fabric and some good ole' Mod Podge and made it look like this!! 

The scale...free! The fabric scrap...free! Mod Podge...$4.99 (too expensive but will cover a lot of future projects) and a foam brush...$0.99. Now if I could only get the numbers on the scale fixed...hehe

Second project of the day...

This AWESOME couch table converted tv stand is being graciously loaned to us by my Aunt Vickie! (Thanks Vic :) The original idea was to put the boxes in the the drawers but they were too large so I opted to store the CDs and DVDs in them. However I didn't like being able to see them.

 So I went to Hob Lob and got 2 pieces of scrap book paper for $0.59 each and cut them to fit....

 And tada!! (Ignore the sideway picture in the frame..haha...had to turn the frame vertical to hide some cords..which I didn't do a great job of...and haven't changed the picture yet!)

So cheap...and yet such a great update :)

Hope you enjoyed my upgrades!! You can view my "things I want to tackle" board here...

http://pinterest.com/emilyhatton/things-i-want-to-tackle/

More to come :)

Love and miss you all!

Emily

St. Louis!!

Man its been a long time since I've been on! Kirk has started his 2nd quarter and is really busy so I'm sure I'll be on here a lot more now. I have been trying to spend all my time off work with him the last few weeks so now I'll have the time to post more. We have done a lot since I've been off last....a comedy show in midtown with Bill Burr (one of our favs), we canoed the Harpeth River, and I got a sinus infection...YUCK! This past weekend we went to St. Louis to celebrate Kirk finishing his 1st quarter with all As!! The St. Louis Cardinals is his favorite baseball team and its only 5 hours away....so why not right?? We got rapid rewards for staying at a hotel downtown and had an awesome time! Here are some pics from the weekend.

We left Blitz at Camp Bow Wow for the weekend. We got to see him on camper cam a couple of times and were reassured he was having as much fun as us!!

When we got to the game....a couple hours early for "photo day" which turned into the players just parading around the stadium. Kinda disappointing but still great to see them all up close!

My boyfriend...ummm I mean favorite player....Matt Holliday!

View from our seats!! Awesome! We were in the shade the whole time :)

Saturday night at Club 360 on the 26th floor of our hotel! Great views of the city!

We stopped at the arch on Sunday morning! Kirk is the white blob!

It was so big!!!

One last stop on our way home! The famous Pappys!

Kirk swears the best ribs he has ever had!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a great weekend! Now back to the grinding stone! Blitz had a great time but was glad to see us! :) 

Love and miss you all!

Emily

"You say tomato, I say mater'!"

This Saturday we went to the Nashville Tomato Festival.  It was voted the best festival 4 years running in the Nashville Scene, so even though I don't like tomatoes I of course had to go! It was pet friendly so Kirk and I took Blitz and met our friend Keven and Katie with their dog Emma.

Katie, Keven and Emma (aka Blitz's girlfriend)

Kirk, Emily and Blitz

It was located in East Nashville at 5 point intersection...which is really where 5 roads come to an intersection! So they had the booths lined up and down the streets coming toward the intersection....very interesting. There was a lot of things for sell that were obviously tomato based like canned tomatoes, tomato art, tomato jewelry and etc. (And did I mention people dressed up in tomato suits and as "tomato godesses?)

Check out that hat!!

 It was mainly an art festival with a lot of local artists. My favorite booth was by a local antique store. Lots of good stuff but I resisted and didn't buy anything! This item was a close purchase for Katie though...haha...a purse with a cross-stitched picture of a dog that looked just like Emma :)

Being pet friendly they also had a lot of pet booths! Blitz got his toenails trimmed for free and him and Emma got to play in some kiddie pools. So glad they had these because it helped keep him cool in the humidity here!

Blitz LOVES pools! He felt right at home!

Right before Emma peed in the pool! :)

All in all it was fun getting out of the house, experiencing some Nashville culture, and not having to spend any money! It wore Blitz out! He slept well that night :)

On the way home cooling off with the AC.

Miss and Love you all!!

Emily

Guest bathroom reveal!

I promised more pictures of the house so here is the guest bathroom! I brought everything from home except for the blue rugs and towels. Which were $3 dollars at target!!! Yes, $3! So for 2 hand towels (a bundle) and 2 rugs it was only 9$! I like it! 

There was no towel rack so we bought this standing rack to make the fixtures from Target....if you can't tell I love Target....for only $7!

The hand towels with our monogram on them is from Thirty-One which were in our old bathroom at home. 

The shower curtain is also from Target which was a wedding gift.  

We were extremely lucky in this house that the paint colors in all the rooms matched what we had! I like the border in this bathroom. The swirls in the pattern match the 2 canvas paintings. The canvas paintings came from Garden Ridge and were also in our guest bathroom at home.

Don't you just love the flowers! We got them from the Farmers Market on Saturday and they still look great! I love the way they make the water pink! I love everything pink :)

Doesn't it look inviting?? Don't you want to come visit us???

Love and Miss you all!

Emily

Nashville Farmer's Market

Today we decided to get out and experience some of the city. First stop....Pancake Pantry. Its located in midtown which is sort of downtown I guess but kinda a younger "new money" area. However, Pancake Pantry has been there for over 50 years "and still 23 varieties" of yes...PANCAKES!! One of my favorite foods :) The wait was long....45 minutes...and of course it poured down rain for 30 minutes of that...but the pancakes were well worth the wait!

I had blueberries pancakes with a side of sausage patties and Kirk had the small plate with sweet potato pancakes. The blueberry pancakes had blueberry batter with blueberry capote on the side with warm maple syrup and fresh whipped butter...yeah...that just happened!

Kirk's sweet potato pancakes were infused with cinnamon and served with a special syrup that had cinnamon and sweet cream....yet again FABULOUS!

If anyone comes to see us this is a must on the list when visiting! Just be prepared to wait!

Surprisingly we couldn't finish it all...haha

Yeah....we didn't eat lunch!

After we ate the rain calmed down, so we went to the Nashville Farmers Market which is on Rosa Parks Blvd, also in downtown. It is an open air fair with covering so that helped when it started sprinkling again. The smells are the best part. All the fresh produce and flowers...made me feel like I was back at the farm picking the garden :)

Beautiful flowers by the Amish!

South Carolina peaches...oh so yummy! And pretty :)

Love all the colors!

Tomato pyramids!

We kinda went wild since it was our first time there and it all looked so amazing! This is everything we brought home!

The flowers are Cock's Comb ("like the rooster" is how the Amish lady explained it..haha) The bunch was only $4.00!! Amazing!!

Cant wait to devour all this yumminess!!! 

Miss and Love you all,

Emily

Cozy bed!

I am super excited to show you this sewing project! Blitz LOVES his pillow...but it is ugly!
So I went to Hobby Lobby this am and got some new fabric to cover it and make a "Cozy Dog Bed" out of my One-Yard Wonders book. (However this took more than one yard to cover his existing pillow..you were right mom.) I wanted fabric to match our master bedroom and Hobby Lobby had the PERFECT fabric!! It is home decor fabric but was on sale so not as expensive. I couldn't figure out how to attach the piping correctly. I think I have the wrong foot on my sewing machine...so it will have to wait for another project! I had to learn how to do a slip-stitch by hand for this project and also learned how to sew corners. So needless to say this was a great educational project for a beginner! I have grown to HIGHLY respect people who sew and sew well like my Nana. It takes a lot of patience and more mental thought that I expected. I have to really concentrate every second or I end up ripping out a seam!! So kudos to all you that can sew!! I also gave in this morning and bought one of these at Hobby Lobby (with a 40% of coupon of course!!)

Well worth the money folks!! Beats the cardboard box I was trying to use :)

I had to wind a bobbin with brown thread for this project and did it on the first try this time! Not nearly like the 30 minutes it took me last project! 

DRUM ROLL PLEASE......

Blitz was starting to check it out...

And this is the back....its reversible!

 I think he likes it...what do you think? And mom likes it better because it matches the bedroom :)

Love and Miss you all!

Emily