LIVING ROOM INSPO

Gosh the weather out in Cali is unreal right now. I feel like kind of an asshole saying how great it is but seriously it's like 78 degrees super sunny and it's February. This my friends is why I love California. 

But besides that I'm working on finishing up our tiny little living room so that we can move on to the dining area. I've really been drawn to open, airy, bright spaces with lots of wood elements and a natural vibe to it. I absolutely love anything green, it's my favorite color and my husband jokes that I would rather live in the forest with flowers in my hair all the time. So you will see that all of these pictures really represent all of these things and more of a worn in look as well.

Recently I've been drawn to really simple black iron structures. I love them as coffee tables and doorways. It adds something kind of industrial to the room so I'm looking for that element in our space as well. As you'll see all of these are pictures of various areas in homes but they all feature the components of the look I'm going for. Love it!

Check out my current inspiration for our living room:

LIVING ROOM TOUR

Currently, I'm working on getting our living room to be a space that we love and with the new addition of this gorgeous fiddle leaf plant I'm getting there. I wish I kept before pictures to show the progress of this room but of course I deleted them.

I'm head over heels for these watercolor prints from The Aestate. I had known for at least six months that I wanted them and waited for the right time in our budget to purchase. Actually virtually everything in our home works that way. I search, I find perfection, then I wait for when we can fit it into our budget. 

Completely obsessed with a California vibe decor. Missed the mark with these chairs which I'm regretting purchasing now but my aesthetic has evolved so much since we moved in. So I'm working with what we've got to make it a room full of prints and adding in some wood pieces.

I'm close to finished with the living room but until then here are some pictures of the current situation. Yes our houseplant is on a serving platter. Please bear with me in our progress!

LOVE AND RAPTURE

Hey guys! I'm excited about a little side business I decided to open. It was important to me to have something that didn't take all of my time away from Penelope during the day. I have a love for decor and beautiful things, but most importantly I love things that inspire me. I've created prints that will add sophistication and art to your home, but I also hope that these prints inspire you as well. Currently I am offering instant downloads which you can easily print at home. Here is the first...what do you think?

If you would like to purchase you can find my shop on Etsy at www.etsy.com/shop/loveandrapture. 

PENELOPE'S 1ST BIRTHDAY

I had so much fun planning and putting together Penelope's birthday party. I'm so proud to be able to say that all of this came together completely by myself! We all know the first birthday parties are never really for the children and mama loves her some gold :)

I knew from the beginning of planning I wanted to really convey a crisp, uncluttered and bright setting. I was set on doing a dessert table as well and decided on doing a hot dog bar, since it was still really cute and inexpensive. We have some super amazing friends though and they cooked massive amounts of bbq steak, macaroni salad and appetizers. Truly a blessing to have people help out.

To keep costs manageable, I made myself a per month budget and purchased what I could with that. Anything that didn't fall in that budget got purchased the next month. When the time came for the party it was great because we weren't financially strained trying to get my vision to come together.

We rented the community center in my apartments which was great incase Penelope had meltdown. Also if we needed something we could just run upstairs to our apartment. For the kids, to keep costs down our entertainment was a ping pong table that came with the community center and a bunch of blown up balloons all over the floor.

Penelope had a ball and we got to celebrate with our nearest and dearest. Doing everything I possibly could DIY really kept our costs down and still allowed me to have the party I always wanted for her. 

My precious dessert table. The baby's breath flowers were super cute and frugal and I made that glitter frame. (See the DIY here) Also all the desserts were made by moi, except the cupcakes I picked up from Safeway.

Confetti is super expensive so I bought some tissue paper in metallic and rose at Micheals. I spent a few evenings and naptimes cutting a bunch of confetti myself to cut costs. I loved the idea of fun confetti sprinkles so kept with that theme for the desert.

This background was so cute. I ordered the metallic letters online here and the gold background is just some sequin fabric you can get anywhere online.

Probably my top favorite of everything was the metallic gold confetti filled balloons. When I picked them up, the girl working there said she had never seen these before, they were so pretty! With these I simply took a bunch of confetti I cut to any store that blows up ballons and asked them to fill them up with it. 

I loved the idea of having a photo chronicle of the past year for Penelope. I printed out all of her photos on my Instagram for the past year at Walgreens using their square prints for like .20 cents per photo. Purchased some mini clothes pins and gold ribbon on sale at Micheals and strung these together chronologically. I loved that it told a story.

I was really particular about cups. I didn't want ugly red cups to ruin the clean vibe, so I found these gorgeous clean plastic cups and pretty gold straws to add detail to the overall look.

I LOVE these beverage dispensers. Great reviews on Amazon and all on point. They aren't glass but still looked super chic and lent to the vibe overall. Get them here.

A closer look at my DIY glitter frames. For the print, I used a free editing program and typed up the quote. Printed it out on my computer for a pretty addition to the table.

My little family :)

The birthday girl <3

DIY: GLITTER FRAMES

With Penelope's first birthday party being right around the corner, I think back and I'm really glad I did things to prepare throughout previous months. This was the first project I took on and my plan is to use these frames for the sweets and hot dog table.

I am a huge fan of gold and I'm not going to lie when I say my inner five year old gleefully sprinkled glitter all over these frames. This project is super simple and super cheap.

Step 1. Doing one side at a time, paint the frame with glitter glue.
Step 2. Sprinkle loose glitter over wet glue and let sit for a minute.
Step 3. Shake it off and repeat!

In the middle of the glitter process, I used a trash bag to catch all the access.

After the frame is all dried and finished