Spring Break

This year our family traveled to south Florida for spring break.  We went with another family who have all been dear friends of ours for years.

Dining Room ~ Finally

The dining room is finally finished...for now.

Here are links to the last two posts that I did on the dining room makeover including one on a pastel that I found.  You can see the pastel hanging in this photo:

We made a few more additions to the living room including a cowhide rug to help better define the space.  The rug is about 5' x 7', and I ordered it from Overstock.com.  It is a nice neutral, and our dachshunds don't have any interest in either chewing on it or having accidents on it.

JC also helped me hang the curtains that we already had.  They are not my favorite in this room, but they will do for now.  We needed 10 panels for all of the windows so to replace with more expensive draperies would be a small fortune.  This is one of those times when I wish I knew basic sewing skills!

JC also helped me hang a large mirror in the dining space.  I blogged about this mirror redo HERE a couple of years ago.

I also found our old sea fans that had been packed up since the move.  For now they are over buffet...

I like how they also bring a contrasting color into the space.

My mother-in-law graciously offered us two Italian chairs that she had purchased from a vendor at the Officer's Club when they were stationed at RAF Upper Heyford back in the mid eighties.  I placed one opposite the chair that I had moved into the dining room from our bedroom and found a really interesting pillow for it at Target.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I really wanted to bring in some brighter colors like coral or pink to this space.

I think these chairs work great with our other furniture, and you can only imagine how surprised I was when I was flipping through my May 2013 issue of Coastal Living Magazine and saw this...

Those are the exact same chairs with different fabric upholstery!!!  How cool is that?

The last addition that we made was the custom artwork above the antique glass cabinet.

I commissioned my two youngest children to paint something for me in the acrylics that I chose.  Jackson's masterpiece is on top, and Emma's is on the bottom.  They even signed them for me!  :)

I could not be any happier with these two pieces of art!  I love walking by and looking into this room and seeing their punch of color!

One more room is complete.  That is such a nice feeling!  It is hard to believe that we closed on this house almost a year ago.  There are still so many projects left to finish, but it is nice to see progress.

Directions for Making a Flower Crown

Last night I made a simple flower crown/wreath for Emma and took her out for an impromptu photoshoot.

The crown was very simple to make...I didn't really have a plan in mind, I just started making it.

I had already bought some wrapped wire at Michaels for a different project so I grabbed that. You will need wire cutters to cut through the wire because it is fairly thick.

Then I went out into the yard and cut some fresh flowers.  I used pink camelias and Lenten roses.

I cut some azaleas as well, but they were very flimsy so I decided not to use them.  I was looking for two contrasting colors.  Mine happened to be pink and light green.

I measured Emma's head with the wire, and I cut a piece about 5 inches longer than the circumference of her head...about 24".

To secure in the shape of a circle, I just wrapped the two ends together like this:


Since the wire itself was pretty thin, I knew I would need something wider and stiff attached for the flowers to be hot glued to...

I opened the junk drawer and found a 3x5" index card...no rocket science here.  I cut it in half long-ways to make two identical pieces and hot glued those to the wire opposite where I had wrapped the wire together.


Unfortunately, I didn't take photos as I was making the crown, but this is what I did.

I cut each stem off as close to the base of the flowers as possible. I set the hot glue gun to the LOW setting since mine gets extremely hot on high.  I was afraid the heat would compromise the flowers plus I always burn my fingers.

I started hot gluing the camelias first to the center of the index cards in a straight line.  It took 7 flowers to cover my card.  I spaced them just far enough away so that the outer petals were touching and no card was showing through.


I held each one in place until the glue firmed up so that the flowers would not slide out of place.

Once all of the main flowers were glued on, I then started filling in the spaces on top and bottom with the smaller Lenten roses.  It was not perfect at all.  I think I actually used more of the roses on one side.

I pulled some of the roses off this morning to snap some photos so you can see...




These pictures were taken this morning about 16 hours after I cut the flowers so you can see they are wilting quickly.  The crown still looked really good after 3-4 hours.







As you can see, a little of the card is still visible depending on the angle that you look at the crown.  None of the card showed while Emma was wearing the crown though.

It took me about 20 minutes to glue the flowers on.  Not long at all.



Here is the final product...taken last night.





I am very pleased with the end result.  Emma looked beautiful!