It's Like the First Day of School!!

BUT SO MUCH BETTER!!!  Yesterday was my first court appearance all by myself!!! I had a short bench trial in Fort Mill, South Carolina and it was so much fun I must say!  And, just like on the first day of school when your mom takes your picture with the lunch box in hand, Troy took my picture with my fancy case in hand!   Because Fort Mill is about 2 hours away I left so early in the morning it was still dark outside hence the darkness outside the front door.

 

It was pretty much the most exciting day of my career thus far and I've had some pretty exciting days!  Now I'm waiting to find out the judge's ruling.  But, if I do say so myself, I think I ROCKED it!!  I'll update the post once I find out the result!!

Loving Litigating & Lawyering,
SG

UPDATE: GOOD NEWS!!! A victory for me and the client!! We won!! 

Wanna Know How To Paint Curtains?

Well you've come to the right place!  Recall, that I planned to paint curtains using a stencil from Cutting Edge stencil.  My right hand is sore and my legs are too, but the curtains are done and I'm excited to show you how it all went down!

Materials:
2 packs of IKEA Vivian Curtains [each pack has 2 panels]
Cutting Edge Stencil [Missing Link Allover Stencil]
Acrylic Paint [I chose silver]
Fabric Medium [to keep paint from being all crackly when it dries]
Paint Roller
Drop cloth for floor
Painters Tape [to hold everything down]

The pictures will speak for themselves from here on out...

fd

Each panel looked better than the one before since I learned a few tricks with each panel. My first panel took me 2 hours to paint but the fourth panel took me only 50 minutes.  I let them dry about 2 hours each and then hung them.  Tada!!

I was trying to be fancy with the camera by tilting it when taking the picture.
 Day Time View.

 Night Time View of Other Window.

I like how the squares on the curtains play off the squares on the duvet.

And the color of the curtains ties in with the ottoman at the foot of the bed!

And really, these pictures (and my not high quality digital camera) really do not do the curtains justice!! They look so nice in the room and bring us one step closer to slowly bringing this room together. Next up, I need to get some things up on the walls! 

Off to ask Troy for a hand massage,
SG

Things to Come....

It's been a fun week.  Vacation from work, trip to Virginia with Troy, I finally baked a cake from scratch for the first time this year (it's been too long!!), and we finally got the curtain rods hanging so I can start my curtain project.  I plan to post on all of those things, but I tell ya' I really need a TWO week vacation so I can use the second week to tell you all about the first week!  

What's more, to add to the excitement, I am sitting by my phone waiting for my mom or sister to call to say "the eagle has landed!" My sister is due on September 15th (Thursday!!) and I've been hoping that my niece, Miyah, would come this weekend.  Well, that didn't happen so now I'm just waiting for the bat signal and hopefully it will all work well so that I can leave the moment she goes into labor and head to Atlanta. 

So, yeah, lots of exciting things going on this way.  I just need to find time to put together the video clips and pictures from Virginia, upload the pictures from baking/curtains, etc... so that I can sit and write a post. 

Oh, I'll also add that I read The Help, all 530 pages, on vacation and it was so good!!  Definitely a great vacation read!  It was the first fiction book I've read since college!  I read another short book also on child birth and it, too, was an excellent vacation read! 

Okay, enough babbling on things to come. Just know there are good posts headed your way!  I'm currently waiting for these painted curtains to dry so I can see if I should hashtag #winning or #epicfail as a result.

Alrighty, that's it!! Oh, and, if by chance, I have any readers who live in Dallas, TX.  Please check out my girl Desiree's house which is now listed for sale!! It's GORGEOUS and you know you want to live there!!!

Okay, I'm done for real now. I have to go check on these curtains!

Enjoying the last 24 hours of vacay,
SG

p.s. for those who read this post, good news!! REGINA PASSED THE NC BAR!!!!!

How Many Posts Can I Make About Our Bedroom Makeover without Actually Showing the Bedroom?

No more. "After" pictures are finally here!  But first, an explanation on what has taken me so long and why I gave up and decided to go on and post now!  I wanted to do a proper before/after entry last week but I've been waiting to upload old pictures of our bedroom.  However, due to some technical difficulties (my computer is keeping me from accessing my external hard drive which has all old picures--appointment at Apple Store on Saturday) I'm having to resort to two pictures that I happened to have saved to shutterfly in order to give you a look at the "before" of our bedroom and a peek at a few "after" pictures.  Once I get some better "before" pictures I'll update this post.

Okay, now! Where'd we leave off? Oh yes, we painted our room, got rid of every single piece of furniture and the mattress (and the TV) and basically started over from scratch.  The only thing that stayed was the carpet (which is in our room because the master bedroom is not original to the house, so no pretty hardwood floors). 

Here's what the room looked like when we viewed it in January 2010, days after being on the market.  Gotta love staging:

Pretend that there are pictures here of the room right before we painted.   

And here are a few "after" pictures thus far...  

Isn't the paint color close to some of the inspiration pics?!  I'll be back with more details on some of the plans for the immediate future, like my stencil curtain project which I hope to work on while on vacation in September!!! But, for now, we're loving the new room! And, yes, the plastic is still on the TV per Troy's request.  The man is odd!  But, I love him!! 

Hope you enjoy the before/after.  There's still so much more I want to do in here but the biggest parts have been done!! Whaddaya think?!

Finally some "after" pictures, 

SG

p.s. please hope that I can get access to my external hard drive.  Otherwise, I will be sad for about 3 minutes.  And then I will move on.  :-)

IT'S HERE!!

The bed is up and the media console is next. . . I'm washing the new duvet as we speak and so excited to make the bed up once everything is finished!!! Stay tuned for sneak peek pictures!

Why does new furniture excite me so much?,
SG

TWO MORE DAYS!!!

Furniture arrives on Wednesday morning!!  Electrician just left putting in an outlet on the wall that the media console & tv will sit in front of.  We're all set!!  AND, I purchased white curtains this weekend for my curtain DIY project.  Now I'm just waiting for the stencil to come in.  So much to look forward to! Stay tuned!

I'm so excited. And I just can't hide it!!,
SG

DIY Pillow . . . Again. But Easier.

Remember when I made pillows last year?  Well, I'm at it again but this time it took me less than 20 minutes and I didn't need a sewing machine!!  AND I didn't even have to go to a fabric store and gauge how much fabric I'd need.  Basically, this was so easy anyone can do it.  So here's what you'll need:

2 20x20 dinner napkins (got mine from World Market)

sewing tape

iron

scissors

pillow insert or filler

that's all folks!

And here's all it takes.  Take your two napkins and set one to the side (Napkin 1).  Take the other and cut it in half evenly (Napkin 2). See Napkin 2 cut in half below.

Place the cut portions of Napkin 2 side by side with the design of the fabric facing down (as pictured above).  But, unlike the picture above, place the cut middle of Napkin 2 on the outside, this will allow the non-cut sides to be your flap on the back, nice and even.  (If that doesn't make sense, basically, look at the picture above.  turn each of the two sections so that the white cut edges are on the outside and not on the inside as shown above).  Place Napkin 1, fabric down, over the cut napkin.  It will look like this.

Now all that's left is to seal this sucker with some no-sew tape.  Before you begin no-sew sealing the the pillow, bring one of the halves of Napkin 2 over some of the second half of Napkin 2 so that you will have an overlap on the back of your pillow. Then simply close the outer sides of the napkins with no-sew tape and an iron.

Cut off the  small piece that is left hanging on the side.  And once it's all taped together flip that sucker inside out.  You can then stuff it with a pillow insert, a pillow, or, what I did here, any type of stuffing.  I used the stuffing to give the pillow a "down pillow" look.  And here she is.  Less than 20 minutes. It took me longer to try to find the proper wording to explain what I did than it took for me to actually make the pillow!

And in back I just used some velcro strip from Target that just keeps it sealed all purdy in back.  Here's picture of the back.

isn't she a beaut?! I can't wait to see how she looks on the new bed with new bedding.  All of which should take place on August 17th when the furniture arrives!!  So, there ya have it. Quick and easy way to turn inexpensive napkins into an expensive looking "down" pillow! Quick recap:

The napkins were $3.99 each. So total cost for the pillow was $7.98 (I already had all the other items). Can't beat that! 

DIY fun continues,

SG

p.s. all pictures taken with my iPhone because my camera and computer are having a love/hate relationship right now. minus the love.