Things I have been doing...

It all started with these red plates. I love them. I found them at Marshall's on the clearance rack for $2.00 a piece. I brought them home and placed them on my red hutch and they disappeared into the red hutch. 

As much as I loved the color of the hutch in my kitchen, I was never satisfied with how it was decorated. I love red and tend to buy red decor but you can't have cute red things on a red hutch, it just turns into a big red blob.  I am not buying into all this grey, all white and super washed out color schemes that have been popping up all over. I love the look, I just like a bit more warmth in my house. That being said it red was looking heavy and dated to me. I wanted a more clean and crisp look.

So I started painting it a cream color but that just melted into the wall. So there it sat for a few weeks, half cream, half red, with a bunch of paint samples taped to it. Then one day last week I got a wild hair, grabbed one of the paint samples and bought a gallon of paint. The color sample looked like a tan with a very small green undertone. Well it turned out to dry a bit more green with a tan undertone...

I did like it but it seemed a bit out of place. So I took the sandpaper to it to rough it up a bit and let the old red peak though. So much better. It looks like it was plucked out of an old farm house. I love it. Only one problem. Now I need to paint my entertainment center and lighten up some other dark decor to give everything that clean crisp feel. Oh yes and find the other drawer pull that Laine ran off with...

Up close. The pictures aren't doing it any justice. It looks really good in person.

I also got rid of the art piece that was over the hutch and needed something to fill the hole it left. So I made a set of these...

 Have you ever seen Cougar Town? Before I ever even watched an episode I saw a commercial and noticed the letters on the wall for the set of the kitchen. I googled it and found out they came from Anthropology. If you have every looked at or heard of that store you know that everything in it costs close to an arm and a leg. But they were to cute and SO very easy to make. I just found some scrapbook paper I liked, mod-podged it to some thick cardboard letters that I had already painted the sides brown, then kind of shaded the edges to make them look old and a layer of mod-podge over the top and there you go. A $12 solution to the huge Anthropology price tag.

And just in case you forgot what the whole thing looks like now here it is again. 

I really should have taken pictures during the day. They would have been much better.

I have also been busy... well you know.... making a little baby. I am 19 weeks today according to the last ultrasound I had. We will find out what we are having on the 13th of June.

Other than that we are just enjoying the summer by making huge messes all over the house. This afternoon it was play-dough, everywhere. Have I every told anyone how much I hate that stuff. Kids love it though. So I will put up with the mess. I am just glad that my two mess makers where also very happy cleaner-uppers and got almost all of it back in the little yellow containers.