what i did on my summer vacation

a couple of weeks ago i took a week off of work in order to get some things done around my house. the main goal was to clean, which i did some of monday and tuesday. then wednesday night janna came over and kicked my butt into gear to get my craft room organized and cleaned out. we worked very hard and i appreciate her encouragement/berating =) more than i could ever say!! with all of the dirty work done i was able to get to stuff that i really wanted to do...the crafty things!!

painting my bedroom furniture had been on my mental "to do" list since i moved, and i finally did it. i love it!! it looks better than i imagined!
this is the dresser that i've had in my bedroom since i can remember. seriously, i remember it as early as age 4 - it's o-l-d! the "dream" was given to me as a gift by the morel's, and i love the way it looks on the black. the silver tray was also a gift, from a friend at church, and it also pops nicely on the new color!

that's original photography by kara blankenship, it's the trunk of a huge, very old tree. i've had that for a long time!!

this chest of drawers i got some time when i was in high school. it came with three more drawers, but at some point i decided i wanted a tv inside it, so i took them out and vic added the shelf in there. when i started scrapbookin i realized this was the only place i have tall enough to house my 12x12 albums, so that's what lives there now.

this vanity belonged to my grandmother. when she passed away in 2002 this was the only piece of her bedroom suit that i took. at the time it wasn't really my style, but i wanted something that was her's. i have wanted to paint it for a long time, and got really mixed reviews on doing that. i was hesitant, but i ABSOLUTELY love how this turned out. i need to touch it up, but i love it!!

this is something i visualized a few weeks ago and it just kind of came together. my craft room has been kind of a catch all room, and i really just wanted it to be cohesive and cute. now i feel like it's seriously on it's way to cute!!

these are those wooden crates that i just hung on the wall with gorilla hooks. gorilla hooks are amazing!! seriously, these two crates are full - one of paper, the other of magazines - and the gorilla hooks are not budging!!

the one with drawers needs another coat or two paint, and i'm trying to figure out a cute labeling system for them.

i was originally going to make the curtains myself, but on a recent trip to walmart, i saw this panel and decided it would be much easier to just cut it and make it fit. it has all the right colors!

i bought this shelf at the thrift store for $10 about 6 or 7 years ago. i love the color, but it made me nuts to be able to see all of the crafting clutter that i was storing on it. the curtain works great. i might repaint this so the shade of green is closer to whats in the curtain, but we'll see.

every thing is hidden!!

this is my little bistro set that's outside, last summer i painted it a bright aqua, which i really liked, but everytime i saw it from outside i just thought "that doesn't go", so for the cost of three cans of spray paint and 3/4 a yard of fabric, it's all new!! and goes much better with the inside of my house.

that hook came from my dad's house and i found the star lantern at home goods (i love that place!)

i saw in a magazine or a blog somewhere some one had put a bunch of their initials on the mantel. well, my mantel is not that big, and is pretty much already full, so i decided two was enough. i love the color that they add (on the other side of my mantle is my willow tree nativity scene which has really muted colors).

i bought the letters at joann, and decoupaged them with strips of scrapbook paper.

these little ditties "blossomed" from something i saw in the anthroplogie catalog. there's was much simpler (small silver buckets with little numbers on the front with grass in them). these were the smallest number i could find at joann, i couldn't find any grass that i liked, and i was going to sit them in my front window, but you couldn't see them from the outside. so big numbers with sunflowers on the shelf inside the front door it is!! i like the way they
turned out!