Arizona Republic Article

A few months back we mentioned how we were busy getting our home ready for something very exciting. We didn't want to say anything until we actually saw the article published, and now it is here! Our local newspaper the Arizona Republic did an amazing article on our home. They included tidbits of the projects we have worked on, details about us, and so on. The article doesn't actually appear in the paper until this weekend, but the online issue went up on Thursday!

We loved hearing how Kara, a writer for the republic, took our words and turned them in to a beautiful story. She was such a pleasure to work with! And the photographer Rob took some incredible shots of our home. He even got some angles that I had never seen before in a photo! Here are some of the shots I pulled off of the site.

all above photos Rob Schumacher via 

If you are finding us from reading the Arizona Republic article, Hi! So glad you found us. Make yourselves at home, considering you have already seen our whole home;) Happy weekend everyone!

<3,

Our Homes Paint Colors

Lately we have been getting a ton of emails asking about certain paint colors we used throughout our house. Luckily for us, and for you, we used one color in all the main rooms..which is nice and easy! Paint colors for us are always super tricky. We want to have fun pops of color throughout the rooms, but also don't want to choose something that will be 'too much' or over the top. We love having colors on all the walls, and were not lovers of painting them, so we try to be wise in our selections.  I'll go room by room for y'all and show you what weve done. Also, keep in mind that no matter what the brand of the color we have is, we put all of our paints into Home Depots Behr Premium Plus Ultras base.

The kitchen: Benjamin Moore Stonington Grey

Melissa Young Photo

The Living Room: Benjamin Moore Stonington Grey

Melissa Young

The Dining Room: Benjamin Moore Stonington Grey

Melissa Young

The bathroom: We used a color match to the rug : I believe the color code is 7754


The master bedroom: Behr Silver Screen

The office: The darker stripe- Sherwin Williams Natural Choice. The lighter stripe- Behr Fencepost

Hope this is helpful to y'all. No more searching through the blog looking all over for paint colors! Maybe one day i'll get around to showing y'all our other bathroom and two guest rooms..one day. You know, when they are not either incredibly plain and boring, or full of junk:)


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Favorite Recipes Lately

Between friends having babies, girlfriends coming over for dinner, and hosting family dinners, I have been cooking a ton...and I love it! I have made a huge range of things going from soups to desserts to breakfast, and all in between. Here are some of my most favorite things as of late:

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Our Best Bites overnight sausage and egg casserole. Woah. This is so yummy, filling, and easy. I love that I make it all up the night before and in the morning just pop it in the oven. Definitely a crowd pleaser.

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Smitten Kitchens- Edna Maes sour cream pancakes. Even more Woah!! I made these the other morning and they completely changed the way I look at pancakes. I was always more of a french toast, or eggs and bacon girl, but these just might have changed me. Instead of using sour cream I solely used plain Greek Yogurt. Healthy? Yep! Insanely delicious? HECK YES. I will for sure be making these, oh you know, 3 times a week:)

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Our Best Bites tortellini sausage soup. So hearty, yummy, and relatively healthy. {minus the delicious tortellinis}. Any time I can make anything that has a decent amount of veggies in it, and J likes it, its a total victory happy dance around the kitchen with a smile on my face kind of time. What? You mean to tell me that your hubby eats veggies willingly? Teach me your ways oh wise one, because mine..does not.

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Pioneer Womans- best lasagna. ever.  Yes that is the title of the recipe, and it is oh so true. This dish is such a great large crowd pleaser. I make one 9x13 of this, and I swear it feeds 13+ people. It is so rich and delicious. And easy. Especially if you are a genius like me and buy those 'no boil needed' lasagna noodles. Whoever invented those, I love you!

And how could I not finish off this post with some desserts?

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Our Best Bites lemon cupcakes. My MILs birthday is in September. Which means that every September you will without a doubt find me making this recipe in either cake or cupcake form. She says its a requirement. That i'm not even invited over for her birthday dinner unless I bring this specific lemon cake. And you know what? I don't blame her. It is that.good. How can something not be that good when it require about 6 sticks of butter?!

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Last but not least, Pioneer Womans salted caramel brownie. Warning, this dessert is freaking amazing. And freaking RICH. Seriously, seriously, rich. But heavenly, finger licking, mouth watering yummy. Make this only if you are feeing a really large group. Im talking like 20 people or more. I made this when we had about 14 friends over, and half the pan was still leftover. It is so rich that you can only handle a small bite. But that small bite, it will change you world of caramel brownies forever.

Thats all I have today. I hope you guys try at least one of these recipes, and then dont come and hunt me down when your skinny jeans dont fit. After all, I did warn you, didn't I?

<3,

Turning A Table Cloth In To A Rug: A DIY Anthropologie Rug

Yes, you read that right. This past weekend J and I didn't have a ton of time for projects, but we managed to squeeze one easy one in. We have been wanting to add in a pop of color in to the office for awhile now, but just couldn't decide. Well, we decided, and we went with navy. Shortly after we decided on the color we got this gorgeous table cloth from Anthropologie. We wanted it to be a rug, but no such luck. We loved the cloth so much that we decided to just turn it in to a rug!

I would think that most times when people do this project they probably use a table cloth they found for a great deal, and that is definitely the smart way {like Laura who was our inspiration for this did-here over at Design Share - check out some of her incredible projects!}. We however fell in love with this Antrho one, and were already planning on spending way more for a real rug, so we just went with it!

The project was so simple friends! Here are the supplies needed:

• Preferably a 100% cotton tablecloth
• Water based Polyurethane. We used Satin.
• Foam roller
• Rug pad for underneath
• Spray adhesive

Here are the steps:

• Take your tablecloth and iron out as many wrinkles as possible. Our tablecloth was 100% cotton, so it wasn't exactly a piece of cake.

how cute is this tag on the rug?!

• Bring all of your supplies into the garage or outside area. You will want as much ventilation as possible, even if using a No-odor Poly.

• Place a tarp of some sort on the ground first, then lay your table cloth down.

• Start rolling on the poly. Once the first layer was on we waited a few minutes and lifted up the tablecloth, to make sure that it wasn't sticking to the tarp. We did this again before painting on the second layer. Repeat the lifting process, and then paint your third layer. The can said to wait for the poly to dry at 2 hours. Well, we are impatient. We painted the first and second layer within thirty minutes. Then let those two dry for about an hour, then painted the third layer. I don't think it would have made much of a difference if we had waited, other than taking up your whole day.

Purchased from Home Depot

• Once the poly was completely dry we took it inside and measured and cut the rug pad to fit underneath

• Next, we used a spray adhesive to securely attach the pad to the table cloth. At first we didn't know if this was necessary-but then realized without it being done the cloth will shift a lot on the pad=not good.

• And that's it friends! It turned out so fun we think! It is not the softest texture, but were hoping that overtime it will soften. It has more of a feel of a floor cloth rather than a thick cozy rug. We made sure to put it in a room in our house that doesn't get a ton of foot traffic, so that way it won't matter much if it stays a little firm.

Ready for a visual? J thinks it feel like swim trunks, yep swim trunks. But hey, swim trunks soften the more you wear and wash them, right?! It was amazing to be able to make a rad rug for only $100! And like we said earlier, this could be done SO much cheaper if you use a cheap table cloth, but we love this print for the office!

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Design Inspiration Monday

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I soo love these two:

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BUT this one of my most favorite this week. I cannot even imagine having my ceilings look like that!

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Subtle Changes For Fall

I am so excited that it is officially Fall now, and even though its still hot, I can totally start switching out all the decor to fall! Remember when we put a fabric backing on our fun antler friends? Well today I finally got to switch it up with those guys! The fabric that they had before was great, but not really fall at all. Initially I thought we would use that same cardboard cut out and just switch the fabric every time, but then J had a brilliant idea. {why the heck is it always him that has the brilliant ideas?!} He said to simply cut out two more cardboard circles for each time with new fabric, that way we can save the boards and simply replace them each year! Genius I tell ya!

All I did was grab a box and trace out the shape with the old cardboard:

For the fall background I used a simple piece of burlap. Burlap as SAS is dirt cheap, only $1.99/yard! I tried to find a more fall themed print, but the only ones they had were hideous Halloween ones, or lame turkey-overload ones. So, simple it was!

I love the way they turned out. I'm not totally positive that I will keep them just the plain burlap, maybe a little stenciling on there might be a nice touch! They definitely won't have anything to do with Halloween, considering I am not changing them from Halloween to Thanksgiving, and I also am not a big fan of Halloween decor. Am I alone in this? Maybe once we have kids running around my opinion will change, but for now- its strictly fall decor! Ready to see your old friends?

 I love the texture that the burlap gives to these cute little guys, don't you?

And now, once all the holidays are over I can simply go to the closet and grab these two to put back out:

J is a genius, and i'm married to him..which makes me a genius:) Happy Friday all! Go do something genius this weekend, just so you can fit in with us over here...riiigghhtt!

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I'm A Sucker

Yep, I said it. I am a total sucker, for sales. I went to this adorable boutique today called Francescas Collections for the specific purpose of buying a gold watch. This gold watch:

I knew that I would love a million and one things in the store if I let myself look around, so I tried my hardest to grab the watch and go...but then things got ugly. I saw a sign that said "Buy one apparel item and get all accessories 30% off". Dun dun dun.. I was done for. I spent the next hour in the store debating on what to get/ should I get anything at all/ am I the easiest target in the world for sales. This boutique is adorable, but definitely a little more pricey than I am used to, considering I normally only shop at Last Chance. I mean, a shirt was anywhere from $25-50! I am used to spending MAX $9.97. No joke. But then I saw these, and they were the game changer:

I rarely ever buy new shoes, especially not super cute ones. I figured I deserved a treat, because who doesn't?! I wanted these, and bad, but I also wanted them to be the awesome 30% off, so the purchasing of an apparel item was a must now. I ended up getting a beautiful red/orange shirt that I feel like I can totally wear through fall and winter. Overall I am happy with my purchases, I might have a little buyers remorse tomorrow, but right now I am loving my shirt, my watch, and my shoes.

This photographed terribly, sorry

So friends, do you ever just bite the bullet and spend more than you normally would on items that you love? Do you get the dreaded buyers remorse, or do you just love the item/s so much that you don't care? Maybe ill just have to wake up tomorrow and put my shoes and watch on right away, that way I won't feel guilty;)

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