A few of my favorite things

Out of sheer boredom, and due to the fact that I have the flu( which absolutely sucks) I decided to share with all of you my most recent purchase and some of my favorite things to decorate an apartment with. Yep you guessed it the African animal masks which after much debate, and the fact that there was only one for the price I wanted to pay I chose to only buy one instead of two. After reading the reviews I learned that you can separate the masks so that they don't have to be hung as is. I can't wait for them to arrive on Thursday so that i can hang them in the bathroom!!! Hooray you may also be saying but what happened to your no spending month? I decided that now that I have learned that it is possible to not spend money I will purchase the few things that I have wanted too get for the past few weeks and then go back to not spending any money except on food and gas!! Oh it helps that my loving fiance got promoted and a raise. Now if you are a little stretched on money it is wise to do some arts and crafts with things you have around your own home. I don't know about the rest of you but I have a lot of supplies from being in school. I was even able to paint a canvas that matched my bedspread which was purchased from Target!! I used paints that I had to buy for a color theory class. If you get bored easily from being cooped up inside during the winter it is smart to stock up on canvas' and paint when things are on sale so that you can create new paintings when you have time. Another thing to work on would be to knit or crochet something. I am currently working on a blanket for my bedroom and my next project will be learning how to create flowers.
For Future use:
Cast on 5 sts.
Small petals
1st row Kfb, k4. 6 sts.
2nd row P4, pfb, p1. 7 sts.
3rd row K7.
4th row P7.
5th row K1, k2tog, k4. 6 sts.
6th row P3, p2tog, p1. 5 sts.
Repeat 1st–6th rows 3 times. Do not break yarn.
Medium petals
1st and 3rd rows Kfb, k to end.
2nd and 4th rows P to last 2 sts, pfb, p1.
5th and 7th rows K9.
6th and 8th rows P9.
9th and 11th rows K1, k2tog, k to end.
10th and 12th rows P to last 3 sts, p2tog, p1. 5 sts.
Repeat 1st–12th rows twice. Do not break yarn.
Large petals
1st, 3rd, and 5th rows Kfb, k to end.
2nd, 4th, and 6th rows P to last 2 sts, pfb, p1.
7th, 9th, and 11th rows K11.
8th, 10th, and 12th rows P11.
13th, 15th, and 17th rows K1, k2tog, k to end.
14th, 16th, and 18th rows P to last 3 sts, p2tog, p1. 5 sts.
Repeat 1st–18th rows twice. Fasten off.
Finishing
Press. With reverse St st to outside, roll up loosely from the cast-on end. Lightly stitch the straight edges together to form a flat base, and then push up center. Gather and stitch outside edge at base. Turn back petals and steam if necessary.

Well I suppose that is enough for now I am going to continue knitting my blanket and once it is complete I will show you all what it looks like on my bed!

Apartment Bathrooms Yuck!!

Apartment bathrooms are generally very drab and there is not much that you can do to make it better since you can not change the flooring, sink, counter top or tiling. When decorating an apartment bathroom it is best to find a fun and colorful shower curtain, and matching towels and rugs. Moving in with your fiance usually means that you have two of a lot of items, this is not always a good thing. Lucky for me my shower curtain was in a lot better shape and my fiance liked my shower curtain better then his own. Trust me it was for the best!! Thankfully all of our towels are the same colors of brown and tan. If you stick with neutrals you are able to spend less by just purchasing a shower curtain which i think only cost around $10 from Target, my favorite store.


I decided to add my bubble bath and lotion that my living fiance got me for Valentines day on top the the toilet, along with a couple candles. I will definitely be finding some art to hang in the bathroom above the toilet because there is something missing. There is not much to do in this tiny space especially since most of it can not be changed. You can at least make it feel a loved. Each room even your bathroom should feel loved!!
And don't forget to clean, clean, clean it makes it look much better!! Don't you just love the counters they have flecks of gold in them.....you are lucky you wont see the floors they are awful.

Our half bath downstairs is much closer to completion because I painted and it is the bathroom visitors actually see. The red and black colors were simple to come up with for my fiance so we painted the wall red and found some black hand towels and rug. We were in luck and found them on sale at Target. See I wasn't kidding about loving Target. I decided that I wanted to have an African theme for the half bathroom and found some amazing pieces on Amazon. In three days I will purchase two sets of the animal masks so that I can hang them on the painted wall, across from the mirror.
Please Ignore the mess from cleaning out the vacuum filter!! I plan on adding something to ledge of the toilet maybe we will go antiquing and we will find some animal book ends that we can re-purpose.
As for my corner shelf, it did not have a place in our apartment and on the verge of being given away, it was so nice I decided to place it in the bathroom so that we can place important things like toilet paper and febreez for easy access for our guests. One I get the African Animal Masks I will post pics of the completed bathroom.

Dining room Revisted

I had taken these photos of my dining room awhile ago but took a long time to actually upload them. If I could change the lamp in the dining room I would....actually I would change all of the light fixtures because they are just awful throughout the entire apartment. I am looking forward to moving and finally owning our own house so that we can begin to fix it up. The best thing you can do when purchasing furniture is purchase pieces that you will be happy with and coordinate with the rest of your furniture. So far the wall is very cluttered and I am looking for something to replace some of the stuff on the wall....maybe a picture of the Eiffel tower....hmmmm I will have to look into more options. I could always paint a canvas to put on the wall.Once we get our new plates that we registered for I will actually set place settings but for now I will continue to use my cupcake dessert plates.
I decided to go back to my awesome centerpiece which was compliments of a seattle florist. I love the paris tin and the feathers mixed in with the now dry flowers. They go with my place mats that I purchased on sale. The candles I purchased during Halloween and the holders are cupcake wrappers from Bella Cupcake Couture which I got for free and re purposed.
Cost Breakdown for the Dining Room
Table: $200
Place mats: $15
Candles: $6
Dessert Plates: Free
Centerpiece: Free

We spent a total of $221 and re purposed a few other things. We could definitely use a rug in the dining room which may be on our list of things to purchase.

Valentines decorations

After reading some tips on how to save money which includes not spending any money on anything other then what you absolutely need aka food, rent electricity etc. I have decided that i will compile a list of projects that I would love to work on once we move since I can't go out and buy anything right now. I was reading the blog Our Seven Dwarfs and found this amazing valentines decoration. I will definitely have to make this during the winter next year. I love the different valentines decorations because I don't have any out right now and I don't have supplies to make any. For the time being I can just look. To purchase list: crepe paper to make tissue rosettes as seen on the idea room, wooden hearts, paint and rub on letters, and felt and a heart shaped wreath
I will take pictures of my finished dining room later

Redecorating the apartment

It is amazing what the flu will do to a person, especially someone who doesn't enjoy just sitting still. The result of course is a day filled with reading blogs, catching up on a few of my favorite TV shows and of course watching home improvement shows. I stumbled across a wonderful blog called young house love and have become inspired to rearrange my apartment and maybe get rid of a few things. The future hubby and I are currently looking to pack up and relocate five hours away from where we live now but for the time being ( well until we find new jobs and a place to live) we are staying in our townhouse apartment. We have been here almost two years and while it feels a tad homey I still want to make a few changes. The one room I am happy with is the kitchen, just don't get me started on the storage....deep cupboards do not make organizing easy!! The colors we have in our kitchen match the dishes we registered for at macys. I have yet to mention my love for Fiestaware, it has been my favorite and I have wanted some forever but due to the steep price tags I have yet to invest in any of their pieces.


Our favorite colours are lemongrass and peacock.

I am starting to get off topic now back to the kitchen. One thing I dislike is white walls they are so boring to me so after a year of enduring the white walls I took a school break to paint the kitchen ( and extra bathroom but that we will save for a different day). I know I know that is what everyone does while on a break.


Alright so the first pic is the boring side of our kitchen with my awesome blue kitchenaid mixer basically what our entire kitchen looked like until I painted it blurple and a color that looks very close to lemongrass in my opinion. I still need to put up curtains on the window or at least a valance but for now it works. My favorite piece is the cupcake chalkboard that was made by the amazing brother of mine it matches the colors in my kitchen perfectly! Also notice the awful cupboards that make it difficult to store everything and also the lack of counter space. I really can not wait until we can buy our own house to update. It has almost been a year since i worked on the kitchen and we have had tons of mini projects to tackle. The dining room has gone through some major changes especially ever since I graduated from college. The acquisition of the table and the removal of my ginormous L-shaped desk are the biggest changes this room has gone through. I think my plan for tomorrow is to go back to using my original place mats and centerpiece because it had a much better fit to the room. Even the lantern in the corner looked as if it belonged there.


Currently the dining room has way too many colours and it has been bothering me but since I purchased the place mats from Ikea I didn't want to waste money by not using them. Hmm maybe i will clean them up and see if i can return them since the color scheme doesn't match what i intended.








In case you had not noticed I absolutely love cupcakes and I obtained these wonderful Rosanna plates at the end of my internship with an event planning company. If the dining room had a theme I would say it was cupcakes. The centerpieces i believe were purchased from pottery barn, on sale of course!! I love them but need to find a place for them in my apartment. As my mom is constantly saying I need to purge and get rid of more things from my apartment.

I must say that when the future hubby and I moved in together I had more things then he. Especially when it comes to clothing but you will see more of that later if we get that far. I will definitely need to start watching episodes of hoarding if I am going to get rid of more things. It is amazing what that show can do for you. With my plans of changing the dining room tomorrow and possibly getting rid of more things, and of course going and meeting the future sis-in-law I definitely need to get to bed.