HEAVEN SCENT

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

I'm not sure why roses are the Valentine's Day flower. Maybe because people don't know about these beauties. Peonies (pee-un-ees) are my absolute favorite flower and they smell A-MAZ-ING, heaven scent (pun intended)!

Did you know that roses are in such high demand for v-day that some wholesalers and florists mark them up by 400% and sometimes more just on this special day!!! 

Next Valentine's Day, try some peonies, tulips or even hydrangea! They are just as beautiful and in my opinion MORE beautiful than your average rose. Trust me, you won't regret it! I think it also sends the message that you took the time to do something extra special rather than ordering just a plain ol' dozen or two. But if  you insist on ordering roses at least try something fun and fancy like this...

Not your usual 2 dozen...the shape is fun, add a few snap dragons and a little bit of forsythia and some tiger wood all in a snazzy black vase and you have a vamped up 2 dozen roses!!!

Enjoy the arrangement yours truly made on v-day 2009 for a special Valentine's Day someone while working at C Y M B I D I U M (not special to me, but special to whoever ordered it:).

This arrangement contains: curly willow, peonies, spray roses, roses, tulips, dendrobium orchids and ti leaves.

This year, this is my Valentine's Day gift to you! Is it okay to re-gift at the expense of someone else??

I hope this post inspired you to try something new and different for your floral needs. You won't ever go back and your loved one's will always expect you to top that amazing and unique arrangement! 

In honor of this post I need to give a shout out to one of my dear friends Cameron Kirkpatrick who is probably still working on gorgeous floral at Market Street in Coppell and loving every minute of it (wink). Valentine's Day can be kind of, I mean a lot of, a beating for florists/designers. Remember to be nice to them and that you are not the only person to order flowers on this wonderful day, you are one of hundreds. Call her, she's pretty stellar at her job!

I hope you all had a lovey dovey day with lots of candy, flowers, delicious dinners and maybe even some fancy jewelry!

I know I had lots of candy!!!

XOXO- Keely

Country Contemporary?

Is there such a thing as country contemporary? As I've been scouting out household items, without any intention of doing so, I've chosen all items that I would call 'country'. I love to pair these things with contemporary items and it creates this funny little design style that I love. For example, I came across this amazing headboard on this blog. It's a fabulous blog with lots of fabulous and unique ideas.

I absolutely love this headboard! So this is my new inspiration for our guest bedroom, minus 'love'. I even think it would be amazing if it were painted or had some amazing embellishment around the edge like gold, silver or painted a color of your choice studs. It would also be fabulous to paint a bible verse or quote across the top....so many options! 

I think this headboard will look fantastic paired with this amazing quilt that my Aunt Ninette made for David and I. She and my grandmother gave it to me at our Oklahoma City wedding shower. I love it. I went with my grandmother to pick out the fabric and let's just say, it is super hard to pick out fabric for a quilt. There are so many options and if you are unsure of what you want it to look like, well you better block off a good 2-3 hours. Here it is and it's so perfect!

I found the chrysanthemum fabric that is around the edge and that's what guided me in making my fabric choices. It's hard to tell with some but they are all shades of pink, green, brown and hints of gold. AND while we are on the topic of the guest bedroom I think this chair would be so great in there!

This is the kind of contemporary that I'm talking about! It's so gorgeous and I am in love with the color. This is the logan armless chair in green apple from World Market. They also have it in berry and they used to have it in this white and green apple floral print.

Here are some other wonderful items that I would like that have inspired a room in our house....

Now you might be saying, "What in the world are those!" I personally think they are great, they are long horn wall vases! Filled with the perfect arrangement of flowers and feathers and sticks and you have an amazing conversation piece! I want to split them up though, I think one in the guest bathroom and the other in the study. They are pretty pricey though, $99 for the pair! I'll just add it to my ongoing wish-list.

Another wonderful find for our study to go along with one long horn vase and the desk my hubs will make is this amazing stag horn round mirror from Target. I wasn't able to copy a picture or the link but will post pictures eventually if I still love it enough for purchase in a couple of months. I've also decided to blow up prints of Tuff and Gus' faces (our dogs) and frame them in something like this:

Mine will be much larger, square and the colors will be different. These would also be neat, but on much larger scale and hanging on the wall.

 

You can find these frames on Burley Girl Designs on etsy. Love etsy! 

Last but not least, here is a sneak peak of our console table refinishing project that I previously mentioned in another post. It's coming along. If my husband were in town it would have been finished. I'll have to wait about another week for him to get home, I'm anxious for it to be in our house!!!

 We have to touch up a few places, put a semi-gloss clear coat on and order the fabulous anthropology knobs!!! Ahh, can't wait! Anyway, I need to wrap this post up because as I'm sitting here, the vibration of music through my walls is driving me nuts! We have some obnoxious neighbors caddie corner from us that like to blast techno music as they wash their cars. I'm just hearing the bumping of the bass in my walls which is more annoying than the actual music, our study is closest to them. I thought it was the teenagers at first because they have crazy break dancing dance offs in their garage on the weekends, but no, it's a family affair today. Time to shut this door and move to the opposite side of the house.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my inspirations for a room! Have a wonderful week and enjoy this amazing weather we are experiencing! Praise Jesus for sunshine this week!!! I promise my next post won't be design related :)

DIY Husband

I forgot to mention in my last post the most anticipated project to come. This fabulous desk that my talented hubby will make for us:

This is right up David's alley! I can't remember if I saw this somewhere or I was just dreaming it up but I told David exactly what I wanted for our office without pictures and he totally got me. Then I googled 'desk from old door' and this is what popped up. This is exactly what I had in mind! It's just fabulous and unique and I am so very excited for him to get started. This project for my husband is easy breezy because he is just that good and not to mention that he just has to assemble the legs and attach them to the door and Voila! And a couple of minor things like painting the legs and purchasing a massive piece of glass. But that's no biggie! I'll post pictures when we get around to doing it, hopefully by the end of March all of our projects will be complete, at least the ones I've already mentioned...we'll see :) Happy Snow Day everyone! I'm sure you'll hear from me again, I've been really behind in blogging!

Decorating and DIY

David and I moved last weekend and let me just say, smoothest move I've ever had! First of all, I hate moving, but who doesn't. We had help from one of our good friends Azzie and he was a complete rockstar. Normally, David is the moving man for himself and everyone else he knows. So it was nice that David had some extra man power to make things much easier!

We love the house and I can't wait to start/finish decorating. We have a few projects that will be taking place over the next couple of months that I am so very excited about. My BIL & SIL gave us this really amazing solid wood console table that is a bit distressed and I love it. We are going to sand it and stain it dark walnut. Here is a before picture:

Ignore the random placement of things, we are not even close to being decorated. Then I want to get some really great hardware to dress it up and make it a bit more unique. I found these at anthropologie:

I can't decide which one I like most, but for now I know I want at least one of these designs. If you hadn't noticed, I prefer to decorate in the blues and greens. My sister is completely opposite, she loves to decorate in red. I'm just not a red kind of gal, unless it's paired with turquoise! I can't wait to begin our project so I can post an after picture!

Another project on our list is to refinish this beauty:

This hutch belonged to my mother's grandmother. It's currently still at my parents house, this is her china.  I can't wait to put my china in it, from my grandmother on my fathers side. My sister has our grandmother's china on our mother's side. The china pass down worked out extremely well because the china that we both inherited fits our personalities and decorating style to a tee! 

Anyway, I'm not crazy about the color of the hutch so we will stain it as well.  I'm thinking we will use the same dark walnut that we are staining the console table. Of course I'll fancy it up with some new hardware and it will be good as new! 

Now this is not a project but something that I am waiting impatiently for to be delivered any day now! I have been eyeing this clock from pottery barn since October. I registered for it and then took it off because I would much rather someone purchase dishes for us than a clock. So I decided that I would get it if we had any gift cards to pb and luckily it worked out that we had plenty for the clock and a few other things! Tell me you don't just LOVE this:

David even likes it because it's wood and looks a little rustic. It should be here any day now but with this amazing weather we are having I wouldn't be surprised if it's stuck somewhere in transit.

There's still so much that I want to do but I'm going to try to complete these projects first before my list gets too long. I'll keep you updated on our projects. I can't wait to post after pictures! Hopefully my vision works out!