Happy St. Patrick's Day

A little leprechaun stopped by and left some green cupcakes and "leprechaun milk" so Maddie and her friend can have a little St. Patrick's Day picnic at the park!

Even though Shaun and I are not Irish, we love St. Patrick's Day and originally planned to take a trip to Ireland before we had kids but woops.... kids came first! Oh well, this gives me a little bit of time to conquer my fear of flying. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Conspiracy Painting

Sorry I have not been around as much on the blog lately. Maddie has stopped taking her afternoon nap, both of the girls have not been sleeping through the night, AND  they are both getting up at the crack of dawn. SO. that does not leave me too much quiet creative time. Please bear with me. I promise we are starting the kitchen soon and I will hopefully have some fun posts of that project for you.

On another note, say hello to the newest addition to Maddie's big girl room.

I always see the prettiest things when I am not looking for them. For example I went to T.J. Maxx last week looking for spring clothes and a tablecloth and instead came home with this guy.

Because I was not looking for a beautiful canvas for Maddie's room, I picked it up...studied it....decided I loved it and the price was right but because I'm weird I decided to put it down, take a lap around the store and figure out if I still loved it in five minutes. Am I the only one who does this? 

But JUST as I set it down a woman came behind me and swooped it up! Can you believe it? She started studying it much the same way I was doing... so of course this made me realize that I HAD TO HAVE IT! Just as I was about to give up my awkward staring at her and leave the store without it she put it down. Wasting no time I made my way back to the picture and brought it home with me. 

On the ride home it occurred to me....what if this mystery woman was hired by T.J. Maxx to MAKE ME JEALOUS ENOUGH to buy their painting!!!!! I mean, would I have realized how much I loved it IF she had not waited for me to put and down and then pretend to be interested in it herself? Sure, I sound a bit paranoid......or do I? Well played T.J. Maxx...well played. I'm onto you! 

Conspiracy or not...I am very happy with my purchase and I love the way it looks in Maddie's room!!

Dark Room Inspiration and Prints

I have this image saved  in my inspiration folder on my computer for a while now. I love this room and hope to one day have the nerve to do a dark color like this on my walls. If I ever do, I would use this room as a guide because the lighter bedding and warm accessories really work well with the dark wall color.

 image via pinterest

Another reason I saved this image is because I love the random prints on the walls and I have been searching all over to start a collection to one day do a collage wall somewhere in my home. I have really not been having much luck finding prints that interest me. If you find yourself in a similar position, one inexpensive solution is to use vintage post cards in frames like the ones I have here.

These are from a set of vintage Italian postcards I found in my favorite antique store.

Another suggestion that my friend gave me was to use pictures from old books. She used illustrations from a book she had as a child to frame in her son's nursery and it looks great. (I really hope to have some images from his room for you soon on the blog!)

I hope you are all enjoying some spring-ish weather this weekend!!

Tick Toc

Remember in a previous post I explained how instead of being a shoe person I am a coat person? I always gravitate towards coats and I can't resist a really good one if it is a great price...EVEN if I already have enough of them...EVEN if I am more in NEED of something else...say....shoes. Well I am also that way with clocks for my house. I have plenty of clocks and there are certainly other things that I need for my house instead, but every time I am shopping and see an amazing clock I just need it!!!!! Does anyone else have this problem? Why am I like this??? I need new kitchen towels...NOT  another clock.

Here are some of my favorites around the house...

This big guy hangs in my foyer!

This little one hangs in Maddie's room. We thought the ticking might keep her up at night and she can't read a clock anyway so we set it to 9:17 which is her birthday.

I bought this clock when Shaun and I first moved into our old house and it has moved around a lot but I really like it on my fireplace mantle.

This one doesn't really have a story, I just liked it and it was only $9.00.

I fell in love with this clock at a local store and my mother gave it to me for my bridal shower.

My mother also gave me this tiny little clock for my room in college and now I can hardly keep up with where it is in my house because Maddie loves to move it around and decorate with it!

My sister gave me this one for my bridal shower and I love it!

In case you are wondering...YES...there is a lot of ticking in my house. It never bothers me, I don't even notice it. But Shaun definitely does and it may or may not be slowly driving him insane.

Maddie's room

Since I switched up Maddie's bedroom there has been an empty spot on the wall next to her dresser that has been bothering me. So I decided to re-use the frame that was origionally horizontal in her room and had her name in it. I just made it vertical and put some of my favorite pictures of her in it.