Every year it seems we can hardly wait for Spring….so why wait?  Today I was at Hobby Lobby and their flower stems were on sale 50% off…say no more…$12.00 and I was on my way to a new spring bouquet for my front door.

I had a black wrought iron wall hanger with a pocket in it that measures about 18″ long and was perfect with it’s nice flat back for the project.  Picking out just the flowers I want is always a pleasant and painful task…I want them all so making the choices takes me forever.  I settled on making a pink hydrangea my focal point.  The calla lilies were so pretty I had to have 2 of those and one stem of lilacs, one stem of forsythia, some small purple flowers and some apple blossoms made up my $12.00 purchase.  The hydrangea was $5.00 of that!

I got out moss, styrofoam, ribbon, the glue gun and got to work. Play!!!

In less than an hour I had a new floral arrangement on my front door, the floor swept (I always make a mess with moss) and was wishing I could think of an excuse to hang out in the hallway and admire my work without everybody staring at me!

I had a very sheer ribbon that I tied into a big bow then cut the loops to make a flatter more whispy finished look.

Got the winter blahs?  Making a spring floral arrangement is a great cure!

Tablescape Thursday hosted by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch.  Many of you may be aware Deb and I have an online store at CreativeChics.com. Recently she had finished up several new napkins patterns and brought them over for a photo shoot utilizing some of my dinnerware that would help pick up the colors of the napkin fabrics.

So today I don’t have a tablescape for a meal but thought you might feel a touch of spring from some of these beautiful new designs and photos.

The beautiful flower pot in these photos is another story…take an old clay pot glue some moss to the outside of the pot for a beautiful old aged look…fill it with flowers, in this case pink anemone’s and you have a marvelous arrangement that just keeps getting prettier with age.

Surely these are giving you spring fever, they sure did me….

Here are just a few others, she did a super job of getting wonderful spring colors and I can’t wait to use some of them, after all they match my dishes:)

Orange the new “hot” color…is too retro for me…. but these are beautiful.

Spring Fever, yes I have it.

How about you?

Check out all of the beautiful tablescapes at Susan’s it is time well spent.  If you like Deb’s napkins there are more at CreativeChics.com.

Welcome to Tablescape Thursday, hosted by the delightful and lovely Susan of Between Naps on the Porch fame. And aren’t we all excited to decorate our tables this time of year? I know I am!!!

Oh I can’t wait to show you this incredible centerpiece I bought at the art show we were at a week ago. It’s a good thing I sold some items so I could pay for this beautiful new Christmas decoration. So please, dear friends, come on in!!!

The “tripod” is a Celebrating Home product that I will be able to use for all year decorating. There is a cake plate set in the middle of it with a wreath of green ornaments and bows sitting on top and a hurricane vase with candle nestled in the center of it. My pictures just don’t do it justice I tell you.

The plates were a find after Christmas last year at Kohl’s. I picked them up for next to nothing and I love how they have creamy white berries and holly on the rim. A casual elegant look I think. Oh and those decadent dinner napkins, well my Mom made those. They have this fabulous gold thread stitching around the whole outer edge.

The stemware is a mixture of old and new. The crystal wine glasses were my mother-in-laws that she brought back from Europe on one of her many trips. They are so elegant and beautiful and I love them because they hold special memories for me. The dessert glasses are very inexpensive garage sale finds and perfect for holding the sweet stuff, don’t you think?

And now for a little candelight to set the mood for our dinner. Thank you SO much for coming by and joining us for our Tablescape Thursday.

Pretty incredible that my small apartment has provided me with a great deal of enjoyment already in just trying to get the basic decorating in place.

Today the bathroom.  One of the things I loved about this apartment complex besides the fact everyone here is past the age of loud partying, fighting, and driving through the parking lot at speeds that make old folks like me shudder is the fact that my bathroom is designed for a wheelchair.  Thank God I am not bound to a wheelchair but the advantage is a wide door and a bigger than normal bathroom for an apartment this size.

Here is the empty and blank bathroom before I began adding my personal items and touches of color.

It was important to maintain my budget and give it a new look utilizing as many things in my possession as possible.  So picking up some inexpensive towels and a couple of rugs helped me decide to make a topper for the shower to give it a softer look in the room.

Without windows in the room I thought going soft and gentle with colors would be a nice touch instead of the dark shades I had previously.  I felt very fortunate to find a rug that had all of the colors I wanted to use and purchased that first.  From there on it was match some towels, pick a fabric for a topper and at Hobby Lobby I found a trim for the curtain with all three of the colors   Just was meant to be right.

Sometimes you have something special and that is true of this beautiful wreath.  I purchased it seven years ago and paid $80.00 for it so I wanted to get my money out of it and feel like I have already done that.  However, this wreath just never get’s tiresome and it has always been in my bedroom.  I found the perfect home for it here and it looks like new!  The beautiful jar of potpourri makes a nice compliment to the rooms colors for a finishing touch.

Only one room to go blogger friends.

I love bright bold colors…when I found these square red plates with matching pieces at Kohl’s it was a no brainer that I would need a few.

In my new little apartment I have this very, very, small table so it is a challenge to do a tablescape because you have so little room for anything but dishes but here is my shot at it.

I scurried last night to make a new set of napkins for the plates using solid  red on one side and solid gold on the other.  This allowed me to embroidery my initial on the gold in red thread and the red side I did this wonderful little bicycle that I love so much.  Others must too as I have sold several sack towels made from the bicycle pattern.  My little salt and pepper shakers fit my small table and of course it is the rooster and hen

I didn’t have any table covering or place mats to fit this size table so I dug in my fabric treasury and whipped up a pretty olive green runner.  Then every table requires a flower and a candle so I got out my great grandmother’s toothpick holder, found an artificial soft purple flower I had never used, one chop with my floral cutters and I had a flower the perfect size.  For the candle element  I used my bright yellow lemon Waxberry that I bought at the Holiday Mart recently for the finishing touch.  For a table that measures 22″ wide and 31″ long I was pretty pleased if I do say so myself.

A few years ago I was a critic of the holiday season starting in July.  However, now that the “Chics” have to plan for things in advance, Cyber Monday is only 21 days away, it never seems we can get far enough ahead of the game!

Deb and I like to make things in advance but to make it really work we have to never step foot in the stores this time of year when they are displaying so many fabrics, trims, etc that we can’t resist. Our ability to resist buying one more fabric is almost non-existent and next thing you know we are going a hundred directions trying to do multiple things.

Example is very evident this week when you see all of the new products Deb has put online for the holidays.  Napkins, gift bags, kindle covers, her list is beautiful and I assure you there is more to come and especially if she goes shopping again   Here are just a few, and of course I had to sneak a few of my holiday items in there too.  If you want your purchase shipped to someone, pretty Christmas gift wrapping is available too.

Click on the link below to check all of the new holiday items at Creative Chics!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/CreativeChics?section_id=6535955

I will be honest with you blog readers…I am amazed how many of you have enjoyed watching me redo this little apartment.  Thank you for following along and sending encouraging words.

Today my focus is my bedroom.  Here was the original empty room, measuring in at 12′ deep by 10′ wide.

With a window, sliding closet doors, door to my utilities that must have access for maintenance and the entry door my wall space seemed minimal compared to the 14′x16′ bedroom I left behind in my old house. So I opted to sell my queen size bed and purchase a twin bed much to the chagrin of my children who still toss and turn all night.  Not so with me, I either lie flat on my back or right side and I am out, snoring like a log!  Just ask my girls who spent a night with me in a hotel recently.

I am a little premature in showing you too much detail here as I still have not put the wall decor in place or my dresser top so I will put some emphasis on my two projects finished in the room.  The curtains, I love them, bright, cheerful, colorful yet classy and mixes all of the colors in the room in one place. My simple pattern of a rectangle and rings.

Every girl needs something with beads!  I love it on the plaid as it takes them up a notch from ordinary to classy.

How about that vintage headboard?  Craig’s List for $35.00 and it fit in my back seat!  The bright euro pillow is dark blush and picks up the colors in my green floral  Matelasse cover. The small striped pillow is the coordinating bedskirt.

And last but never least my area rug is 7 x 9 and almost fills the room bringing wonderful warmth and softness to my toes… And there by my bed is my faithful rocker all dressed up in new fabric too.

I am such an amateur at decorating but have often wondered if every ten years I needed to move just to allow me to redecorate every room in the house…I think if my husband was here he might say “amen” about now.

Perhaps you remember me telling you about my rocking chair that my husband gave me a number of years ago.  I wanted to spruce the chair up with a new look for my new bedroom.  So…I decided to give it a makeover that would add a splash of color to the solid white paint.

I cut fabric that complimented my bedroom colors to fit the head rest and the seat of the chair.  Once you get the pattern you want fold the fabric in half to be sure both sides are the same.  Simple trick but one it took me a while to always remember was necessary to a great finished look.

Fabric has a tendency to slip and slide on a wood chair so I used some spray adhesive and sprayed a layer of batting the same size of the fabrics and placed it on the chair.

Then I sprayed the top of the batting and placed the fabric on it and I was ready for my electric staple gun.

I placed staples about an inch apart at the very edge of the fabric and ever so quickly I was ready for the trim that would provide the finished look to the edges.  Notice I have the chair upside down on the floor so it wouldn’t move around on me.

Glue gun in hand I worked about 6 inches at a time making sure I covered all of the staples completely and in approximately one  hour total effort I had created a new look for my old rocker.

Cost of renewal under $5.00 and when you read my article on the curtains, and other redo of the room you will note it fits right in   Hope you enjoyed and are challenged to give something you have a new look.

Not much time left, but get your clippers out and head into the garden to snip a few beautiful pieces of foliage to make a gorgeous fall bouquet.

I clipped a bit of my glossy leaved coral berry bush, a bundle of pee-gee hydrangea blooms, rust colored nine bark stems, a few heads of zebra grass, and a bit of deep pink autumn sedum.

I selected my natural looking vase of blue. It’s very heavy and sturdy and can handle the weight and height of these stems.

Then I started by placing the leaf stems in the vase first knowing they would create a bit of structure so once I tucked in the flowers, they would stay in place.

The last step is to spray with hair spray or an art spray so it holds the blooms in place and keeps the leaves from falling so fast.

And sitting pretty on my kitchen table. What do you think? Ready to make one for yourself?

I am going to take some time this week to keep my promise to show you the process of making my small apartment home.  I completed the kitchen and showed you that now it is time to focus on the living room that adjoins the kitchen area.  The room measures 12‘.6” long by 10‘.6” wide. Here was how it looked before I started.  As you can see the kitchen and the living area adjoin very typical for an apartment.

Now here is the finished picture!

I already had all of the furniture so the new additions to the room were limited to a new area rug and lamp and of course a beautiful white hen and rooster.

I absolutely love it and think my basic pieces are great but the warmth of the room came when I added the area rug and curtains. Those items gave the classy, casual and cozy, look I enjoy. More photos up close.

A few details you might want to know.  I made the curtain topper  from 3 yards of black silk that was 60” wide, folded in half lengthwise I then created a rod pocket, added fringe, rings and cording every 24 inches and very simply had elegant yet casual looking curtain treatments over my JC Penny sheers.  The silk fabric was $7.99 a yard and the fringe was $15.99 a yard.  Purchasing both of them on sale at 50% off gave me a tremendous savings for a final cost of $36.00. If I had purchased anything similar in the stores my cost would have been 4 to 5 times more at least.  Curtains are so easy and I continue to urge you to give it a try next time you do your windows.

Area rugs are one of the cheapest ways we have to warm up a room.  This 9 x 11 rug was purchased at a discount upholstery and rug shop in Overland Park for slightly less than $150.00 but worth every penny for the comfort, cozy look and the quietness it brings to the room from the noises below me.  Always look for area rugs at discount prices otherwise they are not affordable additions; at least not on my budget.

Well long blog but hope when you drop by for coffee and cheesecake you will find this room inviting for chit chat about the latest in blog world, USA.