Pillows and photo bombing!

Happy Friday!

After getting the new indoor/outdoor rug, I don't like the polka dot Ikea pillows anymore. Too many patterns! I have been looking for some affordable replacements everywhere.
Today I decided to write a post about some Target pillows that I found the other day.

Now I have to take a little detour first. So if you don't like cats, please skip the first section of this post.

I tried so hard today to get some nice shots of the pillows in the room and if you notice in the pictures, it's a cloudy day. The lighting stinks.

After trying different lighting options, I started to snap away. AND THERE... the cats! What's with them and photos anyway. Did you ever hear about the "photo bombing" trend? Well, I think cats invented that.

Here is what it says in the "Urban Dictionary" if you don't know what "photo bombing" is:

Photo Bombing

"The fine art of ruining other people's photos. 

Usually by running in the background or making a silly face in the background."

LOL, isn't it a good shot?

Haha, you don't even know how many times I had to run and grab one of them to drag them out of the picture, claws draging on the new rug... only for it to run back in the picture. They are probably thinking: "Hey what's going on here? The human must think it's very interesting, so I gots to check it out!" Or they were just trying to tell me to stop taking pictures during sucky weather which equals bad lighting.

And this is not the first project they were interfering with. LOL...it's every SINGLE one of them.

You might ask why I'm trying to take them out of the picture? Here's the thing: I have 4 cats and while one of them in a picture here and there is alright, every picture with one to four cats isn't cool anymore. I might start looking like the crazy cat lady (not a DIY/Design blogger) or an animal shelter! (Wink, wink) I'm not kidding myself... I know I'm a crazy cat lady and my neighbors would agree!

But, I have to admit, they are darn cute while photo bombing my pictures!
(Here is some visual aid. I can't post them all since some of them were way to dark!)

So any way, the problem has been finding some grey-ish pillows that are as snuggly as the Ikea pillows. I can't find any zippered affordable pillows. They have grey velvet pillows at Ikea but they are way too big.

I have been eyeing up these pillows from Target for a while but didn't want to spend $24.99 for pillows that didn't have a zipper. I love being able to wash the covers whenever the kids get food and dirt on them.

So I couldn't believe my eyes when I went to Target the other day and they had THOSE pillows on clearance for $7.48. Wootwoot!

UNDER PENALTY OF LAW THIS TAG IS NOT TO BE REMOVED EXCEPT BY THE CONSUMER
I always wonder what the penalty would be :) Does anybody know?

I love their look, but my son and daughter are complaining they are too itchy. Hmmm, might not need a zipper after all for washing because there's a chance they'll leave them alone due to itchiness!
I might have to recommend itchy wool pillows to moms out there. Don't make them too snuggly or they'll never stay clean ;)

I had to clip this photo too, to cut out some more kitties! I have the same pillows on the other couch.

I do like the look but obviously I'm not sold on them yet! But what the heck for this price!
So RUNNNNN to Target and get some itchy pillows for $7.48, haha!

Talk to you soon fellow webbers, have a great weekend und guten Tag!

(YouLEEya)

Desk is finished!

 I gave you a sneak peek of the desk that I was working on in my last post. I'm finished!

This is what the desk looked like before:

I removed all the hardware and stripped several layers of paint from them.
I decided to actually leave them the original gold.

I sanded, primed and painted the desk a pretty shade of grey. I painted the inside of the drawers white.

Then I taped an outline on top of the desk and painted that with gold liquid leaf.

And here it is:

you can see the painted lamp here

I lined the drawers with Laura Ashley Drawer Liner that I found at TJ Maxx. It looks black in the picture but is actually a pretty dark grey.

I'm really happy with the outcome, don't you think so? And now it is looking for a good home ;)

Talk to you soon fellow webbers und guten Tag.

Furniture Feature Friday

Feedburner is killing my nerves!

Hey webbers, how was your weekend? Mine was fabulous!
Nothing beats a trip to NYC with the girls. Limo ride, restaurant, club, lots of laughter... you get it, right? But boy did I have to suffer for it today. I'm too old for this!

Actually it wasn't too bad, just tired. I was even able to work on my latest project!

Here is a sneak peak:

The perfectionist in me wants to run and retake this picture because I see a dust spec above my logo! Cringe!

I also wanted to ask if any of you are having problems with your feedburner subscriptions. A couple of days ago, all my subscribers went to 0. I thought I'd have a heart attack and then I saw that a lot of other people were having the same issue.

Known Issue: Subscriber Counts and Stats

Friday, September 21, 2012 | 9:26 AM

Issue: We have been encountering difficulties with our stats production pipeline for data representing Sept 19th and 20th, 2012. We are currently working to resolve the issue.

A couple of days later and I still don't have them back.
So what's the deal? It's so frustrating!
I hope they are fixing this issue soon.

I wanted to see if this post is reaching you even though my subscription says ZERO. So let me know if you got my post! Pretty please!

Talk to you soon und Tschüß,

(YOULEEYA)

HomeGoods clearance bowl as DIY ceiling fixture

The other day I found this big white metal bowl at HomeGoods for $15 and immediately thought about a ceiling fixture.

One of my kitties disagreed because he was convinced it's a cat bed, haha, but I had different plans!

I hate, HATE most ceiling fixtures, especially the standard builder ones.

This is my hated UGLY light fixture!

The only fixtures I ever like are ""mucho dineros" and if you ever sell your home, they usually stay behind. Not good!
I found these light fixtures on Houzz and if you could breed them and they had babies, the outcome might look somewhat like my NEW flush mount ceiling fixture.

While this isn't a revolutionary idea, I still think it's pretty cool.
I could have spray painted the circles in a different color but I like the white metal and picked some light grey tissue paper that I already had and mod-podged the paper to the inside of the bowl to give it that transparent look.

It took me several attempts to figure out how to hang the somewhat heavier thing. But it's up and hanging and it's "purrty". If you are wondering, I used two small wood blocks that I screwed into the ceiling and then I screwed the shade in place from both sides. Works like a charm. Should I draw up one of those childish pictures to show you what I mean???? Well let me know!

This is what my upstairs hallway looks like now and I'm really happy with it!
What do you think?

You can see the dresser "before and after" here and the lamp "before and after" here.
The lamp shades and rug were also purchased at HomeGoods.

Update:
Click here to see how I hung the light. I made "a not so nice" drawing!


Stop by again soon fellow webber "und guten Tag"!

(YouLEEya)

Haunted Ikea Stråla Woods

I'm not at all into "crafty-cutesy" Fall/Halloween decorations. I try to keep it to a minimum. But on the other hand I have kids who love Halloween. I have to find a happy medium.

My favorite thing to use for Halloween decorations are spiders. It's not too morbid and still scary enough!

With Halloween approaching I had the idea to repurpose an old white Ikea Stråla Christmas light that I had in the attic. It had turned yellow and didn't look so pretty anymore.

So I came up with the idea to turn it into haunted woods. I first wanted to cut a ton of eyes into the trees and back them with yellow transparent paper to make the eyes glow but it was so hard to cut out tiny eyes in this really thick paper that I quickly realized ghosts would be a much better option.

I drew the shapes of the ghosts on the pine trees and cut them out with scissors and an X-ACTO knife. I also have a house peeking from behind a pine tree. Then I taped the ghosts and anything else that I wanted to keep white and spray painted it black.

Voila... now we have a black haunted pine tree forrest.

I will keep it on top of my fridge during Halloween season because it stands out against my white cabinets.

The kids thought it was the BEST. That's all that matters.

Talk to you soon fellow webbers und guten Tag.

Making the World Cuter Monday

New Chevron Rug

I finally took some pictures of my new Ballard Design Chevron rug in the kitchen.

In an earlier post I was concerned about my new rugs not laying flat like my older leopard Ballard Design indoor/outdoor rug, but I have to say they all are.

They needed a really sticky rug pad and the best one out there so far (and cheapest one) I found at Ikea. Works like a charm! The Lowes rug pad was horrible!

I got rid of my old striped Flor rug that I had custom cut. It drove me nuts. The Flor tiles attracted dirt and hair like a magnet and I had to vacuum it nonstop.

This is what the rug looked like an hour after vacuuming it!

My new chevron rug is perfect because it shows no dirt at all. I'm so happy with it.

So what you think? Doesn't it look pretty?

(Hey and if you haven't done so yet...come on over to my facebook page and hit "like")