New Flooring Project

The weekend before Emmett's birthday party, Ray and his parents decided to tackle the biggest eyesore in our house... The landing between our front door and our stairs. We have wood floors downstairs and carpet upstairs, but the landing remained carpeted. It was stained and torn, and it stood out like a horribly sore thumb. The landing is the first thing people see when they walk in our front door, so we've been talking about changing it since I moved in after our wedding.

When Ray told me his parents were coming over to rip up the carpet and lay hardwoods, I was ecstatic!   As I mentioned here, it was tough keeping Emmett entertained outside the house while they worked, but we love the new landing so it was totally worth it!

Here are a few before and after photos, but be sure to ignore all of the mess!

See what I mean? That carpet was nasty!

Carpet is gone! Woohooooo!

Pulling up staples for days.

In order to fit the face of the landing with flooring and trim, they decided to square it off.

Progress at the end of day one. It already looks so much better!

Day 2: Beginning to lay the flooring.

Finished! And verrrrrrrry dusty. 

Seriously. Dust for days slash weeks.

Ray's parents are amazing! They are always so happy to spend a weekend helping Ray with a project (see our kitchen renovation here), and they always do such a great job!! We got a lot of compliments on the updated flooring at Emmett's party, and we are so happy with how everything turned out!

DIY Painted Twine Garland

I'm not crafty y'all. Not at all.

But Emmett's first birthday party is coming up (my baby boy will be ONE in 11 days!), and I'm trying to plan a Pin-worthy party for like no money, so I decided to craft.

I've been eyeing Confetti System's gorgeous tassel garlands for years now, so when I found these babies on Pinterest the other day, I decided it was time to make my own.

Inspiration garland taken from theminimalist.com.au

I invited my friend (and super-crafter) Rachel over on Saturday to help me, and I love how they turned out! Here's how we did it:

We made the tassels out of regular (and cheap!) garden twine from Ace Hardware by cutting tons of twine into similar lengths, bunching them together, and wrapping the top bits in more twine. We left one piece of twine in a loop over the top to hang them.

I had some leftover sea blue/turqoise paint from our kitchen remodel, so we used that rather than trying to dye the twine. We painted each strand, leaving a few inches at the top just like the yellow inspiration garland. I left the tassels outside over night to dry, and then pulled them apart and reshaped them in the morning.

To hang them, I strung them on a long piece of twine, tying a knot around each tassel so they don't slide around, and hung them in the playroom/dining room/hallway/living room under our Happy Birthday banner!

Before re-shaping the twine. Ignore the mess on the floor. This room is multipurpose.

And a couple of close-ups of the finished garland:

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with them (and myself for being so creative!). I might even hang them somewhere in the house permanently after the birthday party is over. 

I still can't believe my baby boy is about to be a year old. I remember the day we brought him home from the hospital like it was just yesterday. I sure do love that little guy!

Instagram Photo Wall Tutorial

I love Instagram. I'm pretty sure everyone who knows me knows that. And I love taking photos with my iPhone, but it's frustrating having all of these photos on my phone with nowhere to display them. So when I came across this tutorial, I knew I had to give it a try!

I used the iPhone app PostalPix to print 50 of my Instagram photos. I chose the 4x4 Pro Luster Prints (perfect for square Instagram photos), which range from $.29-$.33 a piece. For 50 prints plus shipping, I only spent $18.42. Not bad!
My prints arrived in the mail four days later, and I was so pleased with how they turned out! They are printed on high quality archival paper, and the colors came out perfectly. Yay!

Here is everything I used to complete this project:

Photo Prints
Painter's Tape
Tape Measure (I used a yard stick)
Level

I began by measuring the wall to decide exactly where I would place my photo collage. I had 50 prints, at 4 inches by 4 inches a piece. I knew that I wanted to place them in 5 rows of 10 photos, so my collage would measure 40 inches by 20 inches.

I decided on a position on the wall (centered and at eye-level), and began to place my painter's tape around the edges to map out my collage. I used the level to make sure my horizontal lines were perfect.

I realize now that my tape is crooked. I was able to figure it out pretty quickly and compensate.

Because I don't want this collage to be permanent, I decided to use painter's tape to adhere the photos to the wall. My husband was kind enough to assist me in tearing 250 tiny strips of tape- 5 per photo. We placed 5 pieces of rolled tape on the back of each photo- one in each corner and one in the center.

From there, I began adding photos. I didn't think too much about which photos I was putting where- I just started building the collage, knowing I could move photos here and there to find the best place for each one.

Once I had all the photos up where I wanted them, I ran my hands over each one to make sure they were all firmly adhered to the wall. Then I removed the painter's tape around the edges, and admired the finished product!!

The whole project took under an hour. We were able to knock it out during Emmett's notoriously short afternoon nap! Did I mention I spent less than $20?? I know that made my husband happy.
It's not perfect, but I love it. We managed to fill a conspicuously blank, hard-to-fill wall space, and display so many of our favorite photos all at once. And yes, I know I take tons of pics of Emmett! I just can't get enough. :)

***Because I loved using the PostalPix app so much, I reached out to them, and they have generously offered a $10 credit towards prints in their app! To enter to win this prize:

1. Follow this blog.
2. Visit the PostalPix website, and download the PostalPix app.
3. Leave a comment below telling me how you would use your prints!
4. For an extra entry, follow me on Instagram for instructions!

Good luck!!! I will announce the winner on Friday, 5/24.

*Available to US readers only. 
You can enter to win once a day through Thursday, 5/24!

Update:

And the winner is.... Jenna Guizar! Thanks Jenna!