Interior Re-Decorating

Hello Strangers! In lieu of the extreme heat waves we've been having, my resulting unwillingness to put any effort into making decent outfits, and the fact that my camera had been MIA, I've been a bit out of it the last week. My dad finally found my camera in the backseat of his car, so I've got that back now, and thought I'd jump back in with a re-decorating post. The weather is also GORGEOUS now, and hopefully will stay that way all week, so there may be an outfit post or two coming up.

This week I've found myself bitten by the decorating bug. I'm going to assume it's because my body knows that this time of year means going back to school, moving apartments, etc, and because we're actually staying in our apartment for another year, I need to do SOMETHING to fill my urge to decorate/rearrange. This started with a complete closet clean out that needs just a little more work, and has progressed into me wanting to completely redo my bathroom. I'm really just wanting to give it a little more of a "grown up" feel, and I based the whole plan around these votive holders from Crate and Barrel ($1.50), along with these little jars I now have filled with green and blue food colored bath salts (I think they were around $5 for three of them). Yeah, I mean literally came up with this entire plan JUST because those two votives happened to be the closest to the register and caught my eye.


I got around to putting up a floating shelf ($20 at Target) and have most of the linens picked out, I just need to actually buy them and get it all together. I still can't decide whether I'll do a neutral rug with green and blue towels, or green or blue rug with neutral towels and the other color as an accent. That will probably be a last minute decision, but here's how it has progressed so far.




While I was at Target on my little re-decorating binge, I came across these sheer black curtains (I've been wanting these FOREVER!) for only $5 each, and decided it was finally time to put curtains in my room. I have NEVER in my life had curtains, much to my dismay growing up in an east facing bedroom, but now that I do I absolutely love them!!! I feel like it just makes my room seem so much more pulled together. It's extra nice that today's weather is so gorgeous allowing me to have the window open and the curtains flowing in the breeze!




Anyone else out there been struck by any sort of home decorating bug lately? Or is there anyone who WANTS to redo a room and just doesn't have any idea what to do with it? You know I love that kind of thing and would love to throw out some ideas. ;-) I can only hope there's a career in it for me somewhere down the line!

Steve Madden: Peace, Love, and Bedding?

Those of you who have been around a while know I have what is a probably a slightly unhealthy obsession with Steve Madden shoes. (Well, unhealthy on my bank account anyways...) Steve Madden goes beyond shoes with handbags, accessories, and even some apparel, but it was recently brought to my attention (Thanks Mandy!) that the company also makes BEDDING. I've also mentioned my slight obsession with interior decorating and/or my bed before, so this REALLY excited me.


I think the bedding definitely follows the overall theme you can see throughout Madden shoes, with a fun, young, and slightly sophisticated style. The picture of the bedding above (From SteveMadden.com) actually is really similar to the bedding I have in my room at my parents' house now. Below are some of the other styles offered at Bed Bath & Beyond. Some of them are a little "younger" than others, but overall I really like the line, which is also extended to some bathroom decor.

Pop on over to one of the links above to check it out for yourself!

Interior Decorating Ramblings.

Every now and then I get the interior decorating bug and get a little antsy to redo my room in one way or another. Can't really move anything around in the room I have now due to a LARGE desk as well as a painted focus wall for my bed, so I mostly stick with wall decor when I get really worked up. I still need to go buy some record-sized frames to frame some pictures from last year's Paris calendar to put in my Mini-hallway into my bedroom.

Lately, I've started to question my obsession with super soft bedding. And by this I mean that my sheets are covered with a microplush blanket, another microplush blanket covers me, and my comforter is also completely soft and fuzzy on one side (See: Above). Sometimes I even put one of the blankets over my pillows so they're soft and fluffy too. I really only question it because of a psych class I took freshman year and this whole thing we learned about baby monkeys liking soft blankets for comfort... or something. Yes, I'm comparing myself to a baby monkey. I just wonder if any other grown adults out there sleep with their beds covered in fluff!?


Part of it may also be that the weather is warming up and becoming not-so-fluffy-blanket-friendly, or also that my bed at my parents house has super smooth satin-like sheets, and a normal non-fuzzy comforter. I guess the point of all of this is that sometime in the future, I think I want a big white down comforter. I think I've already decided it would go perfectly well with existing color schemes in my room/bedding, and it would also make my room so much brighter. And when I make up my mind, it WILL happen. Eventually.

Anyways, I'm heading back to So. Indiana today for birthday weekend with the fam. 5 days til 21!!! Woop woop! Hopefully the events surrounding the next week and a half of birthday extravaganza will lead to some spicy blogging and good outfits so you don't have to listen to my opinions on interior design anymore.

Two For One: Kelly Alex Outfit Post.

First thing's first: KELLY'S NEW CAMERA IS AMAZING! It takes SUCH good pictures even in the most horrible lighting. So we took advantage and took a few pictures before we left on our errands today.

(We even managed to figure out some way to do timer pictures in the back yard area, despite neither of us owning a tripod!)

Outfit
Dress: Old Navy
Ribbed Leggings: Target
Boots: Trusty old Uggs
Purse: Nine West
Belt/Necklace: I don't even remember!

We didn't quite make it to all of our destinations for errands, since my Sudafed was wearing off and I felt like I was border-lining death, but we did at least make it to brunch (more like dinner at that point), JoAnn's, and Wal Mart. As always, I bought way more than necessary at JoAnn's. They always have way too many cute scrap booking things on sale, so I bought a few new pages for Dane's Senior Memory Book, a few for my continuing scrapbooks, and some embellishments, as well as a mini 12-page book to do for my best friend Emily's daughter's first birthday. I have so many cute pictures of Lily, and those mini scrap books are so fun and easy to do! I'm sure I'll have trouble keeping it within the 12 pages!

At Wal Mart I finally picked up the frames for the Lady Gaga photo shoot in Elle, and I really like the way they turned out! The close up picture was a 2 page spread, with the other page mostly just consisting of her hair and background, and I thought it would be cool to do a split-frame of that in 2 frames. However, the "crouching" picture was on the back of the second page, and I REALLY liked that one, so I just settled for the 3 separate pictures. I think she is just absolutely fascinating and bizarre, and the pictures were really fun. I like them above my desk much more than the previous poster of Times Square that had been hanging there.

I've still got a few more little decor projects I want to do for my room. I'm in the market for some kind of black bookshelf, or I guess just one I can even paint black, because the current space I've got for books just isn't cutting it! I've got a little shelving unit that is actually an entertainment center which I think I'll take home to my room at my parents house if I can find something good to replace it with, just for the sake of not overcrowding my room. It drives me crazy when there is too much furniture!


It's been hard for me because of the way it is set up (and the fact that my bed wall is painted as a focal point, above) makes it hard to do much rearranging of furniture, which I'm used to doing at least every other month normally! I suppose I'll just settle for re-organizing and re-doing wall decor, and maybe adding some curtains in the near future. ;-)