Have you ever considered how awesome it is to be able to use online registries? Will and I went to Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond to register using the little gun and that was fun and all, but I’m so glad I can edit everything online.

Mostly because I’ve changed my mind a million times about what I want. I realized the stuff I picked in store didn’t match any of my Pinterest boards, and that was obviously a problem.

But then it’s nice because I can register for the less sensible things that Will doesn’t know about. Like glasses, margarita glasses, and goblets for when we have company. Why do I need 50 glasses? I don’t know. It just seems like a good idea.

If it were up to Will, we wouldn’t even have a cake platter, because most cakes fit on a plate. Where is the fun in that? He’s all worried about cabinet space and if we’ll ever actually use it and I’m like, “FREE STUFF! Give me all the things!”

Also, I definitely needed three portable cupcake pans with the lid and everything because how else are you supposed to transport cupcakes from one place to another without messing up the icing?

Plus, I just want a complete looking house, then all my home decor pictures might not have to look like this. (Cant’ you see the bare walls just staring at you?)

Also, is it inappropriate to register for an ottoman? :)

How is it possible that is it already Wednesday and this is my first blog post of the week? I’ve been knocking millions (okay more like 10) of things off my list and I’ve been super busy this week at my “real job”, so how about a little wedding update? I know you’d love to hear all about it…

Um….I still haven’t picked my last bridesmaid dress. I told my cousin she might just have to come naked, but she wasn’t too into that idea. Soooooo I ordered 4 more dresses last night. Lord almighty, I hope something works.

I ordered this one from Dillards. In this picture you can see how it will look next to the other 3 dresses. I’m also planning on that being a tall model so that it’s actually a little longer than it looks. (And I ordered this one too.)

Then I ordered a couple more dresses from Modcloth.com. (That is an affiliate link, which means I get $$ if you order through that link, but I swear I’m totally loving this site.) So far, I’ve ordered 7 dresses from them, and sent back 3 through their free shipping.

This time I ordered the Pearl of Your Dreams dress and the It’s About That Thyme dress.

Surely one of these will work, right? I just ordered enough for all of my bridesmaids to have 2 dresses. SOMETHING HAS TO WORK!

I’m coming to terms with the fact that wedding planning isn’t my thing. Good thing I’m only planning on doing this once. It’s just like there’s all this stuff that needs to be done and I’m over here like, “Can’t I just lay on the couch and have a Grey’s marathon again?” But tomorrow it will be exactly 3 months until my wedding day! We’ll get through this, right?

I did order monogrammed cocktail napkins last night, too. It’s progress people! :)

1) Someone seriously needs to make a Friday Survival Guide for the working population that won’t get you fired. I swear that Friday is the worst work day of them all until you are walking to your car. It’s such a tease! Even a payday isn’t pulling me out of this funk today. I’m sure when I start my Grey’s Anatomy marathon tonight that will do the trick!

2) This morning I reserved a hotel room for a blog conference I’ll hopefully be attending in July, and I decided to go ahead and sign up with my future married name. Part of me was excited, and part of me feels like the part of me that I am now is dying a little. (You followed that, right?) 

3) I haven’t had any updates on the bridesmaid dress saga recently, but I’ve picked out a few dresses I’m ordering tonight. We only have one girl left to dress, but I can’t decide which I like best. I’ll share pics on Monday!

4) I’m seriously freaking out about the lack of furniture (to paint) I have right now and the 3 weeks I have to replenish my stock in time for the next Red Apron sale.

5) Is it the weekend yet? This has seriously been the longest week. Not a bad week (I mean, I did have a birthday and two birthday cakes so far) but I can hardly remember anything about Monday right now, it’s been that long.

I hope you have a fantabulous weekend that lasts even longer than this week has! I’ll be attending my second birthday dinner and working on wedding planning. :)

I’ll admit that corny motivational things are kind of my thing. I’ve only attended one blog conference, but if I could, I would attend one every weekend just to get that motivational rah rah togetherness you get from those types of things.

I may not be writing motivational notes to myself every day, but I do firmly believe that I (or anyone) can do anything I put my mind to. Except sports, I will never be good at sports. 

So obviously, every article about chasing your dreams catches my eye. Especially this one from The Shine Project about What Chasing Dreams Feels Like. This blog post is so good. It is everything I am striving to be in the near future or the not so near future. Whenever I can make it happen and can decide on a dream to put every ounce of my being into.

You may think it should be easy to decide on a dream, but if you ask my family, you’d know I have a ton of them. I’m always scheming for the next great thing to do. And I have done some of them. Study abroad in high school? Check. That in itself was like the most unheard of thing to do in a town of less than 2,000 people. And it was hard. But I did it.

The funny thing to me about chasing dreams, is that we’re always scared of taking the leap. But just getting the courage to do it is often the hardest part. And that’s where I am now while waiting to take on my next adventure. Sometimes when you prepare too much, everything seems much more complicated than it is. Like starting your own business. I haven’t done it yet, but I know that every business in the world was started by someone, so it’s not impossible even if it seems scary.

Are you constantly chasing your dreams, or do they take a back seat while life takes over?

On a more light hearted note, I’m helping host this giveaway over at Living in Yellow. If you’re up for winning $150 dollars, here’s your chance! Click on the Rafflecopter link at the bottom to enter. :)

I’m on a roll with these before and afters this week. Well, if you consider two days a roll anyways.

Will picked up this bad boy during the summer. Speaking of summer, when is that going to come back around? My  mind is stuck on springtime so I keep wearing a light jacket out when it’s in the 20s or below. 

We went back and forth between thinking it looked awful and thinking it might sell as is. Thankfully we settled on deciding that it looked awful. And being the late delivery person that I am, I worked on this to the last minute to make it look better.

Initially I tried to sand all that off. Someone remind me to quit buying pieces that already have a bunch of crappy paint on them. Sanding totally sucks. So after about 30 seconds of that, I decided to see what it would look like if I just painted over it. Then I glazed over it to camouflage all the inconsistencies. Glaze is a miracle worker, I’m telling you!

Honestly I think it would make a cute little coat closet or something if you hang a bar inside. This piece also sold this weekend at The Red Apron.

How would you use a cabinet like this?

I had the best weekend ever this weekend. I sold about $500 worth of furniture at The Red Apron, so I have some before and afters for you! I also went on a little shopping spree and got 9 pieces of clothing for $250 from stores like J. Crew, Gap, The Loft and Old Navy. If that’s not a win, I don’t know what is!

We cleaned out the garage, picked out Tuxes for the wedding and ate some ice cream cake at my birthday dinner.  To say that I never wanted it to be Monday again is an understatement. But here we are. Good thing I’ve got some awesome project pics that make me happy.

This little guy has been sitting in my garage FOREVER. I knew that it would be one of my favorite projects ever since Will picked it up while out frolicking with a friend, but I just couldn’t bring myself to work on it until about a week ago.

Here is how we started out with a bit of an oriental feel.

I decided to try out this Emerald Green paint I bought on clearance recently. Painting with such a bright color really is terrifying, because it could either be the best thing that ever happened, or the ugliest piece of furniture you’ve ever seen. I’ll let you decide how you think this one turned out…:)

I had already committed this one to the Red Apron, but I even had people on my Facebook page interested in buying it. Needless to say, it sold within 30 minutes of the store opening on Saturday. (And yes, I finished it about 30 minutes before that, because that is how I roll.)

The customer who bought it is putting it in her bathroom to hold towels. She’s the mom of 4 boys and this will be her own little slice of heaven!

My only problem now is that I am out of furniture, and I have to come up with 6 more pieces to contribute next month. Anytime the furniture gods want to strike again, I’m ready!

I think sometimes people have a hard time picturing how to incorporate painted furniture into their homes. Today I’m going to keep it short and sweet with a couple examples of how I use painted furniture in my own home. Living in a one bedroom apartment, I promise you this wont take long!

My bedroom is by far my favorite room (of the 3 that I have {bedroom, living room, and kitchen}:

I used Annie Sloan Paris Grey and Old White to paint this set.

The color varies depending on the light – from gray to purplish to bluish. Love it.

The door I use as a headboard is from the old farmhouse my parents remodeled. It is probably my very favorite part of it all.

Then I have this dresser turned TV stand in my living room. I really do love it, especially since I repainted it recently. It used to be a bright blue color.

I’d love to show you the rest of my living room so you can see how it fits in, but currently it’s not picture ready.

So actually most of my furniture is painted, save for one table and a coffee table that I actually plan to paint soon.

Do you have any painted furniture in your house? If so, how do you balance it with unpainted furniture?  

Have you noticed that I took a break from wedding talk? It’s actually because I was reorganizing my blog a bit and found all these guest posts that I did and figured I’d recycle then. So I’m cheating at blogging…sue me. Sometimes we all just need a little break from the wedding talk.

Today I’m going to let you in on my top 5 reasons I love painting furniture (more than wedding planning).

1. First and foremost, painting gives you a great excuse to look like crap ALL the time.

I mean, why put on makeup and nice clothes when you’re just going to get covered in dust and paint within an hour anyways? And you definitely don’t have to worry about the perfect messy bun. Just throw that hair up as fast as you can to get it out of the way and get to painting. (See nasty slicked back hair in picture.) I’m sure when you go out in public like this it’s socially acceptable because everyone can tell by the paint on your right arm and left leg and that little bit on your forehead that you’ve been painting, right? Or if just looks like you haven’t showered for a few days….whatever. You know you’ve been hard at work! 

2. People give you presents all year long.

Seriously. It’s like your birthday everyday. Ever since I made it known to all my friends and family that I have a booth and redo furniture, I get tons of calls all the time from friends and family that have this or that old piece of furniture they need to get rid of, or know of a garage sale here or there. Sometimes I’m not good at telling them a piece a won’t work, so then I just end up taking it to the thrift store after I get it. BUT, people are always willing to help. And most of the time, they won’t even let me pay them for the things they give me. Score!

3. You get to practice your haggling skills.

What’s more exhilarating than getting a great deal on a piece of furniture and knowing it’s because you successfully talked someone down. Now I love this feeling when it happens, but more often than not my conversation goes like this:

(I’m looking at a globe at a flea market)
Man selling globe (sees me looking): That’s priced at $25 but I’ll give it to you for $20
Me: Oh…I dunno if I can pay that much. How about $15.
Man selling globe: Nope. $20.
Me (.5 seconds later): Ok, I’ll take it.
(Then I go home and tell everyone I talked him down from $25 to $20)

Maybe I need to work on my haggling skills a bit more…ha.

4. Everyone starts thinking of you as creative and artsy.

I’ve always been jealous of the image that “artsy” people have. They usually have some sort of unique style and can see things from a different point of view. I mean, hey, I don’t know how much creativity and artistic talent it takes to slap a coat of paint on a piece of furniture, but I’m not going to deny the title. I have a unique style that works for me, too. See number 1. I guess I identify most with a grunge look…?

5. You get to have beautiful, colorful and changing furniture all over your home.

So far in my apartment I’ve painted two dressers, two nightstands, a TV stand, and 3 side tables. I can’t make up my mind on which side table works best, so I just paint something new, put it in place for a while, then sell it if I don’t like it and find another piece to paint. The hardest part is finding a balance between interesting colors and neutrals so that your home doesn’t look like a circus. You’re always about that bright funky color until it’s sitting in your living room, then you’re like….”Uh, no, that’s not going to work.” But it’s worth it when you find the right piece and you love it every time you walk into a room.

Well there you have it. Those also count as reasons why I’m ready for spring so I can get back into painting furniture almost every night! :)

Hello!
I hope you all enjoyed your Valentine’s Day and got to rock something cute while you were at it! But now it’s Tuesday, and time for some Trendy.

Since we are nearing the end of February, it’s time to start building up that spring wardrobe of ours.

For spring 2014 I’m liking pastels paired with vibrant colors and patterns. Pastels bring out romantic quality in your clothing, while placing that next to a bold color will portray a sense of confidence.

Pantone, the global authority in color, shows that Placid Blue, Violet Tulip, and Hemlock are beautiful pastels to pair with more vibrant colors such as Cayenne, Freesia, Celosia Orange, Radiant Orchid, and Dazzling Blue this season.

Both of these dresses showcase these new and fun spring color palettes. Plus, the patterns are adorable! I don’t think you can go wrong with a floral/geometric pattern or an Aztec print. (These dresses can both be found at simplyposhboutique.com. Click on the picture to go to the website!)

Be bold this spring, ladies! Be romantic AND confident.
- Ashley