coffee table on the cheap

i saw this coffee table at value village and i loved the scale and sturdiness of it (not to mention the super cheap $10 price tag!) my husband was less than thrilled when i brought it home, but it soon turned into a fun family project. we transformed it by painting it black and tiling it with slate tile from home depot. voila! no more parquet and it matches our slate fireplace in the family room.

CUTE and CHEAP!

I purchased a scrabble tile pendant from Etsy.com and I love it! It was only $6.95 with no charge for shipping. They have 185 different items listed for sale in every color imaginable. I love how lightweight and well made it is. It would make a great holiday gift.

Check them out................www.homestudio.etsy.com

jazz up your bathroom!

stripes can jazz up a plain white bathroom in no time! we love stripes!

we found that five stripes look great (the trusty odd numbers decorating rule).

a cool trick i learned on trading spaces was to first roll the wall color over the painter's tape to purposefully bleed the wall color beneath the tape, if bleeding were to occur. then when you use the bright stripes color, there is no more bleeding......so when you pull the tape off you have a clean line that needs no touch up. for example: for the walls above we used 2" painter's tape where the white stripes (original wall color) are. we rolled the white color right over the tape, yes, right over the tape. after this dried, we filled in between the tape with the gold and green colors. after everything dried and we peeled the painter's tape off, no touch-up was needed.

handmade card for twins

we wanted to include not only purse-related posts, but share any crafts, house projects, art projects, recipes, and photography--basically anything inspiring or helpful. so here goes!

when jennifer was pregnant with twins i wanted to make a unique handmade card for her baby shower. i came up with a "two peas in a pod" card with ribbon accents. it was easy --this is how you can make one in 10 easy steps:

1. use a jumbo 1" round hole punch to make 2 green circles or cut your own circles.
2. punch 2 small holes 1/4" apart towards the top of each circle.
3. cut 2 small pieces of ribbon about 4"- 6" long each. (i thought mini gingham turned out very cute!)
4. loop the ribbon through the holes by inserting one long end through the front left hole, (leaving a short tail on the front) back up through the back right hole, back down through the front left hole and finally back up through the back right hole. make sure the ribbons look centered and even. trim any excess and cut out triangles from each ribbon end. repeat on the other pea.
5. draw 2 eyes and a smiley mouth on each green circle
6. cut out a pea pod shape from darker green paper
7. cut white cardstock 8" x 5", fold in half to make a 4" x 5" card the opens top to bottom.
8. stamp the word 'congrats' in the lower right corner of the white card. i used a stamp from the stampin' up good times set.
9. cut green cardstock 4.25" x 5.25"
10. using 2-way adhesive tape or you favorite adhesive, glue the pea pod diagonally across the front of the white cardstock, glue the 2 "peas" partially onto the peapod, and attach the white cardstock to the green backing.
*this card fits perfectly into an invitation-sized envelope (you can buy a box of these very inexpensively at walmart)
**this card can be modified to be a birth announcement for twins or triplets. instead of 'congrats' you can stamp 'they're here' or 'announcing'