Monday, October 28, 2013

Who Doesn’t LOVE New Pillows!!

Hey you guys!! It has been crazy around here, that’s why I haven’t posted in a bit. My hubby had his gall bladder removed and I’ve been playing nurse maid.  He’s still feeling a little rough, but I’m sure he’ll be feeling better real soon! :0)

Ok, so you all know I love the pillows I made when I built my window seat, but after the photo shoot, I decided I wanted to change it up a little bit, so I went pillow shopping! (gosh, what a chore!)

Winking smile

Here are my new pillows! I LOVE the pillows I made, but I wanted some colors for fall, and all these pillows are so cute!! :0)

how to build a window seat

I found all of these pillows at TJ Maxx….my FAVORITE store in the world! (well them and Lowes….it might be a tie!)

TJ Maxx

The big square striped pillows are actually pillow shams, but I liked the colors and stripes, so I got them. I put a pillow down inside and used the ties on the back as a design element, then I just flipped the excess towards the back.

bird pillow

I love all the warm colors and fun patterns of all the pillows! Do you know you can mix all kinds of patterns of fabrics as long as the scales are different. For instance, you can have a large scale plaid, a small floral, an embroidered piece, and stripes, all together. I love to mix patterns, textures and colors!

window seat

I ADORE the HOME pillow!! I was in the store, and I grabbed it like someone was standing there behind me ready to pounce on my treasure. :0)

home

Then there’s this pillow.  To look at it, it’s not really me, but something about it drew me in…I think it’s my love of silhouettes, so here it is. The more it’s in my dining room, the more I like it.
:0)

how to mix fabric patterns

I really like how full and fluffy all these pillows are…and OH so comfy! Oh, and I got them just in time for snuggling up with a certain magazine and cup of hot chocolate! Gee, I wonder what magazine that would be! ;0)

Have a great day!

Missy

Monday, October 14, 2013

Garden Shed Twist

I’m trying to get back to reality after my This Old House Magazine cover fun, so I thought I’d show you the “twist” to my garden shed we had built this summer!
Are you ready?
Here’s our garden shed the way it was the last time I showed it to you….

garden shed

Well, I made a bit of an addition to my shed, and it all started because of these………….

front door ideas

Nope, not the topiaries, but the side light windows on each side of my door.  When we had someone come to our door and knock, they could very easily see into our house….I  just wasn’t comfortable with that! So we happened to be walking through Lowes one day and saw these…..REPLACEMENT SIDE LIGHTS!

replacement sidelights

They are the perfect way to add instant charm to your home and also keep people from seeing in.  They are glass, but the only part that is completely clear is the little beveled pieces that make up the pretty part of the stained glass.   They were really easy to install too…there’s complete instructions inside the box, but honestly, all you do is unscrew the old ones, pop them out, clean up the area a little, and pop these in and screw them back together.  It was probably the easiest project we’ve ever done in our house!  Now it looks like this….

stained glass side lights


stained glass

Cute huh?! I love them, and I really love the fact that people can’t see into our house anymore!

putting in new sidelights

OK…now back to the shed! Ya’ll know how I LOVE to repurpose things right?  Well I had these two perfectly adorable clear sidelights that we had removed, so there was no way I was gonna throw them away.  You already know what I’m going to say don’t you?!  Yep, I installed them in the shed! (a friend of mine came over to help me…it was a two person job for sure)

You wanna see?! Ok, here she is all painted with a pretty color called Cappacino, with her new sidelight windows!….

cute garden shed

Don’t those little side windows just make it the most charming little garden shed ever?! I thought I loved my little shed before, but I LOVE it even more since we installed the sidelights! OH…and check out the adorable handles I put on!  I found them at Tuesday Morning for $2.99 each!  I have some more plans for my cute little shed, like maybe a little porch out front, and some landscaping,  but they’ll have to wait a while…lots of other projects I’m working on for now.

What do you think? :0)

Blessings
Missy

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Behind the Scenes of My This Old House Magazine Cover Photo Shoot…Everything You’d Want to Know!


This Old House

Hey you guys! I’m still reeling from all the excitement of being on the cover of This Old House Magazine…it’s been such a fun experience!
I thought I would spill my guts and tell you everything I could think of that you might like to know about the shoot. :0)

The first question I had when my friends found out about the photo shoot was “how did it happen?”  They figured I submitted pictures or something to the magazine, but I didn’t, they found me. I had pinned pics of my window seat build to Pinterest, and Megan (sweetest girl!) found it on there and followed it back to my blog, and emailed me.  First they asked me if I would be willing to do a photo shoot and allow them to use my window seat in their magazine. ……WELL DUH! lol  :0)  Megan (writer for the piece in the magazine) said she wanted to use it in a small article, and I was fine with that.  THEN she called and said it would be a main featured article…and I was fine with that too! Then about a week and half before the magazine hit the stand I found out it was going to be on the cover, and that my friends, was a fun day! I don’t think my feet touched the floor the rest of the day! :0)

Lets go back for a minute to the photo shoot, I want to tell you about the day. It happened on July 30th…yes, a long time for this girl to keep her mouth shut! I had to sign a contract that I wouldn’t spill the beans until the magazine came out…and I have a big mouth!  SO HARD!  I found out right before the photo shoot that Brian Carter, a stylist from Atlanta, would be coming up to style everything…super nice guy! The photographer was coming down from Chicago, his name is Nathan Kirkman, and his assistant was Brett.  They were THE nicest guys!  Brian came by the night before and dropped off many bags of goodies by our house, so you KNOW I had to be nosey and look at the pillows.  I took a lot of photos, but I’m making sure to only post pictures here of things he definitely used in the photo shoot, just in case they want to use the other stuff later.

target

TJ Maxx

Homegoods

target

how to build a window seat

photo shoot

what happens in a photo shoot

Yes, our house was FULL of goodies!  Since the cover was to be for the October issue, they wanted fall colors…so they brought pillows with all the autumnal colors in them.   After they left, I went pillow shopping too…but that’s another post! :0)

Here’s the lovely flowers from the shoot, Brian left them with me after he left, I enjoyed them for at least a week or two!

how to arrange fall flowers

I cannot tell you how much fun the photo shoot day was….but it was LONG!  Here’s the set up!  They arrived at 8:30 in the morning, and Brian the stylist (the guy in the glasses) set everything up for the magazine shot, then Nathan (guy on the computer)  set up all his equipment.

how to build a window seat

I learned so much about my own camera that day! Nathan was working with a Canon camera and he had it tethered to his computer….I did NOT know my canon camera could do that! See the pic above…he’s taking pics from his computer, his camera is closer to me and to the left.

how to use a canon t2i camera

I have been playing with taking tethered pictures since they left! I love learning new things!

Anyway, Nathan would take a picture, they would decide if they liked it, then they would email it to New York where five people were waiting to give their opinions.  They would say things like, “move the table closer to the camera”, or we don’t like that piece of pottery there, could you move it over 6 inches to the left”.  They did this over and over! It was SO fun to watch and see how it was all done!  I asked Nathan if it stressed him out changing things and then waiting….he struck this pose. His fake stressed look…how funny! :)

photo shoot fun

OH..there is one story I have to tell you!  On the front cover photo there is a tray with a red cup on it….well it started out as a white ironstone mug, but they decided they wanted some color so they asked for a red mug. I don’t own a red mug, so Brian had to run out and buy one. Well he went to several places and ended up buying an entire set of red dishes from Kmart.  Long story short…they ended up taking two of every picture we did…….one with the white mug, and one with the red mug.  After we were all finished, he took the set of dishes back to Kmart, THEN New York called and wanted to re-do a shot, so he had to go back to Kmart and buy the set of dishes again! He told me when everything was over he wasn’t returning those dishes again, he would just take them back to Atlanta and return them there! :0) As you can see, they ended up with the red cup on the cover, but what I didn’t notice until a few days after reading my magazine, was that they used the white mug on the 2 page spread! How funny!

In between all the waiting for New York to call back and see how they liked everything, we did this…………..

What to fix for a luncheon

Yep, we did some serious munching! I bought a meat and cheese  tray, croissants, had fruit and dip and frosted brownies! I also brought out my homemade pickles….they liked those a lot! They said hardly anyone ever feeds them on photo shoots…I thought that was kinda sad!  Hopefully they enjoyed the little spread…I know I did, I was starving! :)

So after OVER EIGHT HOURS of shooting pictures (and watching my neighbors drive by our house REALLY slowly trying to figure out what all the lights and camera equipment was for)…………

This Old House photo shoot

We ended up with this……. A magazine cover, a wonderfully fun day, and a shot of me in Joseph Beth bookstore by my first ever published piece in a magazine. 

IMG_5009
(this pic taken by my very sweet hubby….wish he had told me to move my hair back, what a mess! lol)

I’d say it was a really good day. :0)
Blessings,
Missy

PS…I PROMISE I’ll show you the twist to my garden shed in my next post….I just couldn’t hold this in any longer, I mean it’s only been a secret since JULY!!

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