Fall Front Porch Decor

I'm finally able to start jumping on the fall band-wagon when it comes to decor!!
It has just been so HOT here that it hasn't felt like fall at all. 

I finally dragged out some fall decor a few weeks ago so the front porch could at least fall like it was supposed to be fall. 
I wasn't brave enough to drag out real pumpkins though because. Hot. 
They'd become really soft, gooey pumpkins really quick. 
Not so much the look I'm going for. 

I was so excited to get to decorate the new house for fall for the FIRST time. 
The thing I fell in love with first when we first saw the house was the entry way. 
I LOVE the staircase & the gorgeous front door entry. 

I knew it'd look gorgeous all dressed up for fall.
And I was right!!

The blue door, the brick stairs, all the pretty fall colors!!! Make my fall loving heart sing :) 

I wanted something simple but full of fall layers for the front area. 

I found that piece of barn wood lying in the garage leftover from a recent project and knew it'd be perfect for a quick sign. 

It was a very quick & rough sign- I wanted it to look old & worn so no worries on making it perfect! 

My favorite part is the leftover hinges that would never come off anyways. 

I have a thing for hardware. 

I layered several pieces of worn barn wood in the back and then leaned my quick & easy "blessed" sign at the front. 

The wooden shutter & sign are propped up on an old ammo crate I had in my stock pile. 

If I couldn't have live pumpkins, I knew I wanted some mums and these didn't disappoint! 

They bring all the gorgeous colors to the whole set-up. 

I popped a yellow mum into a square basket I had, threw a scrap of linen in & strung a tiny plaid banner I threw together across it. 

I drove a nail into one of the pieces of barn wood so it could hold my charm wreath from a few years ago. 

The makeshift broom was one of my most favorite DIY projects from our Harry Potter Party we did a few months ago. Check out the full DIY here. 

I'm in love with my bucket handle wreath still & knew it had to grace the front door this year. 

Several more mums line the brick stairs as you're walking up. 

The faux pumpkins are from lots of places- I love collecting them :) 

The tiny white one is a Target dollar spot find. 

The twine & rope pumpkin was from Big Lots & the glam pumpkin is from Hobby Lobby. 

Now for fall weather to decide to come & stay. 

This girl would be so happy!!

And maybe, just maybe, I could throw in a few real pumpkins if it would cool down!! 

I hope you enjoyed my quick fall porch tour- hopefully I"ll be motivated soon to get the rest of the house glammed up for fall too!! 

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Toddler Room Revamp

It's been a little while, huh? 

Guys, managing an Etsy shop, a full-time job, dance classes, soccer, furniture customers & other custom orders is NO JOKE. 

It's been a HUGE learning process this past month on how much I can handle & how to balance it all. 
I'm still not all the way there yet but I'm learning.
And hopefully things will settle soon. 

In the meantime, I'm trying so hard to get photos done & edited to get some projects up here on the blog. 
Sorry for the long absence :/ 
I'm hoping to be sharing a bunch of fun fall projects & decor soon!
One of our big things this month has been transitioning Baby M from a nursery to a toddler room. 
Insert ugly crying here. 

I've been avoiding it as long as I could because I just love her room. 
When we moved last October, we basically just transplanted her nursery from the old house into the new house- the only thing that didn't transfer well was the vinyl herringbone wall. 

Two major things happened over the summer that made it so we couldn't avoid the toddler transition anymore. 

1. Toys. Guys. So many toys. I was going crazy trying to keep them organized. Mostly books & Puzzles. So she desperately needed more room for organizing all the play things. 

2. She started climbing her crib. Not a whole lot. But enough that it made us nervous. We took the front off of her convertible crib for a few weeks and that worked well. But we knew we needed something a bit more permanent soon.

The BIGGEST thing that pushed us to revamp her room was the bed. 
I had searched forever for a toddler bed that I liked that was cute, affordable and not plastic. 
Not as easy as you might think. 

We didn't want to jump right to a twin bed because we still wanted plenty of room for playing. 

Insert my sweet friend who decided to sell her custom made toddler bed AND all the handmade toddler bedding. 
It was meant to be. 

I immediately texted her and said that baby M NEEDED it :) 

So the quick revamp began!

First things first, the bed was moved in so we could see how much room it took up. 

The custom bedding was all light pinks & gold which went almost perfectly in the room. 

I layered some of her dark pink pillows & blankets in to pull in the darker pink that was mostly in her room. 

After we moved the bed in, the decor above the bed just didn't seem to flow as well anymore.

I was more than happy to take down the herringbone wall from behind the crib in the nursery- it didn't transfer to the new house as well as it went up in the old house. 

I switched out the wooden circle her monogram used to hang on with a huge painted oval frame. 

Remember it as the focal point from her party?

I just repainted it (paint is so wonderful!!) with her lighter mint blue and then added fabric to the inside.

The fabric was perfect for pulling the hot pink, light pink & golds all together. 

I spraypainted the monogram gold because the hot pink that it was before didn't look great inside the frame. 

The frame filled up the empty area above her new bed perfectly. 

We moved her large rocking chair out (so many tears with that one!) and moved her end table to beside her bed. 

Her teepee still stayed because... it's the best. 

It's the perfect reading hideout and the perfect place for the kitties & pup to take naps in. 

Her lovebug & little darling signs still hang on either side of the bed. Luckily those won't go anywhere for a while :)

Her gold rocking chair from her nursery still sits in the corner too. 

The collage wall & bench haven't changed much. Although we've added quite a few books to her basket over the past two years. 

And had to fill up a bookshelf as well :) 

As I said, we needed more room to store toys & books, so we added a small $20 bookshelf to the corner where her rocking chair used to be. 

I added the same fabric from the frame to the back and it added so much instant color & personality to that corner. 

Her princess castle, puzzles & books have a much better home now :) 

Her pretty pink dresser still resides in her room too. 

We just removed the changing pad and added storage for her bracelets & hair accessories. 

It was fun shopping the house & garage for new items to make the room feel a tiny bit more grown-up for Baby M. 

She is in LOVE with her new 'princess bed' and has to show everyone that comes in the house! 

I was blessed enough to be able to trade furniture painting services in return for the bed and bedding.

And the frame was lying around waiting to be used :) 

The only things purchased for her new room were fabric for the frame & bookshelf and the bookshelf itself.

A whopping $25.00 to revamp her room!!

I love thrifty makeovers and it's such a huge change- at least for us!!

I"m loving her new room but still super sad to lose all the 'baby' items. 

I still can't believe she's already two. 

Hold onto those babies, lovies. It's true what they say about time going so fast. 

I can't wait to share some fall projects with you guys soon- I have pieces of several of them lying around at the moment :) 

Now for that fall weather to finally kick in. Come on, Arkansas!!

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Harry Potter Mantle & Room Decor

Hello sweet friends!!

I've been DYING to share this mantle set-up with you for forever but have just not gotten to the point where I could get pics of the whole dealio. 

Aren't you excited?? 
I mean it's HARRY POTTER. 

Do you remember our epic Harry Potter Party from last spring? 
If you haven't had a chance to check it out, I would LOVE for you to.
It definitely goes down into our party history as the most fun & most extensive DIY party we've done yet. 

Maybe because momma got to geek out a little on the decor. 
Maybe. 

But I knew that we'd be using a good bit of it in Little Man's room to jazz up his space since he's a huge HP fan. So party decor doubled as room decor. Score.

Plus we were planning a trip to Disney world that we took in June so we were also stocking up on HP costumes & what-not for that adventure :) 

So. 

When we moved the Harry Potter decor into little man's room we had the coolest area ever to work with. 
Because.
About a year ago, hubby carried this AWESOME and super heavy discarded mantle nearly a half mile to bring it home for me. 
That's love, gals. 

And we turned it into a headboard. 
Really, I"ll be doing a completely separate post on that later but you're going to see full pics of it today so I thought an introduction was in order. 
I'll be sharing the how-to and the before/after soon, I promise. 

But it turned out to be one of the coolest things in his room!
Not to mention, it was the perfect staging area for all of our Harry Potter goodies. 
Think Floo Power, friends. 

Let's check out all the Harry Potter goodness, shall we?

I mean, the perfect staging area, right???

All the signs, banners, books & bottles were DIY projects, guys. 

Let's definitely call this entire set-up a labor of love. 

I love the little 'expelliarmus' banner draped on the side. I asked Little Man if a banner was okay (he's almost 10 so you never know) and he said 'um, yea mom, it's a spell." 

Oh well, duh. 

I messed around with a lot of different looks before I settled on this one. 

I couldn't decide if I liked the asymmetry to it, I typically go for one larger centerpiece & build out.

But this one just seemed eccentric & eclectic enough to be Dumbledore approved. 

Oh, and don't worry, we'll be talking about that light set-up soon too. 

It was a not-so-simple simple DIY we are just in love with.

And one of those that you never thought would actually work! 

The trunk is another project I"ll share the step-by-step on soon.

I love how we were able to incorporate a trunk into the room decor. 

Trunks are the only way to transport all your wizarding things, guys. 

And the nice thing about emulating Harry Potter is that we don't have to keep things all perfectly neat. 

Perfect for a little boy. 

I really didn't have a rhyme or reason as to where everything went- I placed the larger signs first and just kind of layered around them. 

I used our spell books, blocks, wands & house banners to accent everything. 

And I"m thinking that even if you don't have a mantle headboard or a little one to utilize Harry Potter decor on, throw it all together for an amazing Halloween/Fall set-up. 

How perfect would that be? 

Or add just a few pieces into your fall set-up to give it a little Hogwarts flare. 

What do you think of our fun mantle?
Inspired to dig into your wizarding skills and DIY some fun items for your Halloween mantle?

Links are found below to several of my DIY items you see above!
Happy crafting :) 

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Project Links: 

Spell blocks & Books found here 

Book spine lettering, tags, wand labels here

Links to free Harry Potter printables listed here

DIY magic wand tutorial here
Harry Potter Party here
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Linking to: 

Link Party Palooza @ Tatertots and Jello. Creative Collection @ Blooming Homestead. Handmade Hangout @ A Glimpse Inside