Happy Valentine's Day!

This is the first time in years that JJ and I have been in the same city for Valentine's Day. My beautiful sister has been a wonderful dinner companion during those years, but this year I was excited for husband and I to go to dinner to celebrate this hallmark holiday. I got on opentable and made a reservation at our favorite italian restaurant- and was very proud of myself!

Then 20 minutes later I got an email informing me that this particular restaurant was offering a $99 four-course special for Valentine's Day. This would be our only option for dinner. Ummm, I do not love Valentine's Day THAT much! So it's back to plan B of making dinner in our own kitchen.

Plan B was probably not the best choice of words on this romantic holiday. Let's change it to plan home-bound.

I'm sure you have already mailed all of your Valentine's Day cards, but if not here is a cute {and free!} printable card just for you.

Sister Crafts

In addition to sharing identical looks, mannerisms and sense of humor- my sister and I have shared many craft days this holiday season. The first was a weekend-long marathon of tree skirt making, movie watching, wine-slush drinking and chili eating. We even made our own fire -- without any help from any man!! It was so glorious that we have decided to make it an annual tradition.

We also made tons and tons of candy- per our usual Christmas tradition of eating more chocolate in one day than we do during the entire rest of the year.

We're practicing for TLC to contact us about staring in a reality show about sister candy makers. Watch out.

Get 'em while they're hot

Last year my fake BFF Emily from Jones Design Company {meaning I stalk her life via her blog and she doesn't know who I am} posted some printable gift tags on her website. I used them on all of my gifts and they looked really great. This year she has posted a few more colors - and they are still all free to download and use!

Dipped

I spent the day eating pizza and helping high school students make a stop-action video. Sweet Life.

This image makes my heart flutter. I love the look of these dipped baskets that I've been seeing everywhere. I'm adding this project to my to-do list for when I have tons of free time and want to make a huge mess.

As always, thanks for the inspiration Martha!

Cabin Fever

We've been stuck inside so much lately this is what I've resorted to...

Homemade Valentine's Day cards. Like elementary school but less fun because you don't get to make your "mailbox" out of a shoe box and spend a day eating heart shaped cupcakes.

I do have one leftover cinnamon muffin from when I had a NINE person sleep-over at my apartment this past weekend. I guess that is sort of like a heart shaped cupcake only not shaped like a heart and not sweet. I'm really going to need spring to come sometime soon or I might go crazy!

In an effort to make the apartment smell less like fresh paint, I plugged in one of those outlet air freshener things. But {as usual} the "thing" was smarter than me and this is what my floor looked like a few hours later....

The "runny smear" {I apologize if my word choice created less than pleasurable visuals for you} is the scented oil mixing with the paint and creating a huge sticky mess. It took days for the mess to dry out enough that I could fix it. Luckily this gave me time to dig through the dozens of Tupperware containers of paint our landlord stashed under the kitchen sink.

From my hours of HGTV watching, I whipped out some sanding and painting skills that would have put Nate Berkus to shame. Good as new!

Cheap Art

I had some fabric left over from when I recovered the antique foot stool so I decided to turn it into some cheap art for our guest bedroom.

I just stretched it across the a mat and held it in place with my secret weapon....

 And viola! 

Not to shabby for $0.00

Printable Gift Tags

You're going to love me {more than you already do}. Here are a freakin' bunch of free printable gift tags for you to download. Even West Elm is in on the deal! Your gifts are going to look like a million bucks.

Happy wrapping, friends!

Fall Themed

I love everything about the fall. I love festive flavored food (hello pumpkin spice latte!) and decorations and traditions. How cool would it be to have the creativity for this kind of fall decorations in your house....

via Country Living

Instead, we have THIS bad boy on our porch! Jealous?

I was going to try to be festive and bake something fall-ish this week but then I will undoubtedly eat it entirely by myself so I'm trying to resist.

Home-made Art

Inspired by this post, I got a little crafty and created some home-made art on a budget for our living room.

I love anything with a monogram. The best part about this project is that it cost me less than $5.00 so if I hate it in 20 minutes I won't feel guilty.

Flu-induced DIY project

It's been almost a week and I think I am FINALLY starting to shake this flu off. Unfortunately my sweet husband now has it so it is still quarantine central here at our apartment.

The doctor told me to stay away from people for at least three days since my high temperature meant I was very contagious (sorry, husband!). After watching all the dvds we own that sounded remotely interesting (about three) I moved on to this project.....

This is an antique iron foot stool given to us by JJ's uncle. The needlepoint fabric was not in very good shape so I decided I would try to recover it. I have zero experience with upholstery or anything crafty but I was delusionally ambitious from all of the flu medicine.

Once I pulled all the current fabric off I was surprised to find that the original batting was made out of straw. Rotting straw, actually, since the stool was so old.

I am amazed at how it turned out!

I ran out of upholstery staples towards the end so JJ finished it with a normal stapler. Dream Team.