Colorful Dining Room Chairs

I recently painted my dining room chairs in all happy colors. I had been wanting to do this for a while but was a little hesitatant because I was afraid it would look a little crazy and discombobulated. But I have to say I am so glad I did it! It adds the perfect pop of color to my all white dining room. I guess there really is no such thing as too much color. 

Are you ready to see?

Tah dah! Isn't it so cheery? :)

All of  these chairs were painted white at one time and almost all of them came from different places. Two were ones we've had for your years and years, the other two came from the thrift store, and the last two my grandpa found on the side of the road and were an ugly forest green and black. You would never know that now! 

To keep this project cost efficient I just used the little sample paints of behr premium plus that you can get for around $2 at Home Depot. So this instant room makeover only cost me about $10 and took an evening to paint all the chairs.

Did you know it has been officially one year since I moved into my new home? Wow how time has flown. I'm still planning, fussing and DIYing all the rooms in my house to my liking.

Happy Easter!

Hope you all have a lovely Easter Sunday!

hello april

Hi everyone! Happy April (I know I'm a day late).

 After having a terrible weekend I am so grateful that Mother Nature gave me a little glimpse of Spring yesterday. I got to wear flip flops, walk up to the craft store, spotted some spring flowers at Home Depot, and even Sophie loved not having to trudge through snow.

I am making some progress on a new ripple blanket that I will share soon :-)

Hope you all are having a fabulous start to April!

Patchwork Crochet Blanket

I started this patchwork blanket around this time last year and finally finished it up last week.

It's a big blanket, it fits nicely on my full size bed. The pattern is from the wonderful Dottie Angel, t is called the Ordinarily Extraordinary Blanket. You can find the awesome tutorial here.

I used mainly Red Heart acrylic yarn for this project. I have to admit something, when I first finished the blanket I really did not like the combination of colors. It was even too bright and colorful for me, but then I put in on my bed and the colors softened and now I am completely smitten with it! One of my favorite finished blankets to date!

And of course Sophie is a fan :)

Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday! Lots of love! xoxo

Red crochet granny square pillow

 

 Remember my red Cath Kidston blanket? This pillow was inspired by it!

Love how it turned out! It is so cottagey. Is that a word? I crocheted this cutie out of 100% cotton and it has an adorable red polka dot backing.

It will be available in my shop tomorrow at 7pm eastern time. Now I'm off to make another one for me :)

 

 

This week...

I've been doing a little crafting. Working on this hexagon blanket I started last Spring, added in 2 new colors: navy blue and red.

 Working on another "Scandistitch" design. You can find my other finished ones here and here. I seem to have a little obsession with navy blue right now. Love it!

Taking down Christmas decorations. I'm usually sad afterwards, but I really am loving the clean simple look of my home now.

Christmas Decorating

Hi everyone! Once again I let my blog go for far too long. Everything is great here, but as everyone knows life seems to get in the way of blogging sometimes. One of my New Year's resolutions is to post regularly again, but for now here is a little tour of my home all decked out for Christmas!

This is our living room area in the great room. We got a HUGE real tree this year and plopped right in the middle of the room between the dining area and living room. I LOVE it! Of course we filled it with all handmade and vintage ornaments. Such a happy colorful tree!

 It wouldn't be Christmas without our beloved Christmas pyramids (we call them whirly gigs).

Here is a full room shot with a little bit of the dining room. We have lots of handmade items out this time of year, including afghans, patchwork blankets, pillows, and table toppers. I'm also loving our Dept 56 village on top of the tv armoire.

This is the first thing I see every morning when I come down the stairs. Such a lovely start to the day!

 Next we move on to the dining room area.

This little shelf is above the buffet I usually treat it as a mantel by adding garland and lights. Most of the ornaments here are from IKEA.

Here's the hutch. This year I decided to add red and white polka dot wrapping paper to the back. I love it so much, I am thinking about leaving it up all year round.

 Our second "whirly gig is a bit bigger than the one in the dining room. My talented mom over at Happy Little Cottage made the adorable red and white table topper :)

Of course I have to include a picture of little Sophie!

So that's a little slice of my house all decorated for Christmas! How is your decorating coming along this year?

Living Room Makeover

Last week I showed you my dining room before and after so today I thought I would share the living room. The dining room and living room are one big room so technically this is just the other half of the room :)

I took this picture the day that we looked at the unit a few days after Christmas. Kind of strange that the only thing in the room was a treadmill.

After we moved in we bought 2 ektorp loveseats and a coffee table. The rest are things we already had. It wasn't terrible, but definitely a mod podge of looks and that paint color was just horrid!

After a coat of creamy paint and a rearranging of accessories this is what we have. All decked out for Fall!

My mom made the cute black gingham curtains. They were just going to be for Fall and Halloween, but I think I love them so much that they might stay up all year.

I'm still looking for the perfect wreath to hang up on the mirror. I love that it looks like an extra window. The shutters are from the thrift store that I painted green.

Our tv is hidden in that little "armoire". 

Had to share this picture of my favorite TJ Maxx find, and little Sophie sneaked into the the picture too.
I'm super thrilled with how this room turned out. I didn't think we would get this much done on our teeny budget. Can't wait to switch it out for all the seasons and holidays! Next up in decorating is the tv room!

Dining Room Before and After with a Little Fall Decorating

We have been slowly but surely getting our new home painted and decorated.  I thought it would be fun to share some before and after pictures.

I'll start with the dining room. It's a little embarrassing, but here is the before picture.

We tried to make it look it as nice as possible by adding some plate racks, our freshly painted white dining table, flowers, and such. It just wasn't happening with the awful shade of brown/pink/tan paint on the walls. It was such a cave in there I couldn't even get a clear photo.

So over the last couple months we accumulated a few more pieces of furniture and accessories, but it just wasn't looking nice with that paint. We spent weeks mulling over every shade of cream and white paint swatches to find the perfect color. I knew I wanted something neutral because the room has 13 foot tall ceilings so painting the room was a one shot deal. Finally we decided on "Camembert" by Behr.

After painting everything started came together. Are you ready to see the after? Are you sure?

Tah dah! Here is the newly painted dining room all decked out for Fall!

The buffet in the back is probably my favorite piece ever. We found it at the corner of the street on the tree lawn waiting to be brought to the dumpster.I couldn't believe it, I ran up the street inspected it and fell in love. Other than a few glow in the dark star stickers and scratches it was perfect. Luckily it had wheels on it so we just wheeled it home. What luck! A beautiful wood buffet for free!

I am absolutely loving this room. It is so cozy and welcoming. It was totally worth all those sleepless nights trying to decide on paint colors and furniture placement.

I'm a sucker for side by side before and after pictures, so here's a quick one.

Next I'll be sharing the living room which is technically in the same room as the dining room. Talk to you soon!

December

 Can you believe Christmas is less than 2 weeks away! Decorating is still happening here at Hopscotch Lane. Here is our buffet table for this year. The adorable little deer are ornaments found at World Market (they might be my favorite thing this year). The bottle brush tree is from World Market as well. The white cake stands were found at Hobby Lobby and the vintage crochet potholder is from an estate sale. I love the whole vintage vibe.

Last night I worked on our Ikea gingerbread house with disastrous crumbly results. First thing this morning I was determined to make the walls stay up so out came the glue gun! I placed it on a white Ikea doily style tray with some evergreens trimmed off the bottom of our tree and added a tea light for extra light. I love the smell of gingerbread!

A few more gifts need to be bought and wrapped and lots of cookies and sweets have to be baked! 

How are your Christmas festitvities and preparations going?

Oh Christmas Tree!

 We all had a wonderful Thanksgiving here at Hopscotch Lane! Lots of eating and relaxing. 

Now that all of the pie and leftover turkey is gone it is time to jump right into Christmas. 

So here it is out Dining Room Christmas Tree 2012!

 This is the biggest bushiest tree we have had to date. Last year was our first time in a long time having a live tree. We loved it so much we HAD to get another one and I think this one is just as perfect as last year. Like my bedroom tree, most of the ornaments are handmade. I love handmade ornaments, in 20 years I know I will be so excited to take out each ornament and feel all warm and fuzzy inside with the memories of making them.

 Here's the tree in all of it's night time glowy glory!

Thank you all for your lovely comments on the owl pattern! I am so happy you all are enjoying it! Also if you blogged about your owl please keep the links coming :) I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see all of your little owls hanging on your trees! You can also add your project on Ravelry here if you have the time.

Happy Wednesday!