Ikea + paint = new hobby

I have watched a lot of HGTV in the past year. I have a learned a lot of tricks to decorate or redecorate on the cheap. I have learned that one can upcycle a cheap furniture find.

I love Ikea stuff because it's CHEAP, but sometimes, I just do not love the colors or the hardware they provide. Granted, you can always buy it, sand it, paint it, and change out the hardware. But we do not have a garage or a shed or even a backyard for me to properly set up for sanding and painting. Not to mention, I would have to get a bunch of stuff (like sandpaper and a mask) and be OK with being covered in wood particles.

So bottom line, the idea of sanding has stopped me dead in my tracks. Then I found this article last week by Caroline at Armelle Jewelry. Caroline painted the dresser WITHOUT sanding it down!

Ikea



Source



How awesome looking is that dresser after a coat (or two) or paint!?!? I might just have to try this sometime soon. Oh wait, maybe I should wait until this whole wedding business is over with.

Meltdown #1

I think this might be my first official bridal related meltdown. I seem to recall a previous one, but I'm far too lazy to search through my previous posts to find mention of it, let me know if you remember it.

I'm running on 3 hours of intermittent sleep. For the life of me I could not fall asleep last night. But when I finally did, oh say around 3am, I could not stay asleep. What's eating me? Well, ready yourself for a not so peppy post.

Weddings planning is not rainbows, puppies, unicorns, and sparkles. There are people that LOVE wedding planning. You people are whack. You are probably on crack or something. You have to be. (*disclaimer - I still love you guys, I just think you must be smoking something. Maybe you should share.) I HATE wedding planning. And I'm a person that plans EVERYTHING.

We are 2 days shy of the 5 month mark and I feel like NOTHING is done. I had hoped that by this point all of our vendors would be lined up. I had hoped that I would just be working on DIY projects in my spare time. I had hoped that we'd be all laid back and zenned out. Instead, I'm lying awake last night, stressed out, and FREAKING out about everything.

What's wrong?

• I cannot find frog buttons for my Chinese dress. Who freaken knew that they would be this stupid hard to find? You would think that living in Boston of all places, you know a city with a large Chinese populations, that I could find buttons. What about New York City...nope, I struck out there too, what the crap?
• I realized at 10:30pm last night that I had completely flaked on returning the contract to the hair and makeup vendor. It stated in bold and underlined words that the contract was to be signed and returned within 7 days. Here I am at 9, 2 days overdue!!! And to make matters worse, I can not just print it out, sign it, scan it, and email it back right then and there because our internet is broken and I'm out of printer paper. (Update, I took care of it this morning at work and all is good.)
• At 5 months, we do no have a videographer contracted. We are not even in communication with a single videographer!!!! Seriously, how did it get to this point. I was yelling at Jake last night that we are not going to be able to have a videographer, one of the caliber that I want at our wedding because we waited this freaken long. Why did I wait on this? I knew better. Venue, photographer, videographer are 3 vendors you get upfront so that you get what you want when you want it. UGH!!
• Flowers...let's not talk about center pieces. The sheer thought of the topic just makes me want to throw a traditional Chinese banquet so that we do not have to even deal with this.
• The groom. Oh where do I start with this one? He sees wedding planning as a chore, like taking out the garbage. Such a thing he couldn't be bothered with. WHAT THE CRAP?!?! Poor Jake, I spent a good 15 minutes last night blaming him for all this stress. I've said it before, if it were just up to me, we would go to the courthouse and have a backyard BBQ afterwards. But noooooooo, Jake wants a *shiny* full blown shindig. Him and his bright ideas. He said let's get married and then must have thought that fairies would come out of the woodwork and make it all happen. Maybe they will pee rainbows and poop sparkles while they are at it. (But everyone knows that unicorns poop rainbows!)
• Me. I cannot half ass anything for the life of me. I am an all or nothing kind of gal. Either I do it and I do it right, or I just do not do it at all. I wish that I could just stop caring and outsource everything, but I cannot. Have I mentioned that I have a full time job during the day as well?!

That's enough venting out of me for now. Sorry guys, I just could not pretend to be happy-go-lucky this morning. Maybe if I get some sleep...

Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum...

...I smell a DIY project brewing.

I just purchased chalkboard contact paper, foam board, and chalk.

Any guesses as to what I'm up to?

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Oregon 2011 - Day 1

When I relocated to the Boston area about 4.5 years ago, I told myself that I would visit home every 6 months. Well, unfortunately, I've been averaging once a year. This year, we didn't think that we would make it to Oregon at all. It didn't make sense for us to fly West in late spring/early summer and then have my friends and family fly East a couple of months later.

Enter fast thinking. We changed things up and decided to visit my family for Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is like Christmas to you guys. Family all around, food up to your eyeballs, and instead of presents, you get lucky red envelopes filled with money. Great idea, I hadn't spent New Years with the fam since I moved here.

Enter slow to book tickets. Jake and some of the guys have started a annual ritual of heading to Florida around February for weekend of golf and bridge. Originally, they had planned to go during Valentine's weekend. But one of the significant others veto'd it. The weekend of Chinese New Year was decided upon and tickets were booked immediately.

So instead, we went two weeks after New Years, just for a couple of days (as opposed to a full week). It was a bittersweet trip. Usually, we run around like chickens with our heads cut off. This time around we just enjoyed what little time we had with family, friends, and each other.

Day 1 - Other than my appointment with the dentist, we had ZERO plans. (Yes, I still see my dentist back home.) We started the day with breakfast at a local chain called Biscuits Cafe. YUM.



Breakfast at Biscuits Cafe.


After breakfast, I visited my dentist while Jake napped in the car. We followed that up with a stop at Jamba Juice. Seriously Boston, get on the Jamba Juice wagon! And without hesitation, shopping at my beloved Nordstrom Rack ensued. There's a Rack here in MA, but it's not the same; the shoe selection just isn't good. I walked away with a beautiful pair of Tory Burch pumps at 50% off. We also made a pit stop at Tiffany & Co. to look for my wedding band.

For dinner, I really wanted to show Jake, McMenamin's Kennedy School. McMenamin's is a local brewpub chain that I HAVE to eat each time I'm home. The Kennedy School is an old school that they took over. Some of the class rooms are individual bars. There's a full service family restaurant on site and a movie theater.

That water fountain is just too cute!

Stay tuned for Day 2.

(All photos were taken by me.)