THE BLOG

Are You Ready For Some Football?

By on January 29, 2014 in DIY, Fall Projects, Football, Parties, Tablescapes

Superbowl Sunday is almost here, and well, since the Patriots aren’t playing this year I’ve made other plans.  Who am I kidding, I’m not a football fan at all.   I AM, however, a fan of decorating!  When my husband told me he was hosting the football draft party for his buddies I decided I needed to spruce the place up.  Now, I didn’t go crazy psycho pinterest and start making all football shaped food, I did the smart thing and ordered from Redbones.

I did, however, make the silverware pretty!  

I also made some simple centerpieces for the picnic tables.  A football banner…yes please! And don’t forget the drink table.  Granted, most of the guys were drinking the coolers full of beer, but how refreshing is a bottle of Coke served in a vintage ice chest on a hot summah day?

This next tip will send you running to Amazon to make your own Turf Tablecloth!

What better way to cover your table for the big game?  Best of all, you can fold it up and use it again and again.  (ps:  Am I the only one who thinks about the Brady Bunch any time I see artificial grass?)

Big shout out to my design assistant Andrew, who added his helmet collection to the tablescape.   He’s my kid for sure!

Now I know that all of these details were completely lost on the guys.  If nothing else, adding just a little bit of football ribbon will turn me into a fake football fan any day!  Cauz when I hear the words Brady and Football together, I really think of THIS!

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Getting Cozy

By on January 22, 2014 in Bedroom, DIY, Fabric

Not only am I back to blogging regularly, the new year has also brought with it a chance for me to finally get back to designing my own home.  Ya know, the cobbler with no shoes?  I have lots of unfinished projects that I will be working on completing this year…and here’s the first one!  Do you remember the facebook post last spring where I was polling you about which fabric I should use to recover this chair?

Well, I decided to go in a whole different direction with the space.  Don’t worry I still used the amazing rug I won from Rue La La, but I thought it worked so much better in the MK Coastal office.  Buh bye orange and blue!  In the meantime, I added blue grass cloth to the walls and a walnut hardwood floor.  I knew I wanted to add glamor and femininity to the space, but still wasn’t sure about the color scheme.  That is until I saw THIS rug!

It was love at first sight!  And just like that I had my color scheme.  Oh, and then Pantone went and announced the 2014 Color Of the Year: Radiant Orchard.  NAILED IT!   Anyhoo…back to the chair.  Now I was fully planning on spending boat loads of money to make this chair amazing.  It was only $50 second hand, so I felt like it made sense to spend extra on fabulous fabric to reupholster the cushions.   That was, until I found these at Home Goods!

It doesn’t get much more glamours and feminine than that!  I had originally purchased a few of these to put together on the floor by the bed, but decided to try them on the chair instead.

Don’t you just want to crawl in there with a good book?  (My six year old is a huge fan of that)

I only needed 3 of these and for $16.99 I recovered my chair for just over $50.  All in, this chair cost me a little over $100 and I love how it feels in the space!  Gotta run…I have a book to finish reading.

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Back In The Saddle Again

By on January 15, 2014 in Bedroom, DIY

Now that MK Coastal is up and running, I am dipping my toes back into the design world.  As the mom of two boys, I’m so excited about this particular project…a super funky tween room!  As an avid “pinner” my 10 year old client fell in love with this room from the Simply Lovely blog.

 Although she would have been happy recreating this room piece by piece, I helped her understand how we can be inspired by this design but will work together to make it her own.  We started with Benjamin Moore Surf Blue 2056-30.  Such a bright and bold color…we LOVE it!

Then we started shopping, and our local Home Goods had some amazing finds!

Since wallpaper wan’t in the budget, we brought in this stencil with gold metallic paint.  My client and her family spend lots of time at the beach, so this nautical stencil with an anchor and dolphins was the perfect choice.  I am dying over the gold and teal combo!

Here’s the BEFORE…

I can’t wait to show you pictures of the AFTER!

 

 

 

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One Last Holiday Treasure

By on January 7, 2014 in DIY, Holiday, Uncategorized

For as long as I’ve had kids, I have been saving the photo cards that we receive every holiday season.  Yup, just the photo cards.  So if you are thoughtful enough to send out traditional cards…THANKS, but they are recycled (unless it’s super cute and can be used to make a gift tag, but clearly that’s another blog post for another day).  I’ve been holding onto these cards every year while I try to figure out what to do with them all, but alas the box just kept getting bigger.  Truth be told, by this time of year I’m usually just so sick of all the decorations that have turned into clutter that I am happy to shove them into said box.  But last year I didn’t shove them, last year, I created a photo book with these supplies.

Yup, all I used was a book ring, hole punch, gift tag, and some ribbon!  I brought last years out this year and so many friends & family members picked it up and flipped through it, they loved the simple idea.  Blog guilt kicks in “You shoulda posted about this last year”  So, here we are…my Annual Holiday Card Book!

Of course my kids are featured on the front page!  It’s so simple really, just a hole punched in the top left corner of the cards & put them on the ring, then I used silver stickers to add the year onto the gift tag and finished it with a pretty bow.I did put a little bit of tape to secure the clasp, cauz I’m crazy like that, but once you slide the ribbon over it, you can’t see it at all. It’s such a simple little keepsake for your family to treasure year after year!  Now I just need to go back to do 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011…wanna help?

 

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Holiday Home Tour 2013- Family Room

By on December 11, 2013 in Antique, Christmas Tree, DIY, Holiday

Did you get a sneak peek at my Holiday Home Tour last week?  Well here is a close up of a few vignettes in my favorite room this year, our family room!I found the PERFECT  tree skirt on etsy several years ago (PSA: The shop is gone now…sorry!  Shop small people and keep these super talented mommies MK Coastal in business)  Green polka dot painted on fringed burlap?!?  Yes, please!  We don’t always have a tree in this room, so I was super happy to finally be able to use it after looking at in our bin of decorations for over 3 years (and even happier that I bought it when I saw it the first time).

I fell in love with these owls while shopping at West Elm this fall.  I was planning on heading back to pick up a few for my tree ($6 adds up) but I found these for $2 at our local Kmart, so I could buy loads more than I had planned.  Of course, I had my six year old with me and he convinced me that we also needed to buy the parrot, because really…what’s a Christmas tree without a parrot?  (FULL DISCOLSURE – Our local Kmart in Acton, MA is GROSS!  Ya hear that Kmart corporate? G.R.O.S.S.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard other local mom’s talk about boycotting that place…but sometimes you have to run in there when you are going to a birthday party at the bowling alley across the street.  So, yeah, I bought some decorations there this year…cauz they were cute fuzzy owls (and a parrot) but man do we need to do something about that dump.  I’m officially putting TARGET vibes out into the blogosphere…but I digress.  Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post).

So, we had such an abundance of hydrangeas in our yard again this year that I couldn’t throw them away.  I decided to incorporate them into our holiday decor, not only on our tree but in this centerpiece as well!

I love my Ikea candlesticks so much I literally use them in different ways every season!  If you go, pick up a set for yourself (and one for me too) for $14.99, I promise you won’t regret it.  Oh,  and while you there, pick me up a box of candles too…I’m almost out.

Speaking of candles, do you love the gold candelabra I found at Home Goods a few weeks ago?

I walked by it a few days before and had major buyers remorse, so I was ecstatic when was back and realized it hadn’t sold yet.  The “meant to be mine” candelabra.  And you might have seen that fox on my instagram post a few weeks ago after said West Elm shopping trip.  Clearly I bring my boys shopping with me often, because I couldn’t say no to their rendition of “What Does a Fox Say” as they begged me for it at the check out counter.  I think he looks kind of cute in his new home…and, for the record, he says nothing.

On the other side of the table is an etched mercury glass vase (it’s green inside…can you see it?  I love it so much!) with magnolia leaves and decorative branches to tie in the magnolia theme on the mantle.  I also framed what is the BEST CHRISTMAS CARD EVA from my bff Kelly, who is also, quite possibly, the most thoughtful and creative person I know.  Can you see her in the corner running the NYC marathon last year?  Hands down, best card eva…and I think the mexican guy would totally agree!

Another little space I love is on the corner of the media cabinet.  I picked up the big fuzzy owl at Home Goods when shopping for Halloween decor…see the inspiration for the theme?  I also fell hard for the color of the lemon cypress in the mercury glass vase from Pottery Barn.

One last little vintage Christmas decoration is from my mom’s ceramics class circa 1985!  I love this even more today than I did back in 5th grade when all I wanted to do was go WITH my mom to ceramics class at night (not that she was a looking for a girls night out away for her 4 kids or anything).  I hope you have decorations with lots of meaning and memories adorning your homes.  If not, start making those memories now, and maybe your kids will want to decorate with your vintage decor someday too. Happy Holidays!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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