Sponsor Love: Sherwin Williams

Sherwin Williams sponsored my recent painting projects, but gave me the freedom to say whatever I want about their products.

OK, so I'm relatively new to this whole blogging thing.  I stay busy with projects, write about them fairly frequently, and get enough traffic to make it worth my while (not financially, but in a someone-actually-reads-this kind of way).  But the sponsor thing is a little new, so bear with me!

Hands down, my favorite product of the past year is Sherwin Williams Emerald paint.  I first used it in our living room.  In the past I had heard about these alleged no-VOC paints, and I had heard about alleged one-coat only, self-priming paints, but I didn't believe them.  In my experience, any painting project takes multiple days, 3-5 coats, and is a complete pain.

But I tried something new.  I listened to the Sherwin Williams guy give his speech on what all the different paints did, and why they're worth spending more.  For once, I took the advice, and got the fancy paint.

I painted the entire living room in 5 hours, including moving the furniture.  It was unreal - only one coat of paint!  It wasn't smelly!  It wasn't drippy!  And so far, it wears beautifully.

Painting the Living Room

Following the living room project, I spent the next month talking about this paint to anyone I know who's ever painted a room.  Only then did it occur to me to contact the company to tell them how I feel and how I'd love to talk about them to my readers, too.  Turns out, they were just as excited about me as I was about them, and they sponsored the paint for my next painting project!

Painting the Kitchen

As of this post, we have Sherwin Williams Emerald paint in our living room, kitchen, foyer, and half-bath, on both the walls and the trim.  

half-bath

Just like the first time I used it, it's still only been requiring one coat of paint (seriously!  It's self-priming), it's not smelly, and it's holding up great, even when I scrub tomato splatters off it.

foyer

The one-coat thing blew me away, and it's great that it's pretty, but for me the really important thing has been no-VOC aspect.  I'm LEED certified, meaning that once upon a time I studied for and passed an exam on green building theory.

It grossed me out to learn that stuff in our homes offgasses chemicals not just for the first few weeks or months, but for years.  Cabinetry, flooring, paint, furniture, even caulking, keeps on offgassing long after that "new car smell" (i.e. carcinogens) is no longer noticeable.  I don't know about you, but I don't like the idea my loved ones breathing in chemicals all the time.  Given the chance, I choose low-VOC or no-VOC.

Sherwin Williams also has this cool Color Visualizer app on their site that lets you try out colors in your space.  It's really easy, you just upload a photo, select the area to "paint", and change out the colors!  I discovered really quickly how awful my kitchen would look in red, yellow, or purple.  I had my color ideas narrowed quite a bit before I ever set foot in the store.

Trying out blue paint in Sherwin Williams Color Visualizer

Also, whenever I go to their stores, I receive excellent customer service.  There are multiple employees there at all times, ready and willing to help you find the best product for your project.  The prices are fair, especially if you're armed with a coupon off their website.  They also email coupons frequently, so sign up for their newsletter!

Obviously, I'm a big fan.  Next time you're paint shopping, stop in a give Sherwin Williams a try.  

Happy projects!

Valentine's Fantasy

A blog I follow challenged readers to create a fantasy with their dreamboat guy saying dreamboat words.  Here were the directions:

Let’s be honest. Your husband/boyfriend/significant other’s greatest Valentines day wish is to have the ryan gosling hey-girl treatment done to one of his photos. I don’t care what he says. It’s what he’s always dreamed of.

No matter how adamantly he denies it.

That’s why next Thursday, February 7, I’ll be hosting a “Hey Girl” link party right here. Here’s how it’ll work. You find your sultriest photos of your man and hey-girl-ify him. You can use something he’s actually said in real life, or just something you dream of hearing him say someday.


And so on that note, here's the love of my life, my husband :)

I wish!!!

Wedding Wednesday: Coastal Cool Centerpieces

I really wanted to avoid creating oodles of unnecessary trash with our wedding.  I was also trying to keep costs under control.  So while I love beautiful floral centerpieces, they get tossed within a week of the wedding and they aren't cheap!

I went back and forth with lots of ideas, but when I saw these large white lanterns at Ikea, I was sold!  They were a bargain at $14 each, could be reused or sold after the wedding, and would complement our venue nicely.  Because the venue was on a waterway with a lighthouse out front, the nautical look of lanterns was perfect!

Ikea only had 13 available before they quit carrying them.  I was planning on 20 tables, so Plan B!  I found smaller white lanterns online that had similar cutouts, so I got those for the smaller tables.

After our wedding, our friends used the lanterns as centerpieces for their beach wedding.  I used them again around the house at Christmas, and hope to put a few on our deck once it warms up again.

I had nightmares before the wedding that my dress would somehow catch on fire (maybe after melting my dress fabric scraps to make the ring pillow?).  Between that and my theme of reusability, I went with flameless, battery-operated candles to go inside the lanterns.  Those babies can be pricey!!!  A recently-married friend graciously gave me the ones from her wedding, and I got the rest for $3 each at Christmas Tree Shops (thanks Sarah!).  Now they're all over our house, providing a soft (and safe!) glow.

I added a chrome coral to hold the table "numbers".  I talked about the DIY for those last year.  After the wedding, I sold them on Etsy for a profit.  The table names were streets in Charleston.

To give the wedding a sort of beachy vibe, I completed the look with sprinkling of chromed seashells.  My Aunt Cathy collected them from the beach on Grand Isle Louisiana where she lives, and spray painted them chrome for me (thanks Aunt Cathy!!!).  I have big plans to use them in our house eventually.

For about $20, I got cost-concious, reusable/resellable centerpieces.  I love how they turned out, and I'm super happy that everything is getting used again!

I think they looked really nice altogether, and pulled off the casual, coastal vibe we were aiming for.

Kitchen Update: Paint

I feel like we're finally making good progress getting our house to be more "us".  The main floor of our house, where the kitchen, dining room, and living room are, has been getting lots of love lately.  We love the results so much that we've been hosting much more than we used to.  I think now that it feels like our house, we're more comfortable inviting friends and family over.

When we moved in, we had a perfectly nice, though very Tuscan, kitchen!

The floors, appliances, cabinets, and counters were all in great shape, so it seemed silly and wasteful to replace them, even if they aren't exactly what we would choose if we were starting from scratch.  We decided to keep those big-ticket items, and work with and around them to achieve a more contemporary-looking kitchen.

The drapes came down the day we closed on the house.  I guess we're just not foofy-drapes kind of people.  I'm sure whoever bought them at Goodwill will give them the loving home they deserve.

Next up, the wallpaper.  Very high-quality, but very Tuscan.  And it kind of reminded me of camouflage.  It wasn't right for us, so it had to go.  Those same loving friends who ripped the wallpaper out of the foyer and half-bath did our kitchen, too!  Thank you Aliya and Eric!!!

And just like in those other rooms, a veritable mountain of glue was lurking behind the paper.  We scrubbed and scraped until our fingers were raw, and finally got that mess off.  Ugh, if I didn't detest wallpaper before, I sure do now!!!

Anyways.

Things were definitely looking up post-wallpaper!

We discovered that for the blinds to operate in the windows, the previous owners had removed the top piece of molding from the windows.  Without those foofy curtains, it was really obvious and pretty hideous. 

We hired a guy to replace the moldings - the news ones are thicker, with squared edges and a sill, and they look fabulous!

The walls got a good dose of sanding, putty, sanding, putty, sanding, more sanding, and finally some primer and paint!  Here's where things start looking better rather than worse!

We really hemmed and hawed over paint colors.  We wanted to subdue the orangeyness of the cabinets while keeping things light and bright, but not too bright.  I used Sherwin Williams color visualizer to go through a number of shades, but I still couldn't choose.  Eventually we just got about 1000 paint chips, pinned them up, and slowly took down any that weren't working.

Grey has been super popular lately, and it actually looked pretty good in the kitchen.  The granite has large blobs of silver in it, so we chose a color that coordinates with the granite.

I painted the walls with Sherwin Williams' Emerald brand paint, in March Wind.  I know I always say it, but I still believe it: I love Emerald Paint!!!  It covers like nothing else, is VOC-free, and is just plain fabulous.  I really can't impress upon you how important decent paint can be!  Now that I know quality paint, I'm never going back.

We're finding that since we don't have a tiled backsplash, stuff gets on the painted walls now and again.  Not a problem, I just wipe it off!  Love that paint!

So here we are, time for the reveal!

They grey turned out so great!  It's made the space feel much more clean and contemporary.

OK, one more before and after, just for fun.

Along the way, we removed the orangey wood blinds (and are hoping a neighbor with the same windows wants them).  We're kind of showing the kitchen to the world right now, so I've been busy putting together new window coverings!  Stay tuned :)

Mardi Gras King Cake

It's Mardi Gras season again!  We don't get the parades and parties here in DC, but I can bring Mardi Gras to my own house by making my annual King Cake.

This year's cake turned out the best of any I've made, and I'm grateful to have shared it with family and friends at a crock-pot-challenge party last night (my mother-in-law let me off the hook of making a crock pot dish, if and only if I made a King Cake).

Without further ado, here's the cake!

And here's the recipe!

Next year I plan to take orders for cakes, so if you're local feel free to place an order :)

Elegant White and Green Wedding Bouquets and Boutonnieres

The weekend after Christmas, I had my fifth stint as a florist!  I made the bouquets and boutonnieres for my sister-in-law's wedding.  This was also the first time I was a bridesmaid!

She had a classic and elegant winter wedding at her grandparent's country club.  She didn't want it to feel Christmasy, but also didn't want to lose sight of the fact that it's winter.  There was lots of lace and candlelight, with a good mix of drinking and dancing, and had fun touches like Christmas ornaments for favors and even a hot chocolate bar!

To avoid clashing with the church decor, and to keep things elegant and classic, she chose white and green bouquets made from tibet roses, freesia, and greenery.  Here are the inspiration photos I was working from.

What do tibet roses, freesia, hypericum, and ruscus look like?  See below.

I prepped the flowers on the Thursday before the wedding.  Friday I made the bouquets, and Saturday morning I made the boutonnieres.

Using the inspiration photos, I estimated how many of each flower should be the in bouquets.  This way, you can make sure you have enough of everything.  Looking back, we could have had 10% fewer roses and freesia, and about 50% less greenery.  Live and learn.

I portioned out the flowers into individual vases so all bridesmaids would have equal amounts, and of course the bride gets lots more!

I like to do a few bridesmaids bouquets to get in the swing of things, then do the bride, and finish with the remainder of the bridesmaids.  To start a bouquet, take 2-4 of the best-looking flowers and arrange them so they look nice.  Wrap them together with floral tape, about halfway down the stem.

Add one or a few more stems, and secure them with more floral tape.  Be sure to mix up the type of flowers, and add greenery now and then.

Keep adding flowers like this until you've used them all up (or you're happy with the size).

I added a few stems of Italian ruscus last to make the white flowers really pop against backgrounds.

Wrap all the stems tightly with more floral tape until you've covered the part of the bouquet where you want the ribbon to go.  I usually wrap about five inches of the stems, from as close to the flowers as possible downwards.

Cut off the long stems, leaving about 1.5" showing below the floral tape.  This is a personal choice, but I like the handles of the bouquets to be on the short side - it make them easier to carry.  You can leave more of the stems showing if you'd like.  If you leave less, you run the risk of the ribbon getting wet when you put the bouquets in water.

Finish the bouquet by wrapping 1" satin ribbon around the handle, covering the floral tape.  I start at the top, wrap to the bottom, then wrap all the way back up.  I secure the top with a corsage pin.  If you don't want it to show, just use a tiny shirt pin to secure the ribbon.  Add as many corsage pins as you like, if you prefer the look of more!

My SIL wanted lace around the bouquets, so after I did the satin ribbon, I added a layer of lace ribbon.  I had just enough, so I only wrapped them from bottom to top.  It came undone on some of the bridesmaids bouquets, so I would highly recommend using pins at the bottom and top if you're only doing one pass of ribbon!

Put about an inch of fresh water in a cylinder vase (I get mine at the dollar store), and add the bouquet.  This keeps them fresh, and keeps the flowers from getting crushed.

For transport, I secure the vases in a large shallow box with newspaper.

The seven bridesmaid bouquets and one bridal bouquet took about four hours to assemble.  I love the way they came out - so similar to the inspiration photos!  The guests loved them, and most importantly, so did the bride.

inspiration

reality
 

I like to do boutonnieres and corsages the morning of the wedding so they're as fresh as possible.  I was so nervous for this wedding (so much different than our wedding where I was completely calm), and couldn't sleep, so I did most them between 4am and 6am (the hubs was sleeping, thus no photos, sorry).

For the boutonnieres, I start with a tightly closed rose.  I pick off any ugly petals.  You can pull off lots of petals before ruining the rose, so don't be scared.

It's tempting to secure all the stems together at once.  Don't.  They get all wonky once you start wrapping the floral tape around them.

I start with the background greenery, in this case, two tips of Italian ruscus.  I put it behind the rose and secure it with floral tape.

Then I add hypericum in front of the rose, about 6 berries in all, and secure that with floral tape.

To finish it off, I wrap about 1.5" of the stems with floral tape, and snip the stems about half an inch below the tape.  I wrap everything in half-inch satin ribbon, starting at the top, going to the bottom, and coming back up.  I secure the ribbon with a small shirt pin, in the back where it won't be seen.  I've tried glue and tying knots, but neither of those turned out well.  I was really happy with the results using tiny pins.

I don't put them in water, just rest them in a large flat box for safekeeping.  I like to identify the prettiest ones as being for the groom and the Dads, since they'll be in so many photos.

I used the same method for the corsages, except I used a more opened rose and added an opened stem of freesia.

I made 28 boutonnieres and corsages, taking about four hours altogether.  They worked really well on men, but many of the women had trouble pinning them to their dresses, and took them off after the ceremony.  If you're DIYing them, these are inexpensive ($2-$3), but if you're buying them at $10-$20 each I would definitely consider whether you really need them for your entire list of honored guests.

Let's see how everything came out!

the beautiful and happy bride and groom!

elegant white bridal bouquet

white rose boutonniere

me and my sister-in-law!

our bouquets (notice how pretty the lace turned out)

The bridal party

me and my hubs, walking down the aisle twice in 2012!

Thanks for letting me share my latest floral design with you!  It was really special to make these for my sister-in-law and my brand new brother-in-law!