fantastic

So I've been doing just a little decorating for the first time in my married life (not counting holiday decorating).  And I thought I would share.

I saved all my birthday money for the 4th of July weekend when I had no commitments or plans and the stores all had sales.

First off, I finally put a few nails in the wall and hung some pictures.  This picture below is definitely not my wall.  So please don't think I'm that cool, you will only be very disappointed.  This picture was my inspiration for my main wall in my living room.

Now, we might have a fairly large wall, but I felt it wasn't large enough to hold quite so many frames and photos.  (and my wallet wasn't fat enough to purchase quite so many frames and photos)

INSPIRATION:

RESULT: 

I should really have adjusted the lighting so it didn't look quite so dismal.  Or maybe I should have left out my inspiration photo so you wouldn't have something so pretty to compare it to.  Oh well, I am happy with it!

And I've really really really wanted pretty plants around.  But our townhome is really the worst place to grow anything indoors.  Our windows only face east and north, so we only have morning sun which is a bummer for alot of plants.  And then there are the plants that don't need quite so much sun but there is a vent above every single window that immediately dries out and kills our little plants.  So I changed my thought path when I saw this photo.

INSPIRATION: 

This was a plant for sale on etsy.  I have a window on the top of my door so I didn't really want anything in the way of that.  However, this phot still inspired me in 2 ways.  1) I bet a potted plant outside would work!  and 2) maybe faux flowers aren't so horrible?

RESULTS: 

So I went to the greenhouse and bought 3 different plants all for 50% off (it was amazing).  Then I put them all in one mega pot and voila!  The purple ones are kinda taking over, but that's okay cause they are nice and  hang prettily.  There are tiny pink rose-like flowers in the middle if you look closely.

So it's been out there for nearly a month and doing quite swimmingly if I do say so myself!

Now for the fake flowers.  First off, you may have seen this arrangement in one of my photos above.

This resulted from purchasing a vase online and not taking the measurements to heart.  It arrived much larger than I had anticipated.  I don't really have a good place to store something so large, and returning it is more hassle than I care to do, so I decided to head on over to Michael's with my gift card (thank you Vanessa for that Christmas present!) and I bought 4 different types of faux plants, stuck them all in the vase hoping they looked decent together, and plopped that sucker in front of the fireplace.  (The flower is wooden, which I thought was pretty super).

And then I bought some for my table.  I was inspired by some faux peonies from Pottery Barn, but they were sold out, so Michael's was calling my name.  I bought several cheapos, two pricier ones and some leafy things to kind of hug everything together nicely.

And the finished result:

So, I'm still not entirely sold on the faux flowers.  Maybe I will experiment with them a little more, but they'll do for now at least.  I love that I finally have some photos up on the wall, and I love love love that I have a real live plant that is staying alive!