Valentine's Day 2014

Yesterday was of course Valentine's Day, and it was a great one! Working all day wasn't that great, but then I came home to Trent cooking in the kitchen and hurrying to get our Valentine's Day dinner ready, and my day was immediately better! 

Every year we have dinner at home, and Trent always cooks. He had cleaned and set the table and had music playing. I brought in the presents I got for him:

Trent opened his presents first. I got him a few little things this year.

One was a set of 4 personalized beer glasses to add to his collection. I thought they would be perfect to drink his home-brewed beer from (which we really need to start making, by the way!). He really liked them I think! I got them from here, at Red Envelope.

I also got him two other things that he had been wanting - the CD and the Blu-Ray of Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds live at Radio City Music Hall. It is an AWESOME CD! We've already listened to it. I really want to watch the live recording together, too.

After he opened his presents, we ate our dinner. Every year Trent cooks something different. Last year he made veggie lasagna. This year he made vegetarian stuffed peppers, and penne with vodka sauce.

The stuffed peppers were actually really good! They were stuffed with rice, cheese, beans, and olives, and topped with marinara and parmesan cheese.

Of course we had to take the annual "Valentine's Day dinner across the table" pics. This year Saleen made an appearance in Trent's picture.

 

Hard to believe that the sun was still kind of out when we started eating our dinner. It's getting darker later now (I can almost smell spring time...kind of.)

Here's the whole meal. Trent is quite the cook! I am lucky!

The Brownie Batter cake from Hy-vee was what made the meal for me. YUM. Ha!

After snapping a couple pics together to remember the night....

We headed up to the cities for a Quad City Mallards hockey game! My dad won tickets, and WE GOT TO GO! Our friends Kayla and Leo joined us. It was really fun. The first time this year that I got to go to a hockey game!

We had a blast and ended up winning. It was even dollar beer night, so...we enjoyed ourselves. :)

The perfect ending to a perfect Valentine's Day! I even woke up today to find this in the kitchen:

Another reason why I love him! Today I've been spending the day at home while Trent's at work. But I'm getting excited for tonight - we're having a special celebration that's kind of a secret. :) More to come!

Be Mine, Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day! Trent surprised me by getting roses delivered to my work yesterday. I think he's a keeper. :)

I'm working again today (but hey, at least it's Friday!), then after work Trent is making me dinner, and we're going to a Mallards hockey game. Dad won tickets at the radio station, so we get to go with another couple. I'm excited - it will be a busy day! Hard to believe we will be celebrating our sixth Valentine's Day together. You can see what we did last year here, and see this post for a little recap of past Valentine's Days and our annual tradition of having a candlelit dinner at home.

Hope everyone has a great day with their sweetie. :)

Currently Obsessed: Katie Daisy

Yesterday I shared a small painting I did with one of my favorite Dave Matthews Band quotes. It is a really simple painting, and not nearly as detailed as those I drew my inspiration from. Those would be the paintings of Katie Daisy, which look more like this:

In short, they're amazing. And I'm currently obsessed with them. I first discovered her paintings on Pinterest, then saw them on Young House Love, and earlier this year, I ended up getting a Katie Daisy calendar for the kitchen, which I love looking at every day.

I love all of the intricate detail she puts into her lettering, and all of the whimsical flowers she adds. She takes simple quotes and turns them into works of art. I love how cheerful and happy they are.

It is no wonder she is only in her twenties and is busy illustrating for magazines, greeting cards, and so many other ventures. She also sells prints on her Etsy shop, The Wheatfield.

Love, Love, Love them all! I found all of these images by searching on Pinterest. You can visit her blog here, or watch a really cool video here about how she finds inspiration. It really makes me want to illustrate more quotes onto canvas!

DMB-Inspired Painting

Hey y'all! I know I've been absent again for a few days...BUT I've been busy painting! Here's the result:

I've been wanting to paint something with this quote for a while now, and have been thinking a lot about how I wanted to lay it out, colors, etc. It's taken from the song "Oh" by Dave Matthews Band. You can listen to it here. I don't know what it is about this song, but it makes me happy every time I hear it. It's my alarm in the morning and my ring tone. I love this lyric from the song - "I love you oh so well, like a kid loves candy and fresh snow." it might be one of my favorite lyrics ever.

As for how I layed out the words and came up with the composition - I was going to start out with some sketches and ideas on paper before I started on the canvas, but I decided just to go in and lay it out on the canvas, outlining it in pencil. I already had an idea in my head of what I wanted to do, so I just went for it. Here's my pencil outline:

I know it looks pretty rough, but this was a pretty quick sketch, and I didn't care if it was perfect, since I would be painting over it. I did erase a little to get some of the angles of the letters how I wanted it, but I freehanded all of the writing - no rulers, didn't look at any specific fonts - it's just my handwriting in a mix of cursive and print. I think it gives it more of a handwritten touch instead of looking like something so perfect it was done on a computer. It is a little square canvas (about 8x8 I think), so I wanted to be careful about how I laid out the words - I tried to center them, yet fill out the whole space.

Once I had the idea down on pencil, I started filling in and tracing my outlines with acrylic and watercolor paints. I used a mix of both, because I wanted to just use the colors I had on hand, and wanted a mix of bright shades and more muted ones. I kind of chose the colors as I went along and ended up with a lot of reds and blues.

I painted more flowers around the sides to fill the space a little more and add some cheeriness. And I ended up painting the edges a bright green color. I drew a lot of inspiration from Katie Daisy's paintings, which I'll share more about on the blog tomorrow. I am seriously loving her illustrations lately!

I really like how this little painting turned out. It's not perfect, but I like how it's kind of cute and charming and bright.

Plus it's sentimental, since it's from one of my current favorite Dave songs! And it's almost Valentine's Day, so it's fitting, too!

**Update: My masterpiece is hung! Click here to see! :)

Linked to: The Pin Junkie, Dream a Little Bigger, Kitchen Table Art, Domestic Superhero, DIY Showoff

This Week: Luke, Olympics, and Painting

Oh my, what a week it's been! I felt so exhausted by this weekend - luckily, I finally got to sleep in and it was fabulous. I worked everyday, including yesterday, and Thursday night Trent and I saw Luke Bryan for the fourth year in a row! I can't believe this was our 4th time seeing him - true fans, right here! This time really was the best yet. I mean, he came out on a truck, surrounded by fire, singing "That's My Kind of Night":

It makes for a really fun concert when you know EVERY single song, and can sing and dance along to all of them! I also LOVED his stage setup this year. We were in the upper bowl, yet had no problem seeing him - the stage was in the center, and there were multiple big screens that were curved so you could see them at any angle.

One day we'd like to be on the floor or get Meet and Greet passes, but it was still a great time.

Yesterday it snowed AGAIN. The roads were not the greatest, but we made it through. I went to work in the morning, then took my car in for an oil change, and then we got groceries and ran some errands in town.

This morning I slept in (yay for sleep!) and watched a little bit of the Olympics on TV. Couples ice dancing, to be exact. It was really cool to watch. Figure skating is one of my favorite winter Olympics events. Below is the Russian couple who danced to Swan Lake. Her dress was gorgeous - supposed to symbolize the Black swan. The dance was beautiful, and they did amazing.



I also really liked the American couple, who got first in the dance competition. But the Russian couple ended up getting the Gold overall. Canada got silver, and USA got bronze.

Trent and I watched Sochi's opening ceremony Friday night, and I actually thought it was really cool. They told the history of Russia through video sequences and dances. I loved the ballet and all of the projections onto the floor. I plan on tuning in every once in a while to watch some of the other events this week.

I also dusted the living room, and spent some time with my current paint by number painting today while Trent was at work.

I'm making progress, but there is still a lot left to do! It's hard to not want it to just be done already! My eyes end up hurting from painting in all of the little sections everywhere. In other news....I really want to start a countdown for the first day of Spring. Who's with me??

Wedding Cakes, Oh My!

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! We'll be watching, though I don't care too much who wins. Only in it for the commercials, really! Anyway though, let's get to what this post is actually about - A few locally made wedding cakes that I thought were pretty awesome. Last weekend, I went with my mom and my sister Haley to the Davenport Jaycees Bridal Expo. Haley is getting married this summer, so we thought we would go and get some more ideas and things planned for the wedding. I recommend going - there were so many different vendors from the area there, and we got to sample so many cakes, cupcakes, and other yummy food! We even booked an awesome trolley for the big day. I know I'm kind of late blogging about it, but I had to share the few photos I snapped of some awesome wedding cakes.

The cakes were probably my favorite part of the expo. I loved seeing all the cakes, and sampling them! Haley is thinking about getting her cake from Old Towne Bakery, a local bake shop whose cake I thought tasted the best out of all the samples we tried!

I just took a couple of photos there. The first two are from the Hy-vee Bakery booth. I thought this cupcake tree was really cute!

And this ombre ruffle cake might have been my favorite. I'm not crazy about the butterflies, but this is one of my favorite styles of cakes. I just love the ruffly ones.

The one other booth I took photos of, I thought was one of the cutest booths there. They're called My Girl's Cake Shop. I had never heard of them before, but seeing their booth definitely made me interested! Look at that cake with the big bow - isn't it adorable?

And I know it's hard to see in the photo below, but I also loved that purple ruffle cake on the end. She had tons of samples, and I tried some of the peanut butter cake, which was really good!

So those are a few of my favorites from the Bridal Expo last weekend. You can see more pretty cakes here on my Pinterest. I love pretty cakes! :)

Snow..Snow..and More Snow!

Does it ever stop snowing around here? My week hasn't been too eventful - We were planning on going to the Cities today - I had an appointment to get my oil changed, but mother nature had different plans! I had to reschedule for next weekend due to the 4+ inches of snow we got overnight. And it's still coming down out there this morning. Really don't feel like driving over 45 minutes in it! 

Here's the road in front of the house - see it anywhere? Yeah, me neither.

I guess it's another snow day for me, staying home, watching movies and painting by numbers.

In other news...it's the first day of February. Who's watching the Superbowl tomorrow? Ok, that was probably a stupid question. Everyone in America I'm sure, haha! Although I kind of just watch it for the commercials. ;)

Anthropologie Faves

Are you as familiar with Anthropologie as I am? If you're like me, you drool at every unique, detailed, well-crafted item in the store. Unfortunately I don't even live near an Anthro store, so I'm forced to shop via the world wide web or visit on special occasions. Some of the decor items are out of my price range, but I assure you that all items are definitely timeless, amazing additions to any home! So many quirky and fun items and accessories - home and jewelry both! I'm hoping to do many more posts like this - featuring my favorite items from some of my favorite home decor shops. So today I'm sharing with you some of my Anthropologie favorites as of late. Go ahead, click on the links and pin/shop your brains out! I love me some Anthro.

left: Gila Euro Sham  |   right: Verdant Canister

left: Effervesce Stemless Wine Glass  |   right: Evening Blossom Knob

left: Hobnail Pitcher  |   right: Dauphine Pendant Lamp

left: Gilded Bunny Print  |   right: Gallus Pitcher

left: Mirrored Vanity Tray  |   right: Painted Amaryllis Measuring Cups

left: Palisade Dinner Plate  |   right: Rhododendron Chandelier

What are your favorites? I think everyone needs something Anthropologie in their home. I know I love my owl knob! On another note, I'm hoping the weather warms up a little soon..and by "warms up" I mean gets above zero degrees! Ha!

My First "Blogiversary"

I know I actually started this blog as we were renovating the living room in 2010 - back then I posted once, and maybe a couple of times 6 months or so later. But January 26th, 2013, exactly a year ago today, is when I started regularly blogging for the first time. So I'm calling this my real Blogiversary! 

I'm happy to report that one year later, although not as frequent as when I first started, I'm still keeping up with this blog and posting the renovations and memories we make in this little house of ours. I've really come to enjoy blogging, especially being able to document everything we're doing with the house, and share all of the projects we take on.

It's already been fun looking back at all of these projects, so I can't wait to do many more and have even more years to look back on! Here are just a few highlights from the 235 posts I've shared in the past year (Click on the links to view each post):

• Our Living Room Renovation
• Our Bedroom Makeover
• Our Kitchen Remodel (Phase 1)
• How We Upped Our Curb Appeal
• Our Stairway Makeover
• Hallway Renovation Progress
• Hanging a Frame Wall
• Backyard Improvements
• DIY Earring Holder
• Making a Fabric Memo Board
• Skeleton Key Art
• Painting Abstract Art
• My Bookcase Makeover
• Repurposing a Cigar Box
• Summer Porch Inspiration
• DIY "Dipped" Votives
• Planting our Vegetable Garden
• Installing the Doggie Gate
• Nail Polish Storage
• Our First Yard Sale
• Wire Plant Stand Makeover
• Painted Wine Bottles and Jars
• Creative Pumpkin Decorating Ideas
• Fallifying the House
• Painted "Welcome" Pumpkin
• Landscaping the Side Yard
• Burlap Frame Mat
• Drilled Pumpkins
• The Aftermath of our Foundation Work
• Sentimental House Art
• DIY Necklace Holder

For more of our renovation projects, my crafty projects or general life happenings, check out the Popular Posts, Archives or Labels sections on my sidebar. Can't wait to see what this year has in store for us!