Wedding Shower!

We all know I'm not the timeliest blogger. I'll accept that blame (ahem, Scott). Let's just say this recap from a certain trip was worth the wait.

My brother Scott and his fiance Amy are closing in on their wedding. Seriously, the wedding is in May and they've been engaged for over a year. It's almost here! Recently Joe joined Scott and some buddies for the bachelor party in Florida. Notice how there was no blog post about that trip... This time it was the ladies turn. I headed north to Rhode Island for the wedding shower. My mom was already there, ready and waiting. It was a bit overwhelming how many people I met, but at the same time it was fun to meet so many people that knew Amy at different stages of life. Oh and a good excuse to buy a new shirt. Yeah!

Not only did I get to see my mom, Scott was in town too. Although we had a great time, we were still missing a few important people. I know Joe and dad were at home thinking about us. I'm bummed we didn't include Amy in one of these pictures. I actually felt really bad going back through the pictures I had on my phone, Amy was hardly in any of them! How rude of me not to include the bride!

Here is an unofficial bridesmaid shot. Let's see if I can remember everyone... here is Lauren, Jen, Kari, Amy, Emily, Sara, Nicole and Lauren. How did I do?? ??? The lighting was hard in the restaurant, but you can see the decor in here was so cool. I wish I would have taken a picture of the chandeliers. It was a perfect spot for a wedding shower.

Once again, the bridesmaids. I swear we didn't setup a phone tree and make sure everyone wore blue/green to the shower. It just happened like that! Pretty cool I must say. Once again, bad lighting!

Since I didn't have many good pictures (meaning, not many with Amy), I stole some from her Facebook page. I knew she wouldn't mind! Scott showed up with flowers for the moms and Amy. This was the one and only time mom needed a tissue. I'd say she did pretty good!

The lovely bride with her maid and matron of honor. Remember this crew from our trip to NYC when Amy said Yes to the Dress??? I still have that episode on my DVR. Did any of you happen to catch it? I had my 5 seconds of fame!!!

I just had to include this picture. These lovely ladies are Amy and Emily's grandmas. I sat with them for the meal and let me say they're a funny bunch and very sharp!

After the shower we headed to dinner. I swear this trip was only good company and lots of food. But I'm not complaining! We ate at an amazing Italian place. You know what that means... huge portions of pasta. I was just bummed I wasn't able to take home my leftovers.

After dinner Amy's parents (Joe and Linda) took us to a spot with a great view of the city skyline. I have to add that Joe and Linda were great this whole trip. They wouldn't let us rent a car, instead they drove us around and were great hosts. Thank you both! Anyways, back to the picture... this is such a great view of downtown Providence. Thanks to the hills around Brown University that give you this view.

Here again is the city at night. To the right is the capital building. Our hotel was right next to it. Seriously... right next to it. More on that later.

You thought the day was over? Think again! My mom and I stopped at the hotel bar for one last drink. After all the festivities I had to say thank you to her and what better way than to buy her a glass of wine.

The next day we made our way to Newport where the wedding will take place. Scott and Amy had their tasting for the wedding meal. It was really nice to see the hotel where the wedding will take place. I'm getting so excited! It was also a great opportunity for me to experience and see Newport. Emily and I bummed around town, got lunch, bought my dad a t-shirt. You know, the usual touristy stuff.

Later that night it was finally time to head home. It was such a fun (and quick) trip. If you know me well, you know I was able to kick back and take a snoozer on the plane. I can sleep anywhere!

But before I fell asleep I enjoyed this sunset. B-e-a-utiful!

Oh, one more thing... remember the hotel I mentioned earlier? We stayed at the Providence Renaissance hotel. When we were checking in the front desk agent told us a little bit about the history and it was pretty spectacular! It was originally built as a Masonic Temple. Because of the stock market crash, construction was stopped in 1929. The building sat vacant for about 80 years before a company stepped in to transform it into a hote and the Renaissance opened in 2004. It was neat because they kept the outside structure that was already there and brought in a lot of Masonic symbols throughout the hotel.

Here is our room. The Renaissance brand is very boutique like, I love it!

Oh and the Front Desk Agent also showed us pictures of what the building looked like while it was abandoned. There was graffiti everywhere, it looked way run down. In our bathroom was a framed picture of some of the graffiti. I must admit graffiti artists have talent... although a crime to paint or tag on buildings like this, talent!

Ah yes, remember how I said our hotel was right next to the state capital building? Well this is what I meant. This picture was taken outside our hotel window. What a great sight! Beautiful building and beautiful view.

And for fun, here is the view at night. The building had green lights up top for St. Patrick's Day.

Ok, one more picture then I'll stop. Here is another view out our window just showing the columns on the old building. My mom and I loved the detail like this throughout the hotel. We picked a good one to say in!!!

So, was the wait worth it???

Photo Friday #41

It might not look like it, but this is a picture of nachos. I ordered them for lunch at a restaurant thinking it would be more of a snack and not a full meal, mainly because I wasn't terribly hungry. This, however is what I got. The chips are smothered in cheese, salsa and sour cream with some chicken in between. I forgot to ask for no sour cream so I had already scooped it off the top. All I can say is I barely made a dent in this...

Maple's Master Facelift

Let me just start out by saying we were very lucky when moving into our house. Of course, I mean for many reasons, but for the sake of this post, I'm talking paint colors. The previous owners had pretty good taste which meant not a lot of work for us. The paint throughout the house was livable and nothing we felt needed changing right away (with the exception of the red walls in the bonus room, but we took care of that pretty quickly with a little black and gold.) With that said, we still wanted to make this house our home so it was time to give the upstairs a bit of a facelift.

This is what our master bed room looked like before we moved in... a nice green color. You can see it works well with their bedding and the painting, but it just wasn't my style.

We settled on a nice blue/gray color we were both excited about. It is Autumn Fog by Valspar, love it! Joe started with the ceiling while I was at work. You can see he's the roller... I'm the trimmer so that wasn't done until the next day. And please notice how our trey (is that how you spell it??) ceiling makes for more angles, hence more trimming.

Bright and early Saturday morning we got to work. Seeing the color on the wall for the first time, we loved it. Which is good because at that point we had to keep going! Oh and don't worry, we took off the face plate around the light switches before painting around them.

Here are some after pictures to help you see the room. I love how the color shows up differently depending upon the light. We have 3 good sixed windows in our bedroom so we love to open the shades and let as much light in as possible.

And this picture shows the color nicely. I really like the blue/gray against the white trim. Oh and the lamps we spray painted the oil rubbed bronze work so well too.

We got (a little too) ambitious and decided to tackle not only the bedroom, but also the bathroom and closet. Here you can see the closet was pretty beat up. Holes were filled in, but not painted over. We don't know how some of the marks and scuff got there, but we said good-bye to them.

Step one was to move all the clothes from the closet. They ended up in the spare bathroom...

...and all three of the spare bedrooms. Good thing we have lots of extra closet space!

The closet didn't get the blue/gray color, but even with a fresh coat of white paint it made a huge difference! The small area got so much brighter.

And just for fun here are some shots once we got some clothes moved in.

And because I have to brag about my painting skills, I have to show the small areas we had to get creative on. Can you see the small areas between the door frames? Victory for Sara.

As for future projects or updates needed in Maple's Master? Here's the list I have in mind:

• New curtains in bedroom (something white with a pattern maybe in navy blue?)
• New curtains for bathroom (something simple, maybe sheer white curtains, they're just for looks, the window has blinds.)
• New lamp shades (they need to be white to match the rest of the room. Maybe we can add a nice navy border too? Pinterest can help me with ideas here!)
• New duvet cover for bed (sticking with the blue and white color scheme. I want to add more shades of blue also.)
• I would love to add a bench at the end of our bed. I should start watching Craig's List for something like this.

Mason Jar Soap Pump

With Joe away for the weekend I had a little to-do list of my own. Don't get me wrong, my weekend wasn't all work and chores. I had plenty of time to watch a movie, take a nap, you know, the things we all look forward to when having some days home while still getting lots of items checked off my list.

This particular project has been on my to-do list for a while. The idea came from Pinterest (of course!) I pinned websites like this one and this one to help inspire me. It's basically a way to make your dish soap (or any type of soap) look pretty while sitting on the counter. I especially liked this project because I'm the type of person who likes to keep the soap on the counter next to the sink instead of getting it from under the sink each time I use it.

First you need am empty soap jar. Like here below. This is one reason why the project has been on my to-do list for so long... I needed to empty a soap container! Once the soap was all gone I washed the pump really well with hot water. The rest of the container? It went into the recycling bin.

Next you drill a hole through the lid of a mason jar. I didn't get any good pictures of this, but you can see below is my mason jar with the plastic bag over it and the hole I drilled on top. Seriously, I was home alone and figured this out. If I can manage this with a power drill, anyone can.

Then you simply spray paint. I used a simple oil rubbed bronze paint like we used on our door knobs around the house. Once again, the plastic bag is over the jar to protect it from the paint. It actually made it very simple to protect and then throw the bag away. It was pretty chilly outside when I did this over the weekend, but it was also sunny so this paint dried in no time. Once the paint dries pour the soap into the mason jar and super glue the pump on top. I didn't use much glue. I'm not even sure it's necessary, but hopefully that will help it hold a bit better.

And Voila! Ain't she pretty? Ok I confuse, the colors don't mix well, but I love the hue of the pink soap. Maybe next time I'll use a clear pump (I know I have some in the house, just waiting for the soap to be gone!) I might even start saving those pumps for future projects.

Another shot of the soap sitting next to the sink. This project is so simple, seriously everyone should give it a try. It sure beats the bottle of dish soap with the big Great Value sticker on it sitting on the counter. Yes, this soap is the Wal-Mart brand and I like it's pomegranate or something like that. I loved it before and now I love it even more!

Photo Friday #40

Did you know that last Friday was National Margarita Day? We took full advantage of that silly holiday and enjoyed margaritas. Best case scenario we would have enjoyed them at a Mexican restaurant with a fancy glass and salt on the rim. Worst case, we pulled out a slushy package from the freezer and enjoyed them at home. Truly, this wasn't the worst case scenario because we were still enjoying margaritas! Anyways, enjoy one this weekend if you missed out last week!

PS - I got these small glasses at Ikea and I love them!