Hey, that's me!

It's a weird thing browsing the internet and stumbling across one of your own images, but not on a site you put it on. Tonight while browsing my normal house inspiration images I came across an image on Google images that I recognized quite well, my bed!

The website "The Stir" posted back in November 2010 (whoa!) "5 Unconventional Headboards Anyone Can Make" and #5 on the list was mine! Our DIY corrugated metal headboard we made back in March 2010 inspired by the one I saw on Kara Paslay Designs. Cool! Unfortunately the photo used was prior to our night stand lamp update, but regardless, it's pretty cool being featured, even if you don't know about it until 2 years later.. :)

To see a full DIY of how we made it, go here.

I won a contest!

Do you ever see an online giveaway and think -no one EVER wins those. Yes, I think the same thing. 'Enter this giveaway for your chance to win an iPad..' ya right! Well.. I did enter one, and I won! Really!! and I'm pretty sure the first thing I did says was "OMG no one ever wins these!" Guess I can't say that anymore.

Our entire flooring in our house (minus the bathroom) is Shaw Flooring. They always have great sales, coupons, & giveaways so I signed up to "like" them on facebook. One day last fall I saw a contest they were doing for a before and after gallery and thought sure, why not, I'll enter our house. I might be a little biased, but I think our flooring looks pretty darn good & a HUGE improvement from our little 900 sq ft house having 4 different flooring's when we bought it!

I went to the Shaw website, logged in, uploaded my before and after photos, and completely forgot about the contest.

Months went by, and in April I received an email "Congratulations Abby, you were chosen as the quarterly contest winner!" huh? is this spam? - I opened the email. It looked real, and I did enter a Shaw Flooring sweepstakes.. OMG I won an iPad! :) I had to print off a 4 page legal form, sign and get it notarized, basically saying that the photos I uploaded were in fact mine, that I was a US resident, and 18 or older. I mailed back the forms and within a week I had a brand new iPad show up in the mail. So awesome!! I seriously can't believe that I got an iPad, for free.

Thank you Shaw Flooring & HGTV, I loved you both already, but now I love you even more!

feature + giveaway!

I've partnered with the fabulous Heather over at Glitter & Gloss to host a giveaway from the company I work for, MonogramWedding.com. The giveaway is for 50 free waterproof labels! The labels are great for wine, beer, or water bottles, jars,.. or anything else you can think of to label!

Hurry over to Glitter & Gloss to enter!

Make sure to also check out Heather's store, she has cute arm candy & party supplies!

Also check out the blog I do for MonogramWedding! Good luck in the giveaway!!

backyard makeover - DIY crushed rock patio

So I'm a little behind on blogging about our backyard makeover that we completed in June - but better late than never!

We have a pretty awesome sized backyard. It was a blank slate of dead grass and an old funky shaped patio since we moved in. We still have the dead grass and funky patio, but we spruced it up a bit! We bought 7 yards of crushed rock, industrial weed block {from a yard sale for $2!!} and bribed my mom to come help, and got to work! Thanks Mom!

My mom hauling wheel barrow after wheel barrow load of rock to the backyard!

laying a whole-lotta weed block!

We found out about crushed rock from our neighbors who laid a crushed rock path to their backyard. We loved how it compacted down and the fact that you don't need a border like you do with other rock patios. This stuff compacts down and creates a hard surface and is a great alternative to laying stone or concrete, and way affordable!

All of the river rock and slate we were lucky enough to have already!

After 2 days of hard work, we now have an awesome backyard!!! I took these photos right after we finished in June, which happened to be a rainy day - go figure.

We built our fire pit off of ideas from Pinterest. We already had the fire bowl so we only had to buy stones. Here is a DIY from Lowes {here}

We hung patio lights {leftover from our wedding} across the full length of our backyard, it's magical at night!

I also updated our patio pillows and chair cushions. I few years back I had bought some super cheap chair cushions from IKEA, and by super cheap, I mean like $0.29! per pillow! They were sun faded, dirty, and the tufting had come out. I had leftover fabric {a target outdoor table cloth} from last year's patio pillow makeover so I covered them and added new tufting!

pretty cute!

I love our backyard! It's so nice having some nice landscaping and useable patio space! To see what our yard looked like last year, go {here}