recent happenings

This blog has been lacking regular updates! The reason is that in 2012 I launched a business, ae creative, focusing on design, events and unique rentals and decor. My time has been focused on managing my business and regular updates on my website, abbyecreative.com and social media facebook.com/aaecreative.

Please check out what I've been up to, and if you are within Oregon and need help with event planning, wedding coordination, paper goods or vintage rentals, please contact me!

please visit my website: abbyecreative.com

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}

File Cabinet Planters

When I first saw a file cabinet planter on Pinterest I knew I had to make one! {or 4...} I love the modern look of square planters, like ones you can find at CB2, so when I saw there was a DIY version, I was all over that! My sister Jesi found my first file cabinet. A 2 drawer dented thing that was sitting on her street for FREE! Score! My 2nd one I found was a 4 drawer cabinet at a garage sale on my street for $3! My 3rd was another 2 drawer cabinet Adam and I found at another garage sale for $0.25!! seriously! My 4th was a small desktop single drawer I found at Goodwill for $3.99 {come on Goodwill, the smallest one I found was the most expensive!}
I LOVE yellow so I decided to go bold, just like the one I saw on Pinterest.

The bottoms of all the cabinets are hollow! The post on Pinterest did not explain this! I wasn't sure what to do with the gaping hole until I saw some extra corrugated metal sheets in our garage that were left over from our headboard project, from 2 years ago! Perfect!! I measured the space, marked the metal with a sharpie, and used tin snips to cut. It was a little bit of a struggle to get the sheet in - but once it was in I immediately loved it! {I think I must like yellow and tin!}

I then filled the cabinet with plastic recyclables I had been saving like yogurt containers, milk jugs, coffee creamer containers, pop bottles... to fill the bottom about 1/3 so I didn't have to use so much dirt to fill it. Once that was done and in place where I wanted it I started filling with dirt. It actually took A LOT!

I planted peas in the back and petunias in front. My hope is the petunias will crawl down the front; hasn't happened yet. But I still love how it looks!

For the small "desktop" file drawer I didn't have to worry about a hollow bottom so I just painted. Watson thought I needed his help.

{before}

{after}

I love how they turned out! & the pop of color!

Confession time: by now you all should know I love spray paint. I use it on everything! When it came time to paint my file cabinets I went to Home Depot for paint. I was thinking I would need at least 5 cans of paint to cover all the cabinets. That was going to be about $16. Instead of just getting that, I decided that the $10 quart of yellow Rustolium paint would be fine since all the edges are flat and I could just roll the paint on. Ok, fine. Saved the $6 and bought the can of paint. I painted the large cabinet, got it in place, planted... a week later paint was peeling and bubbling all over! SO Frustrating! The only thing I can think was that I didn't wait enough time during dry times..? I don't know, but I have never had anything happen like that with spray paint. So I scrapped off the paint, cleaned off the cabinet, dug out my 6 petunia plants and 8 pea starts. Scooped out buckets of dirt... Then spray painted. Refilled with dirt, replanted,... a month later no bubbling, no peeling, it's perfect. Thankfully I hadn't done all my planters yet, so the other 3 got spray paint from the beginning and I've had no issue with them!

**Tips:

-Use Spray Paint!!!

-Fill with dirt. Water your dirt. Add more dirt before you plant. Since the cabinets inside have a lot of nooks and crannies for the drawers to roll the dirt really settles and I found that I needed to add more dirt than I did the first time around {good thing I guess I had to re-do the large cabinet}

-Don't buy your cabinets from Goodwill! :)

Spray Painting Planters

I don't know what I would do without spray paint! I use it on pretty much everything. Last spring a good friend handed down to me some planters that she didn't want anymore with a topiary already planted in them. These planters were originally from Restoration Hardware and are amazing! Something I would always want, but never buy for myself. These planters were defiantly weathered, but still amazing. This spring I decided that they needed a face lift. I was at first leaning towards painting them white, but then thought of how dirty they would always look so I decided on just refreshing the current look. I choose a Rustoleum textured slate color from Home Depot.

{before}

{After :: I also planted some petunias and alyssum}

All the rust is covered and the weathered spots are all gone! They look almost as good as new!

This is what they look like today! The flowers have gone crazy!

 I LOVE these planters, they are definitely the focal point of the patio.