A yellow obsession

HELLO PEOPLE out there in blog land! Listen, I apologize for being such a slacker lately, but in my defense we have been experiencing Internet issues and frankly it's out of my control at the moment.
Well, currently I have become obsessed with the color YELLOW (more specifically yellow, grey and teal), and it is showing up all over the house.
I recently decided I wanted to paint the kitchen Maize. Simple enough, right? WRONG!!!!... I made five, count em, five trips to Walmart in one day. (It's amazing how emotional you can become over the wrong paint color)...
The first time I brought it back,the paint dude said I was stuck with it, and he couldn't even lighten it. I left the store with my head hung in shame feeling defeated. I know it's crazy, but color has a dramatic effect on my mood.
I went home, and proceeded to paint my kitchen this not so lovely shade of "Golden Nugget"...YEAH RIGHT! It was more like "Dukes Mustard" Eww!!

I had nearly convinced myself that I could live with this color, that was until the sun went down, and my kitchen felt like you were standing in the middle of an abandoned cave!... Oh no, this would never do, so the next morning I headed back to the store with new determination. In my mind I was gonna march right up to that paint counter, get in that mans face, and demand he lighten the paint, or I was going to talk to the store manager...In reality I strolled in and asked him if he would please lighten it. He said he would love to help, but there was nothing he could do but give me a refund or start over with a totally new color. DUH!!!.. And why didn't he tell me this before???...Okay, long story short, after making several trips back and forth, and wasting quite a few gallons of paint, I finally found the perfect shade of paint... BANANA FRAPPE.. Doesn't that sound like a delicious treat? My youngest swears it smells like bananas! Haha!

Ain't it purdy?... Well, after that I went yellow berserk, I found a shade close to the kitchen in outdoor paint and painted the front door. LOVED IT...Wanna see?

Okay, Where was I??... Right... In addition to the paint, I found this adorable, vintage yellow, grey, and teal scrapbook paper. Okay, I'm about to let you in on a little "crafty person secret"... You can decorate your entire house with a five dollar pkg of coordinating scrapbook paper. I'm about to show you how...I should charge for this lol!
Alright, back at home I go on a treasure hunt through my house, and find a few old bottles from my collection, a couple of white frames from the dollar tree, a mason jar, sea shells, and a handful of flowers I have dried from spring. I get to work making cutesy labels for the bottles, and add paper to the inside of the frames. I added shells to the mason jar, and fill a few vases with the flowers... WAA-LAA!!.. A brand new summery display for the kitchen shelves!! Woohoo!!!

Uh,Oh!!!...Now I've gone and done it...I've gotten myself into one of those craft related tizzies again... Ya know, when ideas start flipping through your head so fast, that you know if you don't create something you will surely lapse into an inspirational coma!!!
Okay, so I scan the craft shelf, and select an ugly picture that I bought from GW purely for the frame. I head to the kitchen table with white paint in hand( of course), and a pkg of the stickers you use for your mailbox or house numbers... Any hoo, I paint the canvas and frame white, then carefully spell out YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE with the stickers, then I paint over it in a bright shade of ... You guessed it yellow. After it dries completely, I carefully peel back the stickers to reveal this...

Okay, thats all for now peeps!!! Tootles!!!!

Uncle Ronnie

Well, this morning I received some sobering news. My cousin called and told me that our Uncle had passed away. Ever since I received the news, I have been feeling quite melancholy. (forgive me for not being my usual bubbly self). I know this blog is suppose to be about decorating, but I thought today, in memory of my uncle this post would be more of a walk down memory lane...
(a little background first)I have no recollection of my mother, because she also passed away before I was two. Anyways, I was raised by my grandparents, and as a result of being the offspring of Becky Duncan Marlow, who everyone adored, I quickly became our families "Golden Child"...you know every family has one. In addition to being the golden child, I was also the most spoiled, brattiest child in the family as well. In my defense though, all things considered I didn't turn out half bad!
I have a lot of fond memories of my childhood, and as far back as I can remember I was always surrounded by Aunts and Uncles. My Uncle Richard, he was the funny one who was always cracking jokes, and loading us down with candy every time he came for a visit.Then there was my Uncle Paul who would usually just reach for his wallet, and give us money. He had a heart of gold, and would give you the shirt off of his back.Then there was my Uncle Ronnie, who was my cool uncle. He would load us all up in the back of his truck, go by the store, and let us pick out all the snacks we could fit in the cart, and max out his block buster card with scary movies we weren't aloud to watch at home. We could be as loud as we wanted, and stay up all night long!!!
There were also the trips to Six Flags...Uncle Richard, if you are reading this,I know you took us all to Six Flags too, but Ronnie would let us act crazy and wild, and hang our arms out the windows. We felt truly free when we rode with him!
There's one thing that really stands out in my mind about him though, and that was this little jig he did called " The "Hambone"...he would sing a little tune that went something like this "Hambone, hambone where ya been? Around the world and back again" He would sing this while slapping his knees, and making a percussion sound with his mouth and hand. I guess it was kind of bizarre, but we loved it!!!
Another thing about him that always impressed me was his handwriting. It was fancy, and I loved it. As a matter of fact, when my husband and I got married, he wrote all over my car in shaving cream. It was so pretty, that I would not wash it off for weeks. Lol!!
He did everything in super-hyper speed. He talked, walked, drove and even ate at the speed of light.One of these days I would like to sit down with his beautiful daughter Callie, and tell her all these neat stories about her daddy.
We will miss you Uncle Ronnie!!! Rest in Peace Ronald Gene Marlow(September 14, 1960-May 8, 2012)

Ronnie is on the far right in the gray pullover. He was a young buck in this photo.

This is a more current photo of he and his precious daughter Callie!!!

If all else fails, paint it white!!!!

Hello out there in blogger land!How was your weekend?...err should I say week? Yeah, I know I haven't been keeping up with my blog, but in my defense I had a crazy weekend involving a slumber party with eight 13 yr old girls sliding across my wood floors in their socks squealing to the top of their lungs!!!...Okay, I admit that I loved every minute off it, until I woke up the next day realizing, I'm not as young as I once was! Yep, it's sad when it takes three or four days to recuperate from one all nighter!
Okay, so I'm the queen of procrastination right? Seriously, I have at least 10 or 11 half finished projects floating around my house right now, but I am proud to say that I have recently finished one of them! Yay meeeee!!!
As long as I can remember, I have wanted a white mantle, and when we moved here I got my wish. In my "Girl room" I have a beautiful white mantle. I started out decorating it for Christmas using ribbon, walnuts from our tree outback, pine cones found in the attic,and glass ornaments. Combined with our handmade stockings made by my uber talented cousin,(Rachel Mote)and our lovely Christmas tree. I was very pleased with it in December and even a few weeks in January. After that I decided I would take down the tree and remove the Christmas ornaments. I decided I would leave the rest, because it was still cold outside, and nothing's says winter like walnuts and pine cones, right? Wrong!!! I was just being my usual procrastinating self!
Well, it was not until my friend Crystal came to visit me, took one glance at my mantle and said(and I quote)"Mandy, honey...that mantle needs some help!" that's when I really started contemplating a solution. I already had decided I must do something about my rather boring, pine coney, not so pretty leftover Christmas/wintery display.Okay, as I mentioned previously, I am a collector of old bottles(well, technically my girls are)...Anyhow, I cleaned up a few suitable bottles that I keep under my sink, and added some yellow faux carnation looking flowers, but it was still missing a certain element. I went to my craft room. Okay technically it's a large laundry room with a big bookshelf, but it makes me feel important when I refer to it as my craft room, so leave it alone. Alright, so I'm scanning the bookshelf looking for that perfect item, and that's when I run across an out of date birdcage, I rescued from my husbands great aunts house. Okay, minus the 1980s paint job( you know when everyone had the uncontrollable urge to paint or stencil cutesy little flowers and leaves on everything they owned)I think this is just what my mantle needs.
I grab the birdcage with spray paint in hand, because my motto in life is "If all else fails, paint it white!"
I take it all outside to my little patch of white painted grass( my husband likes to fuss about my patch of painted grass until I gently remind him, that if he would prefer I could lay his golf towel down to protect the grass. Yeah, that works every time!! Hehe
...Okay, so a few minutes later I have a newly painted, shiny, white birdcage! My nature loving daughter then reminds me of the special treasure she had found earlier in the week.
Ahhhhh, yes...the abandoned birds nest would be the perfect accent!Unfortunately I was so wrapped up in the moment( okay the truth is that I was still in my pjs, and my hair style was mimicking the birdsnest)that I didn't get any pics
Of any of this process. The best I can do is a picture of the mantle at Christmas, and a picture of my now very springy
display. Well, I hope this works for ya... That's a wrap!!!!

This is what it looked like after Christmas...kinda blah.

And here's what it looks like now...drumroll

Here's a close up on the birdhouse

Bye bye now!!!!

The ugly desk

As a rule I would definitely consider myself an optimistic, glass half full kind of a girl. If I do have complaints with others I pretty much keep them to myself, but like most rules there are always exceptions. One of those exceptions is going to a store, and running into that one employee who really shouldn't have even got out of bed that morning. Well, I had an experience like that yesterday when...
Actually let me first go back to last Friday, when my daughter and I were browsing in one particular store. I won't give any names, but the name begins with Good, and ends with Will.
Anyway, my daughter spotted this ugly, worn-out , not even made out of real wood desk. After about a half hour of hearing please,please, please and I promise if you buy this for me I will never ask you for anything else as long as I live I finally caved, and purchased this pitiful looking piece of furniture. Well after standing in the pouring rain, and turning this desk in as many positions you could possibly imagine I came to the realization that this wasn't going to fit in my little Honda. The clerk handed me a piece of paper, and said if I signed it then they could hold it for me until I could find another way to get it home. Okay, so now I would have to depend on my "always to busy fishing and hunting husband " to pick it up. This might take a while.
Well a few days went by, and my husband had been working late every
night, so we still hadn't got the desk.
That afternoon I received a phone call from a very rude manager, who told me if I didn't pick up the desk ASAP then she would put it back on the sales floor for resale.She also said that she would not refund my money, because all sales are final there! Can you believe that?? Well, she and I exchanged words, and long story short Phillip picked up the desk that evening.
Okay, we'll now we have this item that my daughter couldn't go on living without. Here, ya wanna see it?

Told you it was pretty shabby, and not in a good way. Okay now we had to pretty this thing up somehow, so I decided on some decoupage. We pulled some scrapbook paper off the shelf, and went to work.

We decided to get a little crazy, even put her initial in the center. Here's the results, not too shabby!!!

A little goes a long way

Yay, I'm so glad you came back to visit!! Now I'm gonna have to keep up my end of the deal, so here goes it.
Okay, one of the great things about buying an older home is a lot of them have many built in features. Our house is no exception. We have several built in cabinets, shelves, and a built in oven. Now for some reason the previous owners decided to paint the built ins the same color as the wall. Although it doesn't look bad, it doesn't exactly showcase them either.
Thus bringing me to our subject.
Alright, so I have these awesome shelves that are basically camouflaged.Now that leaves me with two options, to either paint them white, or go with the new trend and wallpaper the back wall.
Well, I'm not a great painter, pretty sloppy really! On the other hand, I have never worked with wallpaper of any kind.(Unless ripping it down counts) Yeah, I didn't think so.
Okay,Okay I know you are ready to hear how I gave my shelves a makeover for one buck. Alrighty, I have to admit I do love the look of wallpaper backed shelves(Did I just invent a word?)That's how I came up with this idea. First off, let me show you what my shelves looked like before.(I apologize for how messy they were, but that was the day we moved in.)

See,I tried to warn ya! Now, the moment you've been waiting for...
I think I'll be different, and show you the pic before I give you the tutorial.
Ready, set, go

Whew, I hope that I redeemed myself with the after photo. Okay, now this is how I fixed my problem. You know when you come up with an idea that is so crazy, that it might actually work? Well, that's exactly what this was. I had in my head that I wanted polka dots, and since my shelves are a goldfish-beige color then the only color I could think of that would show up well would have to be white. I then started wondering if you could find those decal thingies in little white polka dots. I did a little searching, but came up empty handed. I then thought to myself, Stickers!!!!! Not just any stickers though. Yard Sale stickers, I'm sorry , translation needed for non-southerners. I mean Garage Sale!! You know those little white stickers you put on everything you want to sale for a quarter! Okay, the best part was that I found them in a pack of 300 at the Dollar Tree!!! Yes, I did my happy dance. Wouldn't you?
Ok, here's a pic of the yard sale stickers, just in case your one of those people that my husband says "Do not have a clue" (If you are don't feel bad, I'm right there with you)Tootles!!!

Nice to meet ya!

I am so glad you decided to check out my blog. Let me introduce myself. I am originally from Athens,Georgia
(Go Dawgs!)... Sorry, where was I? Right introducing myself. Okay, I married a man from Louisiana, and that is where we reside. I have three children, William 15, Lily 13, and Sadie 11...Oh, I nearly forgot about my fourth child, our four year old pickapoo named Bailey.
We recently bought a house in Athens, Louisiana(Ironic, right?)where I homeschool my kiddos. That's could be a whole blog in itself, but my main focus with Cottage 279 is going to be on our house, and all of its transformations. Which brings me to a confession. I eat,sleep and breath home decor! I guess you could classify me as Shabby-chic, because I love anything that's older than dirt. I collect old bottles, old picture frames, old windows... Oh, I recently discovered some old windows underneath our 1930 built cottage, and if I can salvage them from my totally opposite anti-antique appreciating husband(he wants to throw them in the burn pile), then I plan on making a coffee table for my "girls only" room. I'll explain that later.
Well, I have a lot of neat things I have already done to the cottage,
including an amazing makeover I gave my shelves for one dollar. You'll have to come visit my page later on to see the reveal.I have a lot of fun crafts, and might even divulge some recipes along the way, so I hope you'll keep up with me.
This is my first blog ever, so be patient with me.I promise to do better next time!!