Shirioke Wedding

So I haven't felt much like posting these days. Not for any reason other than I just haven't felt like it. Really. Life is great, and married life is even better. To tide you over til I feel like posting about our latest projects, here is the video of the song I re-wrote for our wedding. Enjoy!

Check out our 'Splash

Another big thing that happened over the 4th of July weekend is that we finally finished the kitchen -and by finished the kitchen, I mean we finally had the backsplash installed. We stuck with the original mood board when it came to the tile selection. In fact, the only things we stuck to on there were the tile, the hood, and the pendants. We ordered our tile from here. Not quite as cheap as some tile stores, but they were nice enough to send us a sample of EVERY shade of green they had -which was close to 30 tiles! In addition, when we ordered a sample 12"x12" sheet, they suggested we send back the sample to swap out for one of the same lot of the final order in the event that the glass color might be slightly off. The green we chose perfectly matches our dining chairs and it really ties the whole room together.

Here is where I admit that I suck at measuring and we ordered WAY too much. The one downside of Susan Jablon Mosaics, is while they accept returns, they charge a 45% restocking fee, plus with shipping something so heavy back, it's just not worth it. -So you might just find some super nice subway tile on CL for a steal of a deal. If anyone's reading this and you're in the market for some dark lime green 1x3" subway tiles, feel free to contact me, and I'll let you know if we still have them. My guess is we have about 15 12x12" sheets, maybe more.

I pledge allegiance to our bathroom

The room in our house that has had the most amount of time invested in it for the least result is for sure our guest bathroom. First I was determined to make it purplish blue. The first time, that was a monster fail. Mark and I scraped the entire room and I took a second stab at it with oil based primer. That time the paint stuck -but almost two years later, I was so over the purple.

There's something about walking by a room when the door is opened and all of a sudden, BAM! IT'S PURPLE!

We are not in a position to gut the bathroom and redo it entirely, so over this 4th of July weekend, I decided to see what I could do with the shell that we had -a blue tiled shower/tub and an old, severely over-painted vanity.

I first started with the walls and some Killz. It took 2 coats of heavy duty stain blocking primer to block out the purple.

In between coats, I had the brilliant idea of starting to peel off the white paint that I had sloppily applied to the vanity when we first bought the house.

The previous owners must have switched from pulls to knobs, because on each drawer or cabinet, there were 3 holes. The extra holes had been hidden by small white ceramic rings, but I decided just the knobs looked much better and filled the holes with putty.

Cut to 2am on Saturday morning. I was tired and high on paint fumes.

I continued the project on Saturday, with 2 coats of Glidden's Arctic Blue. The color tied perfectly with the tile in the shower and was much more subtle and serene than its purple predecessor, Behr's Endure.

I then redirected my attention to the vanity. I had hand-scraped all that I could. It was time to bust out the hand sander. I sanded the entire thing through who knows how many coats. I didn't ever get down to the wood, but since I knew I was just repainting it, that wasn't necessary. It just had to be smooth.

I applied 2 coats of Killz and then 2 coats of Behr Pure White (Satin Kitchen and Bath). The transformation is remarkable.

While it's definitely not my dream bathroom, it's a bathroom that we can absolutely live with, and doesn't hurt the resale value of our home the way it may have before. Mark has already installed a nice white cabinet above the toilet that adds more dimension (and storage) to the room. Overall it was well worth the weekend of work it took, and I think I'll leave this room alone for a while. :)

DIY Mother of Pearl bracelet

A couple of weeks ago, while Mark was in Vegas for his bachelor weekend, I decided to get in on some DIY action. I was originally inspired by this bracelet, but couldn't find a similar chain at Joann's. This mother of pearl strand of beads however was marked down from $3.99 to $0.97 -cheaper online I'm finding.

So here's what I came up with.

Step 1. I separated embroidery thread into two sections and then took one length of thread and thinned it down to a few strands so it would fit through the beads.

Step 2: I threaded the thinned strand onto a needle and strung 6 of the mother of pearl beads, knotting it at each end.

Step 3: Take one of the sections of embroidery thread and wrap a piece of scotch tape around the end so it's almost like a shoelace and can go through the rectangles easily.

Step 4: Weave through the rectangles.

Step 5: Do the same thing with the other strand, but weave the opposite way. Knot the two sections of thread on each end. Don't pull too tight or the beads will start to bend upwards and zig-zag. Combine the 2 strands and then separate them into three equal sections.

Step 6: Braid the sections.

Step 7: Knot the end with a toggle clasp inside. I affixed my knots with a little bit of epoxy glue to make sure they hold up.

Tadaa! Finished product.

Also in navy...

Closet update

Behold my organized closet. Before you laugh and say, that's clean?!, let's not forget the before. First of all, I got rid of a TON of stuff. I try to go through my closet a couple of times a year and donate/give away anything I don't think I'll wear, but I'm really bad at parting with things I love. I got rid of so much this time, which, while it sucked in the process, I will say that getting ready in the morning and picking out what to wear in the last couple of days has taken far less time.

So on the right side... I'm not one to organize by sleeve length or color, so don't judge. I've always stored my purses and clutches on the top shelf. I kept them there, however, now all of the clutches and small bags are in the plastic drawer containers. To the right of those are my designer/nicer purses that I keep in the original dust bags.

The shoe solution is not long term. I suck at keeping my shoes organized and need to figure out a better rack system. -or something. The other half of my shoe collection lives in my half of the bedroom closet and in our coat closet.

The right side is mostly sweaters and dresses. On the bottom are a couple larger plastic drawers and a wicker hamper where I put my hand wash/dry clean only clothes. You can't see it too well, but on the top shelf are all of my jeans/cords. Up until this weekend, I hung all of my pants, but in an effort to not smush all of my clothes, I opted to go with folding them.

The rest of the room is much cleaner now too. I still have a couple of mail stacks/magazines to go through, but in the meantime, I'm pretty happy with the results. It's far from my dream closet, but for now, it will do. :)

I know what you're thinking. Wow Shiri. This blog content is so insanely interesting. I know. Pretty lame. Well if you're still reading my blog, (it may be more of a diary at this point,) there will be more updates soon. We finally bought the tile for our kitchen backsplash and will be putting that in soon, which will make our kitchen 100% complete. Plus, we're in the process of planning our backyard rehearsal dinner and I will try to share some of the details on here too.

I'm kind of a slob sometimes...

A good chunk of my day on Saturday was spent cleaning my closet. While I'm far from a hoarder, I'm perfectly content with a hidden mess. Our house usually stays pretty clean and organized, as long as you stay out of the office (where my closet resides).

Up until this weekend, the office looked like an episode of Hoarders. -And not because I'm a hoarder. I know. First stage is denial, right? Well I seriously am not. I swear. The office had just become an easy dumping ground for all of my crafty wedding stuff (tissue paper, pink wagon, shoes, bridesmaids gifts, the list goes on). Plus all of the mail, magazines, and other need-to-file crap that I thought looked okay as long as it was neatly stacked. Neatly stacked... I wonder how many hoarders say that about their collections. Mark finally deemed an intervention appropriate. It was necessary. He even offered to help and create some overflow temporary storage for all of the wedding stuff.

Well we did it folks. I no longer have to keep the office door closed! Once I was done, the last thing I wanted to do was take an "after" photo. I was burned out. So I'll leave you with a couple of befores. These only show one side of my ridiculous mess, but I assure you the other side was no better. I'll try to post the afters soon.

Mystic Tan is not an editing option in Photoshop

Tali posted our engagement photos on her blog last week! We absolutely love them! It's amazing how a photographer can suggest a pose that seems so unnatural in the moment and it ends up looking so real and perfect in the end. Tali's talent never ceases to impress me.

Thank goodness my wedding dress will mask my pale legs, as they are blinding...

For more photos with higher resolution, head over to Tali's blog.