Our Dining Room

Our Dining Room by caaarlaaa featuring beauty products

What might be the best birthday gift ever...

So yesterday I was out shopping and had planned to pick up the Revlon "gel finish" nail polish. I have gotten a few lacquer manicures and Love them!! They stay shiny and last for 2 weeks with no chipping or smudging. But I'm just not the kind of girl who can justify getting my nails done twice a month for 35 bucks a pop. So alas I always paint them and inevitably they chip or smudge within 24 hours.

Anyways... this Revlon polish seemed like it might be the answer. But in the story I find they want you to buy the special top coat and base coat and then the color all at $8 bucks a piece. :( About the same price as getting them done and still no guarantee that it really is the same. Then something catches my eye. SensationNail. It is a starter kit to get the lacquer manicures at home. And it came with all of the supplies that they use in the salon (primer, gel coat, paint, led lamp etc.) I was thinking that this might be the answer. But yikes $53.00. Ouch.

I did some research on the trusty iphone and found that normally the led lamps run 30-50 dollars a pop for ones that dont look super cheap. And read some blogger reviews on the product. Everyone seemed to love it. So since it was my birthday I splurged.

And OH MY GOSH IM IN LOVE!! Now keep in mind if you are not good at painting your own nails this might not be for you because if you get it on the sides of your nail or the cuticle it stays on there for a few days at least so this is really only for those of you who posses some nail painting ability.

I was able to do my nails in ~30 minutes and they turned out amazing. Last night we ate crab legs requiring my nails to take a beating. And they survived. Unchipped.

~12 hours later still going strong. I will post an update in a week so you can see how well they hold up but so far I am impressed. Now I can have the lacquer look all the time. I just really wish they would come out with a white so I can give myself french manicures. :)

<3c

Recovering those chairs!

For the Dining room we did go with the acorn filagree pattern available from calico corners. I really is a beautiful fabric and i think the chairs turned out beautifully.

Recovering chairs really is simple, it just can be very time consuming. I was averaging 45min-1hr for each of the chairs. First pull out all of the staples. I used a screw driver to loosen the staple and then pliers to pull the staple out completely.

You will want to have some sort of small dish to put all of those staples in. By the time I was done with all 4 chairs I must have had 1,000 staples in mine! Here is a shot of mine after just a few minutes

Unfortunately I don't have too many more photos of the actual process, but basically you decide how you want the fabric to lay out and then use the piece of fabric that you take off of the chair as a template. Jenny over at Little Green Notebook has a very detailed tutorial if you are looking for more information! For these chairs I had to start in the back, after I did the entire back I went to the front and pulled the pattern tight and made sure it was centered. Then I stapled the front and then went over to the sides of the chair.

And Now for some before and afters:Before, plain white cotton seat cushion..... and then:

Volia! Beautiful. For this particular pattern we weren't able to get too much of it on the seat at one time. However we did want these chairs to look nice from the back, as they are often pushed in and can be viewed from other rooms in the house

Coming up next the playroom!

Dining room

Dining room by caaarlaaa on polyvore.com

some projects...

About a month ago I was working on some renderings for a friends dining room and play room. Here are the designs I came up with

I suggested she add some linen slipcovered chairs to the heads of the table, creating more seating and giving the set a more current look. The artwork needed to stay it was from her grandmother and had always been her favorite as a child. Little touches like that really help to make a room feel so personalized and special. I also suggested we recover the existing chairs in a linen fabric with a black scroll pattern on it. We also went with a dark grey/blue color on her walls to really make the trim pop and add some depth to the room.

She also had a beautiful buffet. I simply suggested that she bring it over to the side wall and add some buffet lamps and a large mirror behind it to add some visual height. Down the road adding something like a ginger jar in the center would again tie in the blue and really fit her style.

Here are some pictures of the chairs that I recovered. Stay tuned for before and after pictures of everything put together!

Some Michael's finds..

While wondering around Michael's with my mom I found some surprisingly cute things! And the nice thing is they alwayshave those 40% coupons floating around so it is easy to get some cute accessories on the cheap.
Here is a super cute ginger jar. I love all of the detail and of course since it is teal i'm definitely in love.

It was also right next to this cute little vase with a cane detail it would look so nice in a styled bookshelf!
There was also this sweet little dish, again in the same color but still another cute little accent. I really like how the glaze has a crackle look to it.

Also I stopped by the frame section and normally they have lots of frames. But I noticed a new section of frames that were much more modern looking. They really reminded me of the ikea ribba frames and I was in love. I can't wait to make another large gallery wall using some of these frames!

<3c

Some weekend goodness..

I decided to put all my pretty prisma markers in a vase. I'm really loving the dash of color it adds to my desk.