Spring Room Updates

Hey guys!

I wanted to share with you some real quick room updates!

When it comes to spring and summer, it's a time when I crave lots of yellow, white, and brightness in the design of my rooms. Even though I know we'll have lots of snow storms in the course of the next month, at least my room can feel light, airy, and spring-like!

With the help of Instagram and Pinterest, I've been lusting over more of a shabby chic, feminine design lately. I have no clue why, but suddenly it's really appealed to me.

One of the biggest changes to my room is bedding. I decided I wanted to invest in this fluffy, Simply Shabby Chic comforter from Target. I love it so much! It's brightened up my room so much and is absolutely perfect!

I really love how the bedding came out. I refreshed the look a little bit with navy blue gingham sheets from Steinmart, I used my favorite set of pillows (the yellow flower is from Target 2010, yellow texture pillow is from Target Winter 2014, and my homemade Riley Blake navy chevron pillow). The comforter from Target is such good quality! It feels like something from a fancy hotel!

Another huge change happened to my dresser area.

I picked up the Ikea Ung Drill Mirror the other day and then spray painted it white so it would fit in better with the rest of my room. It's amazing how much light this mirror reflects and what it looks like!

So those are the changes for now! If you like my decorating posts, make sure to check out an entire page I have about the decorating I do, featuring my dorms and changes here at home. 

New Touches

My room at home is a never ending work in progress. Hopefully others feel this way about their space, but it seems like the to-do list for this space never truly ends. It’s like I work in little vignettes in this space, completely one fraction of it, while the other parts sit in mindless chaos.

I’ve perfected my bedding, my curtains, and other aspects. They have sat finished for a year now, while other portions of my room are just being worked on now for the first time.

On Pinterest this picture from my bedding is quite popular (it shocks me actually). I didn’t think it would be so popular honestly. The feel of my room is supposed to be a little cottagey mixef with a smidge of nautical (living in Colorado, I feel a little odd going full on nautical). It's a theme of white, navy blue, and yellow. Which is so cheerful and pretty!

The area above my dresser (and on my dresser), has been a mix match of utter disasters. This summer (the little of it I got because of summer school), I wanted it to finally be a little bit more put together. So here is the space above my dresser, the newest portion to be finally finished. 

So this is what it looks like. I didn't have a before picture, but it was pretty bad. 

On the wall I have a canvas that I just covered in chevron fabric from Hobby Lobby, painted a C and stuck it on it. Then I have a plain cheap white frame from Target filled with yellow dot scrapbook paper (Hobby Lobby), and a small round navy blue mirror from Target (last summer). 

My dresser is usually the storage spot for most of my beauty products and makeup, so I bought the cute white metal bins from World Market (14.99 each). They hold my body sprays, dry shampoo, brush cleaner, everyday makeup bag, makeup remover wipes, toner, and other odds and ends. I absolutely adore my Ikea candle holder/pencil cup to hold my makeup brushes. 

In front I have a ceramic bird tray from World Market to hold my favorite perfumes. I also have the yellow World Market Egg holder to hold earrings, bobby pins, hair ties, and lip balm (these are so handy for storage in college). And of course I have the current candle I'm burning from Bath and Body Works (Lilac Blossom). 

Overall I love it! It's functional, cute, and finished! 

Make sure to read this post the first time about my room at home! 

So I Need a Little Bit of Help...

With my bedding choices.

If you know me, I’m incredibly indecisive. Especially when it comes to bedding. And even more so when it comes to finally deciding if I’m going to have bedding that has red in it or yellow (for reasons that would take too long to explain, I’m not a fan of red and yellow together…it instantly makes me think of McDonald’s).

So I need some help.

You know how I was planning on doing the chevron duvet in black and white from Urban Outfitters with pops of red?

Urban Outfitters

 

Well, then I saw this comforter (at Walmart of all places), and was instantly drawn to it. The cool thing about this on (besides being about $150 cheaper), is that I could still use a black and white chevron in throw pillow and other details around the room).

 

Which would you pick?

Dorm Room Shopping

So as you've hopefully already noticed, dorm room shopping and decorating is one of my favorite things in the entire world! And with July quickly approaching, stores like Target, PB Teen, and others are starting to gear up for College 2012! So this post is dedicated to some of my favorite stores for some awesome dorm room furnishings! Check them all out, seriously, you won't regret it!

1. Dormify

There is so much to love from Dormify. They are modern, fresh, and fun! If you haven't checked them out yet, definitely do! I know that I am completely in love with so many of their products, expecially their wall art and bedding!

Love the Not-So-Lonely Hearts Collection! The yellow, gray, white, and brown look is just so fresh and modern for a drab looking dorm room! It's girly without being too much, and it just looks so comfy. Definitely a must in my book if you love yellow!

The California Girl Collection from Dormify is so fun and so current! I love the diamond ikat pattern of the bedding, as well as the fun throw pillows! Layering your dorm bed is one of the major differences between a comforting space and a temporary living arrangement. And really, even though it is technically temporary, you don't want to live that way.

Dormify's Spring Fling collection is the pink lover's dream! The bright pink chevron is seriously adorable and so trendy right now! And I love the bright green throw pillow.

Don't even get me started on my love for the Manifesto poster. It's currently out of stock and I seriously just screamed! I am planning getting one for my room in my sorority house this fall, so hopefully they get more soon. Doesn't this poster just sum everything up perfectly? It's so great to live by and will seriously add some cool graphic design to any dorm wall.

2. Vera Bradley

Moving away from Dormify, I just need to discuss my love for Vera Bradley and the new dorm collection coming out this week! My friend and I are going to be there at 8 am on Thursday for the opening (she in hopes of the adorable new bedding and little poor me along for the ride--and maybe some towels and notebooks haha).

It seems like I have waited my entire life for Vera to finally do dorm rooms. I literally screamed when I found out that this would be the year.

The above print is definitely my favorite out of the three and looks so welcoming. I can see any college girl getting much needed sleep in a bed that cute. The collection also includes rugs, ribbon boards, throw blankets, laundry bags, shower caddies, and the towels that I have my eye on:

Vera Bradley was already my favorite place to shop for back to college (highlighters, planners, pens, notebooks, and folders!!), but with their new dorm collection I'm sure that girls all over the nation will be going crazy with their campus staple prints!

3. Lilly Pulitzer

Always a sorority girl staple, the bedding I've found by Lilly is drool inducing. It is so bright, cheery, and fully Lilly.

Lilly Pulitzer, besides being famous for her pretty dresses, also has quite the massive following for her agendas. This will be the first year I'm going to abandon Vera Bradley (I feel like a traitor) and becoming a Lilly girl in the planner department.

So many to choose from! But I so can't wait to have my first Lilly agenda to write down all my important dates!

I'll follow up a little later with some of Target's awesome dorm window shopping I did, but so far I can definitely say the College 2012 shopping is bright, fun, and something I definitely look forward to!

 









Slowly Coming Along

I'm so excited I can barely stand it!! My bedroom here back home (in other words not my dorm room) is slowly getting more and more perfect!

Sometimes I really wish my life were a 30 minute HGTV show where a room/house is completely redone, with everything in a day or week or something. Unfortunately, real life isn't quite like that. Back in the beginning of May my mom and I started redoing my bedroom to make it more exciting and comfortable for my summer vacation. And here it is, almost the end of June and I'd say it's about halfway. However, I'm so excited about it right now! Especially the bed, because that's done!

I love it so much! It's so bright and happy and it makes me smile! The comforter was a cheap $20 one from Target that is just plain yellow (but so fluffy and comfortable), the sheets (hard to see, I know), are a navy and white stripe (Target!), the yellow flower pillow (remember from my freshman dorm?!), navy blue from Target, and the sweet little chevron pillow my mom actually made (the fabric came from a shop on Etsy). Every time I'm in my room I stop and stare and just can't believe that this is my bed. It seriously makes me not want to go back to college because I love how my room is coming along!

Gotta love Target, right? But with the sheets being I think $15, the comforter $20, the blue pillow $20, it's so inexpensive but so lovely. 

I finally finished the dresser part of my room, make sure to take a look! 

It's Never Too Early...

It may be merely June, but to me, deciding/planning/obsessing about my dorm room is in full swing. See, I love interior design. I have for as long as I can remember. And going off to college was the perfect excuse to think of a different room design every year. There is nothing more fun (and I mean NOTHING) than scouring the web, driving store to store, trying to find the look for my next home in college.

For instance, my freshman year I desperately wanted to include yellow! My two favorite colors are red and  yellow, but combining them reminds me of McDonald's, which isn't exactly stylish. So I went with yellow (drab 30+ dorm room, popcorn ceiling, and dingy white walls needed that bright color to cheer it up). So it ended up looking really good in my humble opinion (sorry that the pictures aren't even remotely good. I took them with my old cheap cell phone. Sorry for the small size too).

If you're squinting, trying to figure out what you're looking at, that is in fact my bed and desk, with existing shelves above them. I found a pretty damask comforter at Target that totally contrasted with my pops of yellow in the most beautiful way. Even looking at it now it makes me happy.

Hopefully this picture illustrates a little bit more the look I went for. That pillow from Target still makes me fluttery on the inside (in a good way...btw). Definitely my favorite view of my room.

And here was my desk! This study space was really awesome. I loved those dollar bin pencil cups (Target), yellow lamp (Target! again), and damask ribbon board (Tuesday Morning). It was truly fun to sit at my desk.

My sophomore year I wanted a different look. A drastically different one. In all that time spent with yellow the year previously, I was really missing red. There's just something about red that is just so...perfect to me. I was on the other side of campus, and I just wanted a different feel. I wanted it to feel less...stuffy I guess.

This was how it all started. I wanted to use my awesome red dottie comforter (Walmart) and after that, I just went by idea of whatever I like. So that hopefully explains the random mix of things you see. The shelf above the bed provided fantastic storage. And I loved it's brightness.

So that's what my room was like about 75% of the school year. But something was just...wrong. I didn't know what. It bothered me to no end. My roommate, boyfriend, friends, and family all thought I was crazy, but you just know when it doesn't feel right. So I bought a yellow comforter from Target, wanting a more fresh look. It wasn't right. So I returned it. I bought a plain red quilt and zebra sheets. Loved the zebra, but froze to death under the quilt. But then finding a little inspiration in PB Teen, I opted for black and white dots.

Finally, something felt right. Maybe it was the zebra, the pops of red (instead of all over red), moving that shelf to over my desk, or the Vera Bradley Deco Daisy pillow my mom made (out of napkins!), but it felt right.

That's how I ended the year. Still was nowhere near perfect to my eye, but a lot more perfect at least.

So now I'm thinking all about my junior year, which will be spent living in my sorority's house. Our VP of Recruitment asked every bedroom in the house to have a "theme" for a more put together look for recruitment (a great idea I think). My roommate and I opted to go with a slight ladybug theme, black, white, and red focusing on Alpha Sigma Alpha. So I was planning on using all the same bedding (just upgrading my Target zebra sheets to some nice, PB teen ones), using my red KEEP CALM CARRY ON poster (not pictured, but it was there--because it's red, awesome, and has a crown --one of our symbols), and a few other touches here and there of my wonderful sisterhood.

 Like this awesome bulletin board my big made for me (perfect for our theme!). So hopefully more inspiration will strike. I still have such a long time to think about it, but I don't want it to be a copy of my sophomore room either.

So if anyone has some suggestions or anything I'd love to hear!