Snow Day

Matt and Tempe have such a wonderful time together!

Enjoy the snow day!

I still have paint under my fingernails...

    We have been painting our new apartment like crazy these last two weeks. We started with the cabinets in our bedroom, which were an odd combination of olive green, orange and yellow. They are now white, as is the previously mauve and green stairwell leading to our patio and garage. Both of those projects took three days, each! It seemed like we would be knee deep in white paint forever. But then, we saw the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

    Now the good stuff starts! We decided on chevron stripes for the spare room, which will be my office. Our green plaid couch will go in here and I thought a coral color would look perfect on the wall! So, after looking at several tutorials, including this one (a huge help), we got the supplies together and got movin'.

    The blue lines you see were made with a chalk marker that I got a Lowe's for $6-ish. I was amazed at how cheap that was. Anyway, you will need to measure the height and width of the wall, then figure out how many lines you will need to make the size chevron you want. Now that the chalk lines are up you can tape off the chevrons - I used Frog Tape, it looked like this:

    Then we started painting, we ended up using two coats of Valspar's Homestead Apricot (2005-3C) in semi-gloss. I, of course, tried to stay in the lines, but I am such a messy painter it was nearly impossible.

    Once finished we let it dry for a little bit, then we took the tape off. I used a magic eraser to get rid of the chalk lines and paint that wandered out of the tape lines - that worked perfectly because the paint was still a little wet - and voila!

    I absolutely love it!

    Next came the front room wall - I ordered our stencil here, and it has turned out to be so much easier than  I thought! We are just doing one coat of Valspar's La Fonda Deep Blue (4011-7) in semi-gloss, we really like the faded, varied look it gives us. I used painter's tape to tape the stencil to the wall, a level to make sure I had the stencil level, obviously, and a 4" foam roller. Dip the roller in the paint and then roll it a couple times on a paper towel, you don't want too much paint on the roller or it will drip and your stencil lines will not be as crisp (I learned that one the hard way). 

    I will post the photos of the complete rooms soon, we move in on Friday!!

    Have a wonderful Wednesday!

    Erin

Moving

    We're moving and I could not be more thrilled. I have gotten used to moving about once a year since we got married and I guess I've fallen in love with the new start we make every time we move. It has been a stressful year and I'm hoping to leave that stress with our current place. We have been through massive bouts of anxiety (on my part), the birth of a preemie niece (which is now so wonderful, but truly scary at the time) and the wedding of my aunt this last week (that one was fun). 

    We have also had wonderful times in our current place, this was the home we brought Tempe to when we got her last year. We have grown stronger as a family in this home, we now know how to breathe and keep moving on.

    So, with this new home comes new possibilities to learn from each other, gain a stronger love for one another and paint. I'm really looking forward to painting! I have big plans for this place, including horizontal striped walls that Matt is not totally on board with, yet. It is an apartment, but it feels a lot like a house - it has a fireplace, garage and terrace/balcony area for barbecuing and what-not. The master bedroom is humongous and the cupboard space in the kitchen is insane! We have not been given a move in date, so for now I will start the packing and cross my fingers that we're in by the end of the month.

    On a side note, we are so proud of our Aggies - they beat the Utes 27-20 on Friday! It was a fantastic game, one that we will never forget!

photo by Eli Lucero of The Herald Journal

Summer goes too fast, and gets too hot

    Matt, Tempe and I have been running around like crazy this summer. Between holidays, family gatherings, and going to see 'Wicked' with my mom and sister, we have not had two seconds to sit down - let alone blog.

    Now summer is almost at a close and we have lots to show for it - most of what we have to show is a ton of Instagram photos on my iPhone. I had some wonderful photo shoots this summer and eventually I will blog about those, but for now I want to a couple photos of one of my favorite things to shoot, flowers. They are beautiful, and they hold still.

    We hope your summer has been filled with laughter and, most of all, time with family and dear friends.

Life via Instagram

I don't know if I have mentioned this before but Instagram is the absolute best thing to happen to me since Facebook. Now we can take photos, not amazing photos, but photos to show our families our daily lives and upload them directly to Facebook for everyone to see. We do not have kids, so the majority of our photos are of our dog, she is our baby right now - and she will be a year old in two weeks! It's been awhile since you've seen us, so here are a few shots from our lives the last month, or so.

These are what I like to call, 'Tempe adores Matt.'

And now, I went to Houston last week for a conference and had a great time! I had never been to Houston, now I think I want to take Matt there to explore!

Now the photos I have titled, 'Tempe tolerates Erin, doesn't really love her as much as she loves Matt.'

Have a wonderful weekend!
Erin, Matt & Tempe, too!