Summertime Sundays, the pineapple of my Eye

 

ALL IN THE DETAILS:

 Shorts: J.Crew Factory (also love these) | Sunnies: Ray-Ban (save option) | Kicks: Converse | Shirt: J.Crew Factory

I'm a simple girl, especially when it comes to summer weekend attire. Being in business attire all week, I typically like to keep my weekend outfits simple and comfy. Shorts, a t-shirt, flats and sunnies. That combo can get boring, but when you throw in a bold print like Punk Floral, it's a game changer. I paired the shorts with my lime green Chuck Taylors and my newest pair of Ray-Ban, Flash Mirror Aviators in green - and to tone things down, I kept the rest of the outfit simple, with a comfy vintage white t-shirt. 

Summertime Sundays, you are the pineapple of my eye!

4 Day 4th of July

I could really get used to 4 day weekends. When Wednesday is your 'Friday', it's amazing what all you can do. B and I spent two full days at Lake Texoma celebrating the 4th of July with fun in the sun and fireworks and still had a day and a half to spend at home before starting the week. Because laundry and other house chores is 'for the birds', I spent most of the time at home painting. 

Wanting to paint something different than my latest pieces (see them here, here and here), I whipped out this traditional yet whimsical 11x14" painting.  You'll even notice that I used a color I rarely use - red (Xmas ornaments are an exception).

After finishing the Traditional Whimsy painting, my creative juices were still flowing. To switch things up, I went for bigger and out of my comfort zone. For once, I started out without a plan and let my love for ikat and bright colors shine through in this 18x24 Afternoon Ikat piece. 

Because I still felt like painting, I painted a plain-jane initial I had stored away - Mackenzie-Childs Courtly Check inspired, of course. 

Then, I noticed a pattern in everything I paint. I always finish them off with a little gold... so I guess, adding gold is 'my signature thing'.

At this point, B looked at me and the collection of paintings/crafts we're beginning to acquire and asked what I'm going to do with all this. Good question. I have no idea and we're running out of room in our house.

I'm too chicken to open up an Etsy shop or Facebook 'fan' page just yet, but am thinking about hosting a pop-up shop (via my personal Facebook or Instagram) to see how things go. What do you think?

Terrariums, Painting and Decorating

I guess my creative juices were flowing this weekend. I kept filling the space in between normal weekend stuff with creative stuff. Somehow I managed to host an unofficial craft night, paint a 16x20 canvas and decorate a space that hadn't been decorated in nearly 4 years... in a matter of about 48 hours. 

It started Saturday, while running my errands I walked by a terrarium display at Lowe's. I've been wanting to make one, but just haven't gotten to it yet - so, I started gathering supplies. Knowing we were having another couple over for dinner, I decided us girls would have a craft night while the boys did their thing chilling on the patio. 

Terrariums are as easy as 1, 2, 3. Literally,  1 = rocks, 2 = charcoal, 3 = soil, 4 = plants, 5 = more rocks, done.

Sunday morning, when all I wanted to do was sleep in until 8am… and my body thought 6:25am was a better idea, I busted out a 16x20 canvas and painted. 
 

While B was away for most of the day, the big blank wall in our living room was really bugging me. I have purposely left the wall blank, because my Mom always said, just leave it empty until you find the perfect thing for over the couch. 

This whole time (nearly 4 years) I’ve been looking for ONE perfect thing, when I realized that space could definitely handle a couple perfect things. I laid possible items out on the floor so I could get a better visual for balance and spacing. Here was an initial stab at what the mix might look like:

 

One of my favorite parts of my married last name is the "Mc", so wanted to make use of the little 'c'. But the gold didn't look just right. I had to paint it.

Mackenzie-Childs Courtley Check-like of course.

Most of the items are result of my craft making. Two paintings by me, a big "M" I got down in Canton, TX, little 'C' from Hobby Lobby, and my 1st anniversary, paper gift to Brandon showcasing the Texas girl and the Oklahoma boy. 

The collage isn't perfect, but I love how it's quirky, colorful and ties in both Brandon and Me.

Our Kitchen: The Before (Naked)

The granite installer comes..... TOMORROW! So, I just officially made our kitchen counters look naked. Sunday afternoon I worked to organize the top drawers, clean out a few cabinets, clear out all the supplies from under the sink and cleared off most of the counters except for the necesseties. 

After clearning off our Keurig coffee machine, utensil holder, paper towel holder, catch-all bowls and taking off all of the switch plates this is what's left.

Looks a little stark, huh?

The white trash compactor has never been touched in this house. By us or the previous owners. In fact, the user manual is still sitting inside the bin. B and I have talked about two different options for replacing this - wine refrigerator or pull-out trash can (I think trash can would be more practical, B thinks wine fridge would be cooler). What are your thoughts?

I never would have guessed I'd be so nervous about getting granite. Maybe it's just excitement that has me stirred up? Wish us luck tomorrow, can't wait to share "the after"!

Our Kitchen: The Before (Decorated)

The official count down to granite is..... 3 DAYS!! Since this granite deal is about to get real, I wanted to share The Before (Decorated) pictures of our kitchen. 

This is our kitchen looking it's Sunday best.

Literally, I spent Sunday morning cleaning and making our kitchen look spotless and in tact as it would be if we were having company. I realized that the only "current' pictures I have of our kitchen were from Christmas time - and as it should be no surprise, there was Christmas decor everywhere - so I wanted pictures just a normal, June day with no holiday/seasonal decor to be seen. 

  

Of course, you probably noticed that Lime Green and Mackenzie-Childs are "my thing". Aside from all of the cute green and checker decor, let me introduce you to 1995. Light woodwork, white counter-tops, formerly brass hardware and florescent lighting.

In reality, I don't think our kitchen is THAT bad. We just can't wait to get rid of the white, 'stains easy', 'see every crumb', 'hard to keep white' counter-tops and back-splash.  

And see this cute little corner nook with the lamp? It will also be getting 'granitized' - thanks to my Mom for the great idea!  

I heard that our granite installer was cutting our granite today... in preparation for Thursday's install!

Count down to granite: 3 DAYS!!! Eeeeek!

Hand-painted Wooden Monogram

 

 

Over a year ago, I pinned this painted wooden monogram to my “Wishing & Daydreaming” board on Pinterest.

 

Fast forward to last fall when I was first introduced to the Groopdealz website; my first purchase was this 18” unfinished wooden monogram. I was so excited to check-off one of my wishes from the Pinterest board. (I’ve actually purchased 5 unfinished wooden monograms to give as Christmas, birthday and even bridal shower gifts – and they’ve been a hit!)

 

I didn’t know what color I wanted to paint it immediately, so I put it away in my craft closet until I decided on a color. After a few months, I thought painting it gold would be a good neutral option. Maybe it was my spray paint selection, but the gold was off-par and not at all what I had in mind - so, back to the craft closet the monogram went. It sat in the craft closet awaiting a new paint job for a another month or two until one Saturday afternoon, I felt the urge to paint. 

 

Inspired by a few pieces of my personal, Mackenzie-Childs, Green Flower Market Collection – I was excited to take on a personal challenge to paint a floral design on something that was not just a flat canvas.  

 

 

 

 

I was ‘in the zone’ painting, until I was rudely interrupted by storms and a power outage.

 

Sunday, I resumed painting until another round of storms came. That night, Edmond was hit with a tornado just 2 miles from our house. Also, the towns of Shawnee, OK and Little Axe, OK were hit by F4 tornadoes.

 

The next day, was Monday, May 20th the day an F5 tornado went through Moore, OK Which inspired me to paint for Oklahoma. The #prayforoklahoma painting can be seen here. 

 

This past weekend, I finally was able to focus some time to finish the monogram. With some input from miss Dixie Belle, there was still some detail work to be done before it was complete.

 

Using Mackenzie-Childs ribbon, our McDaniel Monogram now hangs on our mantel! I'm so pleased how it turned out and hope we get to enjoy it in our home.

 

 

 

 

 

Dirty 'ol Chair made Quirky Plant Stand Final Product

The dirty ‘ol chair is finally complete!

After staring at it, thinking it was looking good, I realized the paint was looking too good. So I took a wet rag to chair and roughed up the paint so it looked a little less “freshly painted” and a little more “broken in”. And to tone down the brightness, I smeared dark glaze all over the chair. Once the glaze was dry, I gave the chair a nice coat of polyurethane to seal.

Now to make sense of the quirky plant stand portion of the chair, I purchased a 12” pot and filled it with some plants. Featured in the pot is a foxtail fern, peachy geranium and hot pink petunia.



Dirty 'ol Chair made Quirky Plant Stand

A few months ago, one of B’s best friends sent me a text with a picture of 3 chairs and asked if I wanted any of them before they went to the curb. At first I was hesitant because adding to my always growing project list (and clutter in the 3^rd car garage) would be risky for this wife. But, the inner hoarder in me couldn’t say no to a free chair with potential (lucky for the husband, I only came home with 1 chair).

This was my pick of the litter. Pretty dirty, a little raggedy but definitely a diamond in the rough. A little TLC and paint could do wonders.

After sitting in the garage for a few months, I decided on a plan for the chair. Painted up with fun colors, given a quirky vibe and cut out the dingy woven seat – I was going to repurpose the chair as a plant stand. Put a big ‘ol pot of flowers in the seat hole and set it on the front (or back) porch to enjoy.

I cleaned up the chair with a few dozen Lysol wipes, ripped out the woven seat and began painting.

Wanting the chair to be bright, fun and quirky, inspiration from Mackenzie-Childs should come as no surprise. Starting with the biggest area for paint, the seat became “McDaniel-Childs” (Courtly Check) inspired.

Next, I painted the arms of the chair. Who doesn’t love orange/pink and lime green/turquoise paired together in a chevron-like pattern. After I finished the arms, the chair sat for a two weeks because I was stumped.

Believe it or not, B gave me the idea to incorporate leopard (which I call, my “camo” to Brandon’s Max 4 camo). So this Sunday afternoon, I went with his idea.  wanting to accent the detail in the top of the chair back I painted it brightly to tie in all the colors used thus far – with a little gold.

Because the chair was getting so bright, I decided to leave the back rails and legs of the chair black. But of course I couldn’t leave well enough alone and added some turquoise and roughed it up.



All it needs is a coat of polyeurethane and pot of pretty flowers to make it's porch debut!

Moment of Fame

Are you an Instagram-er? If not, you should be - it's currently my favorite social media outlet. And just so happened that one of my Instagram photos lead me to a moment of fame!

Last Wednesday when the weather was gloomy I decided to encourage spring by wearing a floral explosion shirt to work. With the shirt being so busy and my office being so conservative, I kept my accessories simple and classy – wedding rings and David Yurman. Loving that my “Springy” shirt looked so happy, I decided to snap a selfie.  

The caption for the photo:

Springy shirt = happy shirt. #springweardontcare #whatiwore #oldnavy #peridot #prasiolite #davidyurman

Fast forward to Friday. I’m out enjoying Good Friday off work and check in on Instagram to find that DAVID YURMAN commented on MY photo! According to the caption below, their Executive Style Director, Collete Neyrey “thinks I have great style!”

Talk about David Yurman making my day!

I didn’t care if DY commented on every photo that included a #davidyurman, I still had a smile ear to ear. For some reason the page that my photo was featured on was not accessible by phone, so I took the first opportunity when I got home to go look from our desktop. 

There's my arm party and pretty shirt!

Then, I realized that my photo is currently 1 of 20 featured pictures!! Shut. The. Front. Door. I was expecting to be 1 of 10,000… but I’ll take #19 out of 20 any day! Whoop whoop!

You can see my “famous” springy shirt and DY jewels by clicking here, scrolling down the “Show Your Colors” section and then scrolling through the pics to find me (@McSwann)! If for some reason the link doesn't work, visit:

Facebook.com/DavidYurman > Click: The DY Edit > Scroll down to: Show Your Colors > Scroll through the pics to find me: @McSwann

PS. I know this made my Nina (grandmother) in heaven smile.  She's part (and my momma) of the reason for my love of David Yurman. Many of my peices are gifts from important milestones in my life (high school graduation, 21st birthday, college graduation, Christmas, etc.) #notaspoiledgranddaughter #justoverlyloved

Paint Slinging Sunday

I felt inspired to sling paint on Sunday. My inspiration came from two random places: Pinterest find and a Saturday shopping trip.

I found this bedroom on Pinterest and fell in love with the look and feel of it. The mix of color (my favorite colors) with hints of rustic was what caught my eye.  In true stalker fashion, I wanted to see more pictures of the room so followed the sources to find that the headboard was a DIY project by See Cate Create. The ikat, chevron pattern on the headboard was actually painted onto white fabric, who knew!?

My other inspiration is really random. I went to the mall Saturday morning to scope out Dillard’s Additional 40% Sale and ended up walking around the mall. Walking by Victoria’s Secret, it caught my attention that they had swim suits in store (ordering online has had its back-fires for me) so I turned in. As a lover of bright colors, chevron and gold – I was drawn to this print:

I can't seem to find the exact swim suit I saw in store, but this is the same fabric on a different suit.

After finishing my Sunday honey-do’s and nothing on slate for my afternoon, I busted out the painting supplies. When all else fails, create.

I got stuck here for a bit. Should pink make an appearance? What about white, would it be too white? What’s the repeat going to be? 

So, I went with a little pink (Momma Swann would be pleased), a little white and another “line” of gold and found my repeat. Here’s the final product: