Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Blog Swapping w/ Kara @ Kara's Corner

HELLO, Paisley Passions Readers! It's Tuesday and time for another Blog Swap!

Do I have a treat for you! Today on Paisley Passions I am happy to say that I am Blog Swapping with Kara from Kara's Corner. You are going to LOVE what she has to share. Her blog is FULL of FANTASTIC ideas!

I hope you will pop on over to her blog and say Hello!

Take it away, Kara. . .


 

Hi Paisley Passion Readers!  I'm Kara from over at Kara's Korner, and I'm so excited to be guest posting here today.  I love all of the inspiration that I find over here, it's such a fun blog!!  Onto stuff that you don't already know about!  ME!

My husband and I are both 28 year old Electrical Engineers who have a passion for transforming our house into a home, on DIY project at a time.  My husband is currently going to school full time while working full time, which means I generally do most of the home improvement projects semi-solo.


Here we are:





In April of 2009, we left our modest sized first home to prepare for the next chapter in our lives...building a family. We bought a house three times the size of our old one, and we promised ourselves that we'd take our time filling up rooms in this house to make sure our decor was 'us' and not just filler.

Well...as most of you can probably relate, I've got Pottery Barn taste on a Wal-Mart budget. So I get dirty, sweaty, and creative...one room at a time.

Here's a before and after of our guest kids room (or single visitors) (I have lots of nieces and a nephew) :










I am so proud to say that I did almost this entire room all by myself. I painted the floors, built both the left and the right daybeds, refinished an old sewing machine cabinet, refinished a set of old Pottery Barn Shelves that I found at good will, and even made the two yellow pillows on the left daybed and the two flowery matching pillows on the right daybed from napkins using fabri-tac (I am a HUGE fan of that stuff!). Click on each highlighted item to be taken to my blog post where I detail step by step instructions of everything I've done.


For my birthday in March this year, my husband bought me an overpriced Pottery Barn bench that I had been wanting. I found plans to make the bench from Ana-White at Knock off Wood, and asked him to return the bench and buy me a nail gun and lumber instead. I have yet to put my nail gun down. Here's another example of my new love of building : a Mail Holder I built to solve an annoying mail buildup problem:






If you like crafts, I've got plenty of those too. From my placemat pillows:





To my Key Art...






And even to my tutorial on how to make your old gold/brass hardware look like this:





There's really something for everyone.

And I've also got home improvement projects, yard projects, and a few recipes on my blog as well. I think the only thing that limits me is my creativity, and I'm out to test how far I can go! And sleep...the need for sleep limits me some...but that's just life!

Hope you've enjoyed my post, and I hope you'll come by to say hi. If nothing else, I hope I've inspired you to try something new!



Thanks so much for the opportunity to guest post here Lori...I really appreciate it!


I told you that you would LOVE her!!! Isn't it SUPER exciting to find other spectacular blogs with tons of talent? Thanks Kara for swapping today!

6 comments:

MusicalMommy said...

Hey Kara, another Kara here! I love knok-off wood too! :)
Nice work on the decorating. Love your style. Now if I could only get my husband to love it too. He is so boring. lol
www.karascreativeplace.blogspot.com

Kelli said...

Nice job on the decorating! I love the kids/guest room! check out my blog at loveoursimplelife.blogspot.com

Thanks for sharing!

Kelli
xoxo
loveoursimplelife.blogspot.com

L Simonson said...

Don't you just LOVE her stuff? I find her projects so inspiring!!

Hope you both popped over to her blog to check her out :)

Kara said...

Thanks so much for swapping with me Lori! LOVE your blog too!!!

Thanks for the compliments girls!

Adele said...

Great Site!!! Just came across it!! You have a lot of great stuff!! We will be back for sure!! Love some of the crafts!! We did a few crafts..getting better at it!!!
We would love for you to come check out our site!!
Have a blessed day!
Julie and Adele
The Coupon Cents Sisters
www.couponcentssisters.com

Anonymous said...

stopping by from Wandering Wednesday...I'm your newest follower^^

xoxo