Closet Before & After!

Well, I finally did it! I painted my closet and wow, does it look better. I don't think the "after" pictures do it justice because the color comes across almost white rather than the soft, bluish gray.

So here is the transformation of my closet thus far...

This was taken the day I moved into my apartment. Very bare and boring.



Starting to take shape...remember this post?



When I "organized" the top of my closet...


Tools for the revamp...


AFTER!

Dresser, rehabbed, TBF's
Chair, Ikea
Pillow cover, Crate and Barrel
Wall color, Dolphin Fin, Behr

Frame of old picture of TBF and I, gift, guessing Target
Green vase, kept from edible arrangements gift
Mirror from Bed, Bath and Beyond set with entryway table
Jewelry stand, Urban

Ikea curtains hung with Target curtain rod to cover my clothes.
Aldo fedora

Right side, mine. Left side, TBF's micro-section.
Hanging shelves, Target
Accessories hanger, right of hanging shelves, Ikea

Organized on top shelf of closet...

HP Printer bottom center, Memories box with TBF's drawing of him and I on it on top of printer, TBF's amp to the left, Labeled shoe boxes (now I hopefully won't forget that I have personalized stationary!) on top, J.Crew bag of favorite brand bags on top of TBF's amp

Showing off some of my favorite shoes and boots...

Clockwise starting at top left: J.Crew boots, Steve Madden pumps, Jessica Simpson suede pumps, Aldo fun yellow pumps, Steve Madden professional, black kitten heels, Franco Sarto nude pumps.

Okay. Here's my dilemma. Does the wall look bare now?


I'd had inspirational fashion photos up before as well as my necklaces hanging on either side of the mirror and hooks for my towels. Any ideas on what I could put on the wall, or should I leave it bare?

I was thinking I could get nice picture frames to display my favorite fashion "looks" and hang them. Thoughts? Are there any fashionable, historical women out there to display (Jackie, Twiggie, Audrey)? I'm thinking in black and white?

I'd love to hear your ideas!

Happy Thursday :)

Freck's Friday Fancies LII

Hooray, it's Friday! (Pssst, and my last day at this job!)

My fancies are a little different this week. They include activities that I'll be completing during my entire week off until my new job begins July 12.

So! All next week I'll be performing what I like to call DIY madness.

This will include but is not limited to:

Painting TBF's desk which I think is an eyesore in my apartment. Sorry dear. What do we think? A nice glossy white? I think so.

Painting potentially my bathroom and closet Dolphin Fin (seen in picture above via), which was inspired by a fellow Chicago blogger's apartment, Alaina, from Live Creating Yourself. Watch out, don't click on that link unless you have 30 minutes to spare, because I always find myself staring at all over her inspiring pictures!

Finding a cheap stool on Craigslist to paint and use as my vanity chair. I'd love to get a comfy, tall stool, but I have a feeling I won't find one on CL, we'll see. Fingers crossed. If I do find one that I'm able to re-cover, I'd use a fabric like...

this, and paint the stool a gray or black.

Thoughts?

TGIF!

Freck's Friday Fancies XXIII

So I'm feeling a little better, better enough to work from home and stare at a computer screen without wanting to rip my eyeballs out :) Hooray for that!

The holidays are right around the corner people! Which means Freck is planning out what to purchase for her loved ones, and more importantly how I'll plan out my finances so I can purchase gifts for my loved ones....

Usually I need some inspiration to get the creative gift giving juices flowing. You know what I mean, we want to get something for our loved ones that isn't a boring gift card or a DIY clay pot you made junior year of college (yes, I'm guilty of it and you're welcome mom).

In the latest InStyle, some great sites are listed that gave me great ideas for gifts!

They are:

clio-home.com, a great vase for grandma or mom?

giftgenius.com, a custom portrait for your sister or bff? I love love love this idea!

This site is great because you can choose the recipient (bridesmaid, brother, zodiac type, etc.)! How about some functional fashion found at cambriacove.com for Aunt Suzie's stellar purses? OR, for the monogram obsessed, check out monogrammit.com where they will monogram what seems like almost anything!


Another favorite, delight.com, where these sweet bowls are...


Can't forget about dad with this grill set!


Does anyone else think that dads are difficult to purchase things for? Maybe it's just my dad... Can't forget about your brother (or TBF) who may be brushing up on his cooking skills! Maybe that extra bit of glam from vivre.com for your prego sister in law :)

Who will also probably need this beast (that looks like a space ship in your kitchen) when the little one comes for extra energy...


Hope these gifts have given you a little inspiration for your fam and friends for this holiday season!

Have a great weekend, happy shopping!

Weekend Recap + Before & After of DIY Mirrors!!

Hellooo everyone :)

This weekend was wonderful. You may have noticed I didn't do a Freck Appetit this weekend, I'm starting to think perhaps I should just turn that into a "I'll post a Freck Appetit when I get a chance to try out a recipe" type of thing, rather than a committed weekend post. This weekend the post didn't work out because I didn't get the lobsters a publisher had promised that I'd get (boo, I really wanted to cook lobsters since I never have before), and brother Freck and sis-in law Freck visited the city!! It was so wonderful catching up with them and hanging out. Brother Freck is very much like me, chill, mellow, other wonderful adjectives, down to earth, his bubbly wife is as well, so I always enjoy hanging out with them. I never had a sister, but if I could have one, I'd want my sister-in-law anyway :)

Sunday, TBF had a musical themed show at a cafe near my place. We were pretty unsure as to how it'd be, but it was a great time. Aren't those the best times? You don't really have any expectations and it turns out to be a blast? Awesome. TBF also did an excellent job as usual.

***

Onto the Mirror DIY!

As a refresher, I grabbed two mirrors from mam and papa Freck's that they weren't using and decided to do a little rehab work to them.

Here are the two before pictures:

And here are the after pictures!




I think it's a hit! I like them a lot more than the gold color, that's for sure.

I cleaned the frames with a basic wetnap, cleaning cloths. I made sure the frames were dry and then covered the mirror portion with magazine pages and tape and placed the mirrors on some garbage bags. Then, I used a glossy spray paint to paint the frame. This was quite a task in my studio apartment since I didn't have much room to work with. I made sure the windows were open, but it still stunk up my apartment pretty bad. (Thanks Febreeze)

Some paint managed to creep through the magazine pages and onto the mirror. I thought the paint would be more difficult to get off, but I just grabbed a dish scrubber and some windex and went to town on the paint spots, but I made sure I was gentle so I didn't hurt the mirror.

My next task is to find a spot for the first mirror. It's pretty heavy, so I'll need to get a special hanger. As mentioned before, the second mirror's hanger is broken, so it became a little tv tray on the ottoman.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!!

*Mirror DIY!*

Tada!! So here are the two VINTAGE, old school mirrors that I found at Mama and Papa Freck's storage.

My apologies about the less than par photo quality, I couldn't find a creative way to take pictures of them and make them look super glamarous (or show half of my apartment in it). You get the idea...

My plan is to paint the frames a glossy black, which I think will make them look so much more modern The part of the mirror that makes it hangable broke on one of them, so I'm going to have to attach a new piece to the back of it so it can hang, or I may just make it into a cute tray and put it on my ottoman.

Anyway, I'm so excited to transform them!! I'm hoping to have the "after" pictures up after this weekend.

Wish me luck!

Under My Umbrella, Ella, Ella...

It's really gross, dark and misty in the city today.

Bad news - bad hair, overall icky.
Good news - cute, cold accessories post!

How cute is this umbrella??

Fav color - check

Old school handle - check

TARGET?! - $12.99. - shutup.

Love.

Gawww, these gloves are so cute.

Target, $17.99
I'm starting to really dig the dainty glove idea...

Anthropologie is really on fire with their cold weather accessories, too!!

Anthropologie, $48

Anthropologie, $68

*My DIY mirror "before" pictures will be posted later today!*

Brand Whore + Real Simple

So the girl sitting directly in front of me on my way to work this morning was wearing this.

David Yurman ring

this.

Gucci bag

and this.

Beautiful Burberry trench

It was disgusting.

and I loved it.

I'm normally not a brand whore (I really don't care for Gucci), but I friggen love Burberry trenches and David Yurman anything. My Limited/J.Crew/Nordies combo spruced up with some "fun tights" had nothing on this sister's ensemble.

Anywayyyy Guess who got her new Real Simple?!

I'm already a couple pages in and loving it. For those of you who've picked up your issue, be sure to read the holiday mishaps. They're so funny!! The mishap about how the woman's oven door blowing off is the funniest.

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about a giveaway. Some of my fave bloggers are having giveaway right now so I'd prefer not to have mine at the same time as them!! Also, mirror diy pics to come!

Have a great Tuesday!

Weekend Recap + Kim Kardashian + DIY

So this weekend was awesome.

Friday night I cleaned the crap out of my apartment - a usual Saturday morning task, but I was going to be gone all weekend so I wanted to get it over with.

Saturday, tbf and I got up bright and early to head south for the Illini homecoming game and tailgating with the fam. It was sooooo much fun. We lost, but my dream came true (everyone in the fam and friends left after halftime to meet up at the car and keep tailgating) I always get antsy after halftime. Especially at this game, we were losing and I could feel my face baking in the sun. I was so right because later that night I looked like the craziest raccoon. The right side of my face was so sunburnt except where my sunglasses were (think Kim Kardashian). So funny! Now my nose is exploding with freckles.


What kind of sun did tbf get? Oh just an adorable little sunburn on his nose and cheekbones. Lucky.

Anyway, brother freck had some serious tailgating gear with a nice tv in the back and a grill hooked to the back latch. Pretty intense and awesome. There were about 15 of us, a fun group, good times.


Good news. I have another DIY coming up!! Mama and papa freck are trying to sell the house and downsize to a smaller abode so we have a lot of older decor that I found in our old "playroom" welllllll I found two awesome oval mirrors that I want to refurbish and paint a glossy black. Pictures to come later in the week!

Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Freck's Flower Arrangment DIY..sorta

Sooo, I didn't get all the pictures loaded of my little DIY projects over the weekend, so the detailed post will have to be moved back to tomorrow or later in the week. Luckily, I have one picture of my DIY flower arrangement. I'm bummed I didn't take pictures of all of my steps while arranging, but hey I'll do my best and explain what I did anyway.

1. Purchase flowers of choice, I bought way too many than I actually needed. I realized less is more!
2. Figure out what you'd like for the base part of the vase to be. (Rocks, leaves, marbles, sand)
3. Figure out how tall/wide you'd like for your arrangement to be. (Tall and thin? Short and wide?)

My apologies about the blurry picture, it was taken with a crackberry!

So here is the finished products. I opted for a short and round shape and stuffed the bottom of the vase with wine corks and leaves. I thought they needed a teensy bit of height so I stacked up some of my favorite books to make the flowers a little taller.

If you'd like a close up of them, I can definitely post some pics! Just let me know! :)

Going along with home and product design...

One of my favorite sites has a book coming out!!!!! I will be one of the first to purchase, you can bet on that!

Design*Sponge

"Design*Sponge is a daily website dedicated to home and product design"..and I love it.

Happy Tuesday everyone!!