Shabby Chic: flea market style

I think I inherited my taste in decorating from my mom. She has a very classy, shabby chic taste and loves antiques. Needless to say, we find ourselves shopping for furniture at flea markets and antique auctions. Our favorite flea market is the Pickens Flea Market, which is an experience in itself. I definitely recommend going if you ever get the chance. Anyways, we have found a lot of junk treasure at the flea market. Now sometimes my mom goes a little overboard, like the day she came home with a cow skin rug to put at our lake house-I am still not a fan of that rug. However, she thinks it is the coolest thing ever. She also gets really excited about paintings she finds at the flea market. Now I am not an art expert by any means, but some of the paintings just aren't, well, very pretty. However, 98% of the time I like my mom's decorating choices, so I am glad I get my taste from her. I have never been into the modern look. It's not that I don't like it, I just wouldn't want to look at it every single day. This year I moved into a new apartment at Clemson. This is the first year I have had my own room, meaning I got to decorate it any way I want without worrying about a roommate's opinion. My room is the perfect example of how we turned flea market junk into pretty decorations (at least I think so : ) ) Here is an overall picture to show you before I start going into the details...

As you can see, we had a small space to work with. As my boyfriend says, everything in my room is at least 70 years old. Ok, that is not exactly true, but some of it is pretty old. For example, my gray dresser was actually my grandma's dresser she used while in high school. Her dad painted it with car paint way back in the day. It has been sitting in her garage for the past 20 years. All I did was clean up the dresser (a lot) and buy some cute drawer pulls from Anthropologie. The mirror on top of the dresser was one of our flea market finds (only $25!). I wanted to do something unique with my headboard, so we found this antique french door at an auction and added the curtain. Basically everything else in the picture (bedding, pillows, nightstand, picture, lamp) came from one of my favorite places to shop, the one and only Marshalls. Did I mention I am a huge bargain hunter? Here is the other side of the bed...

I love picture frames. However, as you can see, I don't always use them for pictures. I have been wanting to try this picture frame idea for a long time. First, I bought old frames from the flea market in various sizes (probably paid $5 for all of them). Then I went to A.C. Moore and got patterned scrapbook paper to coordinate with the colors in my room. I have also heard of people doing this project with wallpaper or fabric samples. Here is another picture without the blinding light from the lamp..

The floor lamp in the corner is another thing I love about my room (yet another Marshall's find). It used to be my sister's, but she says it is way to "grandma" for her. She's 14. I gladly relieved her of the "grandma" lamp. 

That's all for today friends! Hope you have enjoyed reading about my decorating taste and ideas. I know most college student rooms aren't decorating with antiques and flea market finds, but that's ok because that's what makes my room unique and it's what I love. 

Fall is here!

So I have decided to give blogging another try. This summer I created a blog and wrote one whole blog post. So it's time for attempt #2. I am hoping this one will be a little more successful than the other one. I decided to create this blog to practice writing however I want, unlike all the writing I do for my communication studies. Another reason I want to blog is to write about all the things I don't always have the time or opportunity to do in real life, but still love to do. Things like decorating, baking, planning and decorating for parties, DIY projects, or any other artsy thing that inspires me. While I might not always have the time to do this in real life, I can at least pretend that I am going to eventually do everything I write about in the blog world. It probably won't  could happen, right?

Here in the south, it always seems like it takes fall forever to decide to make an appearance. I am always so ready for it to come-90 degree weather at the end of September is not fun. Fall is my favorite season-cool(ish) temperatures, scarves, the leaves on the trees turning brilliant shades of orange and red, college football, and of course, my birthday :). However, I think fall has finally decided to stick around-temperatures have been cooler and the leaves are starting to change! To celebrate the season, my boyfriend and I went apple picking last week at Sky Top Apple Orchard. Even though the leaves hadn't really started to change a lot , it was still a beautiful day and it actually felt like fall outside. We got way too many apples so we baked two apples pies to get rid of some of them. They also had tons of fun, fall decorations at the apple orchard. I only got one pumpkin to put on the porch but I would love to decorate my porch like this or like this...
                                     
However, I do not have the money or space to decorate like this, so my little porch with my lone pumpkin and my mums will do for now :)
Another thing I love about fall is all the pumpkin flavored things-pumpkin spice lattes (my favorite), pumpkin pie, pumpkin pound cake, and pumpkin bread to name a few. I have been making pumpkin spice coffee every single morning for the past few weeks and haven't gotten tired of it yet. Hopefully I will find some time to make some yummy fall treats soon. Might even post about them. We shall see. That's all for today!