Springify

 Happy (late) Valentines Day everyone! Hope yours was wonderful and spent with loved ones! It breaks my heart to have to change this decor (get it "breaks my heart" :) ), but it's time for a change.

 It may seem that this is going to be a huge process, giving this room a new look, but it's really very simple.

First thing I do when swapping decor is clear-out nearly everything. With this space, I don't have many options as far as furniture layout, but that doesn't mean that I'm limited in decor options! When you completely clear a space, it gives you a blank canvas to start with, and, in my opinion, allows for even more inspiration and creativity.

 
I always start with pillows. They are a very easy way to update a space and can be changed out in a matter of seconds. As you saw in the "before picture", I used pops of red for the holiday season and left them through Valentines Day.
This spring, I'm keeping things in a very neutral pallet to give a "fresh" look.

After pillows, I move on to my side tables. While they are small, they give opportunity for lots of creativity.

  

For the one pictured above, I filled an old metal water pitcher with white peonies, and used some old books, a picture of Jentry and Fenley (my nephew and niece), some greenery from Michael's, and an old horse shoe that is very special to me because it used to hang above the door of my great-grandmother's house.

The sign in the flowers is actually a plant marker that's meant to be used in a garden!

On the other side, I used more books and a cute cabbage I picked up at Michael's along with a D for Dylan Duke :) and my favorite baby picture of Jentry. (It's hard to believe that that little baby will be 6 next month!)

Not many changes on the ottoman. I like to keep it simple and minimal here as this stuff is always having to be moved! 

In the corner is one of my favorite projects. This chair used to be so... Well, ugly! I got it at Goodwill about a year ago. It was the natural wood color but was scraped and bumped and scratched all over and had this old crazy looking fabric and the seat was falling out of it. I wish I had a picture! 

My Grandpa and I took off the seat, sanded the chair a bit, put a few coats of flat black paint, added some new padding and fabric, and here she is. It's crazy how an ugly duckling can become so good looking!

The picture behind it is a framed map and my mom gave me that canvas a few years ago. I love them both!

   All in all, I love the new look of this room, and find it perfectly fitting for Spring! Hope you found some ideas and inspiration that will help you "Springify" your space!

To see more decor pictures and ideas from me, follow me on Instagram (duke.dylan) and Pinterest

 (Dylan Duke)! Happy Decorating!

"See, the winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the Earth, the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land."

Song of Songs 2:11-12 

More than a Meeting

I love starting the day with a party... Especially if that party is a surprise! Today was our monthly meeting at the YMCA (where I work), but I wanted it to be extra special for two reasons: one, it was our "we survived January" celebration (January is our busiest time of year since so many people want to start a gym membership to help with their New Years resolution) and two, more importantly, it was two of our best workers birthdays this past week! So, of course, it had to be a party!

This tablescape turned out great, and to be done in less than an hour with things I already had (minus the plates and napkins) made it even better. It's very simple, but very beautiful.

I wanted to do some type of charger for the plates, but wasn't sure what to use. Then I saw this pack of paper doilies we had at home and thought they would look perfect under clear plastic plates. They also helped make the table look more cohesive with the white cups and napkins and also the polka dots on the table runner.

As far as food goes, we had these cute mini bunt cakes and fresh fruit (the first two pictures were taken before the fruit got here! ha ha). I think these cakes were a great choice because they looked beautiful on the mismatched cake plates I had and they were delicious according to the birthday boy and girl! And the fruit gave the table a needed pop of color.

See, you can even make decor choices when choosing the food you have.

Speaking of pop of color, I LOVE these flowers. Those green ones are my new favorite, and I can't even remember the name of them! These little arrangements were so cute. I thought it was so neat how this mixture of flowers made it almost look like the purple ones were growing. I chose the purple color because they really popped against the bright green and because that Ms. Katie Bohannon's (Soon to be Mrs. Katie Brooks) favorite color.
(My friend Nelly and I will be coordinating her wedding, so make sure you check back in October to check that out! I'm so excited for her and Brandon!)

I'm also excited about getting to use this birthday banner again. It's one of the best that I've made, if I do say so myself. It was originally for my mom's birthday back in September.

(Throw Back!!!)

And it worked perfectly for this party too!

All in all, I'd say we had a simply successful "meeting".

Happy late birthday to Katie and Dusty! Thanks for all you do at work and for being amazing friends!

Love and Confidence

Happy Friday everyone and Happy early Valentine's Day! This post is going to be a bit different. I want to talk about 2 things that I think are very fitting for this time of the year: confidence and love.

 

I've been thinking about these two things a lot lately in regards to college, work, decorating, life goals, ect. And I've realized that you can't have one without the other. We've all heard confidence is key, and as I'm getting older, I see that it really is. It takes confidence to do anything, and I think we all go through times where that's a real struggle for us. There are days when I just want to through my hands up in the air and say it's all pointless. There are days where I don't want to get out of bed. But you know what, everybody has those days, and that's OK! 

I'm a perfectionist and I think that everything has to be in order all the time, that I have to makes A's on every assignment, that my planner has to be color coordinated... But it's not always going to be and it doesn't have to be! 

Now, let's look at that from a design/decor stand point. We all want our houses or apartments or rooms or whatever to always be picture perfect and we always want to have everything in perfect order, but if it's not, THAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU A FAILURE! You know what it makes you? 

Human.

We all make mistakes, we all have things we have to deal with, but we can't loose our confidence! You know yourself, you know what you can do, so don't be afraid to do it! And don't be afraid to love what you do. More importantly, don't be afraid to love yourself! You're awesome! And when you love yourself, even though it can be difficult sometimes, you'll be able to love more deeply and more fully! (If you're part of the singles club this Valentine's Day, like me, go buy yourself something! Splurge on you because you're worth it! 😄)

Have confidence in yourself and love who you are! You are the best you there is! God made you for a reason, and He doesn't make mistakes! 

Be on the look out for some more posts coming soon, and follow my Instagram (duke.dylan), Pinterest (Dylan Duke) and Facebook (Dylan Duke) accounts to see more decor (and some random) posts!

Happy Valentine's Day!!! 

(I had to throw in one pretty picture 😁)

Backing the Badge

Have you heard of the trending hashtag "backthebadge"? It's awesome! People everywhere are encouraging our police forces across America through social media by taking pictures and writing supportive posts using the hashtag #backthebadge. 

We have three police officers who are members of my church, so we, of course, had to participate! We posted this picture to our church Facebook  page ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/149999958376274/ ) a few weeks ago, but we wanted to take it a step further.

We decided to host a drop in "breakfast"/"brunch" for police officers in our area, and here are some of the pictures from that morning.

I set-up for this "event", and wanted it to look special for our hardworking policemen and women. I chose to keep the tables very simple with black tablecloths and vases filled with yellow daisies for a pop of color

We also asked everyone at church to donate fast-food gift cards that the officers could pick up on the way out to use for their lunch or dinner. 

And, more importantly, the cops loved it!
Unfortunately, I didn't get any pics the day of, but imagine 25ish police officers and lots of church members holding cups of coffee and plates of doughnuts.

#BacktheBadge