So awhile ago my cousin, Jessica, posted a picture of toilet paper roll art on her blog, My Cute Little Life. I did a google search for more ideas of toilet paper roll art and decided that it would be the perfect medium for decorating our living room wall. Now this wall in the apartment is kind of large and I wanted something to span the whole length. So we ended up getting 4 canvases to hang equally spaced along the wall. By the way, Hobby Lobby is the place to go for canvases. The canvases we got came in packs of two and are super cheap when they are on sale 40% off or if you use one of their 50% coupons.

Here are the steps to do a project like this:
1. Depending on your design, you may need a lot of toilet paper rolls. Ask friends and family to save up toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls for you. (You will probably get some funny looks.) Explain to them what you are going to do with the rolls and get a few more funny looks.

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Hooray! My amazing hubby has finished updating the look of the blog. He did a wonderful job, didn't he? I want to point out a few features that you may find useful. On the left hand side there are lots of useful things. You will find a blog archive, where you can see all of the posts organized by month. There is also a "Tags" section where you can find blog posts that are related to each category. Beneath that there is an option to follow the blog via email. If you enter your email address you will automatically be sent an email with each new blog post. And finally there is the option to follow with Google Friend Connect aka your google account. Also, now comments automatically post as you from your facebook account if you are signed in. With this feature you have the option to post only to the blog or to also have your comments post to facebook as well. So try out some of the features and let me know what you think... or if anything is broken.

In other exciting news, my hubby gave me my birthday present early. I got a new DSLR camera and I am super excited! I have been taking pictures like crazy.

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... New look. That's right people, the blog is getting a new look and it will involve... chevron! Goodbye to the old, boring, plain blogger template/theme. Chevron is my current favorite pattern and I am trying to incorporate it everywhere. I am so excited that I have an amazing hubby who is creating a new design for the blog... he is just so wonderful to me! So posts probably won't be happening until the transformation is complete. Coming up, I have lots of fun things that I want to show you guys so keep checking back every now and then.

Phoebe's first bath.

The end.

So Phoebe was spayed today. I cannot believe how emotional I was over this whole process. To be honest, I am a little embarrassed at how worried I was. My wonderful husband kept trying to reassure me that most dogs get spayed/neutered and that it isn't a big deal but I wasn't listening to reason. To top it all off, the mean lady that took Phoebe away didn't even let me say good-bye. She gave me papers to sign and then slipped around the corner and took her away. Sneaky little technician. Our poor pup was shaking and scared.

In the end, this day was probably much more traumatizing for me than it was for her. Everything went well with the surgery and she is resting at home, still groggy from the big day but doing just fine.

Did I tell you all that I passed the NCLEX? Well I did... back in June. I have been waiting all this time for my Texas nursing license to come. So this entire time even though I knew I was on my way to becoming a nurse, it wasn't official yet. But yesterday I finally got an envelop from the state of Texas that contained my license. So I am now officially Erin Davis R.N., BSN. * jumps for joy* Now the job hunt is officially on. Hopefully I won't have too hard of a time finding something that is a good fit for me. I will keep you posted.

On a completely different note. Split peas. These little guys are my new favorite decorative filler. At less than a dollar per bag they are great for filling up large vases. I also really like how they look compared to marbles or rocks. Currently they are filling up space in three vases on our living room mantle shelf thing and in two smaller vases in our bedroom.

These vases were left over from my bridal shower centerpieces. In our last apartment they were filled with flour, sugar, and pasta but we didn't really have the space to use them like that in our new place. So they ended up empty on this ledge just to get them out of the kitchen. I had been debating on whether or not to keep them or replace them with candlesticks or hurricane vases. I just didn't like them with the lids on and I didn't like them with the lids off because you could see the threads and that they were meant to have a lid. To solve that problem I wrapped the top of the vases with jute to cover up the threads and I am super pleased with how it turned out. I like how natural the look is and I am really enjoying having the candles lit in the evening.

Now I have to admit that this was not an original idea of mine. I saw the split peas in a couple of different places on Pinterest as suggestions for fall decor and the twine was originally shown wrapped around the middle of flower vases as a diy wedding centerpiece. I love the combination together and how I didn't have to purchase new vases for the ledge.

Have you heard of Pinterest? It is only my absolute most favorite website right now. It is a website that is like a huge photo catalog with links back to interesting stuff on the internet. Currently I am pinning a ton of craft projects, recipes, inspiration for home decor, and fashion inspiration. Oh how I wish I would have known about Pinterest when I was planning our wedding. It is seriously awesome. You can click here to see my pinboards and look around. Let me know if you like the site and think you would use it... I can send you an invite.

 So for the past couple of months I have been crafting and creating like crazy around this apartment. You have already seen two of those little projects and I have at least three more to show you after this post. One of the projects that turned out pretty well was adding padded seats to some stools.

I started with two saddle stools that we ordered from Walmart. Our goal for these stools was to use them when we have company over for extra seating at our dining room table. The only problem was that our dining room table is a dark brown and I couldn't find saddle stools anywhere that would match our dining room set. We went ahead and ordered the black stools knowing that I would add some fabric to the top and that hopefully the black and brown difference wouldn't be too terribly noticeable.

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