Pearl Blossoms GIVEAWAY! (GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED)

(Now closed!  congrats to winner Jillian from My Split Ends!)
Hey there!  I hope you are in the mood for a sweet giveaway, because I've got one for you! Meet Julianne, designer and dreamer behind Pearl Blossoms!

As a wife and mother of three boys, Julianne found herself outnumbered and in need of a little girlyness!  So she nurtured a passion for creating custom jewelry and soon, Pearl Blossoms was born!

Pearl Blossoms offers 'pearls' which is Julianne's collection of custom bracelets and necklaces:

And 'blossoms,' versatile floral accessories that can be clipped to a sweater or belt, or worn in the hair!  (This is just a smidgen of her huge selection, SO much more to see on the website).

The cuteness is killing me!  KILLING ME!

Julianne was kind enough to offer me an item to review, and I chose the "Dalmation" bracelet, seen here:   

(this is actually not my hand.  After many, many failed attempts to attractively photograph my hands, I decided to use my sister as a hand model instead.  You can thank me later for not giving you nightmares about my veiny skeletor hands).

Ok, so I love this bracelet.  Not only is it obviously cute, but do you see the sweet little surprise smiling in there?

That's right, custom photo charms!  Ack!  My kids were so excited when I showed it to them.  You should have seen the looks on their faces! I think they feel pretty special whenever I wear it, which is often, because it really goes with everything.  

I will cherish this for a very long time. And what's great is that I know it will last a very long time, because her work is of the utmost quality.  I could tell just from the first time I held it in my hand.

Hey, I just realized that this would be a perfect gift for mother's day, ya'll.

 Look!  Here I am with my bracelet! Oh, I hate taking pictures of myself. I truly am happier than I look, I promise.  Don't you love how my shirt matches my wall?  My name is Lindsey and I'm a grayaholic.  A grayaholic with skeletor hands.

SO!  Guess what?  Julianne has kindly offered not one, not two, but THREE of her beautiful creations to three lucky Better After readers!  

That's right, THREE WINNERS!

First place will win a bracelet of your choice with up to three charms!

Second place will win a necklace of your choice!

Third place will win a blossom of your choice!

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Entering is easy!

To enter: simply leave a comment here!

For an extra entry:  'like' Pearl Blossoms on Facebook, and say Better After sent you!

For another extra entry: share the giveaway from the Pearl Blossoms Facebook page!

For another extra entry: visit the Pearl Blossoms site and tell me your favorite item!
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PLEASE, oh PLEASITY PLEASE come back here and leave a comment for each extra entry, and don't forget to leave a way for me to contact you!  

Giveaway will close Monday, April 2, winners will be chosen at random. 
Good luck, I hope you win!

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Bunch o' Boy Bedrooms

Did you come here today looking for some boy-bedroom inspiration?  Then you are in luck!  And also, psychic!  Do you want to know a secret?  I actually think I'm a little bit psychic.  I don't like, see dead people, but sometimes I just know things, that I shouldn't know.  Or my dreams sometimes come true.   Like one time I dreamed that I went to a certain thrift store (that I hardly ever, ever went to), and I found this specific chair there, and guess what?  When I woke up, I decided I'd better go to that store or else I'd be probably haunted or cursed or something, and the chair was there!  Weeeeird, huh?

Ok, but back to boy bedrooms.  You don't need to be a psychic to see that these are better!  Sorry for the lame segue.  But there's nothing lame about this dresser that got a paint job as part of an entire red, white and blue bedroom makeover for a lucky little boy named Grady.  See much more on Kathleen's blog The Tough Times Make You Stronger.

Linda's son was ready to graduate from his primary-color schemed room since he was a teenager and all, so she gave it an orange and gray update with some stripes for dynamism.  Is that a real word?  The white stripes are actually moulding, and I love how they pop out from the wall for extra interest.  Tons of details and a custom-curtain how-to on her blog It All Started with Paint. 

And finally, you are going to want to set aside a block of time to go check out the final reveal of Ronda's pirate-room.  Do you remember the pirate closet-doors makeover she started with? Well, here is the finished product, and it is so fantastic, you might cry.  And convince your husband/roomate/partner/parents that you are turning your bedroom into a pirate lair too. 

As you can see, they started with a blank slate, so pretty much everything in here was DIYed or thrifted, they even built the beds!  Get an up close look on her blog Batchelors Way.  Arg! I'm jealous, matey!

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Chairfully Cheerful!

When Jennifer emailed me her Cosco stool makeover, I mistakenly read it as "Costcos tool makeover," and I was like ... huh?  Costco tools?  Is this like, a set of knives?  Or one of those mega-blenders that can turn strawberry hulls and potato peels into a deliciously healthy shake?  I want one of those blenders.  Holy crap, they cost like $500 though!  Anyway.

Then I opened up the email and realized it was Cosco, not Costco, and a stool, obviously, not a tool.  Then it took me way back, because my grandma had one of these.  Then I reminded myself that I actually have one of these in the garage too.  Then I resolved to make it look awesome like hers.  Then I made a strawberry-hull shake. In my dreams. See more right HERE.

What's that?  You want some more chair makeovery yumminess?  Then feast your eyeballs on this colorful office chair from Kendra at My Insanity.  It's so sweet and cheerful it almost makes you feel like you are running down a flower-covered hill in the springtime, instead of what you are actually doing: sitting in an office chair.

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Checkmate!

This is what your floors might look like if you pulled up some indoor/outdoor carpet and sanded and scraped the gluey reside until your hands bled and you were certifiably crazy.  Olivia thought she had met her match once she realized there was no way her floor would ever be perfectly smooth, no matter how many sanding disks she burned through. So she threw in the towel.  And when I say towel, I actually mean sheets of MDF that she primed and painted and sealed and checkered! HA! Who's the boss now, gluey gross floor?!  See the whole darn process on her blog He Hunts, I Create.

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Oar'nt you glad?

Sometimes it feels like cheating when the before is nothing but an empty room, stripped down, all ready to be painted and decorated.  No crusty carpet to pull up.  No weird wood paneling to pry off the walls. No strange stains and smells making you wonder if perhaps your home was previously used as a meth-lab.

But Helen's new family room is so lovely with the built in bookcases and nautical-but-not-SO-nautical-that-it's-hitting-you-over-the-head-with-an-oar theme, that I will totally give her a pass.  Lovely job Helen!  See more on her blog A Brit of Happiness.

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Double Desk Duty

When is a raven like a writing desk?  Who is John Galt?  How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie-roll center of a tootsie-pop?  These are the mysteries that the world may never know.  (But if you slogged through all five million pages of Atlas Shrugged, you might know the answer to one of those questions.  Hint: it's not the tootsie-pop one.) 

But! Here is a raven ON a writing desk, and there's no question that it's waaay better looking that the ivy-stickered mess it was before.  From Emily at Youth Hostile.

And here's another desk from Rita at This (sorta) Old Life, who repaired this $35 thrift store find into a desk that her 14-year-old son "likes."  That's actually high praise. If you don't hang out with 14-year-old boys much, let me translate:  "Holy snot Mom, this desk is AWESOME!!  Thank you so much, seriously thank you, I love it! I'm hugging you in my mind!) 

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Expired Ketchup

I can see that there was an attempt to update this kitchen in the past.  The counters were nice, the cabinets had received a distressed paint job at some point and the backslash was newish.  However, the only explanation I have for the adjoining dining room is this: ketchup-fight.

Luckily J. has a condition known as Design OCD and wasn't happy until the whole things was gutted and streamlined and gorgeous. And now I reeeeeeally want to paint all my window frames black. 

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Kate's Kiddie Kid Kitchen

After Kate remodeled her kitchen, she noticed her young son "stalking around stroking the cupboards and muttering gleefully ‘My new kitchen! What is in my cupboards? I cook now!'  So, she decided he needed a new kitchen too!  She found this hutch top on ebay for £12, which, if my pound-to-dollar currency converting skills are up to snuff, is something like $20?  Hot deal! 

Check out her blog Kate's Creative Space to see him and the kitchen in action. Seriously, do it. He's rocking a little red bathrobe and bedhead, and it's going to be the cutest thing you've seen all week.

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Outdo's and Don'ts

It's outdoor season here!  We can open our windows!  We can grill on the patio!  We can enjoy it for about two whole weeks before our faces start to melt off if we even look outside!  Hopefully you are just beginning a long and adventurous season of outdoor entertaining.  Maybe you have just recently dusted off your patio furniture and dragged it out of storage and realized that ew!  It could use some updating.

Here's one idea from Kelly, who reupholstered her patio chairs with some groovy green-striped outdoor fabric.  Does it count as "reupholstering" if she technically didn't sew one stitch and used safety pins instead?  It does in my book!  She found her no-sew tutorial right HERE.

Beth was also over her tired and taupe-y loungers, so she came up with a quick fix using a few different paint colors and painter's tape.  This is the kind of project you could knock out in an hour!  So what I'm saying is ... this is my kind of project.

Kim from Just a Southern Girl covered her rattan loveseat with a big, happy floral (doing all the upholstery, zippers and piping herself, knuckle-bump!) It's part of a set, and she plans to finish the other pieces in a solid, but ANYTHING would be better than the former fabric, which appears to be the official fabric of Disease.

Great job ladies!

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