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Let’s face it… we would all love to live in a home where every element speaks to our personal style. A home that is clutter-free with scrumptious furniture, beautiful design elements with lovely artwork on the walls. A home where no matter the time of day, if your neighbor decides to pop in unexpectedly your blood pressure doesn’t spike because the house is out of order. The issue at hand is that, reality dictates our life… not our perfect fantasies.

The reality is that most of us have families, pets or even roommates. Sometimes how we would like our home to look just isn’t practical. Some of us have family members {i.e. Husbands} who just don’t understand style. Their only language is function and they just don’t get the deep need for design. Many of us have children who require toys and accessories that just don’t quite match our décor theme. We don’t want them to have to live in a sterile environment that is devoid of the playful flourishes of childhood. Some of us are the creative types and despite our dream of a lovely craft room, life just hasn’t provided that for us yet.

Case in point… I have a lovely home that is small. We have just a hair over 1800 square feet and we have a family of six. Needless to say, space is tight. We had two children when we first moved in eight years ago and it was going to be a starter home for us. The plan was after a couple of years we would move into our perfect, what we call our “thirty year home,” and live comfortably with all kinds of space for style and function. Life just hasn’t provided for that yet. Two more children have joined us and we’ve learned how to make our space work for us with as much style as possible. However, my sense of design has been forced to learn how to take a back seat in many cases. Compromises have been made for many different reasons. Here are a few examples…

We all know that I am a creative person, and creative people need stuff to create with. I don’t have the luxury of an extra room that I can store my supplies in. I also have the extra element of blogging and the need for photo accessories, props and such. I’ve learned how to creatively store them in plain sight without being too distracting to the home. I have an armoire in my kitchen that I would LOVE to use to dress up my kitchen with a display of beautiful things. The reality is that it is a great place to store my tools, supplies and photo props for WhipperBerry. I also needed a spot to collect the kitchen laundry so I found a pretty basket that serves that function. In my perfect world that would be hidden somewhere.

Another reality… I have children. With children come toys and sticky messes.

Here’s my little guy who right before I took this picture had just spilled apple juice all over his clothes. I was in the middle of a project, so I cleaned him up, but let him run in his diaper and socks until I had a chance to run upstairs to grab a new outfit for him. He’s two and can be messy at times. He also likes to have toys to play with in the space where he hangs out the most. In a perfect world I would have a playroom where all the toys are tastefully tucked away and out of sight. The reality… The place where he hangs out the most is our living room, so that’s where his toys live.

   

Not my ideal, but I love having my children… So, I will learn how to live with their toys.

Another compromise I’ve had to make is my living room sofa. I have the world’s ugliest sofa!!

My husband and I agreed many years ago, that while we were in the little sticky finger stage we wouldn’t buy a nice sofa. Our sofa is a third-hand, hand me down that is ugly and quite honestly gross. The problem is… our little kiddo, sticky finger {remember, we just had spilled apple juice} stage has lasted a lot longer than we had expected. My oldest is fourteen and my youngest just turned two. That’s fourteen years of sticky fingers with still a few more years left. I will just live with my ugly couch for a few more years but recently we had to do something about our flooring. It was basic, basic, low-grade carpet and took a lot of abuse.

Isn't it NASTY?!

We ripped everything out and replaced it with a lovely laminate but now I am looking for a good stain resistant large area rug for my living room.

As much as I love the hardwood look, I still crave the soft feel of carpet under my feet. I think I am going to check out Carpet One’s Resista carpet line so that I can have BOTH style and function!! Sometimes we do have to make compromises when it comes to style and function. Every once in a while we’re lucky… the two collide and we can have something that is both stylish and fits into the reality of our life.

I’ll keep you up to date and let you know what I find with Carpet One. In the mean time…

I'm curious to know, in your home, how do you balance your practical needs with your style wants?

You live your life on carpet. Make sure you have carpet that lets you live your life! For more information on Resista Carpet visit www.carpetone.com

Join the Conversation to be entered to win a 5' x 7' Resista area rug!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf ofCarpetOne. The opinions and text are all mine.

One of my Mom’s great loves in life is gardening. For as long as I can remember she has worked daily on her beautiful flower garden. Carefully planning and pruning to create a stunning floral landscape every year. She would always bring in her flower cuttings and was in constant need for vases of all shapes and sizes. For Mother’s Day this year I thought I would try out a new painting technique that I’ve been dying to try with the Martha Stewart Crafts Paint by Plaid. I created some fun paint-dipped bud vases for her to have on hand for her beautiful flowers. Maybe I should have been painting with stencils but you live and you learn.

Supplies Needed

Martha Stewart Satin Paint {any color}

Martha Stewart Pearl Paint {coordinating color}

Martha Stewart Glaze Medium

Bud Vases

Ziplock bag

Small cup

 

To prepare the paint, combine 3 parts paint to 1 part glaze medium in side the Ziplock bag inside the small glass. The bag is to protect the glass and it also makes storage and clean up just a zip away!

Here’s the easy part… Carefully dip the bud vase into the paint and submerge to your desired point.

   

Here is the step that requires a little patience. You need to hold the vase gently tapping it over the glass of paint for about 10 minutes.  This will gently knock off excess paint and will allow for the paint to dry just enough so that you can place the vase upside down in order for it to dry completely. Carefully watch that the paint doesn’t start to drip down onto the clear part of the glass. You may need to hold it upright a little longer so that the paint can dry a little more.

Once that layer of paint dried completely, I repeated the process with the pearlized paint from Martha Stewart Crafts. This time I dipped the vase halfway up the original paint line and created the second layer.

I just love how these turned out! I am becoming a huge fan of the dipped paint method.  The beautiful imperfect lines it creates along with the unique finish, it a project I know I will try many more times.

I especially love the paints from Martha Stewart Crafts by Plaid. The quality is unmatched and the colors are phenomenal. I am finding more and more I am gravitating to the Martha Stewart products.  For one I know that they are QUALITY products. I’m not going to have to worry about craft fails with them and that makes my “one take wonder” side very happy.  Also, the colors and finishes follow the current trends and I know I will be able to find the exact color that I want. Oh and one more thing… the tools and paint applicators are aaaamazing.  They are easy to use and require far less clean-up than most products.  I LOVE that.

Here are some of the other products available from the Martha Stewart Craft line by Plaid…

 

   

 

Believe it or not, this is just a small sampling.  The line is fantastic!! You can find it at Michaels.

I’m so excited to give my Mom her bud vases so that she can show off her stunning flowers all over the house for Mother’s Day.

What would you like to make for the Moms in your life this year for Mother’s Day with Martha Stewart Crafts? I would love for you to share your fun ideas!

Find my post disclosure here.

Here's what you need to do to enter the $75 Plum Box giveaway from Pick Your Plum…

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