A Productive Memorial Day...

Since it was a holiday yesterday and we had lots to do before our open house this Thursday, we decided it was upgrade day for Bella Jean Boutique...My brothers Chris and Isaac did more of our trim and crown molding in our new area. It's amazing how nice you can make something look with crown molding!

Crown molding!

My dad and I took a trip to our local fabric store and got material for our fitting room curtain, as well as material for a project my dad wanted to do. (I don't think I could have gotten him to go with any other reason). We then headed off to Home Depot to get the materials for a new cutting table in our work area. I was so excited! Our old one had been around a little too long!

Materials for Cutting table

We found a picture of a cutting table we liked and copied it, with our own dimensions. If you want to make one, it actually is pretty easy! All you do is buy 2 cube organizers in the color of your choice. Then we got a melamine board for the table top...we made ours 3.5' x 6'...then we got a trim for around the edge to make the top look thicker.


We assembled the 2 cube organizers first, adding some wood glue in all the dowled areas to make it stronger.

We then placed them in the area we wanted them and set the melamine on the top. We centered it, marked it in case it shifted and began drilling holes up through the cubes into the top. Veronica went behind me and screwed all the screws in (of course using screws that were short enough to not go through the top).

Chris then put the painted trim all the way around in his professional contractor way. My dad painted the backs of the cubes white, as well as touched up the trim! We were done! A couple hour project and there you have a beautiful cutting table and much more needed storage space!

So don't forget to come check out our new area and improvements on Thursday and Friday June 2nd and 3rd from 10am-5pm...

Creativity in Your Decor

Lately we've been searching the internet for new and interesting ways to add to our decor that doesn't cost alot but makes a big difference and a lasting impression on our customers. One small decoration i found is rolled paper flowers. They are really simple but they dress up a small area. Here's where I found it. This website is full of amazing decor ideas and tutorials for different things you can make.

Another little element we added to our walls was the decorated embroidery hoops. We've had the plain hoops sitting around for a long time and finally decided to look for things we could use them for. There were lots of websites full of different ways you could decorate them. Here's how we did it. We put fabric in them and then found out how to make fabric flowers and added them with other embellishments. The Jones Design Company also has tutorials for these kind of flowers.

Today we got this dresser which, you can obviously see is our favorite style; shabby chic! We put the green shelf on top to create a hutch and there you have it, a great display area. We are using the dresser drawers for much needed storage.

One other website I wanted to share with you is called Pinterest. It is full of pictures and pictures of decor, fashion, gardening ect... that you can add to your board and easily refer back to. You basically just type in anything you want for example "dresser displays" and it comes up with loads of pictures to help you with your decor. I found it really helpful! It also leads you back to the original source (usually blogs) of the pictures so you can usually find out how exactly its done.

The Shop has turned to a Winter Wonderland...

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

On Saturday we decided it was time to turn our fall harvest shop into a Winter wonderland.  After decorating the last time, we decided we needed more help then just the two of us. We also needed some fresh ideas. Who better to call then our designer friend Olivia? We asked her to come over and she brought 3 of her younger sisters as well as a cousin. It was lots of fun! We pulled out everything we could think of that was white, silver or blue. Then I took a couple of the girls to the store and we bought more decorations. It is so hard to restrain from buying decorations because this time of season there are so many cute ornaments, little trees, gift wrapping items, and much more! Well we loaded up on all kinds of things. When we returned Olivia, Veronica, Ellen, and Rose had already hung glittering snow flakes, spray painted pine cones silver, and shimmered up the window sills. It was looking great! Ellen made a wonderful bouquet of wintery flowers and feathers. We hung stockings from the ceiling, wrapped boxes to look like gifts, It all looked spectacular! 

To add the finishing touches we bought the spray snow for windows, and also got soft peppermint sticks. Yes, you can't have winter decorations without your candy canes or peppermints!

Oh and by the way, that beautiful looking snow fairy doll on the center table, is outfitted in our friends new line of doll clothes she is making. She has started an Etsy shop now with multiple doll clothes....don't miss it for your Christmas gifts!

It is always so much fun to have a project to work on with friends. It makes decorating all the more fun!