Birthday Decor [Part I]

Since we purchased our new camera, the Canon Rebel T1i, Michael has become quite the photographer.  For months I've been wanting to display his photos on shelves in our entryway.  About a month ago we found the perfect shelves at IKEA for his photos...

The day before my birthday he walked into our living room with the shelves!  I was super excited.  He gave them to me a day early because I was going to IKEA that night to buy frames and he didn't want me to buy the shelves myself.

The big bare wall finally has some style!

Let the countdown begin...

The 2011 IKEA Catalog will be online this August.  Doesn't get much better :)

The New IKEA Shopping List...

I've been dreaming of IKEA lately...

Two of these woven pendants over our dining room table would be fabulous!

This bright rug in our bedroom:

I would love two of these side tables as coffee tables for the living room:

If the above side tables don't look good, there's always this sleek coffee table too:

The hard part:  how do I convince Michael to make IKEA trip #65 to check these items out?  I really think he is beginning to hate IKEA.  His words:  IKEA = assembly which ='s work!  :)

Photos:  www.IKEA.com

The IKEA trip...

We finally made the trip to IKEA to purchase the Expedit bookcase, Hemnes dresser, file folders, storage boxes, power strips, an accent light & photo frames :)

The bookcase looks great in the corner next to our sofa. I now have plenty of storage for my owl collection. We will eventually move the storage boxes into the bookcase, but for now, they remain up top until we can trust Morgan not to chew.

The Hemnes dresser is a match to the larger dresser we already have. This 3-drawer dresser appeared to be much smaller at the IKEA store. When we got it home it seemed too large at first, but we made it work.

Picture Perfect [Part II]...

On a recent trip to IKEA we found these white, chunky frames. I decided to Google "Vintage Wallpaper" and found these great prints. I hoped for the best and printed them out on my color printer and WAALLAAH, we have art!

The plan is to hang these in a random assortment over our couch. I need about 7 or 8 more photos to fill up the space. These should add more color to the room and accent our high ceilings.

The best part about this project is the art was free! The frames were very reasonable. They ranged from $4.99 to $11.99 for the largest frame.

The Monogram S is a project I did in Adobe InDesign. I got the idea from Young House Love [my all time favorite blog]. When I saw their Monogram P with full instructions on how to create it, I couldn't resist. I also created a Monogram B for my friends who recently purchased their first home.

I will post photos as soon as we hang them!

The Ikea shopping list [for now]...

Since our humble abode is a massive 1,000 sq. ft. storage is a must! I would like more shelving [book shelf] to create a space to display trinkets and provide more storage. Michael is also in desperate need of more clothing storage.

Here is our shopping list for our next Ikea trip...