TOP TWELVE SHOTS of 2017

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1.   CHANDELIER LOVER

Like most ladies, I absolutely love chandeliers!  When we decided to move into a new house in January, I struck a deal with my husband.  We could buy the house, which was about 10 years old, if he let me remodel the entire thing before we moved in. I didn’t want to drag it out over time while we were living there!

My vision included cramming as many chandeliers as possible into the house!  Since we had visited Paris earlier in the year, I decided to use the inspiration from the Palace of Versailles for our little Texas home! The remodel went very smooth and we were able to move in on time!  You can see some of the blog posts here!  

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2. HOME REMODELER

This is probably the fourth home I have gotten to revamp, and it gets easier each time!  This time, I really got to have fun and not worry about boring things such as resale potential!  My dad stated, “Well, that’s great as long as you don’t need to resell it,”  after seeing the beginnings of the work! LOL!  The saying goes, everything needs to be dull, safe, simple to help with selling potential….which I refer to as vomit. It was nice not having to worry about anything except what we want.

The other great thing was that my husband had literally no input! 🙂  It was heaven to not have to debate each little thing! There’s another link here. I had to have dog friendly flooring and furniture so those were really the only requirements.

As I sit here, almost a full year later, the entire decor part is complete and now I can focus on gardens and real life.

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3. BIRD WATCHER

It’s always been a desire of mine, to be able to get up close and personal on a fresh bird’s nest.  I’d always wanted to be able to watch the babies grow!  I finally got my chance when a few months after we moved into the new house, a bird made it’s nest in a pot on my front porch!

I checked it several times a day and got to photograph the babies as they grew for a few weeks! If birds are your thing, you can see the shots here!

hummingbird

4.  HUMMINGBIRD STALKER

I find it annoying when people always talk about how blessed they are. But OMG, I feel so blessed because I’ve always thought of hummingbirds as my favorite bird…and I have tons of them that I feed now!  I spend hours trying to photograph them, and finally got a few fun shots.  Not perfect or detailed, but they speak to my heart.

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5.  FASHION BLOGGER

I work for Johnny Was Clothing, a California brand that I love…so I blog about their clothes a lot. The shot above was actually showing off a custom dress that Eshakti  sent to me, along with a Johnny Was Biya coat that I love!  Although I have made some money from my blog this year, I am not one of those people that only shows you things that I want to earn a commission on by linking to an online shop.  If it’s something I think is cool, but won’t make a dime for me…so be it.  My blog is an ongoing commercial about clothing.  What is terrible is that I could provide a lot more content due to my ongoing new supply of clothing but time is an issue. For us, if I happen to be dressed and in the mood…we snap pictures. I want to do so much more writing and hopefully this year I can get better at a lot of things…blogging being one of them!

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6.  LASH BOSS

I finally got to do something I’ve always wanted to do!  I’ve started a new business in the cosmetics industry!  After researching strip lashes for years, I took the plunge and developed my own brand, Bosscat BeautyI designed two types of silk strip lashes and decided to start the business with one product, the Glam Edition Lash BoxThe fun part was getting set up and building the first product from start to finish. Social media advertising is also fun.  This next year will be about setting up retail accounts while also growing individual online sales to help promote brand awareness. I’m proud of my work so far and can’t wait to see how it goes in 2018!

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7.  CREATIVE DIRECTOR

One of the greatest jobs that I have with Bosscat is being able to create and design products that I  hope people love!  The above is just a first shot that I took for initial marketing once my boxes first came in! I will take a little time and get better at it, but it’s a start!

dogmom

 

8.  DOGMOM

Somehow I turned into a pink loving, flamingo floating, bleach blonde, dog mom. I think it’s funny as hell.  I wanted to include this cell phone picture because it is so real.  This past summer, each afternoon for an hour, I would try to relax outside with the girls.  They love getting on floats and we just hang out and watch the birds and squirrels. It’s a little bit lonely at times to have such a simple life, but at the same time, I love peace and quiet so it’s really a cool life.

 

9. JAZZY LOVER

Being a dogmom, really started with adopting my Jazzy about 16 years ago.  She was skinny, small, not too outgoing of a personality.  She looked me straight in the eyes though, so I adopted her for the connection and her desire to understand.  We knew she didn’t have much longer, so we took all three girls on a #dogcation  a few months before she died.  She had an accidental death three days after we moved into the new house. It has not been a year yet.  I loved her and gave her a safe home for 16 years and try not to think about her accident.  She was a great little dog and this year I had to say goodbye.

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10. PET CEMETARY GROUNDSKEEPER

If you read #9….then you get why I created a Pet Cemetary in my yard!  It’s my little special place to honor Jazzy’s life and respect her with a memorial garden while having a great prayer spot at the same time!  I’ve never shared a peak before.  This next spring my biggest project will be my back yard.  It’s freezing right this minute and probably killing my palms and fruit trees so a big clean up will be in order.

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11.  WANNABE YOUTUBER

I started making a few videos again, due in part to the new Bosscat venture!  It is so hard to try to come off as your true self, and look ok, and have fun!  The thing is, that it really is fun to make videos if you have the time to put in!  This year is going to take some serious time management in order to meet my personal goals! It would be so neat to be interesting enough to do well at videos but not sure if that’s in the cards!

 

12. MAKEUP ARTIST

I made time to do makeup on a new friend this past year! I met her through work and really like her so we took a day to play! Nothing feels better than doing what you love and spending time with nice people so it was a high point for me! Leilani is a total ray of sunshine!

 

In closing…these are just a few simple pictures that help show my year, and what is important to me.  Well, some of the things anyway!  I also love President Trump, Jesus and my husband. We’re not supposed to talk about politics or serious things because we want to appear neutral.  It’s very hard to pretend to be neutral when there’s so many serious issues in the world and my conservative belief system is not in line with the previous status quo.

It irritates me when a woman mentions Trumps “ridiculous tax reform bill” which was only “for the rich” and he’s only President “to make more money for himself.” Most people who bitch about the tax reform agenda have not processed their own tax return or run a business so how would they know about tax code ?  So yes…it’s very hard to stay neutral a lot of the time.  I hope to branch out a bit and share more in the future.  Blogging is very therapeutic!

Let’s have a great 2018, everyone!

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WELCOME TO MY HOME REVAMP: VOLUME 5

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I am finally sharing the Master Bedroom portion of the remodel for the blog! I think I killed myself to get remodeled and moved within record time, so that now I just sort of drag around and have smaller goals set for myself. Goals such as revamping our tennis business web presence (especially since the main site was hacked, disabled and all the years of links were broken which caused Google to drop our page ranking which means it’s harder to find.) Too much detail, I am sure, but that is the business which pays our mortgage so it is important, but I just do not get where people have time to hang out every week in their spare time and do nothing but eat and drink and scour Facebook profiles of their frenemies. I have my empire to tend to.  And by empire I mean my meager little existence in the universe.

Our kitchen cabinets just got lined because my husband took the day to get that done. I thought for sure that was a task I would be assigned so I was thrilled he did it alone while I was tending to that little side gig I call my full time job.

We are working together on a mini beauty product project, so a lot of time has gone to that for months now. More will come on that later! It’s very exciting.

As for the master bedroom portion of the remodel, I love the distressed wood laminate we used. The care is very easy and it is scratch resistant being that it’s a commercial grade.

For the walls, I really wanted a professional vibe so the easiest way to achieve that is to use a universal color theme throughout a smaller sized home. Because of this mindset – whether right or wrong, the same Behr paint in Graphic Charcoal was used.

I really spent very little money in this room…probably about $500 in total, on a new white Ralph Lauren comforter (that you can’t see because I have about 6 layers of sheet or blanket for that really fluffy look.) I also bought curtains, new lamp shades, sheets and that’s about it! The sheets are a satin silver animal print shown below! Love!
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The photo above of the french door is from the outside leading into the bedroom. At first I thought it was completely unneeded to have these french doors added by the previous owner, but it’s really nice and convenient!

Most people end up focusing on their bedroom last instead of first. I feel like the bedroom is super important. It’s the place that you recharge your batteries. I feel it should be romantic. My husband was very happy with the finished product. I still have 3 rooms that do not make me super happy at this point but eventually I will execute my plans for them! I look at it as a hobby at this point and not an obsession! I will get to it when I can! The media room is the next in line for some fine tuning!

As far as the “before” shot of the room…it is below and was taken from the listing when the home was for sale. I loved the blue accent wall but it wasn’t going to work with the rest of the house. Our room is dark and cozy for TV and reading before bed. There is plenty of light through the windows during the day but the charcoal adds to the glam effect during the evening! You can check out some of the other remodel posts and pictures here for the dining room, kitchen, living room and guest bathroom!

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WELCOME TO MY HOME REVAMP: VOL 3

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BEFORE

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BEFORE

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As you can tell…this home was a very clean, safe shade of beige.  Nothing wrong with it.  I prefer depth and warmth though.  Oh, and I am a rebel.  I’d wanted a more industrial look to the kitchen, so I decided by adding a black ceiling, it would help the common cabinets to pop a bit.  I may choose to mirror the back splash n the future with an antiqued look to the glass.  I was near the edge of my remodel budget so the idea was to get the major things done before move in, then the rest of the details can be worked on over time.

I used 90% of the accessories and furnishings we already owned for the kitchen and breakfast areas. Curtains, and of course lighting were the majority of budget used.  The birdcage chandelier is a great focal point, and was purchased online from Wayfair.  The issue with it, was that it came in many, many pieces. The end result was worth it, however, I wouldn’t want to do it again.  I read reviews on this particular bird cage chandelier…and assumed the people bitching about assemble time were lazy.  Turns out, I learned to heed review advice.

Charcoal paint s carried throughout, because I’d wanted continuity, but since there are tons of windows and natural light,  I wasn’t intimidated by a strong color choice.

As you can tell in the after picture…there is a dirty Blanca dollie on the floor.  I kept it there to keep it real.  We love finding her dolls laying around!

As far as fridge top decor,  this s a debate among friends, but I happen to already own the bird cages, and wanted to use them in relation to the chandelier.

The plain white curtains contrast brightly against the walls, and they are used throughout.

Next up will be sharing the living room remodel, and after that we will step into the master bedroom.

I feel like the media room needs some love, and the plans to revamp my current beauty room are being worked on.  My mother in law thought of a great way for me to utilize a custom brass headboard yet still keep it as my office/beauty room/world headquarters !

Share your thoughts below!

-SDS

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