Fall and Halloween are my FAVORITE time of year! Given that I was born on Halloween, I can’t help but love all the spookiness that comes with this season. I love a good ol themed halloween front porch, but its also nice to decorate with pieces that are pretty for fall, so that they can stay in place after halloween has passed and be incorporated into your fall/thanksgiving decor as well. Here are 6 easy ways to decorate for Fall and Halloween!

1- Pumpkins- An easy way to decorate pumpkins and use them in your halloween and fall decor is to spray paint them white. I used valspar primer. I then used gold studs that easily stick into the pumpkin, creating a cool look that is super quick and simple. It’s also good to buy a few different size pumpkins to use in your decor, and keep some orange to break it up. You can then use these pumpkins after Halloween has gone into your Fall/Thanksgiving decor.

2-Mums- The quintessential fall flower is the gorgeous mum. Decorating with a few of these in yellow, orange and burgundy are a must as the leaves begin to turn. I grabbed a bale of hay to use under the mums and give them a little height, which also goes with the Fall territory. Hang a few up or ground them in a fun planter, you can’t go wrong.

3-DIY Spooky Ghosts- I found this tutorial on pinterest here, so for more in depth info click the link. These ghosts are fairly simple to make, so I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking. My biggest piece of advice would be to make sure and mold the cheesecloth as much as possible into the eyes and around the features, while it is nice and wet. Let them dry, hang with eye hooks and fishing line and you’re all done! Check out the picture of them in the dark… they really are pretty creepy!

4-Accessories- I know I have said it several times, but I’ll say it again; Accessorizing is definitely where the magic happens! I used a cloche and skeleton head from our store Accent Prone, but then made the pieces more interesting with things around our house. I stacked the skeleton head on top of some old books inside of the cloche, and tangled up some spider web, hay and leaves around it. The grim reaper statue is also from our boutique, and it gives the space a little extra character. Look for fun pieces to accessorize with that don’t seem too cheesy or like items you can buy just anywhere!

5- Spider Web- I picked this spider web up on a whim when I was shopping one morning at the grocery store, and I am definitely glad I did! There is no rhyme or reason as to how to use it. Just start pulling it apart and nail it up in a corner, creating whatever shape you please.

6- Themed Wreath or Chalkboard- I will be the first person to admit, I am no sketch artist, but you don’t have to be a michelangelo to create a fun seasonal chalk art. Chalkboards are fun to use in many different spaces, and so I decided to buy a wreath that has a chalkboard attached to it for our front door so I can change the art as the seasons change. For the Halloween art, I found a canvas that I liked on pinterest, and then just eyed it all the way through. Start with the basic sketch of your letters, then shade them in, and finally add the spider web at the end. It might not be perfect, but it will do the trick!

    And there you have it!

Click this link to watch a short video of how the DIY ghosts look swaying in the wind and an up close look at the rest of the decor!

Thank y’all so much for stopping by! Hope you all have a fun, safe and spooky Halloween!

On to the next,

Justin and I couldn’t get over how formal the oversized clock on our living room wall made the room look. While we planned on flanking the clock with 2 light pendants on each side, the look of the room was just a little too “grown up” for our taste. (ha!). So our remedy to this solution was to create an eclectic rustic and contemporary gallery wall. Gallery walls have become such a trend over the past year. They are a great way to decorate a large wall that would otherwise be difficult to fill, and they also add in a variety of interest and conversation pieces.  Justin and I decided to put a gallery wall over our sectional in our living room, replacing the large oversized clock that we had there. While I absolutely love the clock and will still be using it in the same room on another wall, we wanted this feature wall to have a more eclectic fun vibe.

In the bullets below, I will give you 6 ways to create an interesting gallery wall in your own home.

1. Use Different Size Pieces- When creating a gallery wall, you want to mix in all different size and  shape pieces. The idea is to have the wall look random, but balanced. So find pieces that compliment each other, but that are all unique in size, shape and style.

2. Quotes- Quotes are great inspirational pieces to add to a gallery wall. I picked 2 different quotes in different sizes and styles to add variety. The small barn wood sign is from our store Accent Prone and the larger Ralph Waldo Emerson sign is from 2540 Love.

3. Dimensional Pieces- Pieces that stick off the wall are a great way to add in interest. We used a trunk from our store Accent Prone, and mounted it to the wall with mounting brackets. We can now use the  trunk as a shelf to add in fun accessories. Our peace hand sign is also a dimensional piece that sticks off the wall to mix it up.

4. Picture Frames- Picture frames are a must on a gallery wall. It’s a good way to display pictures of your family and loved ones and combine some unique art pieces as well. These fun rope gallery frames are from our store Accent Prone. (We haven’t filled our frames with pictures yet, so please excuse these fillers).5. Mirrors- Mirrors reflect light and thus make a room look larger. Not only this, but I love the look of mirrors, and adding  a couple to a gallery wall in different sizes and styles looks great. Both of these are from our store Accent Prone.

6. Texture- Texture adds visual excitement to the wall. Our way of adding texture was with the greenery backdrop that we used behind our faux deer head. Another way you could add in texture is with fabric. Find some fun textured fabric and make art pieces out of it. (An easy fabric DIY is to staple gun fabric around a piece of upholstery foam on top of a thin piece of wood or MDF. Put a mounting bracket on the back to hang, and Voila–you have created your own fabric wall art!)

HOW TO HANG:

When hanging gallery walls, they can be complicated to install if you don’t plan them out first. I recommend laying all of your pieces out on the floor, in a space that is as large as your wall. Play around with the placement of the pieces until you find a combination that you like. We literally played around with our items for about 30 minutes before deciding on the version that we liked the best. Then, find the middle point of your wall and nail up your first piece. Then, work your way out from that center point, keeping the items evenly spaced. Remember– place your items so that they are random, but balanced. Don’t put all of your small pieces on one side and large pieces on the other. Evenly mix sizes and pieces across the wall. If you are hesitant to start nailing pieces up, you can use painters tape. Measure out the items and tape up the outline of them on the wall to create the layout that you like, and then once you are happy with it, nail up the pieces where they go.

Want some help with your own gallery wall? Come into the store and we can help!

Thanks for stopping by everyone! Reagan wishes you all a fabulous weekend coming up!

On to the next,

As summer comes to an end, I can’t help but get a little sad. Summer is by far my favorite season. The cookouts, the sandals, the tans and maxis; I can never get enough. I guess its come time to hang up the hat and embrace the fall weather to come, so, so long sweet summer! And if I’m being completely honest, I can’t wait to break out the boots and oversized sweaters.

Giving Keys are such awesome necklaces and make perfect gifts. The necklaces are engraved with words of hope, and the idea is to wear the necklace for a while, and then when you find someone who needs the inspiration more than you, you pass it on to them. This company employs those transitioning out of homelessness, having them engrave the words onto the keys. We sell these key necklaces at Accent Prone.

Jean Dress

Converse

Sunnies

Hat is from a local boutique, but you can find a similar style at Target here and it’s only $12.99.

All jewelry is from my boutique Accent Prone.

Hope you all have a great week ahead, and thanks for stopping by to read! Enjoy these last few weeks of Summer!

On to the next,

All photography by my amazing friend Catelin McNamara. If you are interested in her photography services, email me at cheri@accentprone.com for her contact info.

With Fall rapidly approaching, I had to get in a white summer look before labor day rules are set into motion. I’m definitely not a big supporter of the “no white after labor day” fashion law. Nevertheless, this shirt dress only has a couple more wears this season before the leggings and boots are to come out, and I must say, I can’t wait for Fall fashion!

My best friend, Catey, and I took a stroll around downtown Kernersville one summer morning. To our surprise, we found some lovely little spots that made for some gorgeous picture backgrounds. A few snaps, and we bolted for some nearby cover while a short rain storm passed through.

Shirt dresses are casual and oversized. I loved wearing mine this summer with a pair of sandals or flats, and I fully intend on wearing it a few times this Fall with a pair of skinny jeans and boots.

We just started carrying these “Mantra Bands” at Accent Prone. This “breathe” band is now my daily reminder to sometimes take a breath and appreciate all the good things in life.

Flats are also a great option to wear with a shirt dress, and can take the look from a little more casual to more put together. I splurged on these tan and gold flats last season, and they are my favorite shoes that transition from summer to fall.

And for those friends of mine that are reading this right now, you know that I pretty much ALWAYS have this turquoise Tory Burch purse on my shoulder. I absolutely love pops of colors as accessories! In my home and with my fashion, I live by this law.

Outfit Details:

Shirt Dress (Now on Sale!!)

Tory Burch Miller Sandal in Vintage Vachetta

Jimmy Choo Wheel Flat in Latte

Hat was purchased at a local boutique, but you can find similar ones here and here.

Bourbon and Boweties bangles, Mantra Band, House of Harlow Necklace, and all other jewelry is from my boutique Accent Prone.

Purse is last season but you can find similar styles here and here.

Tory Burch Panama Sunglasses

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Thanks for reading everyone!! Hope you all have a fantastic week ahead!!

“Breathe in the future, and breathe out the past.”

All photography is by my amazing friend Catelin McNamara. If you live in the Piedmont Triad area of NC, and are interested in her photography services, email me at cheri@accentprone.com for her contact info.

Joanna Gaines has recently made quite an impression on me with her love of shiplap. (And, I can’t deny the fact that their commercial with the #shiplap hashtag, repeated over and over and over again, has really been stuck in my head. So maybe this was some kind of shiplap psychological hypnosis? I guess we will never know!) While Joanna and Chip love to shiplap pretty much everything, I wanted to add in some of this gorgeous boarding in my home without taking it overboard (see what I did there? Ha!) Shiplap adds great dimension to a room, and can make it feel very airy and open when painted white. We decided to add shiplap around our fireplace in our living room as a statement wall. The white boards against the darker stone will be very high contrast, and while some may think of this as way too much variation, contrast is one of my favorite things to contribute to a space. High contrast brings more of an eclectic atmosphere and interest to a room, which is why rustic contemporary is personally my favorite decorating style.

On that same point, when creating shiplap walls you can either go very rustic with them or take them more contemporary, depending on how you paint them and if you fill in the holes or not. We decided to make our shiplap more refined and thus went in the more contemporary direction as opposed to the more farmhouse appeal. I will point out in the steps below how to proceed with the farmhouse look if that’s what you are going for, but steps 1-7 will be the same.

Here is a shot of our room before we began.

Step 1 – Measure your walls (width x height) to estimate how many boards you will need for your wall. Then, take these dimensions to a lumber yard and they can help you determine the exact number you will actually need. We bought 12×1 pine wood boards. You can buy smaller boards (a lot of people use 8 in. boards for shiplap walls), but we wanted our boards to be a bit larger since we have such high ceilings. You can buy this wood from a hardware store like Lowes, but we have found in the past that lumber from hardware stores is a lot of times warped. We prefer to go to a local lumber yard where each piece is always inspected much better.

Step 2 – Make sure your ceiling line is completely level.  While this might sound crazy, a lot of people’s ceilings are actually not level, so you will want to start the first board completely level as opposed to following the line of the ceiling. Otherwise your whole wall will end up looking slightly crooked.

Step 3 – Measure the width of the wall and cut your first board to put up. While most people’s boards will be the same width all the way down, because we are doing our shiplap beside a rocky fireplace, each stone protrudes out slightly different. Because of this, each of our cuts will be different all the way down. If you are doing a normal wall then I recommend measuring your wall and having all of your boards cut professionally for you at the lumber yard where you purchased. This will save a lot of time and headache!

Step 4 – Nail up your first board! You will need to use a professional nail gun, and make sure that you are keeping the board level as you nail evenly across it. You will also want to make sure that you are getting some nails into the studs of the wall. We used a stud finder before we put up the first board to know where they were. Once you find the studs it is easy to follow the majority of your nail holes all the way down the wall.

Step 5 – You will need something to space your boards to create the shiplap look. We experimented around with several different things before we found the gap size that we wanted. Turns out 2 nickels taped together was the winner.

Step 6 – Once you have the first board hung, hold up the second board and wedge the spacers in between the boards to create the gap. We used 2 of the nickel spaces all the way across. Make sure the board is completely level once again, and then nail the second board in.

It is hard to see the nickels in this picture, so here is a better close-up to show how to use the nickels as spacers.

Step 7- Once you have this process down pat it actually becomes pretty easy. Just continue to space the boards with nickels and check your level all the way down the wall.

If dealing with a tricky wall like ours you might have some more complex cuts.  Just remember to measure twice and cut once!

Step 8 – Now, this is the step where you have the decision to either take the design more rustic or refined. We chose to go the refined route, and so we used wood filler to fill in all of the knots and crevices before painting. If you want to have a more rustic shiplap wall, then skip this step all together. And, believe me, I LOVE a rustic shiplap wall with knots and prevalent wood grain, but for our design scheme we wanted cleaner looking walls. You really can’t go wrong with either choice. If you choose the refined look, then after your wood putty has dried you will want to evenly sand the wall.

(Notice how the outlets are now sunken into the wall because of the thick boards? You will want to take a screwdriver and loosen up the screws in the outlet cover to make it become flush with the shiplap. You can even buy extra long screws at Lowes. We skipped this step because our outlets hide behind the media stand, but it is really quite easy to do!)

Step 9 – Now it’s time to paint! We chose Sherwin Williams Dover White in satin. Since these are raw wood boards, you will want to prime first to help seal the cracks and make it easier to paint. We used Zinsser Bin Primer. This is a shellac based primer that helps seal knots. If you want to go for a more rustic look, then add some water to your white paint to create a whitewashed, distressed look. If going for the more refined look then you will want to do about 3 coats of paint to cover nicely.

Since we moved in we have wanted a new mantle, but that project is on our to-do list a little further down the road. In the meantime, we decided to go ahead and paint the mantle to match our white shiplap. We used a liquid deglosser that you wipe on with a cloth. It takes away the shiny finish and will allow for you to paint.

Step 10 – Take off the tape and enjoy your new shiplap wall!

Yes, my mantle is MAJORLY lacking some accessories, but we just completed this project and haven’t quite made it that far yet! We also plan to add some darker wood art pieces onto the shiplap to combine the contrasting tones a little more. Mirror and accessories shown here are from my home furnishings boutique, Accent Prone.

Thanks for reading everyone! Stay tuned soon for the full reveal of our living room makeover!

On to the next,

I must admit, I have a snakeskin infatuation. And this is coming from someone who HATES snakes. I mean I REALLY hate snakes. But something about the monotone combinations of the beige and black tones mixed together really intrigues me. You really can’t go wrong with neutrals, and thus snakeskin has fallen into that category for me.

I first bought this maxi skirt (and it’s now on sale!) as a piece for a wedding ensemble I put together. For the wedding I wore the skirt with a different black tank that covered a little more skin, but I couldn’t resist this chic pleated crop top (which is now on sale too!).

As you will soon find out, Rachel Zoe is my style icon. I absolutely adore her style. She is bohemian and chic all at the same time, which is my style to a T. Her influence is the reason I love this outfit so much. Flowy and glam; you can dress it up or down depending on if you put it with heels or flats. I have been wanting a wide brim hat and I found this awesome black one on one of my favorite affordable websites asos.com.

I have been looking for a black structured bag that will go with everything. My sweet husband overheard me mentioning that, and surprised me with this Kate Spade bag for our 2 year wedding anniversary.

The beginning of summer called for some new shades, so I found these awesome tortoise Tory Burch Panama Sunglasses. And if I haven’t mentioned it yet, I have a lipstick addiction. This one is Nars Shiap.

Accessories are what make an outfit, which is why I paired this look with some of my favorite go-to pieces, my Bourbon and Boweties bangles. You can layer them up and add as many different colors and stone varieties to your stack as you please. For this outfit I kept it simple with 3 of my favorite smoky quartz bangles, but I literally have a huge collection of these ready to mix and match with my wardrobe. We have a great selection of these available at Accent Prone.

The necklace I chose is my Lat and Lo coordinates bar. It has the latitude and longitude of my hometown Kernersville, NC on it. Not only are horizontal bar necklaces really in right now, but the geographical coordinates give it a special touch.

The black arrowhead upper arm cuff is currently one of my favorite accessories I have. Arrowheads are very trendy right now so if you don’t have any in your jewelry box then think about adding one! We have some great arrowhead pieces available at Accent Prone, ranging from necklaces, bangles, rings and cuffs.

Quick list of outfit details-

Crop Top

High Waisted Snake Skin Skirt

My Shoes are last season Michael Kors, but you can find similar ones here and here. Or, if you are looking for a great flat option, I am currently in love with these Rachel Zoe Sandals.

Hat

Sunnies

Handbag

Hot Pink Lipstick

Bourbon and Boweties bangles, Lat and Lo Coordinates Necklace and Arrowhead Cuff are all from my boutique, Accent Prone.

Thanks for stopping by everyone! I hope you have a fabulous Monday and week ahead!

All photography by my AMAZING friend, Catelin McNamara. If you are interested in her photography services, email me for her contact info. Cheri@accentprone.com

Hey guys! As promised, here is the step by step for how we made over our garage doors for under $100! For such an easy fix, this will give your home a major facelift!

1. Buy the hardware for the makeover here. Right now the whole set of hardware is on sale for only $38!

2.Remove your old hardware from the doors.

3. Tape off the doors to paint. Make sure to tape off the windows with craft paper so that you don’t get paint on your windows! Remember the longer the strip of tape, the easier it will be when taking it down.

4.  Spray the garage doors for an event coat. We used Sherwin Williams ovation exterior paint in extra white. When spraying you want to always be in motion and never stop on a spot. Spray the first coat in horizontal lines and the second coat in vertical lines to make sure you cover all the crevices. If you don’t have a sprayer, no sweat, you can definitely roll the doors as well.

5. Remove the tape and prepare to hang the new hardware.

6.  Drill on the hardware. Measure twice, drill once! You want the same distance for the hinge accents from the top of the door as from the bottom. The handles should be perfectly centered from left to right and as centered as you can get them from top to bottom without them going over where the door hinges.  The screws go directly into the metal doors, but you might need to pre-drill a hole to get them started. We used a self drilling screw so you didn’t have to switch the drill bits back and forth to save time. I would recommend measuring and taping on the accents with painters tape where the accents will go first. Then step back and make sure they look appropriate where they are before actually drilling. Every garage door is different and so your accents might look better positioned differently. Also, make sure to not cover any weatherstripping with the accents.

7. Sit back and enjoy your brand new garage doors!

Don’t have windows on your doors? This company actually makes faux windows as well, to give a little extra oomph to your doors! Buy the windows here.

Thanks for reading friends! Keep checking back for some fun DIYS!

On to the next,

Justin and I just closed on our very first house!!! Why I am mentioning this you might ask!? Because now we can’t wait to decorate our home and start our new blog about our Accent Prone life! In the months to come we will you show you before and afters, easy DIY projects and tutorials, and how you can make your home more Accent Prone for yourself! Follow along with us on this journey!