DORM INSPO '19
HELLO! HAPPY AUGUST!
For some of you college people, more specifically the fre$hies, you move into your teeny tiny dorm this! month!
A year ago, I moved into my tiny dorm not knowing of everythinggg that was to come my freshman year. I had met my roommate two times before we moved all our belongings in together and settled in to sleep 7 feet apart for the next 9 months— no worries, we became the besties of besties :)
Me and my roommate wanted to match, but mainly be artsy and aesthetically pleasing. SO, without spending tons of money of pointless dorm “necessities” you might think you need when on the hunt at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, we used hand-me-down appliances, searched the internet for the cheapest alternatives, and hand made most of our decor.
You might have seen our room on Pinterest or VSCO or something like that, here’s a couple shots from our fineee 309 (part 1).
For more links + detes from these pics, check out THIS blog post, TOUR DE DORM : )
THEN, coming back for semester two, Halle, my roommate, and I knew we loved our room, and everyone else did too, but why stop there? We decided to move our beds to both be against the long wall so they would be “couch-like” for our guests lol. Well, over the break, Halle — the ultimate art major roommate, painted multiple unique pieces for her side of the room that looked so, so perfect. Me, I just printed out more Pinterest-inspo pics and overly edited pics of me and my new college friendz (college friends are da best) and cut out of my massive, originally rectangle bulletin board (sold at Walmart) a square and a lightening bolt shape! With these, a inspo-poster I’ve had for years, and some of the Tri Delta artwork my big gave me for big/little. I spruced up my corner :).
Here was the new and improved 309 :P
SO. Present day!! I move in in just a short week so me and my froomie, Claire, are getting together all the last minute colorful fun things that makes a college girl room so exciting to put together.
Over the summer, I cleaned out, painted, and moved my things in my oldest brother’s old bedroom. Honestly, it’s kind of useless of me to do this because I don’t live at home during the school year and like most college students I don’t plan on living at home after graduation, and hopefullyyy will be getting future summer internships— but that’s another story, hehe. And, this cleaning out/painting job was NOT easy, I did all this work for my first walk in closet ever in my life, a true milestone ;’). While I may -hopefully- just be stopping by my childhood home the next few years while I’m still in college, I will at least have a clean, new, and fresh room w a massive closet compared to my old, darkly painted, tiny closeted room. I painted the room solid white and that’s the only new thing for the room but it has made all my old room things look new again. It’s amazing what going from a dark room to a light room will do.
ANYWAYS! My new room at my parents house has just become a thing in the past month, amongst me getting a new, second job and my family and I going out of the country for a week, soooo it’s not really put together at all ha ha. BUT, I decorated this corner just for this blog post woo! Let’s get down to it!
COLLAGE WALL: Follow me on Pinterest! Or just stalk my Pinterest! Not a self-plug, but when people ask where I find my pics I print out I just go on Pinterest and find the funkiest Inso, save the image to my phone, then bam I have a mixture of friend pics and memories and colorful inspiration pics to print at Walmart, super cheap 4x6 prints. Always forget the actual price but if you have close to 100 pictures it’s around $20!
WALL DECOR: My giraffe head! I have had this for probably 4 or so years, and it is from Beyond Urban, my boutique I work at! It’s made of paper mâché so it is super light weight. One similar linked here. Fun fact about me and my room decor, I am really bad at using tools like hammers and nails so I primarily just stick to thumbtacks of all different sizes and hope things are lightweight enough to be held by a simple pushpin :)
LIP LIGHT: My roomie Hal got me this! I had it in my dorm this past year, and she had the lightening bolt light. They are super reasonable from Amazon, perfect little wall addition and super —in—. Her lightening bolt light was pretty bright but mine (contrary to the pictures) is not at all, not sure what is wrong with it, but it comes with both a battery pack and a USB cord, so for pictures I plug it into the USB cord and hide my laptop behind pillows to make it as bright as it should be!
LIGHTENING BOLT BULLETIN: As described earlier in this post, I took a big, normal bulletin board and cut out a lightening bolt! It isn’t perfect, but it looked kinda cool amongst the other things in my dorm room. I probably wouldn’t use it again, but hung it for this -dormy- kinda pic. Again. I just come out Pinterest pics and friend pics to fit among the tiny bulletin space and tried to make it completely covered.
ORANGE HAT: Yay fashion in this post! I found this orange straw hat at Target for under $20 right before I went to the Dominican Republic, so I just had to! Sadly, I had to have it folded in my backpack for traveling, so it got a little disfigured. I have seen hats being hung on walls as decor and love that look, and while usually they are felt, straight brimmed hats I thought I would try with this orange floppy goodness.
NEW YORK PRINT: Rifle Paper Co. !
LITTLE ARTWORKS: Blonde hair girl “Tri Delta” face, made by my big, Katie :) She also made the felt Tri Delta sports-looking banner. So cute and love that it is in black and white so it can go with all different sorts of vibes, also it looks real! Gucci magazine collage, made by my twin, Kasey :P The two striped paintings my mom and I did the night before I moved into my dorm because I was scared I didn’t have enough decor and didn’t want awkward white spaces, haha. So, we just taped striped like spaces on two canvases and used colors that we knew we would have in my room.
BED FRAME: Thrifted at an antique store, it came black but the paint has always been chipping off.
BEDDING! My quilt is the Tahla Quilt at Anthropologie! It is such a good one. I have always loved room stuff and decorating and redecorating my room, and every couple of years I would either save my money or ask for my birthday or Christmas new bed spread to change the scene. I think I was in the eighth grade when I decided I was going to figure out a way to get a bigger than a twin sized bed, and I wanted this super expensive (for an eighth grader) quilt. I saved my money and bought the quilt, and eventually my parents found the bed frame for super cheap and bam my dreams came true. Haha. But really, this quilt is so good. Anthro will get new designs every other season or so, but this one always seems to stick around. It’s cool (to me) how many people I’ve met in real life or seen on Instagram who have the same print of quilt. One, Anthropologie bedding is the best I have come by, and while I know I’m young, like I said I have always been into this ish. It is the softest material with the most unique colors and patterns. Love and swear by it! Also, I’ve had this same old quilt for yearsss it seems and it does have a couple rips from the puppy stage of my dog, Annie, I would never think of getting rid of it or even changing it out for something else on my bed. I just don’t get tired of it and it is the perfect quilt for me, okay I’m done!
PILLOWS: Ah okay not done, ANTHROPOLOGIE EURO SHAMS. AND ON SALE. I swear by it! The same, softest quilt material and the funkiest brightest colors and designs you just can’t find anywhere else. I recommend getting the Euro size just because I love the square, taller size to stick out above pillows and make more of a look. AND, pay attention for Anthro sales! Sometimes, they have an extra % on their already sale items and that is the perfect time to stock on some shams! I feel like a middle aged woman getting all excited about pillow shams but forreal, next time you want that extra special pillow on your bed look for Anthropologie euro shams, and even better on sale. My big pinkish blueish flower pillow in my dorm room was a Anthro Euro Sham I got for under $20, and this year me and my roommate got matching Anthro Euro Sham’s again for under $20 during the sale— pics to come!
The Cheetah Standard Sham— isn’t she cute. I got it for $20 at Target, which was kinda expensive to me for a Standard Sham but this was the only one I could find and the texture is different and not cheap-like. The color is orange, so me, so yeah, snatched!
Sheets— I use the jersey stripe Target sheets for the bedding but I love the plus-sign print, also from Target, I used this past year in my dorm.
Throw Pillows— I found the yellow velvet pillow at Marshall’s, so kinda hard to track down a link. But, it is the Calvin Klein brand if that helps your searches! Here is one similar linked here. My Mexican-Embroidered pillow case is perfect to match my wide array of different vibes all together. Me and my mom have together about 3 or 4 different pillow cases like this in different colors, and we have gotten them at a market in San Antonio, TX, BUT you can order them off of Etsy! Super cute and easy way to vintage/funk up your room, plus if you’re like me and my mom you can always find a place in the house for a bright, colorfully embroidered pillow- we love that kind of stuff.
Yellow throw quilt: Tip, don’t sleep on Target Kid’s Section! Pillowfort is the brand and it has some of the cutest stuff with the right amount of funk and color for college rooms. Me and my roommate last year bought our nightlight ceramic star lamps from the kids section, and this year my roommate and I bought the gold butterfly stand lamps— yay kids section. Anyways, this yellow quilt is a twin and is the actual perfect shade of yellow + plus it’s a plain addition to a bed + it was only $35, so yeah, yay.
I hope you enjoyed this ramble of a blog post! I have always enjoyed room decorating and fun stuff like that but never thought other people would really enjoy what I do with it until this past year seeing the reach and responses of my dorm room. As always I hope to inspire and leave anyone coming to my page leaving good. Doing it out of love, not for love! If you have any questions or need any help finding pieces, or similar pieces, I’d be happy to help the best I can! Comment, email, or just DM me, I’d love to say hi!
