Celebrations

Happy New Year!

in ,
Side note: best read with this playlist.
"May all your joys be pure joys, and all your pain, champagne." -great quote my sister used in her MOH speech at our wedding
via personal collection

Just wanted to stop in and wish you all a happy start to 2010! Hopefully you had a wonderful time celebrating- no matter if that meant partying it up in NYC with friends like my sis or simply attempting to stay up until midnight but still falling asleep by 9pm on the couch with your happy new year tiara hanging on for dear life (you know who you are!) Over here a group of us went out to a fabulous dinner at Lupe complete with our fantastic server adorning us with NYE hats and noisemakers before rushing home just in time to pop the champagne, begin the count down, and toast in the new year!

Bear in mind this affair was thrown together in about 2 hours black and white desserts (chocolate crackle cookies and vanilla pound cake dipped in dark chocolate), silver candlesticks and serving ware, glasses tied with white bows, and the simple white runner I made for Christmas breakfast. Just another reason why classic mixable pieces are the way to go!

Here's to a year full of amazing new memories!

DIY Wreaths

in ,

I've been dancing around the house listening to a mix of Christmas music and the awesomeness that is mr. antonia and remembered that I never shared our wreath(s)! Shame on me. So without further ado... our front door wreaths!

I don't like paying a lot for something that is going to die (just ask my mom to recap our conversations about wedding flowers :) ) and these are no different. Wreaths die. (I don't like fake flowers or fake greenery so I'm not including those in this statement. Want something that isn't going to die? Try ornaments. Or pinecones. But please. no. fake. plants.)

anyhow. We'll start with the greenery. I went to our local nursery turned tree farm and made friends with guys who only work there over the break and explained that I didn't need garland exactly, just evergreen branches. They shared the secret that I could take as much of the "leftover" evergreen that they cut off of trees for free. Free's nice. Esp. given that the garland was $3 a foot and my mantle and wreaths would need at least 20 ft. Not sure about you, but I would much rather by a dress, or shoes or something fabulous for under the tree with that $60 than buy cut garland that would just die and be thrown out come December 28th-ish.

Next I ran by the craft store to buy something to use as a frame. I ended up using embrodiery hoops because I didn't feel like paying over $3 per wreath wire frame thing when these little babies were like $3 total. And wasn't there a huge blog trend with decorating with these sewing circles? Yea, I thought so. So if you were trendy and got on board with that, you already have some of these lying around your house begging to be made into something beautiful.

step 1: get everything together and then cut off little pieces of evergreen from the big branches

After buying green floral wire I was set. I covered the floor of our living room with kraft paper and went to town. (Have I mentioned I was sick with a horrible cold when I decided to make this? No? Well I was. Hence I had the time to sit and do this since medicine makes me loopy and awake and boredom forced me to find something simple to keep me occupied in between bouts of sneezing and coughing. Honestly, I don't really expect people to have hours to sit and make wreaths normally, but since almost everyone gets the flu or a bad cold, after you mistakeningly think you're "better" so you try to do a lot and end up back home feeling badly all over again, take that time and make something like this :) )

step 2: put pieces on frame and attach with floral wire

Word to the wise: plan these out some. Have everything go in one direction. Layer the branches to make the wreaths look fuller, and don't worry if it's a little off- that's what makes them natural looking.

Step 4: Keep over lapping branches, holding in place with wire, and slowly circle the entire hoop. Step 5: Remind yourself you really should get a manicure after working with sap.

Step 6: fill in patches with more branches (don't forget to attach with wire!) to make it look full. I actually took this one appart and started over since the branches didn't go in the same direction. (hence the advice on making sure you start that from the beginning.)

Step 7: (sorry no pictures- I only have 2 hands) Loop ribbon between 2 wreaths and tie it off in a big bow. Arrange so the bow sits on the base of the top wreath.

Step 8: repeat so all 3 wreaths are now tied together. Oh! and make one extra bow.

Step 9: tie extra bow onto base of bottom wreath.

I didn't make the extra bow at first and it looked off. Just another lesson learned. After this, you're done. Hang up, step back, take pictures, talk about it on your blog, post on facebook... you know, whatever makes you feel good :)

Happy Tuesday everyone!

It's been a year!!

in ,
tim will photo via our collection

So I feel like I've been nonexistent for a few days now, but with plenty of good reason I promise!

First- work has been crazy, which is wonderful but still time consuming. I can't wait to share my new projects with all of you!

Second- Christmas is THIS Friday. Are you serious?! Where has the year gone? I still have so much to do, but can't wait to have our families all together. This Christmas is going to be wonderful!

And speaking of a whole year, the big news around here is that yesterday was our first anniversary! I can't believe it has already been a full year since we said "I do." Being married to J has been such a dream come true. Sounds super cheesy I know, but I am so happy God brought us together. He is the most wonderful, thoughtful, and caring man I've ever met and I am so happy to have him as my husband and best friend. (I love you sweetie!!) So with that said, instead of updating the blog, yesterday was spent celebrating our first year of marriage, eating wedding cake (which surprisingly, is still amazing. So amazing in fact that I've had it with almost every meal now :) ), sitting by the fire and overall just being all lovey.

Hope everyone else has had a fantastic past few days as well! I'll be back tomorrow!

Bringing the Outdoors in

in ,

One of the many reasons I love Christmas decorating is how easy it is to bring the outdoors inside.

Pinecones? Evergreen? Beautifully stacked firewood?*

Whatever it is, I love seeing outdoorsy elements inside!

*Speaking of firewood. I told my mom that J and I were going to go buy firewood for the winter and she laughed and told me how she would always make it seem like so much fun to go get firewood ("yay! who wants a fire?! How about you go grab two of the best pieces of wood and me and Daddy will make y'all one!") so my sister and I would run outside and collect it for her and my dad. And being 4 years older, my sister caught on to this trick way before I did so guess who got stuck with this "fun task"?

That's right- me.

Thanks guys. Way to send the youngest out into the cold :) Kind of reminds me about how being the youngest (and therefore the smallest) always automatically meant I was in charge of the annoying task of sliding under the tree to refill it with water. Tried to pull that one out one year that I was home college but luckily by that time I was about an inch taller than my mom so I had an valid argument.

An argument that I didn't win by the way. I forgot that the my mom's main point was the fact that I was the youngest :)

Wonderfully put.

in , ,

TTO over at ten thousand only wrote her last post today (really sad to say that because I loved reading her blog so much) and I thought it really hit the (wedding) nail on the head so I thought best to share. So here it goes: "weddings, no matter how you slice it and dice it, will tug at your heart strings and push your buttons. you're emotional because you're thinking about your families and what this shabang will mean for them, you're emotional because you're excited about the new family you're about to build, you're emotional because all of your besties are there to support you, you're emotional because there's a lot to do and you're kind of like just stressed the eff out, you're emotional because you find yourself walking that fine line between keeping everyone happy and being true to yourself...

...you're emotional because you're committing to f.o.r.e.v.e.r with that one amazing person...and want the wedding to be that kind of perfect...

it's just one day. but it's significant, you know?

so amidst the flurry, should things ever get a little hairy or overwhelming, take a step back and remember what it's all about. (hint: it's not about cake flavors or wedding dresses.) "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - maya angelou

i had to remind myself every now and then...what mattered to me, who mattered to me, and what the day itself meant to me. in the end, not everything made sense to everyone, but it absolutely made sense to me, to my husband, and to our loved ones."

Perfect, right?

Happy Weekend Everyone!

in ,
mantle from personal collection

Like promised, I told y'all I would share my Christmas decor, so today I'll share our mantle and fireplace.

All year long we have candles in our fireplace. If we want a fire I just take them out, but I love how pretty they look when they are all lit. Not to mention our collection of silver candlesticks are from our wedding so it means a lot as well.

As for the mantle, I started by hanging both large acrylic snowflakes and small gold glittery snowflakes at different heights. Then I came back in and hung ornaments in between the snowflakes. Since I'm a huge fan of having real evergreen in the house at Christmas (smells so so good), I then arranged a lot of greenery along the top of the mantle and used 3 of the antique silver candlesticks from our wedding to "weight" the ends. *I don't buy garlands unless I'm draping them on a table or stairs, instead I go to a Christmas tree farm and ask if I can buy the trimmings leftover from the cut trees. More often than not, they just give it to you since they will throw it away anyways. And come on, who doesn't like free things?

close up from personal collection

Even with the tapers, I thought I still needed more candlelight and color, so I tucked ornaments and votives into the greenery. At first, I used real votives, but after a few minutes of being lit I heard popping noises and realized I was burning the evergreen. Whoops. Those quickly got replaced with battery operated ones!

And last but not least, I hung our stockings up. Bella has one too, but it isn't really that pretty so it's not going up until Christmas Eve. I plan on buying her one that matches ours during the after Christmas sales this year.

with our fireplace of candles from personal collection

Next week I'll show some of our other decorations. I wish I could show some of my diy presents, but since my whole family reads this blog I'll have to wait until after they get their presents to share!

Now I need to wrap up some work here because this afternoon I'm heading to a friends to do some holiday baking. I can't wait!! I love baking and it only gets better when it's during the holidays because then you make things like gingerbread men and really pretty decorated sugar cookies. so awesome.* I'll try and remember to take pictures!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Any big plans?

*and yes, I know I could make these throughout the year, but seriously? gingerbread men just aren't as good in July.

Winter Decor

in , , ,

Sorry for missing yesterday. I've been sick the past few days and couldn't get myself up to do much of anything besides refilling my glass full of V8 splash (so good) and grabbing more tissues. My mom sent me home from Thanksgiving with a lot of those little purse packs of tissues (you know, they have like 10 in them?) and they are all now gone. Ironically, they had cartoon Rudolphs on them, and given that my nose very quickly looked just as red I couldn't help but laugh at the coincidence. Side note, the real "only can get from behind the counter" Sudafed REALLY works.

Anyhow, it's been raining a lot so I haven't been able to take pictures to share what I've done to our home, but I did catch a glimpse of this beautiful set up by sunday suppers and had to share. isn't it so simple and pretty?

I love citrus in the winter. Maybe it's just my love of clementines (I fell in love with them my freshman year of college when my across the hall roommate in the dorms would buy them buy the crates!) but there is something really refreshing about the pop of color against a season full of snow whites, muted silvers and golds, creams, and evergreen.

oh I love winter! Now if only it would snow...

Have a wonderful day everyone!

It's the season!

in
I absolutely love the snow scene from the Nutcracker- it's magical and beautiful all at once. One of the dancers, Jessica, actually went to high school with me! So so talented.

The Christmas season is in full swing now. All the stores are decorated, our home is decorated (pictures to come soon ), I'm finally getting around to our Christmas cards (maybe ;) ) and parties are filling up the weekends.

Tomorrow we actually have two back to back... and we have to do an outfit change since one is a Tacky Christmas Party!

Sadly, in between all of the fun I think a cold is doing it's best to beat me down and I won't have it. Looks like a lot of fluids and rest for me (in between the parties of course!)

Anyone else have big plans for the weekend?