Decor

Bringing the Outdoors in

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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 :)

Happy Weekend Everyone!

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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

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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!

Moss and Pharmacy Labels

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Blame it on all of the studying J was been doing last week, but all things pharmacy related have been stuck in my head lately. I was looking around the web earlier and saw lovely old pharmacy bottles and started thinking how beautiful they would be full of simple wildflowers and then tucked into a lush green mossy arrangement. Maybe for a wedding? Maybe for his graduation party (haha because that is so masculine)? Who knows. Either way I'm thinking I might just have to try it for myself...

kitchens

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In between work I'vebeen daydreaming about kitchens. Yes, I'm still on the house kick (but then again I don't think I will ever be off of the house kick so bear with me...) I'm not like most people when it comes to "the perfect kitchen." I don't really prefer granite (and if I had to pick something rock like, I'd always go for poured concrete because of how cool and unique it is) and when it comes to wood, well I am very particular. I don't really like anything super dark, but I think there is a very fine line between beautiful light wood cabinets and then cabinets that look veneered or straight out of the 80's. I like white, but not super modern and nothing too country-esque (and by country, I mean everything covered in needle points of apples and lots of frilly doilies.) Overall I really like things to feel airy and cozy at the same time.

If you can't tell by now, it's difficult to find something like I would call "perfect."

Now please don't get me wrong. In other people's homes I have no problem with any of the things I just mentioned (well except the 80's thing. home decor in the 80's just wasn't great), but for our house it's just not my style.

So after looking through decor blogs and magazines, and wandering around ikea and through home decor showrooms, I stumbled across a kitchen that I just fell in love with. The barely gray open cabinets? the natural light? the industrial juxtaposed with the vintage?

Lovely. Just lovely.

Oh! And if all of the counters were butcher block counters? and if the back splash was white subway tile? Well then it would be perfect...

thank you a gift wrapped life for showing me this beauty.

And a few runners up:

via urban grace interiors

I really like gray kitchens and I'm not sure why. Kind of reminds me of Paris, and personally, I would love to cook anywhere that feels like Paris.

via the city sage

I really really love the counters. Esp. if they weren't so heavily varnished.

via urban grace (again!)

I love all of the colorful cookbooks! Mine are hidden away right now, but I'd love to show them off. (Oh and I don't think I even have to say how much I love the subway tile again.)

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Organizing

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I've been searching around for interesting organizing solutions (also known as procrastinating from doing the closet swap) when I came across these. Aren't they cool? Maybe it's just me, but I love old wooden boxes. Who would have thought just to put simple casters on them and make something as functional as this?

I will admit, seeing where the wild things are in the box on the right may have made me love them even more...

Swapping closets

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Now if you are one of those people with really huge closets (or maybe just a more reasonable amount of clothing...), this probably isn't an issue for you, but for me, swapping my spring/summer clothes out for fall/winter clothes is a full day's worth of effort. I meant to do this a few weeks ago, but thanks to Georgia's annoying weather (one day it rains, the next it's 50 degrees, the next day its 82 degrees) it's kind of hard to do a full swap for fear of the moment your short sleeved shirts and flip flops are put away you'll be forced to dig them out due to some random summer-like weather. This weekend, I am determined to do it. It's November people. I want to wear cute sweaters and boots and my trench coats. I want to layer and accessorize with scarfs. I want to drink hot chocolate without having the air conditioner on. Okay. sorry for the melodramatic rant... back to the point of the post.

In an attempt to motivate myself to get to swapping out the seasons (which entails trying on every piece of clothing I wear to make sure a) it still fits b) I still like it c) I'll still wear it*) I starting looking at beautifully organized closets. (Have I mentioned I'm a little neurotic about my closets? my clothes are arranged by color. as in ROY G BIV. Yep, not only am I an artist but I am a nerd about organization as well...)

That's when I stumbled across this lovely over on Urban Grace.

Hello awesomeness. A room just for shoes.

Talk about organization. I would looove this. (I would also love a reason to own that many shoes, because as of now I have absolutely no reason for the insane amount I have collected thus far). I can imagine a whole accessories wall on the other side, along with a vanity and beautiful bench (for dressing of course.)

Anyone else have closet envy?

Merry Christmas Dad

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via fred flare

I saw this over on fred flare and couldn't resist sharing. The men in my family all love hunting (I have mentioned I live in the South, right?) so almost every weekend I get a status update from my dad on whether he saw anything, and if so, whether he "got it." So when I saw this, I couldn't stop laughing. Pretty perfect, right? Think my mom might actually prefer this one over the real thing hanging in my dad's office... if nothing else, it's a great conversation piece!

update *I wrote this over the weekend, but then today I was looking over at the Hip Hostess and apparently we are both on the same page. Check out her take here. She even provides a link to a DIY take on it! Looks like we all know what I'll be working on this week... :)

Lovely Decor

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I mentioned this earlier (remember the windows??), but we've been perusing real estate in Colorado lately (oh I hope we get to move there!) and now I am afraid that I am becoming just a little obsessed with how I would like to decorate/renovate our "new home." Just some of the beauties I've come across:

love browns and other earthy tones... not a tile floored fan though. Hardwood all the way please :)

Have I mentioned our love of subway tiling?Not only does it remind me of the tube in London, it's just so clean and fresh I love (love love) butcher block/wooden counter tops. So warm and inviting. 1,3,4 via desire to inspire, 2 via ffffound

And on that note, I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!! Hoping I get to see my sister today (if it doesn't start storming which is becoming very very common here in the Southeast...), as well as finish up our Halloween costumes for next week/weekend (if you are in Atlanta, definitely check out Scary Party hosted by the Wednesday Night Drinking Club) and hopefully get in some rest and relaxation!

Hey, maybe we'll even carve or pumpkin.

Hah, who am I kidding. We'll just call it our "fall pumpkin" and keep it for a few more weeks :)