Noel Sign

I saw this beautiful Pottery Barn knockoff on pinterest and instantly fell in love.

So I decided to make my own!

This was so easy and fun to make this simple Christmas sign. It was cheap too, it only costs about $4 a letter at Michael's, then you need red and brown paint, and a glue gun. I used the brown paint first where I wanted the letters to look distressed, then I pained several layers of red paint over that. If you want it even more distressed looking you could always add brown paint around the edges to give it that "shabby" look. 



Don't you just love those projects that only take a little bit of your time but make a huge impact?!

Thanksgiving 2011

Now I know I promised to share more party pics, but with our old computer finally taking its last breath, it took with it all of our old pictures. Bummer. So instead Ill show you the wonderful Thanksgiving we had this year. My in-laws were so kind to have it at there house again this year and as usually my MIL did an amazing job.

She even set a up a cute kids table which included a toy dinosaur for the boys.

 Everyone in the family was assigned something to bring, which makes it so much easier on everyone involved. That way it isnt only one person trying to cook everything and everyone gets a chance to make there favorites. Everyone helped out in the kitchen too, even the guys. My FIL and his brother were assigned the gravy.

Apparantly it takes big muscles to make gravy, who knew? As usual the meal was absolutely delicious. We had turkey and a ham, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, stuffing, salad and of course mashed potatoes and gravy.

There is something so special about having Thanksgiving with a big family. I didnt have it much growing up so its still a bit new to me. But I love it!

Usually on Thanksgiving my poor stomach just cant hold all the yummy food I want to eat, so this year I went in with a strategy.  I decided to leave out the roll, which takes up so much precious space (and leave that for yummy turkey sandwhich leftovers), then you leave room for all the real important stuff like the sweet potatoes ;)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with there families too!

Party Time

So it occurred to me today that Ive never really shared my parties with you guys. I love to plan parties! I love deciding on a theme, then picking out cute crafts to make that will go with that theme. They are not always fancy parties, and maybe not even a technical "party" but just a decorated table for people to enjoy while they are at my house. But whatever it is, I love it. Since this blog is all about the things I love, why not share my pictures with you all?

 Its so fun to see how my "style" has changed and evolved through the years. Its also nice to look back at some of these pictures and see how often I had to use only what we had. The budget is such deciding factor when it comes to planning a party, but when on a tight budget it forces you to become even more creative and really think outside the box! Unfortunately with a lot of these parties, the budget was also small in the camera department so a lot of the pictures are blurry. he he.

Lets start it off with something festive. This was our first Christmas party after Evan and I got married. We were living in a little one bedroom apartment so it wasn't the best place to have a party, but hey that just means less space to decorate! 

One of the my favorite parts of a party is decorating the table. It makes the biggest impact and really puts you in the party mood.

Most of what was used on the table I had borrowed from my mother-in-law, which definitely saved my bacon (or at least my theme).

I made some place holders for everyone, one style for the girls and another for the boys.

I grabbed some spikey balls from the tree outside for my centerpiece.

 Then started on the cookin. Its quite interesting trying to cook a fancy Christmas dinner in a kitchen this small, but with the help of my mom and sister we were able to get it done.

We made the classics.

Sweet potatoes, rolls, green beans, a green salad and my first ever ham!

Mmm...

The food was good but the company was even better.

The next party we had in this apartment was a surprise anniversary party for Evans parents. They were celebrating 30 years! Since it was an anniversary party we went with the traditional material of pearl.

My sister in law made chocolate cupcakes decorated with pearls and their initials. I made banana cupcakes with honey cinnamon frosting. Did you know you can buy edible pearl dust to go in your frosting?! There is also little edible pearl candies too!

 I got this idea off of the Martha Stewart website to do a three sided picture frame.

 

  

You simply get three picture frames and take the backs off. Then you hinge them together to make a triangle, I think I just used tape, and print your pictures on vellum. Then you plop a candle in the middle and voila!

 Don't they make the cutest couple!

Well thats two of the parties I've planned and Ill show you a couple more next time. Hope you've enjoyed them!

Lets Try That Again

We've been at it again! We got that itch to do some painting around here again, and we are all loving the results. When we originally decided to paint our living room blue, we were more than a little nervous. We were afraid that it would look overwhelming, or like you just walked into a big blue ice box. So we played it safe and only painted three walls. We left the entryway and the half wall white to try and balance it out.

We had so much trouble adding some color and personality to that wall, and what you cant see from this picture is that to the left of this wall is the full white bead board wall of our dining room, which you can see here. So if you were sitting in the living room, all you saw was white. Boring!!

While I masked off the space, Ryan starting ripping off the old ugly trim.

Then I got to work painting the entryway and half wall.

 Not only did we paint the walls but we added a fresh coat of white paint to the back of the doors, and we added the new trim.

 Isn't it beautiful?!

It adds so much more personality to that area now that its not just white, and we may or may not be adding some kind of wainscoting to that wall in the future ;)

On on a side note, we also continued down that wall and painted the hallway! Since we recently had a computer switch I don't have a before picture for you :( But just picture a creamy yellow-ish tan color = not cute. We decided to keep it simple and go for a soft white. I looked on one of my favorite blogs Perfectly Imperfect, where she had listed all of her paint colors in her house. She used the color White Diamond quite a bit, so we knew we were getting a color that was tried and true.

 It brightened up the hallway and even made the light look less "orangey" colored. We had to replace the old thermostat, because next to the new white paint it looked yellowed and ugly. We just cant have that now can we? :) This hallway is a bit of a decorating difficulty. On the largest wall is the doorbell box and the thermostat which doesn't leave much room for hanging things. Any ideas? 

Make Believe Mantle

Ya know how when you notice something in your house that isn't quite what you want it to be, then all the sudden its all you can see when you walk into that room? Has that ever happened to you? Well, after we built our coffee table here and I took some pictures for this here blog, I was so annoyed by the look of our too small shelf. Its amazing how looking at a picture can really point something out to you that you hadn't really noticed before.

This shelf was put up in a hurry when we first moved in, trying to make it look a little more "homey" for our first visitors. It worked for awhile, but when we moved the big couch against that wall, it dwarfed the shelf even more. So after bugging my handy BIL and repeatedly showing him pictures I liked, kinda like this one...

 Pinterest

and this one...

 Pottery Barn

So one weekend while my husband and I were out of town, Ryan got a wild hair and decided to build one, (I swear it was like subliminal messaging) and look how good it turned out!

I love that it has that chunky mantle look to it. It is so much more fun decorating for fall when you have a make believe mantle.

Now I cant even begin to explain how he built it, all I know is that I love it :) Maybe someday, I will be brave enough to attempt that wonderful chippy look like the ones above. But for now it works just fine!

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