Christmas in Photos {and some words}

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! Mine was splendid. I spent time with my family and relaxed. It even snowed here which it hasn't done on Christmas since the 1800's! Every Christmas Eve we spend the night at my mom's house, then on Christmas morning she makes breakfast casserole and we open gifts. Later on we have dinner and drinks and just relax.

Here are pictures from my mom's {and a few of my gifts}:




Here are pictures from my house later that night:


A few more of my gifts :)

I hope that you all have a safe and happy New Year!

Adieu!

Lamp Before and After

I want to start off saying that this post is coming to you a little late. This is a project that I completed in one day around a month and a half ago. So sue me!

I am working on my indecisive nature. Making decisions is not something that I do easily, but I am getting better. This is one reason that I have not decorated much in my house...do you know how many color combos there are that look great together? So while visiting my local Home Goods I came across this:


and decided that it would be an accent color in the great room.

A few weeks later I visited my local Habitat for Humanity Restore and came across this fine specimen of a lamp. Btw, I had been searching for a lamp that looks like this for at least six months, and it was only 5 bucks at the Restore!

As you can see, there is a little rust damage on the base.


Since I knew what my accent colors were going to be, I headed to Lowe's to find spray paint to fix this baby up. I also found a drum lampshade at Target for seven bucks on clearance! All of that together created this:


I am so in love. So proud of myself as well. This little project jump started my decoration frenzy. I love spray paint. Love it. I found these candle holders at Value Village:



With a little spray paint, this is what happened:


I still have a half of a bottle left...I wonder what else will fall victim to the nozzle?

Christmas Decor

Wow, it has been a busy month! Between packing orders, Christmas shopping, family visits, parties and decorating I am SPENT! And to think, Christmas isn't even here yet. It's okay though, I'm planning on enjoying the last few weeks of the year.

Just to give you an idea, here is some of the madness that I have been going through:

- Decorated two wreaths
- Decorated our tree
- Made a gift tower for the mantel
- Put up lights outside

The colors this year are turquoise and black, and I'm loving every piece of it. Here are a few shots of the house:

Christmas, Christmas everywhere!

Maybe you have already trimmed your tree and placed lights on the house/shrubs/windows...and maybe not. Either way, I am in the Christmas spirit fairly early this year, and my tree is probably going up this weekend.

Speaking of Christmas, my new line of Christmas cards are now available on my shop. Here are a select few:




Enjoy your Thanksgiving, and if you are a Black Friday shopper, don't forget the Vaseline!

Bamboo for You

I hope all is well in your world! Mine is dandy; just continuing to strive to accomplish my goals in life.

So, you may recall the snippet of a wedding invitation that I designed a few months ago (namely, this). Well I am happy to say that my friends are now married and all is well. They had a small ceremony at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, and it was absolutely beautiful! The weather was perfect, the vibe was perfect, the location was perfect...it was such an honour to be a part of their day!

Now, a few pictures of the invitation suite for your viewing pleasure-

A custom stamp with their picture on it! (I wasn't responsible for this, but it's such a cute element!)
The outside of the invitation
Inside
More inside

Response card
A little behind the scenes action for ya
I wish these two the best in life and all that they do :)

Staycation Inspiration

It is the eve of my return to work after a great week off. I actually accomplished a respectable amount of things. One of them was much needed cleaning and organizing. I hate cleaning, but I can say that I actually enjoyed it over the past week. Perhaps because I was off of work, so everything seemed a little sweeter?

Anyhow, I took a visit to my local bookstore and picked up a copy of the latest House Beautiful magazine. This issue had so many great ideas in it! I was totally inspired to do something in the house...especially after reading the "Send us a picture of" feature. Apparently readers send in pictures of whatever the magazine will be showcasing, and hopefully their picture will be one of the lucky ones chosen. This month's spotlight was coat closets. Eek...mine was a complete mess. In fact, I would cringe before opening the door because I knew what it looked like. So this is the feature-

This is the embarrassing "I can't believe I'm posting a picture of this for the world to see" before shot-

And this is the "Thank you House Beautiful for giving me the drive to clean up this hell hole" after shot-

Now I look forward to opening the closet door and smile every time. But I can't help but wonder...of the closets that were chosen, how many of them looked like mine before they took their "magazine worthy" picture?

I'm baaaack!

Greetings! I promised I would be back and that exciting things were underway. Well here I am with my latest project, wedding invitations and response cards for dear friends of mine. Since I am not complete with everything yet, I am not going to post the full suite until after they have been sent out. Until then, enjoy the snippet...