Jingle Jangle

Merry (almost) Christmas! I can't believe Christmas is 9ish days away, time is flying by. Fortunately, I have gotten most of my shopping done and wrapped. I kept the decorating simple this year as you can see in some of the photos.

I got one of my Christmas presents early and I am sooo happy with it! My dad came up from Richmond on Thursday to bring and install the built-in bookselves!! They are exactly what our house needed and it dresses the place up a bit. I am still playing around with decorating them. Also, we have to calk in a few areas, throw another coat of paint on 'em and finish up some of the molding, but other than that they are set! It really is crazy what a difference they make in the space.

*BEFORE*

*AFTER*

Still playing around with all this new shelf space

Oh Christmas Tree::

We bought our Christmas tree a few weeks ago and boy was that a mistake. This is probably the driest tree I have seen in a while. Foster wags her tail from across the room and half the needles are on the floor, so by Christmas is will be pretty naked. I had great plans to string some popcorn and that probably won't happen, maybe next year. I used the same ornaments from last year with my paper ornaments I made out of an old abdominal surgery textbook. 

We had to find a new spot for the tree, since the usual spot is taken,
 so there it sets btw the living room and kitchen

My Ragamuffin Tree Topper::

I had been looking for cute tree toppers that weren't angels or stars and couldn't find much, so I made my own out of a styrofoam ball, strips of burlap, and straight pins.

It reminds me of a bad hair day

 Some of the other Christmas-y spots::

Kitchen table center piece with a yo-yo quilt runner

It's pretty simple, slightly boring, but that is okay.

Master Bathroom

Thanks for taking the tour, we could not be happier with the built-ins, my dad is just a genius-what can I say-if you don't believe me look at the island.

I hope your staying in the Christmas spirit and not getting too bogged down with the long lines, traffic, and festive holiday sweaters.

Tis the season to make stockings

Burlap stockings::

I have been wanting to make burlap stockings since last Christmas, but it didn't quite happen (read more about that here). This year I was determined to knock 'em out, so yesterday I got 'er done! I am pretty excited with how well they turned out, not as hard as I thought they would be. They are definitely not perfect-but nothing is-it is called character. 

Each stocking has two pieces of burlap and two pieces of batting. The top of the stocking is actually the  outside trim of an old pillow case and I picked up some maroon ribbon from Walmart. I made the fabric rosettes out of the pillow case fabric and the ribbon trim. I played with different fabrics and embellishments and this is what I came up with. I used some old brass buttons to add a little something to the center of the rosettes.

How are you getting in the holiday CHRISTMAS spirit?

Pillow Talk

If you follow my pinterest than you know I have been searching for pillows for our new gray sectional.

I fell love with this collection,

(source)

Specifically the floral fabric (but after I found the fabric for $46-$60/ yd I didn't like it too much anymore).

The day we purchased the sofa we hit TJMAXX, Target, and Pier 1 (we don't have a vast selection of stores here) hoping to find some inexpensive pillows, unfortunately we came up with nothing. I poured over the internet and still couldn't find exactly what we were looking for, so I moved on to Plan B (which really should have been Plan A) making my own.
Last year for Christmas my big brother bought me a yard or so of beautiful Dwell Studio fabric in the Gate Citrine pattern.

I was in love instantly and for the past year I have been contemplating making some pillows, but didn't have anything they would go with, so I held off until now. I have only made two pillows in my life, one in home economics in 6th grade and another I sewed this summer out of clothe napkins, neither hit on much.
..So on to plan B, I found an easy tutorial at SewMamaSew and I was able to make three pillows ( all different sizes), I am so pleased with how they turned out.

 I wasn't sure how my husband was going to like the pillows, since the fabric is slightly too geometric/modern for his taste. It took him a good hour for him to notice them when he got home from work, so they must not be too crazy. I just ordered other coordinating fabrics from fabric.com to finish everything off. It is such a good feeling when you can make something you love for much less than the retail price, such as this same pillow at DwellStudio for $72 (no thanks). The other pillows on the couch are ones I was using in guest room and I did have to buy my favorite pillow at target for good measure (or maybe because I have been in love with it since Target started carrying it a few years ago).

As you can tell we still have yet to paint the living room, maybe this weekend if I get put on call..or it might just happen after the craziness of Christmas. Also, I am keeping my eyes opens for another rug and coffee table. 

I am loving this style of coffee table because it is sort of modern with an antique/our taste look..

(Ballard)

Do you know where to find similar coffee tables at a reasonable price? 

Hope yall had a great Thanksgiving!

Our big saturday.

This weekend we finally got around to painting our kitchen! We have been wanting to paint for a while, but it is hard to find a weekend where both of us are off. Last week we picked up some samples from Home Depot, colors for both the kitchen and living room. Thank You God for samples. Between the three samples, we found one we thought would work (a sweet pale yellow). Friday we primed the room and Saturday morning before Chris went out to buy the actual gallons of paint, he put some of the yellow sample on the wall one last time just to make sure we were good with this big commitment. Yeah...it didn't quite float our boat the second time around, so we scoured the internet to get some ideas (we would have just gone to the paint store together and got more samples to try, but we were in a time crunch-more about that in a minute). Finally, Chris found a color that we could both agree on, so he scooted off to the Depot to get the gallons while I was at home praying that this color would work since I told him not to get a sample, rather just get two gallons of it. It takes about 15-20 minutes to get to the Home Depot and we weren't about to spend our whole day running up the road.....Long story  long  short. We had some awesome friends come over and join in on the painting party and we got it all done by 4pm. And the best news is that we LOVE it!! We went with AQUA SMOKE by Behr, it goes perfectly with the brown and blue rug from Target and the island. It is nice to have a pop of color to brighten up the space. I love how it changes colors with the sunlight.

And for the panoramic:
These pictures make it look more aqua blue, hence the name of the color I guess, but during the day it has a sea foam green hue. (The island is still not quite showing accurately-but you will get the picture)

During our paint adventure we had our new couch delivered and had two buyers come look at the old couch, so it was definitely a busy Saturday (did I mention the time crunch). Couch you ask? Oh Yes I just said new couch. We had been eyeing this couch from Haverty's, but hadn't made up our minds, so Friday we ventured to Roanoke to look at it one last time, but still weren't completely sold. As we were driving around we saw Grand Home Furnishings (this is where we got our bedroom suit) as much as I hate furniture places like this I figured what the heck lets just see what they have. To our surprise we fell in love with this sectional. We weren't looking for a sectional and the original price was definitely more than we wanted to spend, but we got a great deal (there could have been some haggling/persuading involved--thank you Dave Ramsey). We got it delivered Saturday and couldn't be happier, now we just need some fun pillows to tie everything together (Refer to my pinterest for my thoughts on this). Just in case you were wondering, Foster is not allowed on this couch, so you will notice she is located in the leather chair.

Next on the list, paint the living room, we were thinking Slate by Restoration Hardware, but now that we have a dark gray couch it could be too dark. Have any suggestions? 

Also, we are looking to hang some panels in front of the sliding glass door, no more horizontal blinds for us. I might throw some valences together for the other two windows, but really who am I kidding-I haven't been sewing too much lately.

Orange ya glad for fall..

I am in love with all things fall, except for stinkbugs.

I love unusual pumpkins

Fall Mantle

Chris bought these beautiful sunflowers for when I came home from a trip to my parents (and he cleaned the house-he is definitely a keeper). We had fun making the framed keys on the right side of the mantle, super easy. This is probably one of my favorite mantles we have done so far, minus the speakers..they have got to go. 

Not the best picture, but I had an old frame I spray painted white and took some twine, looped it through the keys and tacked them to the back of the frame, vola! 

I finally figured out what to put in my gallon sized mason, pinecones! and some pumpkins in the small mason.

Lastly, I framed a print from JonesDesignCompany and got some perfect wire baskets from Target (of course and they were on clearance!). Also, I found a great deal on a lamp at HomeGoods a few weeks back.

Did I mention I love fall?? How have you decorated? 

Living Room Switch-a-roo

Although I have been working like crazy this week I did manage to get the living room spiffed up and re-arranged.

I am still hunting for a new couch which has been a more in depth process than I would have thought. I have been looking at West Elm, Rowe, and PB and scouring blogs to find a cost effective, quality couch, but I still haven't been able to find the perfect one. I am wanting something slightly more casual contemporary, but Chris likes the more rounded country look. As I look over at my living room I want something more out of it, for starters it needs a nice color on the wall rather than the beige that surrounds the rest of my house (it is better than builders white). I am working on talking my dad into building me some white built-ins similar to these found at Jones Design Company , her living room is almost identical to ours and we are loving the antique pew, well really I love the entire room. But for now this is what I have:

I re-angled the furniture something I do about once a month to switch it up

I centered all the wooden boxes to make it slightly more modern

Added a wooden white tray to the coffee table, we can't put anything too high on the table because of Foster's monstrous tail

I removed Foster's crate and put it in the office and moved an antique trunk, that was positioned near the door, to create a cute little nook, this is probably my favorite part of the living room and I found a gallon sized mason jar at Target to add to my collection, as if I don't have enough, look above my cabinets in the kitchen

Also, at Target we purchased a rug to go under the island, this is probably one of my favorite patterns, we already owned this rug in a smaller size, but the 5X7 was finally on sale, so here it is. It adds a nice pop of color.

Have you found any great deals on couches lately? Any brands you would avoid? We could use all the help we can get.

Now on to cleaning the rest of the house and packing for a long awaited trip to the beach.

Summer time: Part 2

Along with redoing our TNT boxes, I summer-ized our mantel. I am a huge fan of white so that was my overarching theme. It is still a work in progress, as is everything in my life, but we are thinking about continuing the white frame look all the way up to the ceiling. As much as I loved having our TV mounted above our mantel when we first moved in, it is really throwing a kink into my design plans, so...why not decorate around it? We may try it. Also, those speakers are becoming quite an eye sore, but I have a feeling I won't win that battle given my husband is an audio engineer.

Speaking of white... I attempted to spray paint some mason jars last week.. you must be warned... I am not the best at spray painting and it really erks me that my husband is better at it than me. So I tried it out and man was mine a drippy mess, but of course hubs comes and home and tries it out and it could be in the next PB catalog...not cool. But I got over my jealousy and am using it in my center piece on the kitchen table. What are those gorgeous flowers you might ask? They would be my $5 dahlia bouquet I purchased down at the farmers market this weekend, it was so large I was able to have multiple groupings around the house.

Next project... a burlap wreath..I have only had the supplies for 2 months.. I'll let ya know how it goes.

Summer time: Part 1

I cannot believe it is already the middle of the summer, it has flown by! We have stayed busy with working and traveling some.

 In May we ventured to Florida for Chris's best friend's wedding near Jacksonville..
a few things we learned from that trip:
-fill the gas tank up at 1/2 a tank ( we almost ran out of gas twice)
-directions are not my strongest suit even though sometimes I am confident that they are (we travelled a good distance to find a BBQ restaurant and when we got to the destination it was an open field which almost led us to running out of gas)
-in the future we will be flying to Florida, not driving

In June we took a trip to Bristol to celebrate our anniversary and visit with family. Chris and I thoroughly enjoyed our anniversary dinner at The Tavern in Abingdon, Va. We had some great conversation about the past year and the future (we highly recommend doing this on your anniversary, its important to reflect and see how you have grown and what you want for your marriage in the future). Also, we were able to spend some time with Chris's parents.

At the end of June and beginning of July, I took two trips to the Chesapeake Bay to spend some time with my family. These pictures are four years old and taken by my best friend Laura, we have shared some fun memories over the years.

My Grandpa's tractor

The view

Had to throw it in there

The rest of the summer we have two vacations planned to South Carolina in August, but until then we will be working hard in the daily grind.

A few fun things we have done thus far:

Summer spruce up

Favorite piece: framed piece of one of my favorite fabrics

Color time

Frame to Chris's outdoor table

Finished product, plans from Ana-white.com
Now we just need some chairs

Productivity

We have yet to hang the EAT letters yet...we keep playing around with placement but haven't settled on the perfect spot yet.

We did get some baskets for the kitchen island-we settled on some brown baskets from Michael's that have a linen liner. I am not crazy about liners, but Chris likes the country feel about them. The best part is that we got 4 for $11 each and if we want to change the color we could always spray paint them and I could either take the liners out or make new ones. I like having something on the shelves that makes it look more organized.
Below is a picture, but the color of the island is slightly more turquoise and less blue blue (my phone distorts color sometimes-you get the idea).

Brunswick stew time:

Monday I made my family's recipe for homemade Brunswick stew for community group. After going back and forth with what I should make for dinner I bit the bullet. It ended up turning out pretty good and for the most part it wasn't too difficult to make. I must say the worst part is boiling the chicken--NASTY. You have to take it out of the plastic wrap with all the juices and pull out the insides-SICK. And if that wasn't fun enough I had the joy of de-boning that bird, talk about tedious-I felt like I was performing surgery, I had two tongs one in each hand. Fortunately, it was worth it and it is safe to say that I would do it again, except next time I am getting Chris to handle the bird part. 

One thing I am surprised about is that some people don't know what Brunswick stew is, which is outlandish. But for those of you who don't, Brunswick stew can vary depending on your recipe. Our family uses chicken, tomatoes, carrots, celery, onion, potatoes, S&P, tomato soup, white corn and butterbeans (lima beans). YUM. We serve it with either biscuits or corn bread and cottage cheese, yes cottage cheese, can't knock it til you try it-It's a Russell thing. 

There is chicken little taking a bath

Chicken little and carrot top

The Brunswick Stew

You might ask is that Paula Deen's Stock Pot, why yes it is. We have the rest of her collection in green.  

In other news:

I still haven't made time to sew, its a bummer I know.  I did finish our taxes! Yesterday I went lap pool swimming for the first time in at least 6 years and finished the night off with some yummy SweetFrog (rasberry and granola= my favorite) with some sweet friends.