Snowglobes

I'm not that crazy about most of my Christmas decorations, but one thing I do love is my snowglobe collection. Dan had one that was given to him as a child, and then he's given me one for Christmas every year since the second Christmas we were married. I just think they're really pretty and festive.

As fate would have it, I got my trial copy of Ready Made today (can't remember where I found this site, but it looks fun) and they had a little article about them, including DIY Snowglobes! I think it would be a really fun project to do with Gabe.

What's your favorite holiday decoration?

Christmas Baking!

Tomorrow I'll be doing some baking for the holidays with my sister-in-law and mother-in-law. It's an annual tradition and at the end we get to split the goods and have a great variety of things. I was surfing flickr looking for some ideas and came across these photos that I thought were pretty and fun. We'll see if ours look anything like this. :-) I can tell you for sure that no matter how our stuff looks, it will taste delicious!

I think my favorite holiday goodie in recent year's is one of Christina's recipes - Ritz Mint Thins. You just dip Ritz crackers in a melted mix of chocolate bark and Andes mint chips - simple but delicious!

I ask this each year, but what's your favorite simple holiday treat?

Two Things

First, how adorable are these mini cakes from Bakerella? I love that the one with fondant is inspired by a Pottery Barn pillow! I haven't tried anything since I did the cupcake bites this summer, but I'd like to. I love her ideas, and her photos, which brings me to my second point.

I am really feeling the need for a super awesome camera (details about hers here). I just feel like the quality of pics is so much better and I think it would be a blast to play with and post pics...maybe even a photography blog? I know I'm getting way ahead of myself. Teara's been doing a great job with the nice camera she's been using!

And speaking of awesome cameras and photos, I found this blog through Trina at la la lovely things and have been loving it. I love her home and all her ideas. Especially this most recent post about swapping meals....I would love that if anyone's up for it! Looks like Meg uses a Canon Rebel as well. Santa, if you're reading..... :-)

Anyway, I'm sort of rambling....still lots of ideas rolling around in my head that I need to organize here!

Execution: Plate Collage

So, this weekend was my first attempt at the execution of an idea that I've posted here - the plate collage. I finally got all the plate hangers that I needed and since we had a low-key weekend, decided to give it a shot. I used the technique that I read in the original article and cut paper templates of each plate, which I then taped to the wall. I also marked a dot where the hanger on each plate was so Dan would know where the nails should go (just above the dots). I would say this technique definitely made it a breeze to hang them; Dan just put the nail in right through the paper and then we tore it down, hung up the plates, and voila! I do like it; it doesn't have as much bold color as the picture I posted, but I love all these plates for one reason or another. The one with the red flower is from my France trip, and the rest were actually rescued from the post-garage sale trash down in Bloomington a couple years ago while we were on a walk with Christina. So, there you have it.

Next up for execution: Hall of Frames. :-)

The subject wall

Fiddling around with the arrangement

The paper templates

The manpower :-)

The templates on the wall

The finished product!

Etsy Cuteness

If you're looking to spend hours on end looking at cute and pretty things, Etsy is the place to go. I was browsing a little bit today and found this pretty jewelry:

And this super cute Happy Birthday banner...it would be nice to have something like this on hand to take out for birthdays. Of course, it seems more appropriate for feminine birthdays, but I still like it. I don't think the boys would mind if I used it to decorate for their birthdays. :-)

Inspiration Needed: Bathroom

When we first moved into our house three years ago, I really thought remodeling the bathroom was priority #1. However, three years later, I've realized that there were other priorities in "fixing up" our 100+ year old home....like a kitchen, a back roof, a fence, a downstairs bath, paint...the list goes on.

So here we are and I'm starting to daydream and hope that we might get to this early next year and I've been looking for ideas. All of these pics caught my eye in one way or another, so maybe our new bathroom will be some combination of them. I think the first is my favorite. If I didn't live with three boys, I would definitely paint my bathroom pink....maybe I still will (but not the Pepto Bismol pink it was when we moved in!). :-)

From dominomag.com:

From Pottery Barn:

From HGTV.com:

And just so you know what we're working with, this is a picture of the bathroom when we first moved in. And, quite frankly, not much has changed other than the border is gone and the bright pink is now a nice green. Eek!

Plate Idea

Every one in a while I'll check out one of the scrolling articles on AOL when I pick up my mail, and occasionally they have design articles from this lady Kelly Edwards. Today's article was about decorating your walls without paint and the picture above was one of the suggestions. I have lots of cute plates that I've picked up at garage sales or whatever, and Dan and I used to buy a plate on every vacation we took, so I think this would be a cute idea for displaying them.

Oh, and her other tip? Vinyl wall decals!

I guess I didn't win....

....a Pottery Barn Kids Playroom makeover, nor did I win a Container Store closet makeover, but I am determined to win the Real Simple Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Sweepstakes! You can enter every day until November 19. :-) None of you won and didn't tell me, did you????

Aren't these so cute?

While I was tending my not-very-busy garage sale on Saturday, I decided to pass some of the time by reading a Family Circle magazine. While thumbing through I came across a recommendation for these bowls, and I thought they were so cute. They also come in pink and red and can be found on the LaPrima Shops website. They'd be really cute for appetizers or snacks or just to have sitting around in the kitchen. And it says they come packaged in an "elegant gift box." Ooooohhhh.....

Paper Source

These adorable paper flowers are the first thing that drew me in to the Paper Source store in Oak Park. I just think they are so cute and fun...but I'm not exactly clear what to do with them. I just think they would be fun to make (thinking of Heather right now, who loves all things made with folded paper) and I'm sure I could find some use for them. Maybe on a gift or package?

I love the Paper Source. Tons of cute stationary, paper, etc. Makes me feel really crafty just to go in there. :-)

Hall of Frame(s)

I've been wanting to do some type of picture wall for a while now, but keep worrying that things will look really cluttered. I think my options are either the hall upstairs or the wall going up the stairs. I really like collections of frames when I see them in magazines or pictures, but I'm just not sure I could pull it off. But, I really would like to display the billions of pictures we have (mostly from Portrait Innovations :-)), and would also like to put up some picture of family members, like parents, grandparents, etc.

Sandi and I saw this picture in the Pottery Barn magazine a couple weeks ago and I really like it. I like that by putting all the frames side by side, you eliminate spacing issues, etc. and even though there are lots of different frames, putting them together like this seems to bring some kind of uniformity.

I also like these layering ideas, but I think it would be harder to do a whole wall that way. It would be cute somewhere else, though.

All of the pics above are from the Pottery Barn website, and I also found a cool area there called "Stylehouse" where they have interactive design tools and helpful videos. I found this video (under Video Library click on Design and Style Tips and then scroll down to the New Family Wall) that gave some helpful hints on hanging large arrangements of frames. I'm not sure I would be that meticulous, but a good idea nonetheless. They also have some really cool tools like this "Planning Your Space" workbook and other room design tools. Who knew?

Wall Stickers

A while back I was cruising the clearance endcaps at Target and came across some wall stickers by Dwell Studios in the baby department. They were marked down from $10 to $2.50, so I picked up several packs each of these designs:

I have realized that I may be in love with wall stickers. I stuck the little cherry blossom ones in our bathroom (but realized a damp room may not be best) and the animal ones above Gabe's bed and a few in Caleb's room. I'm not sure what I'll do with the polka dots, but they are so easy to put on, stick really well (except in the bathroom, but it might have helped to dust the wall first) and add instant decor to the walls!

Then I made the mistake of looking for them on Etsy, and they have a TON! If you just search, you'll see what I mean, but I am totally fascinated with them now and am trying to think where else I could use them! It's so hard to choose, and they're fairly inexpensive, which is nice. It's also so much easier than painting something elaborate, and if you get tired of it, you can just take it down!

If anyone would like a set of one of the above, just let me know. I know I have at least one extra of each and there are quite a few stickers in each one.

It's fun to dream!

Real Simple is having another sweepstakes; this one for a dream closet! I'm going to add this, along with the one for the playroom, to the sidebar on the right. That one is hard to find, but you can still enter everyday until October 13, so maybe the chances will be better now that it doesn't show up on their home page! For the closet one, you can enter every day until October 19.

Good luck, and remember, we split the winnings. :-) (j/k)

P.S. I also found a link at the bottom of the RS home page (realsimplerewards.com) that has links to sponsor contests. Maybe I'll go into full-time contest entry?