Valentine's Day Decor

I've slowly been adding a few heart shaped goods to our house as I've spotted them in and around my favorite stores.  Thankfully, T.J. Maxx and Homegoods haven't quite made the switch from Christmas to Valentine's Day, yet.

One of my husband's coaching buddies totally called me out on having multiple season/holiday decorations up at the same time. In his defense, he was right...

I've had our "D" fall wreath hanging on the powder room door since I made it back in October.

Our Christmas tree is still up, but completely naked and all our ornaments and decorations are piled onto a beer pong table in our dining room (we're classy like that).

I hung the new "love you so much" felt garland that I scored at Target (for just $3.99!) over the weekend from our mantle along with my old stand-by red felt ball garland. Don't you just love when decorations can be used for multiple holidays/seasons!?

 

In my defense, the ornaments are off of the g-d-tree but I've had a hell of a time finding ornament storage dividers for our bins and I'd really like to get them to make decorating and storing our goods easier. I've also had this terrible cough/cold/sinus/allergic reaction/who knows what since Christmas night so I haven't felt the best. We're also still up to our eyeballs in redoing our house and my sweet husband has been out almost every night either at work, coaching wrestling, running our township (literally), or at the hospital visiting his friend who's been super sick so it's been just me and the dog... and Blitz, well he's not exactly a help.

Ah... but you know what they say about excuses...

So this weekend, I'll be cleaning and storing and decorating. AND SLEEPING... A LOT. So we'll see how things go...There are may still be wedding remnants strewn throughout our downstairs but fortunately for me... some of those pretty red and glittery goodies can be left up for Valentine's Day!

Happy Hearts

I've been DYING to post all the adorable heart goodies I've found here and there for Valentine's Day! In all fairness, I had to wait to get my tree down before I could do anything for the next holiday... I'm on overdrive, you know... because a little part of me thinks that I go crazy for the next few holidays, it will make up for all those ones I missed (I may or may not have been on depression watch every time a holiday/season passed and I didn't get to deck my halls for it. I even told Jay that a little piece of me died every time it happened).


So since Valentine's Day is officially 1 month away, it's time to start preparing to deck out our house, and ourselves, with hearts galore!!

SaSea Decor on Etsy - Mini Olive You (boy, girl), XOXO sweatshirt, Olive You (mommy)

American Eagle - Scarf, Nothing But Love, Love, Socks

Old Navy - Heart Tee, Scarf, Heart Hoodie

Target - Socks, Love Tee, Hand-Heart Tee, Socks

I am so excited to get to wear all my red (that I justified over-purchasing in December) all month long! Mixing in a few of the shirts above on the weekends leading up to and including Valentine's Day!!

Winter Goodies

It has been FREEEEEEZING cold this winter. I'm not a big fan of sub-zero temperatures, but that is because we don't usually get a ton of snow around here. A few flurries from December til February, and maybe one "big" snowfall (4-6 inches or so) and the rest of the time it's just cold, dreary, and wet.

Lots of talk of "Polar Vortex" and tons of hype that we had more snow before winter even started than we got all last year... all this to say, thanks to the cold weather, I've been able to snuggle up with the pup and my husband and enjoy watching the fire with some of my favorite goodies

 Sources:

Gap - Scarf

 Anthropologie - Initial Mugs 

Red Dress Boutique - Gray Sweater

Hello Apparel - sweatshirt  

 Old Navy - stripe tee

 American Eagle - Headband

Ikea - blanket

JandPaper -chalkboard print

 Kohl's - Dot Leggings

 Gap - Stripe leggings

 OPI - Polish

P.B. Teen - Fuzzy Slippers

 

In addition, we've been using the Verismo that Jay got me for Christmas to brew up lots of yummy drinks! It is seriously like having a Starbucks in your kitchen... the BEST!! Especially since we don't want to go out in this super chilly weather!!

 Hope you're all finding ways to stay warm!!

Master Bathroom Supplies

We did a lot of shopping around to find the tile and bathroom goodies for our new Master Bath.

This is what we ended up with:

Light/fan (Home Depot)

Vanity Light (Home Depot)

Towel Bar, Ring and TP Holder (Target)

His and Hers Robe Hooks (Kohl's - similar here)

Mirror (Amazon)

Faucet (Lowe's)

Calacatta Glazed Porcelain Tile (Lowe's)

Carrara Pinwheel accent tile (Lowe's)

Shower Head (Lowe's)

Pedestal Sink (Lowe's)

Toilet (Lowe's)

We were afraid of painting this bathroom too dark but figured a charcoal gray would be fine since there's a TON of white throughout the space. It also didn't hurt that we put maybe an excessive amount of lighting in this tiny bathroom. We went back and forth on shades and ultimately, we decided on Behr Anonymous for the color and we couldn't be happier.

Time to accessorize and decorate! I cannot wait! That's the most fun part!!

Peeking in the Windows

Although, this was one of the last projects I worked on for the wedding and I felt like I totally half-assed it because I waited so long to start it, it is really one of my favorites!

I absolutely could not be happier with the way it turned out. The window were a gift from my brother and sister-in-law. Thankfully, they just put all new windows in their home and were looking to unload these out of their basement (too bad I don't have 30 more weddings to plan because that's how many more windows they need to unload!)

I picked them up from my brother's on a rainy day which really helped rinse off the soapy water I cleaned them with. I did a quick once-over because these babies were practically falling apart on me - the lead paint was so chippy and disintegrated before my very eyes so I had to be really careful while wiping them down. Then I just windexed the glass and called it good.

Next, I printed table assignments on linen paper (upcylced letter-head from when we had a name change at work... it was going to get trashed! I couldn't have that) and used a Martha Stewart craft punch to make the corners look prettier. Then I taped them to the back of the glass.

Because I didn't like that you could still kind of see the tape on the glass, I decided to put a layer of (wrapping) paper in each pain of glass.

We had 3 windows with 8 panes each (a total of 24 panes) and only 23 tables, so there was a left over space where I hung a glitter glass 'D' with sparkly ribbon and lined with gold stag wrapping paper.

This was by far my favorite project for the wedding. Everything turned out wayyy better than I was expecting and I loved the way it looked in the entrance of our reception.

Thanks Jenn and Gary for the great additions to our decor :) I can't wait to doctor these bad boys up a little more and use them for gallery frames in our stairwell.

Oh Christmas Tree!

Fewer things in life get me more excited than Christmas, and one of my very favorite things about the holiday is decorating the tree (or 2, or 3)! Since we're a little low on time for the tree, I've done a little prowling and come across a bunch of really cute evergreens that make me semi-ok with the fact that we may only get a tree up this year for a week or 2.

Ikea Liamaria

 This is great, you can add a tree to every room! They also have super cute fabric that matches this tree! You know if I had time, I'd be making duvet covers for every room out of that shit!

SpearmintLove Eco Forest Baby Blanket

 Speaking of blankets for every room... how bout this adorable baby blanket!? I don't have a baby, but that won't stop me from draping this over the couch, or the end of my bed. I just love it! Add a red striped pillow and it's all set!

HerJoyfulStudio Christmas Tree Felt Garland

I'm a sucker for garland... if you can drape it, I want it. Plain and simple! I love mixing multiple garlands together. I like buying them. I love making them... and this one... it's super cute and like nothing I've seen before! Need it.

Pottery Barn Green Mercury Glass Trees

Mercury Glass + Christmas Trees = enough said.

Procrastination is the Name of the Game

So Jay decided... back in May... what he was going to give his groomsmen. He came up with a GREAT idea and I was soooooo jealous that I still had no idea what I was going to get for my girls.

Fast forward 7 months. 

My girls' gifts are done! They're awesome, practical, and I LOVE them!! They're all wrapped up and ready for their debut on Saturday at our Rehearsal Dinner.

My dear fiance... well he's been a little busy the past few months... you know, just painting and updating an entire house, running for public office, working... little things really. To say he hasn't had time to tie his shoes would be the understatement of the century.

So his grand idea for groomsmen gifts was slightly waylaid. Enter his amazing fiance and Super-Mom mother-in-law and their sidekicks, Alyssa & Cathy... 

Seriously, we saved his ass.

cut 7"x7" squares so that you have some seem allowance

My mom said they're 6x6 and 2 cups of corn... but we wanted to be sure so we did a little re-con. First, we asked my dad about the size of bean bags he said he thought my mom was right and he knew they should be 15 ounces... then my brother stepped in and told us to go here, it's a real website. 

My mom was right. Surprise, surprise! She's made quite a few bean bags in her day and was spot on. So we got to work cutting out squares... 48 squares since we needed 24 bean bags.

have someone who knows what she's doing handle this step

I cut. Mom sewed. Alyssa and Cathy stuffed. It was quite the team effort

In the end, it took us just over 2 hours to finish them.

 

And they look great!

  

 And just in case you thought the love of my life might have been slacking... here's what he sent me when we were finishing up and chatting.

"fabrication is done"

He worked all night on building the frames and puttying the holes/rough spots. Tonight's job is to sand them all down and prime them so that we can paint them tomorrow. We're on a pretty tight schedule as they have to be ready to go for our Rehearsal Dinner on Saturday night... plenty of time...

He better know how lucky he is to have me (and my mom, and my best friend, and my best friend's mom/mom's friend)!!