Our New Bedding - Finally!

Do you remember this post, and this post, and finally this post about getting new bedding for our master bedroom? Well I started blogging back in February about my desire to get some real nice adult bedding and after months, and months, and months - I finally found exactly what I wanted at HomeGoods. They only had it in queen size but I decided to ask if they had king and the nice lady went to the back and found it in king for me. I was like a kid in a candy store when I saw the bedding and knew it would be perfect for our room.

Can you see why I love the bedding so much? A little feminine but the white, gray, and dark chocolate brown give it a masculine touch so that David and I both are comfortable with the bedding. I also got some new dark brown sheets that were on sale as well. I finally feel like we are in a luxury hotel but it's actually our own bedroom.

The gold framed artwork, mirror, and lamps also came from HomeGoods - I LOVE THAT STORE! You can't beat most of their prices.

Oh did you notice my headboard? I made it back in May, click here to read all of the details, it's held of well thus far.

So what do you think - did I make the right decision in bedding? It's super warm, just in time for the cold weather that is coming our way.

Decking the Halls

We have spent the last 2 days "decking the halls" with Christmas decor. That included decorating the exterior and interior of the house. Also for the first time we have put up 2 Christmas trees instead of just one - 1 upstairs in the living room and 1 downstairs in the family room. The second tree is smaller in size and was given to us by my brother and SIL who just didn't have room anymore. We were eager to add it to the house because we could have 1 tree that was decorated in a classy theme and the other could be all of those ornaments that are sentimental in nature but just don't match anything.

Are you eager to see our hard work? Here's a few pictures.....more to come soon.

Here's our more formal tree - decked out in white, silver, and clear ornaments.

We used white lights, white glittery garland, silver strands of beads, and a variety of white/clear/silver ornaments. I love the sophisticated but classy look it adds to our house.

I had to add some fresh greenery into our holiday decor. It smells wonderful and since we have a fake tree this will have to do. 

This is our make-shift mantel. David promises that our next house will have a fireplace but the buffet in the dining room will have to do the trick for now.

I made this simple centerpiece for the dining room table. I put a small vase full of fresh greens in the middle of thie glass vase and I really like the look. I need to add more to the table but couldn't wait to snap some pictures for you.

I also decorated the top of our entertainment center with fresh greens and berries, our family room with another tree and snowmen, and some also little touches that I'll share with you soon. What theme are you using to decorate your home this year? Are you the traditional green and red type of decorator or are you doing something like turquoise and silver for a more modern/contemporary look. Do share.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

My Thanksgiving Final Touches

Remember these Thanksgiving Dinner invitations I made a few weeks ago for my guests? Well in making my final preparations for the big feast, I thought I would carry this theme to a few other things the guests would see during our Thanksgiving feast.

How about menus at each of the 4 tables (17 peeps in total) so that the guests can see what will be served during the big feast. There is a lot of food and they shouldn't leave hungry. I was a little stressed about the 22 lb turkey so I bought a ham as well - lots of leftovers and I already have some new recipes to try and use up all that delicious turkey.

This year in addition to using David's grandmother's fine china, we are using real linen napkins, I hope I don't regret this decision because there are a few messy folks coming but I guess that's what the washing machine is for. I decided to make my own napkin rings using some twine and stamping "bon appetit" on the tags.

What do you think? Simple but I like adding my own touch to things even though my husband said I was just making it harder on myself. Well the tags only took 5 minutes to make but rolling the silverware and typing the tags took about 30 minutes. Still not bad for a little touch, I want my guests to feel welcome.

It's Almost Turkey Time!

I love hosting Thanksgiving because it's all about the food and I love trying a few new recipes out on my family. They are very traditional food people so I usually only get a few thumbs up because what I can I say, they love meat and potatoes and don't mess with those potatoes. Slowly but surely they are getting used to my new recipes which always come from 'Taste of Home' magazine which my grandma always got for me.

I went to the grocery store to get all of my groceries on Sunday night and let me tell you people, that is the best time to do your grocery shopping! The shelves had just been restocked and there were only a few people there - yes - no playing bumper grocery carts today! Anyways - if you haven't already, start defrosting that turkey people. I bought the biggest turkey I could find which was only 22 pounds and I have 17 people coming over and we MUST have left-overs. So I think I'm going to make a small ham as well, I just need to make sure that both will fit in my oven first.

What I'm serving on Turkey Day:

• Orange glazed turkey
• Cornbread Stuffing (on the Oprah show last year - it's the best!)
• Ham - I'm worried I'll run out of turkey so may need to get a small one
• Mashed pototoes
• Gravy
• Corn
• Pumpkin Pie Dip with apple and pear slices
• Green bean casserole
• Deviled Eggs
• Rolls
• Boston Cream Pie
• Pumpkin Cheesecake
• Turkey cookies for the kids
• Cranberry Punch
• Apple Cider
• My favorite white wine - Line 39

I'm always worried people will leave hungry so I'll probably add 1 or 2 more dishes before the big day.

P.S. I'm not making all of this by myself - I have lots of help thanks to my lovely guests. Thanks in advance.

Our Fall Photoshoot

For those of you that know me, you know how much I love sleeping in on the weekends especially since I'm not a morning person. Well today I made an exception to my sleeping in on Sunday's rule for a photoshoot at Veteran's Acres. My friend Brooke loves photography like me and offered to shoot some pictures of us using her new portrait lens (Nikon 35mm). I absolutely love her new lens and so did my hubby so I think their is a portrait lens in my future if Santa treats me well. Santa if you are listening I want the Canon 50 mm/1.8 lens - pretty please! Anyways, enough about me, we hope you enjoy the pictures Brooke took this morning.

P.S. There are many more and I can't wait until I get the disc of photos from Brooke.
P.S.S. Would you like to see more photos that Brooke has taken? Check out her blog - Second Time Mommy. She has some serious phototaking skills and I better book our next shoot with her before she's too popular!!!

Birthday Card – Painting a Flower

I made this birthday card for my MIL recently and used a new technique to give the flower a watercolor look. I found the technique online and didn't have exactly the right cardstock but I tried it anyways – I think it would have looked better if only I had the right paper but it was worth a try. What matters is that my MIL loved it and I'm sure only I notice the imperfections in the flower. Can you tell why I don't like the paper used?

Are you curious about the new technique that I used on the flower? Unfortunately I can't find the website link which contained a how to video but I'll do my best to describe it to you. First I stamped the image on white shimmer paper with versamark, sprinkled embossing powder on the image and then embossed it with my heating tool. Then you cut out the image and use a squirt bottle to cover it with water. Then I use my aqua painter to pick up a drop of the ink I used and then touched the aqua painter to the image and the water spreads the ink across the image. This is what creates the variation in color. You can mix different colors if you would like and once you like the color combinations, let it dry for about 30 minutes. And look at that – you now have a pretty cool flower.

Supplies Used:

• Stamps – Fifth Avenue Floral
  
• Paper – SU patterned paper, basic black, basic gray, very vanilla, white shimmer paper
  
• Ink – VersaMark, basic gray, purely pomegranate (used on flower)
  
• Other – embossing powder, heating tool, brads, ribbon, aqua painter

Windows 7 – Love It!

I am trying a little experiment and right now I LOVE Windows 7! We just got it at work and I attended training today and learned that I had no clue about all of the cool stuff it could do. Right now I'm just testing out this blog feature that let's you blog right from Word!!!! How awesome is that seriously!

Halloween Recap

My apologies for the delay in getting our Halloween Recap posted for all of you. We had a great Halloween and always look forward to this holiday - it's all about just plain ole fun!

Tanner & David

Me & Tanner

Tanner - begging us to take his prisoner costume off of him.

Our neighbors all dressed up for the festivities.

Michael & Alex

Look at that adorable Wall-E costume that his parents made!

We hope everyone enjoyed Halloween as much as we did.

Thanksgiving Invitations

We are hosting Thanksgiving this year and I decided that every celebration calls for an invitation - right? Ok, I got a new stamp set with this adorable silverware set and I just had to use it. I love the antique silverware and the classy look it gives to the invitation. Simple but I still love them.

Supplies Used:

• Stamps - Compliments to the Chef
• Paper - Rich Razzleberry, Dusty Durango, Whisper White
• Ink - Dusty Durango, Soft Suede
• Other - twine, oval punch, paper piercer