Valentine's Day Decor and a DIY sweater!

Happy Valentine's DAY!!!!

What incredibly romantic plans do we have for Valentine's Day?? you ask ;)

Lee's going to watch me blow my nose 500 times and then listen to me complain about how sick I am, then I'm going to go to bed early with a water bottle and a humidifier!! . . . all the while I'll be wearing my Flannel Monkey Bowling Pajama's . . . sooooo sexy!

But before I came down with what can only be compared to the bubonic plague. I managed to do some Valentine's Related projects.

First: This one is for all the flower snobs out there ;) A very cute little bouquet of Pink Carnations! I'll just say it . . . "I like BIG Fluffy carnations and I can not lie!"

I also strung a up a pink banner along the fireplace (I made it using this technique).

Second: I made a little rag wreath using scraps of fabric. It was soooo easy! Lee took some wire and made a circle for me (you could use a metal clothes hanger or anything similar), and I just single knotted strips of fabric around the wire until it was full!!!

Third: I sewed CUTE little hearts on to a simple grey sweater I had! The little pink hearts are cashmere . . . just say'in ;) I found a cute cashmere sweater at a second hand store and it was in bad shape, but they only wanted $2 for it and the back was in great shape. So I bought it and cut two little hearts out of it and sewed them on!!! I think it might be my new favorite sweater!

and last . . . a little Valentine's Day Gift for us.
I was at Jo Ann fabric and Lee was as he puts it "trying not to explode from boredom" anyway, he found this picture (I think more as a joke) anyways, I loved it so we bought it and it found it's place above my nightstand!

Happy Valentine's DAY!!! cough, cough, sniff, sniff!!

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year preparations are in full swing around here! Chinese New Year has always been a big celebration at our house!
This year Chinese New Year falls on January 23rd, 2012 that's this Monday! Which makes Sunday January 22nd  Chinese New Year's Eve. New Year's eve is when all the parting goes on.

We follow many of the traditional customs and superstitions (show me a holiday where you need to clean the house top to bottom and buy a new outfit, and I'm IN):

• Decorate with Oranges! Big bowls of Oranges everywhere . . . specifically in the center of your home. Oranges and tangerines represent luck and wealth (two things we could all use a little more of). A lucky number to keep is 9! 

• Buy and play with some Firecrackers or fireworks or both. It's believed to ward off evil spirits. 
• Complete a thorough clean of the house . . . TOP to BOTTOM!! Start the New Year with a clean slate. When your done make sure to wash your cloths and dusters and empty the vacumm cleaner.
• Make sure there is no laundry to be done.
• Decorate Doors and Windows with RED (happiness) and Gold (wealth).
• Make sure to settle all unfinished business so that you don't drag it into the new year. 
• If possible clear off any debts! 
• Make sure all projects around the house are finished and if you won't have time to finish it before New Years Day don't start it until 1 week after!
• Lots of Fresh Flowers!!! Everywhere! 

• Display bowls of Nuts and Candy! Fruit, nuts, food and sweets symbolize abundance! 
• An orange tree is ideal to display in your home for Chinese New Year, but if you can't find one any new living plant would be beneficial. (display your new plant on the EAST side of your home)
• Get a Hair Cut before New Years Day, cut away the old. 
• Burn Candles and Keep your front porch lights on to attract good chi. 
• Hang a gold bell in the Northwest corner of your home to bring helpful people into your life!

My Favorite part:

• Buy a new outfit to wear, preferably in RED, but any bright color will do. Nothing Black!
• If possible buy a new wallet, again preferably in RED, fill it with crisp NEW bills. If you don't buy a new wallet fill your existing wallet with Crisp New Bills anyway.

And Lee's favorite part:

• Host a BIG feast on New Year's Eve. 

• We'll be making Pot Stickers (eaten at midnight)

• Sticky Pork in Lettuce wraps. 

• Shanghai Noodles to symbolize longevity (don't cut your noodles or you'll be cutting your life short). 
• Steamed Halibut 
• Chinese Egg Drop Corn Soup
• Crispy Skin Chicken with ginger/scallion sauce.
• Tea Eggs
• Spring Rolls
• Chinese Long Beans

What not to do on Chinese New Year:

• No Swearing or getting angry. A bad mood is bad on New Year's Day. 
• Don't say the number 4 in Chinese it sounds like death so people avoid saying it. Also don't serve or eat any food served in numbers of 4, for example instead of taking 4 dumplings take 3 or 5 instead!
• Don't do any washing or cleaning on New Year's Day or you'll risk washing away all your good luck . . . Definitely NO sweeping. 
• You're appearance on New Year's Day will set the Tone for the rest of the year. So Make your outfit a cute one! 
• Never wear black on Chinese New Year!
• Don't go to bed early on New Year's Eve. Stay up with family and pass the time playing games! After Midnight give red envelopes containing Money! 

• On New Year's Day don't try not to use knives or scissors, you'll risk cutting through your good luck!
• and Last on New Year's Day eat a vegetarian diet for the whole day . . . an attempt to counteract the excessive feasting from the night before!

We'll be adding our Red and Gold banners to the doors and windows this weekend as well as constructing and hanging our lanterns, check back this weekend for a Chinese New Year update!

"GUNG HAY FAT CHOY" everyone!!!

Our Christmas Gifts!

Most years we put a 2 gift cap on Christmas, my birthday is in November, then Christmas, then our Anniversary and Lee's Birthday in January so the 2 Gift Christmas rule works really well for us!
One gift we pick out for ourselves, something special that we really want and the second gift we pick out for each other, something special we think the other person will really love.

This year Lee got something for his car, new shocks or  . . . I really have no idea what he got for his car, but he spent and entire weekend out there do stuff to the front of his car . . . seriously I have NO idea!

And for Lee I picked out a skeleton t-shirt from ThinkGeek.com. Lee loves everything skeleton-y so this shirt, with the outline on the front and back, was right up his alley.

For myself I picked out these WOOD LAMPS. I saw them at Homesense (moral of the story, when you go to homesense wear blinders). I love the rustic feel of them . . . I think they match the coffee table really well and they are perfect for the new fabric I picked out for pillows (hopefully I can sew those up this weekend and I'll have new pillows and a new laundry room to share next week :).

And Last, Lee picked out a fabulous new coffee maker! It's a tassimo and I LOVE IT!  Love it,  love it!! I super super love it . . . I might have had too much coffee ;)
For some reason I am incapable of making a decent pot of coffee, so this was the perfect present for me and it's WHITE!

So there's our Christmas Gift Philosophy, and our Christmas Gifts! Anyone else get anything they are in Love with???

Christmas Round-up

Since it's almost Christmas and I still haven't shared things like our mantel, I thought it was time for a Christmas Round Up! Yee-Haw!!!

So what's Christmas without a mantel? We went a little on the sparse side this Christmas, a simple ball garland with lots of sparkle!

Arthur (our artificial deer head) declares his love for Santa. And a little Amaryllis on a side table!

Last, we have our Christmas Coffee Table display. We had this old glass thing that I filled with Christmas Balls and quickly flipped over (so all the balls wouldn't fall out . . . Seriously you basically have to be a Ninja to make this work . . . lucky I AM a bit of a Ninja :p)

Our Christmas Tree,

Our Ornaments:

Our 3 wreath door, and Red Wrapping paper!

And my favorite from this year . . . Our Christmas Staircase!

And last . . . one of our Christmas card outtakes . . . at this point I had poked Lee in the head with the Christmas Ball wire and I was laughing . . . He's still posing although completely fed up with the entire situation :).

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Wishing you a cozy Christmas . . . filled with comfy Socks!



Merry Christmas from our Family to Yours

This year our Christmas Cards went Green! We mailed out around 100 Postcards (saving trees by not requiring Envelopes), and we printed them onto recycled paper!

The Card Image came from VOL 25.

So, from Our Family to Yours,

Merry Christmas!!

Back:

Max was suppose to be a part of our Christmas Card this year, but I found him napping in his favorite fuzzy blanket so we let him sleep instead!

Merry Christmas . . . Happy Holidays . . . Season's Greetings!!!

We LOVE you guys (although most of you are Girls so I should Write we LOVE you Girls, but I didn't want to exclude any of the guys so . . . )

WE LOVE Y'ALL (Texan style!)

Dining Room Finishing Touches

Our dining room is a major piece of the puzzle that is our house! It sits right in the middle of our main living area, and it's seen from almost every room on the main floor!
Our dining room is also a fairly bossy room. It almost demands that we have a round or square dining table, it would not fit a rectangle table. Because of our open concept, all of it's walls connect to other areas so there's no opportunity for an accent wall of paint or wallpaper. There are no windows to dress up with curtains. It has to be a show stopper but leaves us with NO opportunity to make it stand out!
So we had to work with what we've got and added our own show stopping touches . . . like the BARN DOOR!  And our new dining room artwork!

The art work was a very lucky craigslist find. I've gotten into the habit of typing my favorite stores into the search box on Craigslist and seeing what pops up. I'll type in everything from Pottery Barn to Restoration Hardware, these pieces of art were originally from Urban Barn (one of my favorite stores). I typed in Urban Barn one day and these guys popped up, the woman was moving and didn't have room for them (although I think they're so fabulous I would have made room) she wanted $100 for all three! I drove down there (40 min away) and picked them up I basically threw the money at her I was so excited. As I loaded them into the back of the car I noticed that they still had their price tags on the back at a whopping $179 each!!!
I LOVE them and I don't think that I could have found better suiting images for our dining room!

Since I'm on bit of an URBAN BARN love fest I wanted to show you my latest find, these Beautiful Crystal Candle holders. Urban Barn had a recent midnight madness sale 25% off accessories and I grabbed this set of three which came to around $35. I wasn't going to grab them because I already had some super cheap candle holders from Ikea but Lee saw them, and said he liked them too and for Lee to say that he "likes" crystal candle holders is BIG sign from above that I'm meant to have them . . . Lee doesn't like anything to do with candles unless they are in the shape of skulls . . . or motorcycles but I've never seen a candle in the shape of a motorcycle! My sister was happy to receive the old Ikea ones . . . it's win win!

The bowls are from Homesense, I love an angled bowl, for some reason they seem really Asian too me, so we usually have noodles in them, but they work really well for pasta too!
The napkins are just made from some leftover fabric I had lying around!

The plates under the bowls are from Target, I found a pack of 4 for . . . just over $4!

I threw them in the cart so fast I almost broke'em!

So there's our new dining room!!! I'm tempted to say 'completed dining room' but I have a feeling that one day (in the far far future) I'll be changing the simple pendant out for some thing with a bit more sparkle! Definitely not a traditional chandelier but just something with a bit more WOW!!
But that's in the FAR FAR future!!

p.s. Thank you for all the barn door love yesterday. . . and husband LOVE. He is pretty darn amazing, I agree!!!

Christmas Staircase

Deck the halls with "Super Cheap Garland from Walmart" fa la la la la la . . . la la la la.

When we first saw this house all I saw was, a spot for a giant Christmas tree and staircase railings begging for garland.
I didn't have a very large budget for garland, I wanted to keep it around $20, so it was either buy one 7 foot section from Michaels, or outfit all of our railings from Walmart. For $2.50 you can buy a 9 foot long very scraggly string of garland. My solution was to take 2 strings of $2.50 garland and twist them together, which made for fuller string of garland for the low low price of $5 :)
It cost us $20 plus tax for all the garland on the staircase.

I used red ribbon and tied it in big bows to hold the garland to the railing, I really loved the look.

Garland and staircases were made for each other!
p.s. I also added a wreath to the window, with a matching red bow!

What's better than 1 Christmas Wreath ? ?

. . . 3 Christmas Wreaths!!!!

I wanted something different for our back door this year. So I decided to use 3 wreaths instead of the standard 1. Christmas is Crazy around here . . . it's a regular 3 ring circus  hahaha  Get it?? Three rings . . . three wreaths . . . clearly I am a comical mastermind . . . or not! Definitely Not!

Originally I thought I would tie them together with ribbon but, that did not work! Did not work at all, they kept flipping and flopping off the door every time you opened it!
So plan B hang each one individually, on a 3M hook, worked great! They stay put perfectly and that door gets opened and closed a lot!!!

I know the 3 wreath option isn't going to tickle every ones fancy, but I really like it! I also think it would be a nice spot to take a Christmas Photo beside!

Wreaths from Michaels, and ribbon from Nashville Wraps.

Does anyone else have any crazy holiday decorations???

How To: Decorate a Christmas Tree

Decorating a Christmas tree is not like putting on your pants . . .
There are two ways to put your pants on, one leg at a time or the controversial double leg pull up! There are so many ways to decorate a tree, this is a post on how we decorate OUR tree.

1) First you set up the tree . . .

Our tree is a 12 foot artificial tree. We have a double story, 20 foot ceilings in the Library so any tree smaller than 12 feet would look teeny tiny!

2) Then we add the lights, if you have a pre-lit artificial tree . . . well La Di Da!! Just kidding, a pre-lit tree puts you one step ahead.

3) Next we add all the bulbs one color at a time, i.e. we put all of our green bulbs on first, then the red, then the silver. I do it this way so that we get even distribution of colors.

4) After all the bulbs are up we add all the small special touches, like our sentimental ornaments and bows.

and last, my philosphy on tree skirts . . . I finish my Christmas Shopping early and use the presents as a tree skirt. I figure the skirt gets covered by presents so it's un-neccessary! Plus the added bonus of not having to go to the mall in December, nothing sucks the Christmas Spirit out faster then a mall, on the weekend, in December.

This year we went with a Classic Red paper and Green Ribbon, I've never wrapped all the presents the same before but I like it!!! Just make sure to label them all well, or little Jonny might end up with a set of earrings and Grandma might get some much anticipated Hot Wheels.

Our paper and ribbon are from Nashville Wraps.

SOY vs. Paraffin Wax Candles!

** Warning: This Post Smells . . . . . great!! **

Since we're trying to keep things green around here we've banned all room sprays and home air fresheners.

 I read an article that tested 14 different air fresheners , the study concluded that many contained chemicals that could cause developmental and reproductive problems, especially for infants. It highlighted the presence of phthalates, chemicals that manufacturers use as plastic softeners and to hold fragrances. California and Washington have banned the sale of children's toys containing phthalates because of their link to hormonal disruptions and I find it highly questionable that they wouldn't also ban air fresheners that contain the exact same chemical.

So no home air fresheners for us! Opening all the windows and doors is still my number one tip for scenting our home (no scent at all is the best scent for me). But during the Winter months opening all the windows for an hour or so isn't going to happen, so we needed to find a way to naturally scent our home without all the chemicals. In a perfect world I would bake a pie everyday and make our home smell like pie all the time, but I have neither the time, nor the waistline for that! 

Moving on, (mmmmmmmm . . . pie)

A few months ago I did some research on the subject and found that SOY candles are the best way to scent your home without all the chemicals.  Off on a mission I went looking for SOY candles and I found that . . . . . SOY candles are EXPENSIVE!! I had no idea. Paraffin Candles are remarkably cheaper than soy candles so I grabbed a $4 Paraffin Wax candles and came home content in the money I saved.

I smugly thought to myself "why would you spend twice as much for a soy candle?" So like the researcher I am, I looked it up!

Turns out there are A LOT of reasons to spend more on SOY!

SOY

• Soy wax is made from soybeans and vegetables, both renewable resources.
• Soy wax burns much cleaner and purer as it is all natural, non-toxic, and non-hazardous.
• This wax is biodegradable leading to reduced landfills.
• Soy wax residue can be washed away with warm water and soap.
• Purchasing soy products supports the soy farmers of America, which stimulates our economy and lessens dependence on international resources.

PARAFFIN

• Derived from petroleum, a limited resource
• The burning of paraffin wax contributes to indoor air contamination by emitting petro-chemicals causing soot deposits and carcinogenic particulate matter.
• This wax contains petroleum by-products and additives that inhibit biodegradability.
• Paraffin wax residue is quite troublesome, often impossible, to remove.
• Purchasing paraffin products not only supports our dependence on this crude oil but also supports an industry riddled with environmental faux pas.

So back to the store with my Paraffin Candle and receipt in hand to return my candle, and start the search again, this time for a soy candles at a reasonable price . . . I was the Goldilocks of Soy Candles for about a week straight. One smelt great but was too expensive, one was cheap but smelled awful, until finally a reasonably priced soy candle that smelt great, and I found it at HOMESENSE (Homegoods in the US) aaaahhhhhh . . . just right.

Therepe Fresh        Sunwashed Linen! It smells lovely, not too much scent but just enough. And it burns evenly there is nothing I hate more than a candle that burns a hole straight down leaving walls of un-burnt candles wax . . . what a waste. But this one burnt all the wax up!

And remember that expensive but amazing smelling Soy Candle . . . it's from KISS MY FACE and it smells so amazing I could eat it. It is a bit pricey at $15 a candle. But still, I could smell it for dinner, seriously no dinner just candle smell! :)

If anyone has any suggestions on where to find well priced soy candles I'm all ears!! Share the smelly savings!! :)

I was in no way paid or perk'd for this post I just LOVE these candles.