I Will NOT Be the Grinch.

I have not been blogging as much.

We have done stuff around the house.

Walls are painted. New lamps. Art on walls.

Here's the deal:
Both of my computers are completely full. Meaning, there is no memory space for me to upload pictures. I delete stuff, but somehow still no room. This makes it frustrating as I like to share the going-ons here.

So I am feeling grinchy because I just took pictures of our holiday decor. Quick and easy. Then I tried to load them onto my computer. For AN HOUR. I got rid of over 100 pictures. Plenty of space to upload twenty or so shots.

Just kidding.

So after much stress, here are some tree pictures. Which started out as fun, but now I am ticked.

Deep breath.

I am going to do what I usually do. Highlight some new favorites. And sometimes some old favorites.

 The theme on the small tree this year was blues, greens, pinks, and purples.

Crate and Barrel, Glass, Love!

Handmade by a friend of my mom.

Reminded me of Jeremiah. Crate and Barrel.

Crate and Barrel. Glass.

 While I like the star on my mantel, I am not loving the mantel decor itself. I think I need to move some things that are on the right. I've got some ideas.

Any extra ornaments always find a place in a container.

The bottom of this lamp from Salvation Army is open, so I slipped some ornaments in there, too.

Have you met the pig? I found him over a year ago. I love him. We don't eat pig or cow here, and I take an odd delight at having this little porker hanging around the kitchen. I have a bird that is the same style, but he has yet to find a home on the walls. 

 The front tree has the same theme as last year - metals. Golds, bronzes, silvers, whites, and ivories.

The little birdhouse is new. Clearance from Target.

I actually bought this at Jo-Ann's. Not on clearance, just liked it.

World Market, this year. He was just too cute to pass up.

Glass ball from Crate and Barrel.

Maddie has done her best to destroy Christmas this year. She only goes after the big tree, which is awesome, because most of the breakable ornaments hang on this beautiful beast. So far she has only destroyed the one bird, which was felt, not at all breakable. Odd. The tree looked better the first few days, before she began climbing it. There will be some rebending of branches come January.

I guess that's about it. Friends, I hope that you all have trees that are withstanding children and pets.

Holiday Update , Part 2.

As I mentioned, our front room this year has been done up right. The beautiful tree is from my parents and is pre-lit. Freaking wonderful. I decided to decorate with gold, silver, bronze, copper, and white. I love it.

The ornaments are clearance from Crate & Barrel, Target, World Market, and Pier One. There are also some on the tree that I've received as gifts.

Love the tree!

I think my favorite thing is being able to see it while I'm coming down the stairs/walking in the hall upstairs. Love.

How about you? Are you a one Christmas tree house? Do you change themes/colors every year?

p.s. Stay tuned, because we have a family picture coming up, as requested.

It's a Belated Thanksgiving. With a Completely Unimportant Table Story Thrown In for Good Measure.

Happy Thanksgiving! Late. I know. That's okay, right? Here's how the table looked for us this Thanksgiving:

I opted for yellows, greens, and some orange thrown in for good measure. The tablecloth is from Target on clearance. The place mats are Crate & Barrel via Goodwill. All glassware is from Salvation Army - plates, white dish with gourds, everything. The gourds are from last year. I  think they are dehydrated.

Table Story - As you may or may not know, I bought a dining room table for $10 at a yard sale when I first moved here. Love the table. Love the color. Rectangular. With a leaf if needed. Well, recently, we decided that we needed that leaf. What with all our guests. So we put the leaf in and everything was great. Except that it wasn't. The table now made for awkward movement around the nook. No one likes awkward nook movement. Am I right?

Meanwhile, we purchased a round pedestal table for the front room for games off of Craigslist for $35. Not bad. Had it for over a year and then came across and much more us round table at Salvation Army for only $25. GORGEOUS TABLE. We got it.

So we now have a total of three dining tables. That may seem excessive, but keep in mind that the total for all three tables is $70. We tried to sell the original table on Craigslist. It didn't sell. Crazy people, who wouldn't want a solid round table?

Then I had an epiphany. What if we dismantled my beloved rectangular table and used the old round one for awhile to see if it helps the flow in the nook? And things are flowing better.

And so that is why the table looks round instead of rectangular. Because it is. And that is my table story.

These two candle shots showcase two things. My love for candles and my love for glass.

The gourds that won't die.

Place mats that I probably should have ironed after I washed them but was too lazy or tired so I didn't. And all of the food. That we will be eating for the rest of our lives. Do you see the frozen fruit salad? You may remember that I made it last year. I was so excited about making it this year and I was telling Jeremiah about it and he said this "That sounds good. I can't wait to try it." I was all, "Um, you have." He claims that once he tried it on Thanksgiving, he remembered it. Not the best save, Boyfriend, but I'll take it. This time.

I don't have actual green dishes, so the plates are slightly turquoise-y. I've placed myself on a no-new-dishes-except-for-white-because-white-goes-with-everything restriction. So no green plates.

How was your Thanksgiving?

This year, I am most thankful for my readers. I don't know who all of you are - but appreciate you taking the time to read. If you'd like to leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you!

Freeze Frame(s)

So I know that YHL recently did a wall gallery at their house, but I promise you, mine has been a long time in the coming. We actually had a small-scale version at the house we rented. I pulled my inspiration from these two books:

And while this isn't wall/picture/gallery inspired, I've included this photograph of a blue room with yellow, brown, and green accents from Domino as it served as inspiration for my back room. Just a little less stuffy and a bit more casual. And I want that brown pillow.

Okay. So here are some examples we I looked at. The one below is from The Nest. Of course, I could never paint a wall red. I think it looks great, but it simply isn't for me. But we did choose black frames for the project because it was going into the front room, which isn't as whimsical as the back half of the house. We collected frames that we already had and bought more at Goodwill and Salvation Army, where they cost about fifty cents to a dollar. Then we spray painted the ones that weren't black. And by we I mean Jeremiah because I let him do it. He loves it so much I hate to take that away from him. can't spray paint (muffled sob).

The picture below is actually inspiration for our hall upstairs. Jeremiah took an incredible picture and my mom had it enlarged for him as a gift. We'll put smaller pictures around it, just like they did in Domino.

And we smooshed things pretty close together.

It ended up looking like this after Jeremiah got everything up. For now. We plan on spray painting the mail/wall file thing (that I got at Salvation Army) and adding more to the right side of the table.

You can see that we tried to get a variety of frames. I think that the different sizes, textures, etc. really adds to the wall.

We don't have pictures in them yet. Photographs will be black and white and anything else will/can be color. I have a ton of paper that we can use to matte, too.

That is a recent project. More pictures when we get the frames filled. Howsabout you? Any galleries? Black and white photographs versus color?

DIY Framed Board - Or, Hey, What Else Can I Do With This Gorgeous Frame?

This frame was originally silver and housed a very cool (but not fitting exactly with our decor) bird print.  The print came out. We kept it, just in case we wanted to switch things up.

Anyway, Jeremiah spray-painted the frame white (I might be spray painting challenged. But that is a whole different story.).

I bought some super-cheap fabric at Jo-Anne's, as well as some cork board. We did three layers: Cardboard, cork, and then the fabric. Put everything back together, hung it on the wall, and voila! a super chic place to post stuff. It is hanging directly above the desk, sort of tying together our little work area.

I won't be putting up any ugly shtuff like bills and stuff, but nice things, like this calendar that I picked up in Jerome (that I will repurpose by cutting out the images and framing them.). Other things will surely make their way up to that beautiful frame...slowly, orderly, and one at a time.

p.s. The fabric looks like it might have a pinkish hue, but it is a solid brown. It appears to be lost in translation.

p.p.s. The Fixx. That's what we're listening to at this moment.

Holy Ssssshhhhelves!

Hello again, dear friends. And family. I come bearing shelves. Pictures of them, actually. I found this website: Holy Crap This Chick is Talented! and decided that I needed to have several of the shelves. In different lengths. They are for pictures and stuff.

So handy dandy Boyfriend made them and sanded them. I primed them. I painted them.

On a super-exciting note, I have a garage workspace. This is exciting, as I had zero space before. But now? I've got cabinet space. And drawers. Don't be jealous.

Here's what they looked like finished: This isn't the final way it will look, obviously. Any framed pictures on the shelves will be white. And there will be LOTS of them.  The birds will probably stay. So will the candle. But not that bottle. I think I might paint or decoupage it...

But don't you dig my shelves? We altered her design slightly as I didn't want a huge lip in the front. And the shelves are placed lower because they'll be loaded with pictures, so they are eye-level-ish.

Then he made me baby ones for the dining area. Love these. They are higher because they aren't holding any pictures. Just some dishes and my favorite blue jars.

Love. They look great with the constant light that the small room gets.

What do you think? Success? We think so. I just need to collect/spray paint some frames white and find pictures to put in them.

Anybody else building right now?

p.s. Listening to Dead Weather's Sea of Cowards
p.p.s. Please ignore the gnome. That is for a photo project I am working on. 

Cheery & Bright

We I decorated the tree last weekend. To be fair (because once in awhile everyone should try something different), he did put the tree up and string the lights. But I put up the ornaments and EVERYONE knows that is the most important part.

Right?

Let me explain while you pretend to care about our new holiday tradition. When I moved here, I had zero Christmas things. Zilch. I was sadder than someone who makes it to the final round of The Price Is Right and then loses because they overbid by like, two dollars. So sad. All day.

So I went out and bought a tree. And color-themed ornaments. Blue, white, and silver. So pretty. If I couldn't have my old ornaments full of memories, then I would buy pretty new ones.

Then I got to CA., where I would be spending Christmas with the Jer-to-the-miah. The dude had NO tree. He had no ornaments. So there was a discussion and voila! A tree and ornaments, at my disposal. So for now, we have TWO trees. Dos. Deux. Like that, y'all.

This post documents the tree that lived its first Christmas in Sacramento. 

New ornaments bought at 75% off after last Christmas.

More new ones, making their debut. By the way, I hope that at some point I will be able to integrate my old family ornaments with the new ones.

Tree! It looks prettier at night...and from a regular view.

One of my favorites...

Some more new ones.

Glitter balls. Heeeheeee.

So there is tree number one.

Anyone else have a tree that they want to share? Any color themes you love?