Our Rustic Christmas Entryway

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday.  We are spending the weekend finishing up our Christmas decorating and *maybe* I will find some time to do some online shopping.  But, I am most excited to start sharing the Christmas decor that we already have up.  Welcome to our Christmas entryway!   This is the first place our guests see when the they enter our home so I thought it should be the first of our Christmas decor to share.  Come on in!

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Happy Thanksgiving

I have been taking a pause this week from the hurried holiday preparations to spend some time with my family.  On Monday, we visited NYC for the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City.  The weather was warm and balmy as we walked around the city with no jackets on.  Today, there is lots of snow falling and we have a fire burning as we prepare food for tomorrow.  It has been a crazy weather week.

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Bathroom Dreaming with Hometalk

Our master bathroom is the most calming and soothing place in our entire house.  Escaping up there to take a bath in the evening is my reward for getting through another crazy day,  especially during the busy holiday season.  My friends at Hometalk recently asked me to curate a board of spa-like bathrooms for them and I jumped at the opportunity.  It seems to me that simply looking at pictures of dreamy bathrooms is about as soothing as taking a bath itself.  So I picked out 15 of my favorite bathrooms on Hometalk and created a board.  You can find it here.

In addition to soothing color schemes, all of these bathrooms take storage into account.  Let's face it, a bathroom needs to be as functional as it is pleasing to the eye.   From my board, you can click through to see bigger pictures and more information about all of these bathrooms.  I am currently planning another bathroom reno in the new year.  My kids' bathroom is the only room in our house that we haven't tackled yet and it is time.  There are some great ideas to be found on Hometalk and I will definitely be heading there to find ideas for our new project.

Have you been to Hometalk yet?  If you haven't, you should definitely check it out.   It is a warm and welcoming place to plan your next project or to just be inspired.  

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Christmas Cookie Cutter Wreath

  Today I am sharing my very first Christmas project of 2014.  I won't be completely decking our halls for a couple of more weeks, but I have been having fun with a few projects that I will share early in case you might want to make one for yourself!

***Update: E6000 glue (available at craft stores in the glue section) is probably a better choice to glue the cookie cutters together, rather than hot glue. The E6000 will hold better over time.***

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Christmas Planning & a Look Back at Christmas 2013

I have been busy beginning to deck the halls for this year.  One of my favorite things about having a blog is being able to look back at last year's decorations to plan out what to do this year.  I like to look back and see what I especially loved last year and what didn't really work out so well.  Here is our family room last year.

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Our Newly Planked Gallery Wall

I am so excited about how our new planked wall has turned out in our family room!  Every once in a while, I get an idea of what I hope something will look like in my head, and then cross my fingers that it turns out well.  It doesn't always end up as well as I plan.  Does that happen to you too?  But this was one of those projects that turned out better than I pictured.  

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Wire Basket Hanging Light

Happy Veteran's Day!   I hope your week is off to a great start!  Today, I am sharing a small project.  I added a quirky & fun new light to my "office" this week.  My office space is actually just a corner of our family room.  Especially when I am working alone in the fairly large room, I like to have the option to turn off the recessed lights overhead and still have enough light at my desk.  I have been on the lookout for a pendant style light.  But one with some personality.  And one that could easily be moved because I am forever changing things.

I should back up and tell you first about how excited I was to find out that there is now a Hobby Lobby in northern NJ.  Can you believe we lived for years without either a Hobby Lobby OR World Market?  And now we have both within a reasonable driving distance.  Life changing!  So I was wandering around Hobby Lobby-by myself-which is pretty much as good as it gets.  And I found a hanging light kit for cheap.  And then I could use the 40% off coupon too.  They had some wire pendant shades meant to go with the lamp kit that were cute.  But I was looking for something with a bit more interest.

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How I Found My Style Sundays Feature

Happy Sunday!  I was honored that Pamela asked me to be a part of her great series, How I Found My Style Sunday and you can find me there today talking a bit about my style and how it has evolved over time.  

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My Boxwood Wreath Experiment

I love preserved boxwood wreaths and I have a few around the house that I have purchased at HomeGoods.  I give them a spritz of water every so often and they still look great.  Recently, I purchased a small one at Target, but the $20 price tag felt high to me, especially since I would like to use them in many places in my home for the holidays.  So, logically, my next step was to do a quick search on Pinterest (how did I ever get anything done before Pinterest?!) and found that many people have made their own boxwood wreaths in a variety of ways.

There wasn't much mention of specifically how long they will last.  So I decided to experiment with some of my own.  Really, I had nothing to lose.  Our boxwoods needed a haircut and I had some grapevine wreaths in the basement leftover from other projects.  I posted this picture on Instagram before I started, and many had the same question, how long will they last?

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Our Master Bedroom Window Seat

The window seat in our bedroom has become one of the coziest spots in our house.  My youngest guy needs to read at least 30 minutes a day and it can be hard to keep him on task when he is downstairs with is brothers.  Recently, we have been going up to my room after dinner and keeping things quiet while we read for a half hour.  It has become a favorite part of my day!

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