November 2017 Round Up

When I first started my blog years ago I used to post "Weekly Top Ten" montages of all my favorite things for the week - in the spirit of helping myself focus more on the positive aspects of my life and just generally be a happier person (you can still find them under the Label "Top Ten"...they're such a fun walk down memory lane!).  In that spirit, I'm trying out something new this week and writing up a short "Round Up" for the month of November.  TBH - A lot of other bloggers do something similar so I'm just jumping on the bandwagon here, but I thought it might be good way to share some things that don't necessarily merit a full blog post.  I'm going to try to keep these short and sweet, and they'll probably be pretty random, so here goes.....

One Room Challenge Post Thoughts

It's still crazy to think that in 7 short weeks I was able to completely transform the Guest Room - it's officially my favorite room in the house now.  And like a true junky, I've already got my mind reeling for the Spring!  I'm really kinda obsessed with thinking about it, so here's a super sneak peek into what is going through my mind because the next session will be here before you know it!

My new "Recipe" Page

I really love to cook and I'm trying to get back in the habit of cooking at home again this winter (I was reallly bad over the summer), and to keep me motivated (and maybe inspire others to do the same) I added a new page where I am going to start sharing some of my favorite recipes.  Click here to check it out - my plan is to build this out a little at a time and see where it goes, but right now I've got a few of my favorite weeknight meals, my go to Halloween dinner, and everything I cook for Thanksgiving, including the best Pumpkin Pie ever courtesy of Bobby Flay.

How my new Kitchen stools changed the whole house

Well at least the first floor....this month I pulled the trigger and ordered these amazing new stools from World Market to replace the old red ones (and I mean old...me and my mom figured out that they were at least 30 years old!  Not a bad lifespan right?)  I had always felt like there was a slight disconnect from the living room and the kitchen - I think in the back of my mind I knew it was the stools, but I was hanging onto them because I had painted them myself and still loved the punch of color, but they just didn't flow with the direction the rest of the house is taking.  Lesson learned - if something feels off in a space trust your gut and don't be afraid to make a change!

Christmas Time Starts.....NOW!

Happy Black Friday everyone!  I usually spend the day shopping by myself but I'm actually pretty much done my Christmas list so today I am going to switch over the house from Thanksgiving to Christmas (and then possibly go shopping tomorrow LOL).  I really enjoyed pushing myself to blog weekly during the One Room Challenge (you can check out my final Guest Bedroom reveal here) so I'm going to try to keep the momentum going and do a Friday post each week if I have something fun to share.

To kick off the season I'm sharing a few pics of my mantel decked out for the holidays - which I couldn't resist putting together before Thanksgiving.  I picked up this wreath during the Hearth and Hand launch at Target and it was too pretty to put away for a month....so then I just kinda leaned into it and kept going.  As much as I love all things white these days, my husband loves decorating our XMas tree with multi-colored lights, so this year I'm trying to figure out a way to blend the two into something we both love.  The colors I'm going with are blue (the antique window frame), green (the wreath), and classic Christmas Red...along with a lot of white, gray, silver, and gold.

I saw someone share this red and white pom-pom garland on Instastories and ran out to Michaels to grab it (and I'm glad I did because it's totally sold out now!) and then winded two strands around my candlesticks, which I'm keeping gray this year but would love to change out to something different next time.  To keeps the garland in place I like to use a few craft glue strips or dots....they're nice and sticky but I can get them off easily when I'm done.

To bring in more green I wrapped some $3 garland I found earlier this year in the Target Dollar spot around each white candle (which are all from World Market and don't smell!) - small candle / medium candle / large candle

The stocking holder I built last year (if you are interested in a good beginner building project this is perfect - you can totally build just using hand tools and this tutorial from Shanty 2 Chic is great...or you can always shoot me a note and I'd be happy to build you one!)  The little red stockings are from Kohl's....I like to keep the small ones down here so the kids can't pull them down as easily.

I have some Styrofoam blocks on the bottom of the box, and then I filled it with some pine cones (which are great to pick up super cheap after Christmas), some ornaments I found at Michaels, and the leftover Target Garland.

I want to try to add something in front of the fireplace, but I'm pretty happy with how everything is coming together!  Hopefully these smaller weekly posts are fun to read....next week I have something new I want to try out, but until then...enjoy the long weekend!