Go Big(ger) or Go Home

I have a problem... I tend to think too small when it comes to decorating.
I have had these lamps on our nightstand for the entire 7 1/2 years we've been married (yay for me for longevity!). The problem is they are just too small for the space. I also had grown tired of the shade and the style of the lamp base. I see lots of lamps at Marshalls & TJ Maxx that are super cute, but I just can't justify spending the money to replace something that functions fine... but isn't decorator savvy.

I've recently rearranged some furniture in the living room and sold some things on Craiglist which left me with one of two matching lamps needing a new home. I thought I'd give it a try and see what I thought about it being in the bedroom.

Once I decided I liked it and that it would stay, I had to steal the matching lamp from the office so I could have the same size lamps on each nightstand. I thought I'd taken a good picture of 'before' the new lamps...but all I found was this one. And I am too lazy to put the old ones back just for a photo! :) Hopefully you can use your imagination as to what it looked like.

BEFORE

AFTER

What do you think? Are they too big? Do they need new shades?

Spotlight Sunday {Lindsay}

I think I am going to eventually, one day, sometime, maybe soon make one of these cute coffee filter wreaths. Colleen put this together from CoBabe in Suburbia

What a cute idea for a faux pumpkin. The Scrap Shoppe created this. I'm not great at keeping real flowers alive so I think it may be real cute with faux stems to use year after year.

This adorable yarn wreath that Lisa at Recaptured Charm created. I love how unique it is and it looks fairly easy to create.

That's all for today... hopefully now my creative juices will start flowing... I am out of ideas. Hobby Lobby here I come!

Advent table

Have you broke out your Christmas decor yet??

All of my pretties have already found their way out of their plastic tubs & onto this table that I decorated for Advent at our church last night. Check it out!

It was fun and easy to throw together...

I used candlesticks, that I borrowed from my mantel, as the table's main centerpiece. I decorated 2 chargers with Christmas presents, ornaments, etc., and temporarily secured them to the candlesticks using tacky, floral tape. It was one of those look but don't touch types of things!

I set the candlesticks on some crates (that I got in Round Top) to add just a few more inches of height. I used wrapping paper for the placemats & spread out more pretties to hide the crates and tablecloth.

Each guest received a handmade, very imperfect, wine/water glass that I personalized with their initial.

They were also lucky enough to partake in the cake pops that my friend Misty & I worked so hard on! Yum! They were almost too cute to eat!...Almost!!

It was a great night and a great way to set the mood for the Christmas season!

And now that it's said & done, I have to admit that I'm fighting the thought of having to pack everything back up till after Thanksgiving!

Is early November too early??

Cake pops!

Have you heard of these?

I was just introduced to them this week by my good friend Misty.

Seriously, I never knew what I was missing!! They are delicious!

And not to mention, adorable!!

You can make them as basic or elaborate as you would like. These are definitely more on the elaborate side, but just for fun, here are a few pictures of inspiration from the experts at Bakerella...

Adorable, right??

Well, Misty & I tried our hand at them last night.

Here are the basic directions...

1. Bake and cool one 13x9 cake, according to package directions. After it has cooled, smash it up and mix in 1 can of frosting. It's a fun & messy project! Refrigerate the mixture for 15 minutes.

2. Form the mixture into balls (or whatever) & insert a sucker stick into each one. (To prevent bobble-head balls, dip the end of your stick into melted candy melts and then insert them into the balls.) Refrigerate them for another 15 minutes.

3. Melt your candy melts or chocolate bark and dip the cake balls. Add glitter, sprinkles, faces (for you advanced Martha Stewarts), etc..

4. Stick each pop into a block of styrofoam so that the chocolate can harden. And voila! It's that easy!! We made Christmas presents using chocolate bark and red icing.

Are they perfect? Heavens no. Are they perfectly yummy? You bet!

Happy baking!

Photo Wall

Have you noticed that most of the pictures that I share of my house are zoomed in really close?? That's because I have a TON of blank wall space still left to decorate! It's a problem that keeps me up at night. Seriously!!

Blank spot #1 is in my front living room.

Notice, no walls shown?

But what was once blank & boring now has 4 8x10s of my family. Fitting for a family room, don't you think?! Should I add more?? I probably should have zoomed out further so that you could see my entire wall, but I guess I'm still fearful of showing too much "blankness".

I ordered the pictures in sepia, which I LOVE. It gives them a classic look & hides the pop of pink that my daughters have on, which would more than likely have clashed with the red accents that I have in the room.

But the best part of all...I get to see their sweet faces every time I walk through the living room to... answer the door, answer the phone, track down the laundry basket, find a lost toy.. You get the point. :)

All decorating should make me this happy.

Pantry Redo

When I saw this pantry makeover that Decor Chick did a few months ago I was totally inspired and motivated to get mine done. When we moved in a year ago we did a total rehaul on a lot of the spaces in our home. One of those was the pantry. Five college guys had lived here before us and lets just say the shelves in the pantry were nasty and in our opinion, not worth saving. So my hubby and a handy college student from our church built the new shelves themselves. We'd always planned on painting them and making them nice...but time and money (and energy) ran out and we just lived with the raw wood shelves for over a year. Finally it was time!!!

This is how I was living! (sorry for the poor photo quality but you get the picture, right!)

Oh I am so embarrased to show this to you! It was awful and I didn't mess it up to make it look worse... this is truly how our pantry functioned. Wow... that's humbling. :)

After a coat of paint on the wall and shelves and the addition of the canisters and other organization stuff I'd been collecting over a few months... here it is today!!!

And these awesome lazy susans built by my handsome helper. Seriously... these are awesome and he worked VERY hard on them!

My pantry now functions and looks 100x better!

I got these shelves from Wallyworld to store some of the "what do I do with these?" items.

And these canisters keep our snacky foods

And this basket stolen from the playroom keeps the paper goods that just were cluttered up on top of the shelves before.

I'd had these baskets for a while to hold our bread and chips.

And remember when I showed you the kitchen cabinet makeover? I told you I'd moved the kids crafty stuff to the pantry. Here's their corner. I got these drawers to hold coloring books, stickers, markers, paints, etc. SO much better than the cluttered cabinet.

I am loving the new pantry. My husband has even given me major props! He was once skeptical about all the canisters instead of boxes...but now I'm pretty sure he's a believer. And I couldn't have done it without him... all the painting, wood shelves and trim and Amazing lazy susans are credited to him! He's pretty much the greatest.

Linked here:
Making the World Cuter
Between Naps on the Porch
Keeping it Simple

Garlands

I've fallen in love with garlands this Fall.

I picked up a few in Canton for super cheap (I'm talking $4 cheap!!) and have had fun moving them around my house. They're simple & classic and add texture and interest to just about any space. I feel like I'm decorating with out having to really decorate.