A year ago my office looked like this. Disaster, no?

And now, now it looks like this:

<sigh of contentment>

While it is not totally done yet, its definitely happier in there. A goal for this year is to add a screen on the wall and more seating so that I can have all of you, my lovely clients, in to view your photos, big and beautiful, and consult about how and you’d like to display your lovely photos in your home.  The shelf above my computer usually contains one more white photo frame, but it was, for the Christmas season, taking up residence on my mantle downstairs to display this subway art.

This frame contains a little something I whipped up one day on the computer.

The photo on the left is some art I made! It’s been in the hopper for awhile to make a blog debut. I thought about giving it its own DIY crafty post, but this will have to do for now. Basically, I took some old fence boards (we got a new fence this fall), had the hubs cut them to my specifications, and glued them on another piece of random board we had laying around. The backer board is about an inch thick, which is nice, because it gives the piece the look of standing off the wall a bit. I glued the boards on with wood glue and then clamped them. Then came the part that took the longest. I was going to stencil the words, but when I couldn’t find a stencil of my liking, I printed out an alphabet of a font I liked and then freehanded the letters while looking at the font. I used some white craft paint that I watered down a bit so that the paint seeped in to the wood a bit and didn’t look so stark.

Thanks for stopping by and viewing the office. Next you should drop me a comment or an email and tell me what you would love for me to photograph with you this year!

If you have decided not to do place cards and table assignments, one thing you will likely want to do is reserve a few tables for the bride and grooms family. If you click the download link at the bottom of this post, you will get this pretty little sign I designed for you. It will appear with three on a page. So, if you print it on some cardstock, (and you can flip it over and print it on the back side too for a double-sided sign) then stick it on cardholders on your table, you’re done!

Hope this is helpful, and please feel free to share with brides-to-be you know!

Download Reserved for Family table signs

1. Teva Mush Flip Flops- These are the best flips ever. No lie. You will never want to take them off your feet. I have that exact pair on right now… and I pretty much wear them every day during the spring/summer. I brought a pair to Africa the semester I lived there, and they were all I wore, and I made my mom mail me another pair while I was there. So, if you can’t tell, I’m a fan.

2. Barnes and Noble- Going in here is like vacation for me. I love to peruse the books, the sale racks, and pick up some magazines to flip through over a Starbucks Americano in the cafe. Love me some B&N. Our date nights quite frequently involve a stop there, where I look at the journals and stationary, and Lee steals off and looks at this book, laughs hysterically, and I find him, roll my eyes and ask him if he is really looking at that again.

3. French Press Coffee- this rocked my world, and is truly possibly the best way to brew and enjoy coffee. You need to get one. They have them all the time at TJ Maxx on the cheap!

4. My ice blue KitchenAid mixer. Definitely one of my favorite wedding gifts. My momma knew that every girl needs a KitchenAid! I use it at least a couple of times a week.

5. My spring/summer Sperry Topsiders! My mom and I snagged matching pairs of these Floral Angelfish Sperry’s at Macy’s a few weeks back, and I love the bold pinks and greens– they will definitely go with my summer wardrobe!

6. Tervis Tumblers- another wedding gift from Mom, Lee and I both have 24 oz tumblers with lids (don’t worry, his isn’t pink too). You can put hot or cold beverages in these, they go in the dishwasher and are just really great for taking along in the car when you’re running errands.

7. Lip Gloss- Bath and Body Works carries a whole line of C.O. Bigelow lip glosses that are the shiniest thing you’ve ever seen! They have a clear gloss, which I mostly buy, but some with colors that are awesome too. Plus, they are infused with peppermint oil or other fragrances which act to freshen your breath too! I keep one of these in a chapstick holder on my keychain so its always with me!

8. Apple computers- Once you go Mac you don’t go back. Nuff said.

9. Edy’s Slow Churned ice cream- Mint cookie crunch and French Silk are my standbys, but right now in my freezer is Thin Mint and Samoa Girl Scout flavors (only out til April)!! This ice cream is delish, and half the fat and calories of regular ice cream, so it makes me feel a little better about eating it.

10. Diet Barq’s. It’s just delicious. We just burned through a 12 pack of that at our house.

11. BradsDeals – I have had people tell me lately that I always find the best online deals– and I owe this in large part to Brad’s Deals. I keep it on my bookmarks and click to it every few days and look at the newest offers. Great site for those of us that love a good bargain!

12. Insanity- I’ve done p90x a whole bunch of times, so it was time to mix it up a little. Thankfully I have a friend doing this with me, because it is pretty true to its name! Day 16 was dominated this morning!

13. Amy Butler- love love love Amy Butler patterns, papers, and fabrics. I even used some of her fabric in my wedding, wrapped around the bases of some really tall centerpieces.

14. My leopard print Sperry’s- These are my fall/winter sperry’s and I get tons of comments on them even from random strangers. Unfortunately, I believe they are out of stock most everywhere now.

15. The Twinery- colorful bakers twine that cheers up most anything!

16. Singer Simple- another fave wedding gift, that I’m excited about using. I did make an adorable doggie bed for Layla out of some gray and white Ikea fabric! And, bonus, I FINALLY got her to lay on the silly thing!

Lee gets up and starts to get ready for work. I, let’s be honest, lay in bed for a few more minutes.

We descend to the kitchen and do the breakfast routine. We eat a lot of Special K protein plus with flax seed sprinkled on top and honey.  And that is our very messy coffee cabinet. We choose between french press, espresso or drip and get our morning boost.

Even though I’m not a morning person, I treasure those few minutes I have with Lee before he’s out the door and gone for 12 hours. I’m especially going to miss the mornings with him for the next two weeks while he’ll be gone for a class in New York.

We let this cute little mongrel out of her kennel, and she is ready for action.

And then the dishes are usually calling my name.

It seems like a lot of mornings I feel like doing something creative first thing in the morning. This often take the form of baking or crafting. Just this morning I had created some gift boxes and packed them with Valentines treats– all before 7:30a!

I created a few easy Valentines decorations the other day that I thought I’d share. These projects can easily be adapted to other holidays or celebrations (think bridal or baby shower!)

For this first set of heart garland, I cut out heart shapes from posterboard, and hole punched two holes in them (that I would later string the ribbon through.) Then, I reminisced to third grade, when I’m sure we all created a very similar tissue paper project. I cut out squares of pink tissue, approximately 2″x 2″ (but they definitely do not need to be uniform.) Then I would poke the middle of the paper with my finger and wrap the edges around my finger. I put a dollop of glue on the middle part on the tip of my finger and then adhered it to the posterboard (does that make sense?) Super easy… and a great project to do while watching some TV, as it can take a little while depending on how dense you make the tissue. I love the texture on these.

My fireplace is a two-sided fireplace that looks into the kitchen, so I have two mantles. I couldn’t neglect the other one, so I made some heart bunting.

And yes, I still have a wreath up. My friend Madison actually made this cedar wreath for me this year, and its so pretty I just can’t bear to take it down (yet.) Plus, it doesn’t help that I accidentally peeled off some of the paint when hanging it, so I know if I take it down, I’ll also have to repair the paint.

The heart bunting also is super easy. This time I began with a pack of Amy Butler coordinating papers and cut out heart shapes from a variety of the papers. I cut two holes in them and strung them over some hemp twine.

We’d better check on the dog.

And, one last project. This is a variation on the heart bunting above. I made some party flag bunting. I again used a set of Amy Butler papers, cut out triangles, and threaded them through onto some twine. Turned out super cute! I plan on making drink stirrers with coordinating paper flags on them for some party decoration!

Brides… I LOVE the idea of paper bunting at weddings. I’d be available to make some for you, too.

Since you’ve just seen my messy craft room, I should probably show you the awesomeness that adorns its walls. This poster was given to my by my Grammy at Christmas this year. It’s copyright year is 1972 and it has hung in a room in the basement of her house for my whole life. We call the room the “dungeon” because it has no windows. Everybody has a love/hate relationship with the dungeon. You can sleep like a rock in there because there is NO light, but then you have to deal with the probably 50 year old mattress that makes you all roll to the middle. Good times.  I’ve always loved this poster, and I guess I told her years ago that when she died, I wanted the poster. Lol. She bequeathed that request early, and so I’m now the proud owner of the scuba diver window poster.

After my extended stay in the craft room I walked upstairs to find this little guilty booger. I love how she’s looking sheepishly at me over her shoulder like “Am I gonna be in trouble for that?”

I have more photos from us at home that I shot the other morning, but I’ve had an equipment failure on the device that reads my external hard drives. Yeah, good times. So, until that situation is rectified, there are a bunch of files I can’t access. Boo.

But, one of my goals for 2011 is to take more photos of US. Lee and I have been married over 5 months (on March 5th it will be 6 months! I can’t even hardly believe that!) And, I want our kids to have photos of us when we were “young” and newly married, and what our lives were like. I want to treasure this special time in our lives, and one of the best ways I do that is through photo. Thank you Lord for my sweet little family, for the quiet mornings, and for moments to express myself and make pretty, fun things.

And thank YOU, reader. I’m glad you’re there. If you would, leave me a note to let me know you’re reading!

xoxo

J

Have you ever gotten mail from Australia?? If not…live vicariously through me today… cuz it’s pretty fun! The only other time in my life I can recall mail from Australia is when I was little I had a real life pen pal. We wrote each other letters about the sorts of riveting things that 8 year old girls write about. Her name was Simone… and I remember something about horses and gymnastics classes.

And *then* it was wrapped like this! Red and white twine! And tissue folded to look like an envelope! CUUUUTE!

My lovely package was from a lovely girl named Nancy X who runs an incredibly cute blog called Wolf and Willow. She ran a little contest asking who your childhood hero was. And while I had to rant on about the “Pippi Longstocking” that somebody else wrote about (we watched Pippi’s movie all.the.time as kids) I ended up writing about my Grammy. (You can read my comment here, click on show more comments at the bottom and it will pop up). She liked my story, and sent me a fun little prize… all the way from Down Under.

All of it is branded with the most adorable vintage childhood storybook illustrations that are just so stinkin adorable.

What was inside the package, you ask? Well, how about this adorable cotton pouch? Nancy had even asked my favorite colors… and I got one that was hot pink and turquoise!!

And I also got this adorable handmade card. Is this dog not so sassy and adorable? The paper and envelope are really rich and shimmery too, which makes me happy.

And more vintage children’s illustrations!! LOVE!

You can see now why my mail merited a blog post today!

BUT, believe it or not… that wasn’t all! See that logo?? Does it make you giddy like it does me??

Starbucks is discontinuing their Duetto Visa, which I have. So, as their way of thanking me for being a good customer and to apologize for shutting down the credit card, they sent a booklet with coupons good for one beverage of my choice every month for the next six months. Oh yes they did.

Happy Mail Day to you all.

Our first dance was actually last year, on his birthday, at his cousins wedding. The song? Frank Sinatra’s “My Funny Valentine.”  I think that makes an appropriate caption for this picture:

(I think he was a little tired of getting his picture taken… what do you think?)

Sometimes I like to pretend that I’m Martha, and I collected a few ideas from the internet and elsewhere that I just had to make happen this year.

First, I got SO inspired by these Red Velvet Cake balls by Bakerella. And let me tell you, they were a HIT!

You begin by baking a red velvet cake from the box. Let it cool and then crumble it all up in a bowl. You mix in a tub of cream cheese icing and incorporate it. I went ahead and used my fingers, which is messy, but probably the best option. Then you roll them into quarter sized balls, place on a cookie sheet and chill in the fridge for several hours. Then they look like this:

Then I melted chocolate almond bark in a bowl in the microwave and began the dipping:

Then, decorate away! I used valentine’s sprinkles, some white almond bark that I dyed pink, red hots, crushed pistachios, white sugar and these adorable pearl-like sprinkles.

I had some leftover white almond bark, so I made a few of these yummies. Take two Ritz crackers, spread peanut butter between them and then dip in chocolate– sooo yummy. I think its the sweet and salty combo- so good and easy!

After they were done, I threw some in some packages to send to my family, including these cute robot cards I made!

My sister got these cute flips:

And everybody got some of these tattoos from the dollar spot at Target, which they were instructed to apply and take a picture to send me. I especially liked my brother-in-law who had them all over his arm (thanks to his lovely wife, I’m sure).

On to the NEXT project!

It was something in the kitchen, involving these–

What could I be cooking with pink water balloons? Well, everything is better with chocolate, right?

I got this awesome idea from this cute site and couldn’t resist! Basically, you melt chocolate chips, transfer them to another bowl (that step is important, I found out after all my balloons kept popping b/c the bowl was hot!) Dip them in chocolate and set them on parchment to harden. Then comes the fun part–

And you end up with this beautiful-ness.

At the party I loaded them up with homemade whipped cream and berries.

I think she liked it.

I also made a heart-shaped cookie cake, well, because I had the pan and it felt sort of obligatory. Plus, they needed to blow out candles on something! But obviously, I do not excel in my cake decorating skills

We currently have three bouquets of flowers at our house. People love us. It’s wonderful.

I do have more to report, but I’d say that is sufficient Valentine eye candy for now

As trick or treaters walked up, these creepy light up skeleton heads greeted them.

And then they may have seen these disgusting 2 or 3 foot bats hanging above them.

What did you say? You want a close-up of the little nasties? Oh. Okay.

I was getting tired of taking pictures of all the gross, creepy things, so I thought I’d take a picture of some nice fall-ish-ness. These two things are MY contribution

There’s our cute little doorway and some of my pretty mums. Oh wait, the mums even got sabotaged by the Halloween police.

Ahhh… pretty pumpkin-ness. (And no, I never even carved my pumpkin this year. Oh well, that just means it can be a Thanksgiving decoration too, right?)

Now we move inside the house…

These are my roommate Shannon’s creation: witches finger cookies!

As if the singing skeleton head surrounded by witch fingers were not enough, somebody decided it should have a cockroach crawling out of its eyeball.

My contribution: caramel apples and all the cute paper signs and best costume awards (read: excuse to not do my homework and be crafty instead!!)

I do have to admit, these goblets were pretty sweet.

Is this next one not quite possibly the grossest thing you’ve ever seen in your life?? The tongue felt DISGUSTING!

Okay, so my least favorite “decoration” of all? The random disgusting roaches my roommate scattered around (read: in the refrigerator, our purses, in the corner… anywhere it was bound to freak us out.)

Waterfall of eyeballs.  

Candy in a cauldron. Yessss!

Yes, we sorta bought the cheap candy. Do not judge.

I wish you could see Gabe’s whole costume. He was a care bear. Oh yes. And Gabe is like 6’8″ or something. He definitely won “Funniest Costume” for his efforts. I wish you could see Chiquita Banana woman behind him… she had a whole basket of fake fruit on her head! On the right is the “Bathing Beauty.”

Chick magnet!!! And she was a cute little chick.. with tail feathers!!

So, we didn’t think to take a roommate picture til the end of the night. We are looking pretty haggard by this point, but we had a referee, Angela from the Office, Swine Flu, and “I, Rot”

Quail Man from Doug, anyone? It was awesome.

And yes, we are disgusting. I concur.  I’m not sure whose idea this was, or why we all went along with it.. but it is what it is lol.

Anywho.. on a recent trip to Target (honestly, is there anyone out there that doesn’t just love that store?) I picked up a few things to decorate with. I transformed our kitchen and eating area into a little Valentines scrumptiousness, and I thought I should share

Well, there’s the window cling-ons.

And the really cute placemats…

Oh and did you see the flowers on the table? My uber sweet boyfriend sent me some pink stargazer lilies– which are only my FAVORITE!! This is round 2 of the flowers… there were more in a different vase that I had to toss already, but four of the ones he sent were buds, and so they are now blooming. It’s like the gift that just keeps on giving!

Oh– by the way, this next shot is SOOC (straight out of the camera…no editing whatsoever). It’s a tad overexposed, but I thought it was pretty and had sort of an ethereal quality about it… so I didn’t even touch it!

Oh, and this next one is SOOC too!

I found this heart shaped teacup and saucer that must belong to my roommate. I washed it out before the picture, and it left these sweet heart shaped rings on the counter… how fun is that! This pic is processed two different ways… the second one using the Boutwell’s In-Faux-Red action.

And then there’s the tea towels. I just love these lil darlins!

Yes you need to see that cupcake-y goodness up close.

Oh– and this pic is from a couple of months ago… but it’s about chocolate, which definitely means it goes with Valentines Day

Do you know what this is, people? You should all be very, very jealous right now… because this is a box of chocolates from my boyfriend’s family’s store. They have been making homemade chocolate and ice cream and all kinds of other yumminess for 100 years. Too bad there’s no more chocolate left in this box…

I’m thinking of getting my craftyness on this Valentines and making a few things in the most recent issue of Martha Stewart Living. One of those is these adorable antique Valentines. Back in the day they would make these “purses” that you wrote poetry along the edges to be read as it was unfolded. What a quaint, romantic idea, huh?!

And my last little fun surprise for you… Did you notice that pot on my stove? Well, I really was cooking. I made a batch of Aunt Jana’s Chicken Tortilla Soup.  It is a favorite in our family, and we make it every Christmas Eve. I love it so much though that I’ve probably made it 5 or 6 times this fall/winter. Since it’s so chilly out there, how about you stay in and make you a nice pot of soup??

Aunt Jana’s Chicken Tortilla Soup

• 6 T. vegetable oil
• 8 corn tortillas, chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 c. chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 med. onion, chopped
• 1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes
• 2 T. ground cumin
• 1 T. chili powder
• 3 bay leaves
• 6 c. chicken stock
• 1 t. salt
• 1/2 t. cayenne pepper
• 4-6 cooked chicken breast halves, cubed

Garnishes: Shredded Monterey Jack cheese, Avocado (pitted peeled and cubed), Sour Cream, 2 corn tortillas, sliced and fried crisp

Directions: Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add tortillas, garlic, cilantro and onion. Sautee 2-3 mins. Stir in tomatoes. Bring to a boil and add cumin, chili powder, bay leaves, and chicken stock. Return to a boil. Reduce heat. Add salt and cayenne. Simmer 30 mins. Remove bay leaves and stir in chicken. Reheat. Garnish with Mont Jack, avocado, sour cream and tortilla strips.

Let me know if you give the recipe a try! Or heck– just leave me a comment to say hey! I’d love to know if you’re reading!!!