Christmas Decorating Trends 2013

Usually way before you are even thinking about Christmas, I've already been decorating for the season. Decorating for several of my clients, that is. Because I have many clients that are retail stores, they insist every year that Christmas go up before Thanksgiving. (I'm just the messenger people.)

And every year, as I teeter on ladders and spend hundreds of dollars on Christmas decorations, people will say, "Christmas before Thanksgiving? You've got to be kidding!"

No kidding here.

It doesn't bother me too much since Christmas is my favorite time of year. The benefit of decorating and shopping early is that I get to see what the new trends are for the season. Pinecones are still the rage and look beautiful in the above blue and white wreath.

This year, with all our DIY efforts, we've taken to getting creative, like with this simple, but tasteful twist on the advent calendar from Real Simple magazine:

Pottery Barn embraced the cloche trend and turned it into a Christmas ornament; if you like more traditional ornaments, you'll love Ballard Design's mercury glass ornaments; for us decorating fanatics who love to try new things, we'll give these adorable owl string of lights from Anthropologie a try.

As much as we're willing to try something new, we might still long for items that remind us of our own childhood Christmases like this Santa ornament from the tree (and blog) of Kelly Ash.

I remember this kind of felted Santa from when I was a kid! How adorable!

Whatever your style, there's something for everyone out there in the Christmas decorating world. And if you can't find it, then make it!

How are you going to decorate this year? What's your decorating style when it comes to Christmas?

AMH Welcomes: EZ Living Home

As many of you know, as well as being a mom to three children, I am also a mom to Juno, The English Mastiff, our 135 lb., three-year-old dog.

As you also know, And My House (AMH) is a blog dedicated to all the happenings in our home from DIY projects, tried and true recipes and the occasional goings on of Juno. (I once mentioned she had a blog, remember?)

But back to what I was saying, I'd like to welcome the awesome pet-friendly and very decorating friendly line of dog beds and coordinating throw pillows and curtains from EZ Living Home.

EZ Living Home offers a stylish way to include your pets' beds into your own style of decorating. No longer does Juno have to hide her bed when company arrives, but instead showcase it! :)

Doesn't she look happy? More like she wants to take a nap. Juno is lounging on the Honeycomb Memory Foam Topper Pillow Bed in Tangerine.

The high quality and easy care of EZ Living Home's products make this mom very happy, because even Juno's stuff needs to get washed every so often. (And I'm even happier because now that she has her own bed, she might just stay off the furniture…)

This is the perfect time to buy your pet something special for Christmas (and you can get the matching pillows and curtains too!)

Check out EZ Living Home, read how their brand was born and Like them on Facebook!

Time for Juno's nap now...


*Disclaimer: I was sent two pillows and the dog bed from EZ Living Home to review. I received no monetary compensation for this post. Any opinions stated are strictly my own.

First Annual Beer Tasting Party

Apparently rain doesn't stop a party from happening! I guess that's a good thing! We celebrated Husband's newest beer recipes with our First Annual Beer Tasting party this past weekend. I designed the invitation above.

I also made some rate cards so we could get a feel on which beers faired well. Although the majority of my work is graphic design, there must be a wannabe Martha Stewart hostess in me, because in two months, I will have planned, decorated and cooked for three parties. No, I am not a professional party planner! (Did you see our daughter's birthday/cupcake decorating party post?)

Also, most of what I do is DIY-created. Whether it be the decorations, the food, or the invitations (as seen above) we don't ever pay anyone to plan, shop, cook, decorate or clean for our parties. Oh but I wish...just kidding. Sometimes, the best part of it all is doing it yourself!

I think part of the planning is thinking about the color theme. I went with the earthy colors of browns and greens using baskets, wood frames and then a pop of sophistication with the glass and white stoneware. Again, all things we already have in our home.

We also used the hops that Husband grew this summer as decor in the three hurricane vases (Dollar Tree purchases btw, a few years back.) Who would have thought that hops could be so pretty? ;)

I did find these cool napkins we could use. Originally I was going to design my own, but why mess with that when these were available!

I also nabbed my kids' barely-used pencils from the last school year, put them in a beer glass to use with the rate cards.

Overall the party was a success! The beers and food pairing were all delicious, and nothing is better than spending a Saturday with friends and family!

(Party #3...planning a birthday/Halloween party for teenagers!)

It's A Cupcake Decorating (Birthday) Party

When you're celebrating a nine-year-old's birthday, there's nothing better than using every girly/pretty color that's out there.

Finding the theme and inspiration was easy with Pinterest and a purchase of cheap party lanterns!

And even though I'm still a believer in going big on the decor and food, I try to keep the cost down by being creative and shopping various dollar stores.

Lanterns: Originally $8, clearance $2: Family Dollar Stores. Streamers: $1 each.

Clearance glass containers for sprinkles: 25 cents each. Sprinkles from a local bulk food store: aprrox. $1.50 per container.

Girly storage/tackle box filled with gummy worms and fish candy: $1.99 on clearance at Shopko stores.

Paper goods: all $1.00; Cupcake wrappers: $1.50 (Wilton); frosting: Homemade Buttercream. Find the recipe here.

Vinyl Tablecloths (3): 25 cents each on clearance: Dollar General stores. I used three and as each one got dirty, I rolled it up and tossed it. (They made it through cupcake decorating, the girls putting on nail polish and breakfast.)

Homemade Tissue Paper Pom Poms or Flowers: tutorial here, price varied for tissue paper. Cupcake Piñata: $11.97 Walmart stores.

This was the 'Breakfast Bar,' with two cereals, cut up strawberries, chopped walnuts and mini dehydrated marshmallows. Marshmallows: $1.87 from bulk food store. Used two plastic ice cream scoops to serve cereal: $1.00 each at Dollar Tree Stores. Did I mention it was a sleepover?

Inspired by Pinterest and these lantern colors, I'd say this was a successful birthday party!

Until the next party...

Before & Afters: Garage Sale Finds

A few weeks ago our little town hosted its annual city-wide garage sale. It goes over like gangbusters. I kid you not. Even through rain, the die-hard treasure hunters will keep going in their cars.

For me and my cheapness thrifty-ness, it's better than a trip to Goodwill, and that's saying a lot!

What have I found at garage sales in the past? Well, let's have a look-see, shall we?

This pretty clock with its pretty gold and burgundy colors:



How about a little ORB spray paint? That took all of 20 minutes to makeover!



This mail organizer costed 50 cents. That's a steal!

A little white spray paint and chalkboard paint certainly gave it an updated look.

And of course the famous cheese domes and candlesticks.

From ugly to pretty with some more ORB!

Have you been to any garage sales this summer? What have you found?

Kids Artwork: A DIY Father's Day Present

Husband is not a fan of the made-up holidays. I on the other hand, want to celebrate everything. Because as the years pass and I see our three children growing up, I have a tendency to want to cling and hold on a little tighter.

This year I wanted to create a very special heartfelt Father's Day present. Husband loves to see our family photos and the kids' artwork displayed in our house. I feel the same way, why invest in pricey art when we have our own budding artists right in our house!

Our kids, like yours I'm sure, bring home a ton of artwork from school. I tried several ways to keep it all (in plastic bins, displayed in cheap garage sale frames and just plain taped to the wall as seen in these photos.)

I even tried to get fancy and use iPhone apps to archive all that creativity to one day turn into a book. But that was just like scrapbooking, and I never did that well either.

Then I picked up the book Playful Home and was inspired by this photograph and the framed art in a child's room:

How cool. A retrospective of three kids artwork, beautifully designed and framed. As usual, I wanted to make a similar version to that one, and still not spend a lot of money.

I started by taking pics of their drawings, paintings and projects from this school year. Then I cropped the photos to be approximately the same size. I created a similar design as in the inspirational photo in Adobe InDesign and inserted the photos and wrote my own text. (If you don't do graphic design work like I do and don't have this software, I was thinking that you could create something similar in Pic Monkey, which is free.)

I debated whether to print from my own printer, but I didn't want to do any cutting and gluing, I wanted it to look professional, as if you could have bought this somewhere. So I turned my design into a *jpeg file took it to Walgreens to have them print a 14x20 poster size (which was the size of an old frame I had.) With an in-store coupon, I saved a nice chunk of change.

*I had to specify the type of file because FYI, their photo machines cannot read PDFs.

I might do this every year and put them side by side along one wall to make a nice wall gallery!

Now mind you, I hung this up in the laundry room just to photograph it because that room had the best light. But Husband has yet to see this since Father's Day is still thirteen days away, on June 16th. So shhh...I'm taking it down now and hiding it in a closet.

Hopefully I've inspired you to think of a new way to preserve your kids' artwork and maybe to make a beautiful DIY Father's Day gift.

Spring Shopping

As I mentioned on Facebook last week, my girls and I went shopping. Even though there is still plenty of snow on the ground, the stores are optimistic, filled with spring-inspired displays. Here are some items we found at TJMaxx:

I love this throw pillow with the the fabric swatches on it!

This lamp's shade is awesome. I really wanted to buy it except I don't have a room to put it in, yet...

Believe or not, even the birds are living the glam life in this stylish birdhouse.

If anything, a walk through TJMaxx can be so inspiring. I get great decor ideas for my home.

Are you having spring fever? Are you decorating for the change of seasons? What says 'spring' in your home?

Our Living Room - Before Photos

So no exciting or catchy post tile here, but I did think an alternate title could have been; "Party like it's 1979!" Well really more like 1970...

So as promised, here is the "before" shot of our living room. As you can see it's a nice eclectic mess. The shape is actually a rectangle, but where I was standing was where Barbie's castle sits, or "the play area" for now.

Let's not allow the games to distract you. As you can see, we have the flat screen along one wall, then the hideous fireplace in the corner and then the awkward-shapped built-in shelving. There's a nice big open area behind the chair and ottoman for what I assume was the spot for an old television to sit in.

My closet interior designer is whispering, "tear the shelving down," and I am considering this, but then that means Husband would have to repair the walls after. Not a bad thing, because we would gain a little over a foot in depth along that wall.

From this angle we have huge windows overlooking the lake. Please ignore the curtains, that's another challenge altogether (those windows are so tall and long,) the salmon/light burgundy carpeting, and our transitional furniture, all things that are screaming to be updated. One thing at a time people.

As for what kind of look we're going for? Well not contemporary, that's for sure, but if your'e familiar with Sarah Richardson's designs, something comfortable and welcoming, incorporating the natural elements from the outside and doing it all for cheap!

So what would you do if you owned this room? I would love to hear your ideas.

For more conversations about renovating the fireplace, catch the awesome suggestions on home talk!