Happy December 1st! 

December always seemed to go by so slow as a kid, but as an adult it flies by.  We've got lots of fun Christmas things planned this month and lots of traditions to continue with.

This time last year, our house had just sold and the buyers wanted in before the New Year.  In addition to getting ready for Christmas, we were packing up our house.  Most of my holiday decorations never saw the light of day last year.  I'm soooooo happy to be spending our first Christmas in our new house.  This will be the first time in many years that I won't have a mantle to decorate for the holiday, so I was trying to come up with a way to display our Christmas stockings. 

Here's what I came up with:



and added words to.....
and added hooks......
to make this.

Eat your heart out, Pinterest.


Speaking of Christmas, I still have Christmas scarves available in the Etsy shop!  Hurry before they're all gone!

I probably could've come up with a better name for this post, but it is what it is. 


My mom bought me a pair of witch legs last year for Halloween, and I never really figured out what I wanted to do with them.  Then, I found an abandoned planter pot under a rose bush in the back yard (yeah, we should really keep up with trimming the rose bushes....) and decided to make it a pot for the witch legs.

I found some black spray paint in the basement and went to town (metaphorically) painting the pot black. 

Next I stuck the legs in the dirt and covered it with some mossy fabric.


And done.

I had been planning a gallery wall for our new house since before we had even found a house to buy.  I had in my head, plans for a wall in our house to be filled with different items, both sentimental and trendy.

So when we purchased our house, I knew that the massive wall in our living room would be "the wall."  Luckily, I'd been collecting items to add to our gallery wall for months.  Literally. 

The inspiration (via Pinterest):

Some will suggest you plan out your wall, specifically measuring each area.  I placed all of my pieces out on the floor and kind of "went with it."
I wanted to mix some trendy pieces with some that were special sentimentally.  I used mainly items I already had, altering them as needed, and added a few new items. 

 One of my favorite new pieces is this large flower painting from Hobby Lobby.





Some of my sentimental pieces were a doily that my great-grandmother made and some of Katherine's artwork.

My DIY items were done by taking scrapbook print paper and cutting it to fix a matte and frame.  I also used a painting of our dog, Callie, that was done by a former customer from my old job.

A lot of the extra pieces used were from Hobby Lobby, Target, or thrifted.

Jason's expression when he saw the finished project:
"That's a lot of stuff on the wall."


He's always so observant. 

There's a slight possibility that I've done this project before on the blog.  I've had this blog for over six years, and while I try not to repeat myself, sometimes it happens.

C'est la vie.

Now that our main living room area is painted, I've been obsessively trying to figure out what to hang on the walls.  I decided to do black and white photo canvases on the wall just to the right of our entry way. 

I discovered I could make photo canvases myself for a fraction of the price to buy them already made, and they look the same as they would had they been made professionally. 

First I needed 11x14 blank canvases (Hobby Lobby had them on sale), black acrylic paint, a foam paint brush, Mod Podge with a matte finish, and 11x14 photos (photos need to be printed with a matte finish). 


I painted the edges of each canvas black, and let them dry completely. 


Then, I painted the entire canvas with Mod Podge and carefully placed the photo on the canvas insuring that there were no bubbles or air pockets.


I flipped each canvas over, photo side down, to make sure it dries flat.  (Adding a heavy book on top of the canvas also helps.) 

Once the canvases had dried, I trimmed any photo edges that hung over the edge of the canvas using a utility knife. 

One wall done, many more to go.

I'm currently working on a gallery wall for the largest wall of this room.  It's been a project in the making for months, even before we bought this house.  It's become a slight obsession.  Stay tuned. 

When we bought our first house a few years ago, we inherited an old antique wardrobe that was left in the basement by the previous owners.  It sat empty for a while, then eventually was filled with random stuff.  I really liked it, but never really found a purpose for it.  When we moved last December, I couldn't bare to part with it.  We hauled it to our storage unit, then later into our new house. 

I really wanted to use it for something, but it's rickety demeanor was obvious and I wasn't sure how much life it had left in it.  The wooden rod to hang things on was holding on by a thread, so I decided to turn the whole thing into a cabinet. 

After a little demolition, some paint, a little decoupage, and new knobs, my new cabinet was ready to go. 

Because it is in the basement (again), it made the perfect cabinet to house board games and puzzles.


Over at the etsy shop, we've hit 500 sales!  As a thank you to all of my customers, I'm offering a 10% discount now through Friday (July 1).  Just use coupon code: SWS500 at checkout for discount. 

Let me start off by saying I am not a salon professional or hair stylist, and most of the time my hair looks rough.  However, I have found this styling method to work wonders for me and I would like to share it with you today.  So, let's begin shall we....

{Reviting graphics ,huh?}

My hair is very thick and wavy and most days the only way to "fix" it is to actually style it with some sort of heated hair tool, only to have to redo said style the next day.  I found a few different tutorials for an at-home salon blowout on Pinterest and sort of combined a few different "pins" into one process.
I wash my hair at night every 2-3 days and use Redken Guts 10 and It's a 10 smoothing balm on my freshly washed hair.  In the winter months, I dry my hair completely before going to bed.  In the warmer months, I either let my hair air dry or lightly dry it to get some of the moisture out.  The next morning is when I style my hair.
The tools: I use Big Sexy Hairspray, giant Velcro rollers, duckbill clips, OGX Blowout Cream, comb, and a 2 inch curling iron from Hot Tools.

First, I clip all of my hair up in sections and starting from the bottom, I curl small sections using the curling iron, then immediately roll it in the Velcro roller.  Sometimes I have to secure the roller with a duckbill pin.



I continue to move up my hair using the same process (curling iron then Velcro roller) until my entire head is in Velcro rollers.

{Please enjoy my "hairspray face."}

I spray my entire head with hairspray, then let it set for about 10 minutes.  This is usually when I either put on make-up or get Katherine dressed and ready for the day.  This gives my hair time to cool while in the Velcro rollers.  

After I take all of the rollers out of my hair, I put a dime size amount of the blow out cream in my hands and run them through my hair to smooth it out.  I finish it up with one more spritz of hairspray.


All together (when I'm not interupted by a toddler) this process takes me about 10 minutes, making it a great "busy mom" hairstyle.  Plus, it lasts for up to three days without having to restyle it.

To make sure I get the most out of my "blowout," I use amika dry shampoo on days 2-3 and Sexy Hair Powder Play if I need extra volume.  (I literally can't say enough about the Powder Play.  It's amazing.)

So there's my at-home blowout routine.  I will tell you that throughout the process today, I had a toddler at my feet handing me random objects and singing Frozen songs.  But, that's a typical getting ready scenario.