New Year Inspiration: Pretty Pictures and Wise Words

Today we say farewell to 2011 so I'd like to share a few tid bits of inspiration for the new year from (where else?) Pinterest. 

So, so true!  Can I get an 'Amen' sista'?!

A wise woman once said, if you can accomplish one thing in a day [with a baby/toddler], then you have been successful!  In 2012 I'm going to revise my 'to-do' list routine and opt for one priority item each day.  Then, whatever I can accomplish above and beyond that one item is just icing on the cake.  I think this will make my life much more enjoyable :).

Alright this is just absolutely beautiful!!  Beautiful vibrant colors to inspire all of us to forgo the safe beiges of the world and opt for color, color, color!!

I share this to help us along with our 2012 diet-related resolutions, though I absolutely am not dillusioned enough to think I'll ever come close to being as skinny as Kate Moss :) 

A beatiful vintage shot of Capri.  Inspiration to travel abroad in 2012!

This is such a brilliant quote!!  We should all heed these words every single day.

And finally, a shot of whimsy.  Not sure why this photo appeals to me so much, but it does :).  Perhaps this is inspiration to go for 'it' in 2012, whatever 'it' may be, even if it doesn't seem logical! 

2011, you've been a hectic year, but a good one all the same.  I look forward to seeing what your younger sibling, 2012, will bring!!  Happy New Year, friends!!



House Tour: Aunt Sister's small town TX casa

Hello readers!  I'm finally back from my (fattening) Christmas vacation in Texas and ready to get back to 'normal' life and of course back to blogging!  I have lots of great blog posting ideas that I hope to share in the coming weeks, but today I'm really inspired to share one of my favorite homes in the world with you, my Aunt Sister's little Texas retreat.

First of all I must explain the origin of my Aunt's title as 'Aunt Sister'.  She's my father's sister and growing up my sisters and I, hearing our dad refer to her as 'sister', began calling her Aunt Sister and it just stuck :).  So now that we've got that cleared up, let me tell you a little bit about Aunt Sister (AS).

Growing up, with my dad's meager salary as a pastor, clothes for four daughters wasn't really in the budget.  Enter AS.  She and Uncle Russell (UR) were our saviours from a social perspective, keeping us nicely clothed and groomed, so to them we are eternally grateful!! 

AS's homes have always been immaculate, stylish and completely organized!  I have always been inspired by her homes, previously a gorgeous ranch home in San Antonio and now, her 'retirement' home in a small town in the hillcountry of Texas. 

She and UR bought the home about six years ago when it was in a dilapidated and outdated state complete with kelly green carpets and pink wallpaper!  But of course AS has a great eye for potential so they snapped it up and set forth renovating.

And here's how it looks today - all dressed up for the holidays :).

AS is great at setting up little vignettes like this one (below) with a framed pic of my baby girl, a lamp and a vase of potpouri centered on an antique lace doily. 

Here's AS having a tea party with Lily on our recent visit, when these pictures were taken.

I love the 'cottagy' feel of her home, the soft color pallette, white beadboard, etc.  Here in the guest bath she hung vintage pictures alongside a round mirror framed in cork.

The main room in the home includes a living room with fireplace and a dining area.  Instead of utilizing the fireplace as it was intended, she framed out the inside with plyboard and painted it black.  This makes an excellent backdrop for candles, potted plants, or whatever else she feels like displaying.  The picture hanging above the couch was painted by one of her former students (she was a journalism teacher).  And that man sitting on the couch reading is my dad :).

Here's another picture of the main room, looking the other direction.  Don't you just love the original pine floors?!  She added built-in bookshelves to add interest and great storage space without taking up too much room in the small house. 

Here's the kitchen.  It's clean and functional and perfect for the small cottage.  These pictures, by the way, were taken without any prior notice. So she didn't have time to go around cleaning.  This is what it always looks like - immaculate!!

And here's a small dining space in the kitchen.  My mom painted the watercolor picture hanging on the wall.  The table was a 'found' object that my Aunt painted and put to good use.  She's always been great at repurposing and refinishing furniture!!

And here's a (very dark) picture of the master bedroom.  It's actually not dark at all, as you may be able to tell by the sunlight streaming in from the window.  It's a very tranquil and inviting space. 

And here's a picture of my Uncle's domain.  He has his own special room, a 'man cave' if you will, complete with TV, lazy-boy, and all the other necessities :).  He has always had his own room where he can display his trophies (he was a coach and a sport fisherman) and relax while watching football, etc. 

And here it is looking in the opposite direction.  Again, built-in bookshelves were added to create space-saving storage. 

Well, that concludes our home tour today.  I didn't get any pictures of her adorable guest room because my daughter was napping there during my photo shoot, and there are a few other rooms that didn't get included for one reason or another, but I hope the pictures I have included give you some idea of why I love AS's home so much. 

So thank you, AS, for sharing your home and thank you readers for viewing my blog :).  Have a happy day, friends!!

Big Bear Weekend Ski Trip

We were recently invited to spend the weekend with some of our friends at their vacation home on Big Bear Lake.  Obviously, we accepted the invitation without hesitation :).  We are all about free lodging - yay! 

The house (below) is a cozy cabin + garage apartment nestled right on the banks of the lake.  You can't really tell from the picture, but this is an absolutely amazing location!! 

We arrived late at night so when we woke up the next morning we were blown away by the view from the main cabin (below).

It had snowed 16" the night before we arrived, so was covered in pristine whiteness!  Here's Lily having her morning milk while cradling Pippa Kate, her doll from England :).

And here she is with her buddies, Zoe and Roma, both 2 years old.  The girls got along famously!

On Saturday, while the boys skiied, us ladies made a trip to the grocery store to get supplies.  The girls enjoyed riding in their cars and eating their cake pops from Starbucks (Can we say spoiled?!  Yes, I think we can :).

The next day it was all about the snow!  I was determined to get some decent family pictures with the hopes of using one for our Christmas card, as my deadline for that little project was quickly approaching!! 

Here's Daddy with his Lily girl.

Even Sushi got dressed for the ocassion in his festive red sweater :).  He was a bit tentative with the snow at first, but soon enough he was romping around like an old pro!

And here's Lily dressed to the nines.  Recognize the coat and boots from my previous shopping post?! :)

The lake was so beautiful and there were quite a few ducks that we couldn't resist feeding the leftover toast from breakfast! 

Lily finally realized you throw the bread!  The first few pieces got gobbled up :).

Here is my favorite of the family pictures.

And here's a great shot taken by my friend, Shannon.  I love the joy and delight visible in each of their faces!!

Here was one attempt at a Christmas-card-appropriate family photo.  Unfortunately, Chris was not very pleased with his 'silly' hat and Sushi wasn't in the photo so ...

I came up with this alternative.  Yep, that's our Christmas-card-photo this year, folks!  I think it worked out quite well! 

So on that note, and in case I don't get back this way before the New Year (a real possibility with my busy scheduled over the next couple of weeks), Merry Christmas, y'all!! 

The Shopping Plan, a powerful tool for successful spending

My husband would say I'm always shopping.  And that may be true, but that doesn't mean I'm always spending money as it implies!  Admitedly, I oftentimes go shopping either because we need something or to entertain Lily with the sights and sounds of the mall (likely excuse I know :), but I often come away disappointed and empty-handed.

For me, shopping is a love-hate relationship.  I love the idea of shopping and I always enjoy browsing and window shopping, but if I have specific things to purchase then the task is just that, a task.  And with a toddler in tow, it seems altogether impossible.  It's hard enough staying focused and making purchasing decisions when I'm by myself, much less with a 17-month old mini me with a mind of her own :).

So, after once again attempting to get some shopping done with Lily and, once again leaving the store mid-shop, abandoning my half-full shopping cart for the sake of the other annoyed shoppers, I decided to try something new.  After all, as my Aunt Sister always says, "Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."  Gotta love Aunt Sister's wisdom :).  

During Lily's nap yesterday I came up with a detailed shopping list of what I needed, e.g. coat and warm hat and boots for our skiing trip this weekend, hostess gifts for upcoming holiday parties, etc.  See my list below. 

After coming up with my list I began my research online.  For each item I considered where I might find it at our local mall and then searched the relevant online site.  Whenever I found something that worked I called the store to ask them to pull the relevant size or item and place it on hold for me.  If they didn't have the item or size I needed, I could make a decision in a calm environment to either look for something else or call around to other stores to try and locate it. 

I found an adorable coat, boot and hat ensemble at Gymboree (below) and managed to save 20% with a coupon from my 'Parents' magazine.  This is another benefit of detailing out your shopping in advance - you can plan for coupons and save some $$$!  Score :).

I found some lovely hostess gift options at Williams Sonoma and Pottery Barn and just made a note of what I found so that I could stay focused while at the stores. 

It felt great to have my shopping pretty much done within Lily's naptime and now all I had to do was go to the mall and pick up the items - no shipping charges or waiting days for the merchandise to arrive!! 

My friend, Tiffany, kindly offered to watch Lily for a couple hours so I could hit the mall in the afternoon so after my morning planning session I hit the mall with a vengeance and, within about two hours, managed to purchase all of the planned items and then some!  I was exuberant after such a successful shopping experience so thought I would share the experience with you all :).

For me, at least, I think this is the key to shopping success.  Make a list, research the list and then stick to the plan.  No more being distracted by the over-abundance of options when you're at the mall. 

So on that note, happy holiday shopping and have a fabulous Friday, friends! 

The miracle that is spray paint ...

I've known for years that a can of spray paint can transform just about any mundane object into a chic display piece, but it's been at least a couple of years since I put that knowledge to good use.  I chalk it up to laziness, but recently I've been inspired by the bevvy of great blog postings about this neat little trick.

For example, the good folks at Young House Love are always transforming some thrift store find into a Jonathan Adler knock-off for only a couple bucks!  Check out the hideous frog they transformed into something I covet in Something Crazy Happened, one of many of their postings about the wonders spray paint.

Another blog I recently stumbled upon, Pure and Noble Blogspot, shows a really clever technique for combining puffy paint (or hot glue) and spray paint with beautiful results (below).  Check out that posting here.

So armed with my new enthusiasm and inspiration I trekked down to my local Goodwill store and was delighted to find a pair of solid metal candle holders for $3.99 each (below).

 They reminded me of the ZGallerie antler candle holders that I'm slightly obsessed right now (below)!

I picked up some cheap-o metalic silver spray paint from Walmart and set about transforming my found objects with an aim to use them in my Christmas decor or tablescape. 

Mid-painting. 

And voila, the finished product!!  I think they'll look excellent topped with white candles or even some ornaments!  Stay tuned to see how they work in my future posting on Christmas decor and, until next time friends, goodbye! 

 

The BEST Basic Crepe Recipe

We eat eggs almost every single day, usually scrambled, but sometimes fried or poached.  Today I decided to get creative and try something different - crepes. 

Crepes aren't actually new to me.  I've been eating them for years, especially when I'm around my sister, Deanna, the crepe Queen!!  And I've made them a few times myself as well, when we were in France with Chris' family, for example, and had limited baking ingredients at the house we were renting.  I've made them with some success, but had never landed upon a fabulous crepe recipe ... until today!!!

I found a basic crepe recipe from AllRecipes.com and only tweaked it slightly to create perfect crepes.  You can find the recipe here.  The one thing I changed was to add an extra 1/4 cup of milk, as I thought the recipe was a bit thick and needed to be more runny to swirl easily and cover the circumference of the pan.

I sliced some bananas and smeared on some yummy Nutella and viola - a delicious breakfast treat!

I got this picture from CrumblyCookie.net and of course this is exactly what mine looked like :).   

Cute as can be customized DIY onesies

One of the girls in my mommy group is expecting her second, a baby boy to be named Henry, any day now so I wanted to make something special for her (or him actually!). 

I had a trio of brand new onesies in a pack so I decided to customize them for baby Henry.  I thought a mustache would be cute, plus an 'H' for Henry, and a German Shepherd because that is the family pet (and apparently the bain of my poor friend's existence due to incessant barking and shedding!). 

Here they are ...

And a close up of each of them ...

The process was easy.  I found images using Yahoo image search and printed them onto cardstock (regular paper would work too).  I then cut out the shapes and traced them onto 'Wonder Under' (about $1.50/yard at Walmart).  After that I ironed the Wonder Under shapes onto fabric, which I got for around $4.00 per yard at Walmart.  Next I cut them out, peeled the backing, and ironed them onto the onesies.  Then I used a small zigzag stitch on my sewing machine to stitch around each shape.   

Here's a great tutorial with detailed steps for creating your own customized onesies using a similar method to the one I used from the Small Fry and Co Blog.

Happy crafting my friends!

FlyLady's 31 Day Plan

Recently I discovered an amazing website, http://www.flylady.net/, whose goal is to help us create and then maintain clean and efficiently run households!  I have been struggling for months with creating (and sticking to) weekly routines, checklists, etc to help me manage my home, and this website offers a wealth of tips and templates for these activities. 

I've only spent an hour or so reading through the website's wealth of information, but have already become inspired to sign onto their 31 day challenge for 'baby fliers', as they call those of us just starting out in the arena of serious household management! 

Day 1 tells me to 'shine my sink' ... sounds easy enough, right?  So here I go, off to shine my sink and discover whether a squeeky clean kitchen sink actually is the beginning of household bliss.  I'll keep you posted. 

And check out FlyLady's "31 Beginner Babysteps" yourself to see if this is something you'd like to to do with me in month of November.  If you can push past the cheesy 1980's graphics, I think you will find a lot of good knowledge to glean from this site. 

Happy middle-of-the-week, friends :).

Small Changes Challenge Part II

First of all, yesterday was Halloween so I thought I'd share a few pics from our holiday.  The first was taken outside our friend's costume party on Saturday night.  We went as Grandma, the Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood.

Clearly Lily was very frightened of the Big Bad Wolf ;)

Here she is looking so much the part with her little basket and hooded cape.  I made her costume and was really pleased with the results.

And now moving on to the main point of this posting, another 'Small Change Challenge' for the month of November.

As I mentioned in my first post Small Changes Challenge, I have decided to focus on achieving one small positive change each month.  They say to set yourself reasonable goals and I think one small change a month is surely doable, right?  They also say it takes 30 days to break a habit or create a new good habit, hence my decision to change one thing each month. 

The idea originally came from my decision in September to cut out all weekday drinking of alcoholic beverages.  I saw such positive results that I decided to keep my momentum going by determining to always remove items from my car in the month of October.  Well, October came to a close last night and I can happily say that my car has remained much cleaner (if a bit less than immaculate) since my adoption of this small change!

November's small change challenge will be ... drum roll please ... to read at least one Bible verse every single day.  I have both a Bible and a devotional book sitting beside my bed, so there is absolutely no reason I can't read one verse (or one devotional) before bed each night!  I had a Sunday school teacher growing up (Velma 'Mama' Hartung, God rest her soul) who always said, "Read your Bible every day, even if it's just one verse."  So this one's for you, Mama Hartung.

I'd love to hear what small change you are working on in your life right now!  Happy November, friends, let's make it count!!

A Clean House in 15 Minutes a Day

Ok so the title of this post might be ever so slightly misleading, but seriously, I have discovered my secret weapon to combatting the day to day messiness of a house with one toddler and a violently shedding dog and it seriously takes only 15 minutes a day!!!  So I thought I would share this little golden nugget of information with you :).

I think really good housekeepers and productive people in general all have one thing in common: they are good at setting aside chunks of time to combat a problem and then they attack that problem in the allotted time, doing as much as they can and then feeling satisfied with their achievement even if everything is not 100% completed. 

With this understanding in mind, I bought myself a $2.00 timer from Walmart and made myself a goal.  Each day, when Lily goes down for her nap, I set the timer for 15 minutes and then focus on doing as much cleaning as possible before the timer goes off.  I usually focus on one primary area, whichever one I feel needs the most attention on that day, as well as doing at least a few minutes of vacuuming, as vacuuming is something that must be done every single day in my house in order to keep the crumbs and dog fur within reason! 

My 'focus' area is usually one of the places in my home that, if left alone, would spread until it took over the entire room.  For example, the chair in my bedroom that seems to always be piled high with previously worn outfits, my sewing area (set up for now in my living room), or the kitchen table that always collects unopened mail, dog leashes, and everything else that I set down as soon as I walk in the door.  Everyone has these  places in their home.  For my sister, Deanna, it's her living room sofa that's always buried under a mountain of laundry.  For another sister, Susanna, it's the chaise lounge in her living room.  I hope my sisters don't mind me telling on them, but my point is that these 'hot spots' if you will are not anything unique to my household.  Rather, they lurk in every home I know, and the only way to combat them is to spend a few minutes each day working on them.

You would be amazed to discover what you can achieve in just 15 minutes.  In 15 minutes I can vacuum at least two rooms in my home, tidy away toys and other items left out of place, organize the shelves in my den and sweep my patio.  Every day my fifteen minutes is a bit different, depending on what needs the most attention.  When the timer goes off I finish whatever task I'm in the middle of and then stop cleaning to spend the rest of Lily's nap time doing whatever else I need to do (e.g. bills or correspondance), or just relaxing if I need some down time. 

Some key strategies to get the most out of your 15 minutes of cleaning:

• Eliminate distractions (i.e. do it while the kiddos are napping)
• Have an idea of what you're going to tackle before you begin
• Focus on one area/room at a time and finish that before moving on
• When the timer goes off, finish what you're doing as quickly as possible and then consider yourself 'done'
• Reward yourself after your 15 minutes in some way (e.g. spend a few minutes browsing a magazine, have a nice cup of hot cocoa, or sit and put your feet up or hop on your favorite blog)

Of course your house is not going to be immaculately clean in only 15 minutes a day, but I guarantee it's going to be a lot cleaner then if you spend no time dedicated to cleaning each day.  And of course this 15 minutes a day is in addition to the time we all spend maintaining our homes such as tidying the kitchen after meals, putting things back in their place after each use, etc.  So really, if you asked how long I spend cleaning each day the numbers would be much higher, but the "15 minutes a day clean house" refers to the dedicated 15 minutes of cleaning that goes above and beyond what is absolutely required each day.

I hope you find this tip as useful as I have found it and I'd love to hear your comments and your tips for fighting filth :).  Happy housekeeping and, oh yes, happy halloween, my friends :).

Cute Custom Clock for $4.00

Recently I came across a blog (http://www.wonderfuljoyahead.blogspot.com/) with a post about customizing a $4.00 clock from Walmart.  As I've been looking for a clock for Lily's room and the kitchen, and have not had any luck finding cute affordable clocks, I decided to give it a go.

Here is a link to the detailed instructions from the 'Wonderful Joy Ahead' blog

http://wonderfuljoyahead.blogspot.com/2011/10/clock-diy-make-over.html

And below are my results:

Kitchen clock

clock for Lily's room

I have yet to hang either clock, but wanted to share the project anyway, as I think it is pretty simple and a great gift idea in my opinion!  There are so many ways you could customize a clock using material, paint, fabric, you name it!  How about a custom silhouette clock (see previous post on how to create a silhouette here http://holidayhepburn.blogspot.com/2011/09/custom-silhouettes-in-five-easy-steps.html).  Or a classy monogram clock? 

One word of caution, however, if you decide to give this project a try ... the Walmart clock that I used (and the one used in the example in Wonderful Joy Ahead) does not have a removable battery pack.  When the instructions indicate to 'pop off the battery pack', this means yank it off and try not to smash it while doing so.  The battery pack in both of my clocks busted, but not so badly that they didn't work afterward :).

Hope everyone is having a fabulous week and happy crafting, my friends! XOXO.