Dressing up Pearls

I am a southern girl, so I have probably 5 or 6 different sets of pearls. Some are very special to me. One was my grandmothers, one my parent's gave me for Christmas the year before I got married, and one my husband gave me on my wedding day.

I save those to wear on special occasions.

The other sets, however, I never wear. They are pretty short strands and I just don't think to wear them. I wanted to change them up a bit so that I would wear them more often.

I chose a necklace and a bracelet to work with. They have a "creamish white" tint.

To make the necklace, I cut a piece of lace from an old express lace shirt.
I tied it on either end of the pearls and then pinned on a fabric rosette. So easy!!
You could do this with any of your short necklaces.
Add some lace (or any pretty fabric for that matter) and a rosette and you're done.

For the bracelet, I simply cut three short pieces of lace and then tied them in three different places on the bracelet! Once again, SO easy!

Have fun changing up some of your jewelry and have a happy New Year's Eve!

-Amelia

Puzzling Tradition

For a while now my dad and I have been putting together puzzles during the Christmas Season. It has become a tradition. We pick a Christmas puzzle and start it after Thanksgiving.
Since I do not live a home anymore dad does most of the work.

Our goal is always to finish before or on Christmas Day, but the puzzle Dad chose this year was ridiculously hard. It was a 1000 piece 3-D puzzle with postcards and pictures of Vintage Santas.


Tonight, James and I were out at Mom and Dad's for supper.
We recruited James for extra "puzzle finishing support" and we finished!
Whoo hoo!

The before picture.
See that little picture on the right??
That was the only picture of the puzzle we had to look at.

Yay!
The puzzle is finished!

Happy that we are done.
I don't think we can handle another 3-D puzzle.
I love that dad is holding the magnifying glass...we used it often!


I love traditions...especially at Christmas! I wonder what puzzle we will do next year??

-Amelia

Mr. and Mrs. Placemats

I have been dying to share these with you.

A while ago I saw these adorable monogrammed placemats over at Dot, Dot, Dot.
I loved them and thought they would make awesome Christmas presents.

I never did find cute placemats at the Dollar Store like she did, but I did find some on sale at Target that worked perfectly. I ended up deciding I would make 3 different sets of placemats. 1 for my brother and sister-in-law, 1 for my friend Caroline, and 1 for my friends Karey and Phillip.

I sat down to start the monogram, but instead I had the idea to put "Mr. and Mrs." on the top.
I used felt for the yellow and black ones and this silky black and white patterned print for the black ones. It was so simple to applique.
If you want to make some of your own, Angel at TaDa! Creations has a great tutorial.

I love how they turned out.

I think they did too!!I forgot to take a picture of the placemats I made for Karey and Phillip! Bummer.
This was their first Christmas with their little baby boy so I made 3 Christmas placemats and put "mommy", "daddy", and their little boys name on top.

On another note, is anyone else having a hard time taking Christmas Decorations down?
It makes me so sad. I think I'm keeping mine up until Saturday. I just can't do it yet.
Don't judge me.

-Amelia

My husband and I have been working on our bedroom for quite some time now. We painted the walls and made these canvas look alikes. But it still didn't seem finished.

I decided that we needed to add a little something to the bed. I made this pillow for James for Christmas and he loved it! I think it turned out pretty cute! I used some fabric that my grandma gave me for the pillow and I appliqued our wedding date on the front.
It adds a nice touch to the bed.


We also ordered a black and white canvas print of one of our engagement pictures.
It will go above the bed. It should be here soon. I'll post pictures!!

-Amelia

I hope your Christmas was filled with memorable moments...

lots of happiness and joy...

magical sights...

and special times with family you will never forget.

Need a last minute gift?

I needed gifts for my two 10 year old cousins. I just wanted to give them a little something so I decided on these rosette headbands. They turned out to be so adorable and they look awesome on! It is so simple.

The rosettes were made from leftover fabric I already had and the headbands were 5 for $1 at the Dollar Store.

I made the rosettes by cutting 1 inch strips of fabric in varying lengths.

Then I tied a knot in one end and rolled the fabric around the knot hot gluing occasionally to make sure it stayed in place.

Once I had the three rosettes made, I cut a piece of felt to fit the back and hot glued the rosettes in place.

Then I hot glued the rosettes on the headband.

I hope they like them!!

black,white & everything else: .. and everything else!

Check out my fabulous Sister-in-Law's Blog!

black,white & everything else: .. and everything else!: "black, white & everything else. this post consists mostly of everything else....with a few appearances of my black and white decor. I wanted..."

Pretzel Thingys

I tried to come up with a cute name for this recipe, but I think what my husband calls them works just fine. In our house, they are called "Pretzel Thingys."

They are the perfect combination of salty and sweet. SOOO delicious and SOOO simple. I don't even think this counts as "baking." And since they look so festive and are sooo yummy, they make great gifts for co-workers, neighbors, and friends!

Anyway, gather these ingredients and make yourself some right now!!!

Set your oven to warm and start by lining up the pretzels on your cookie sheet. Then take your candy melts and place them on top of the pretzels. Put them in the oven for about 5-7 minutes (or as long as you can take it...it just needs to be soft enough for the next step).
Next, smush (don't think that's a word, but it works here...go with it) the M&M on top of the chocolate. And...if you are slightly anal like me you will want the M facing up. Then, put these bad boys in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes for the chocolate to harden.

yum.

Christmas Cookies

I. Love. Christmas. Baking.
This will probably be the first of many posts about Christmas in my Kitchen.

Saturday night, my lovely friend Karey came over to make Christmas Cookies. I wanted to surprise her with a little gift, so I made us matching aprons.
I found red napkins at Target a while back
(I think it was after July 4th) for $1.79 for a pack of 4. (SCORE!!!!)
I used the napkins to make the aprons and added some cute green fabric as the ties and accents. I think they turned out pretty cute!!!

Here is my recipe for Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies.

1 C white sugar
1 C butter, softened
1 (8oz) Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1. In a large bowl, combine sugar, butter, cream cheese, salt, almond, and vanilla. Add egg yolk. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour until well blended. Chill the dough for 8 hours or overnight (I usually just try to make it the night before)
2. Preheat oven to 375
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough 1/3 at a time to 1/8 inch thickness, refrigerating remaining dough until ready to use. Cut into desired shapes with lightly floured cookie cutters. Leave cookies plain for frosting or brush with slightly beaten egg white and sprinkle with sugar. Place 1 inch apart on a cookie sheet.
4. Bake 7-10 minutes or until light and golden brown
Enjoy the yumminess!


Here are ours.
Karey's are on the left and much cuter than mine.
Look at her Snowlady with the red dress!!!

And what do you think our husbands did while we baked?



Despite my suggestion to watch a Christmas movie, they played video games.

And James had fun holding their little baby boy!!

What have you been baking??? Please share your recipes! :)

I'm back

Goodness...it was a whirlwind of a Fall and I'm so sorry for not posting.
I have lots and lots of things to share so this will be a long post.
I promise I'll be better about posting more often.

To start, here is a look into our Christmas decorations. I love Gold, Christmas Red, and light green.
Okay, so I took this picture on the first with every intention of getting this post up on the first. Not so much. But at least it's only a few days late! Just pretend with me here. :)


Our Christmas Tree. We scored and got an awesome tree this year. I think it's perfect. It has such a nice shape. I got the train on sale after Christmas last year, so this is the first year we've had it for Christmas and I love it!!!!

This is our dining room. I started with a gold tablecloth. Then added our Christmas china with gold chargers. I have 3 different sizes of tall globe candlesticks with light green sparkly candles. You can't really see them but I have the candlesticks on a gold tray with red ornaments. Then cute little gold ornament place card holders.

Remember these from the Fall post??? I added the word "Joy" with some pretty gold and red ribbon and then used Christmas M&Ms.

These are stuffed animals that I have collected over the years. The gray one in the front was a gift from my Great-Grandparents when I was a little girl. Polar Express Santa and Winnie-the-Pooh are also there, of course.


Now for our newest addition to the Christmas Decor at our house.....The advent calendar I have been working on since August. I finished it just in time for December 1st. It is hanging on our pantry door. I just love how it turned out. It was inspired by the Pottery Barn Kids Advent Tree. I know we will enjoy it for years to come! :)

Check back soon!!
Take time to enjoy this beautiful season with your family.
God Bless!

Pumpkin Goodness

I am OBSESSED with pumpkin this Fall. I have been wanting to put pumpkin into everything. Let me tell you how delicious a little pumpkin and pumpkin spice is stirred into oatmeal in the morning. I wake up CRAVING it.

The other night I was craving something chocolate, but I also wanted some pumpkin bread. SO, I found a recipe for pumpkin bread and added chocolate chips instead of raisins. DELISH! I love cinnamon and chocolate together and the pumpkin just screams Fall. You have got to give it a try.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

Wet Ingredients

1 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup sour cream

1/2 cup water

2 eggs

Dry Ingredients

1-2/3 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

3/4 cup chopped walnuts (I left these out)

1/2 cup raisins or I added semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

3/4 teaspoon salt

1-3/4 cups sugar

In a large bowl, add pumpkin, sugar, oil, water, sour cream and eggs. In a separate bowl add all the dry ingredients together. Slowly add to the pumpkin mixture and mix together. Stir in walnuts (I left these out) and raisins or chocolate chips. Add batter to a greased loaf pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 70 min. (Mine only took about 50 min) Let cool in pan for about 15 minutes (If you can wait that long!!!!!) then move to a wire rack or in my case, directly on a plate.

What recipes have you tried this Fall? Please share them with me! :)

FALLing Behind

Sooooo I’m falling behind on the whole blog thing. I’ll try to be better, I promise. Just to catch you up on some BIG events lately…

My brother got married!!!!

On Sept. 25^th my little brother was married to my new sister Ashley!! We had a blast. Doesn’t Ashley look gorgeous by the way??

Ashley and Stewart incorporated so many personal elements to their wedding that made it so special. My brother is an AWESOME guitarist and musician so Ashley and I made these paper flower boutonnieres out of music from a Beetles song. They turned out so cute and looked awesome on the guys’ suits.

Here is the paper we used.

Here is how they turned out! So Stinkin’ cute!!! J

I also made these jewelry pouches for Ashley to give to all of her bridesmaids. They matched her colors of black and mintish green.

It was an awesome weekend!!

Now…onto some fun Fall touches I’ve added to our home.

The wreath on the front door:

The Jack O Lantern Luminaries inspired by these.

Annnnd…probably my favorite are these Fall Canisters. I just made these last night and they are SO stinkin’ cute. I was inspired by these. As soon as I can get to the store I’m going to add the Autumn M&M mix. Have you seen those? YUM!

These will be so fun at Christmas too with some Red and Green Ribbon and…yep, you guessed it...Christmas Colored M&Ms! J

Enjoy this beautiful Fall season!

Anticipating Fall...in 95 degree weather

I. love. Fall. I love the slightly cooler weather after a sweltering hot summer in the south. I love the pumpkins. I love the warm colors and the falling leaves. I love the candles burning with the smell of cinnamon and pumpkin pie. I love football and Fall clothes.

Anyway...you get the picture.

While I was cleaning my house today, I had the urge to get out my pumpkins and fall decorations. I mentioned this urge to my husband and his response was, "Have you been outside today? It is 95 degrees." After admitting that he was right, I decided that I would wait until the calendar told me it was okay. The first day of Fall is September 22...I guess I can wait until then.

I am however an extremely stubborn woman. Soooooooo I made a new runner for our table.


I used some light brown fabric and added hurricanes with lentils. Then I added a basket of decorative balls.
This should satisfy my Fall Decoration Obsession until I can officially decorate.

I hope you have a great week!

Tah Tah for now!

SILHOUETTE MACHINE GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

I am dying to own a Silhouette Machine!!! Grosgain is having a giveaway that ends August 31st! Head on over and enter...and give it to me if you win! (Just kidding....kind of) :)



SILHOUETTE MACHINE GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Last minute baby shower gift!

I made these onesies at around midnight the night before a baby shower last weekend! I love how they turned out!

Canvas Look Alike

Well, Hellooo! It's been a while. We had an awesome time on our cruise in Alaska. What a gorgeous state! It was so incredible to experience the sights with family and I know this vacation will be remembered for years to come.

As soon as we got back, though, it was back to school for me! And an interesting back to school it was. I have taught Kindergarten for 4 years. At the last minute I ended up having to change to a new position which kind of threw me for a loop. I think God does that sometimes to get us out of our comfort zone. Although I am sad about not having my own Kindergarten "Babies", I am up for the challenge and excited to try something new!

Anyways, I've been doing some crafting lately and wanted to share it with you! I adore canvas prints and wanted to have some our wedding pictures printed that way, but I didn't really want to spend $70-$100 for each one. Then I found this on Kristen Duke's Photography website and couldn't wait to give it a try.

I went to Sam's and got 3 12 x 16 wedding prints made. All three cost me $8.77. Then I went to Lowe's and got a 16x 36 board for $7. The friendly man at Lowe's cut it for us for free! They are so nice! I came home and spray painted the sides of all three boards.
Then I set the pictures on the top and mod podged them on the board. I decided to put a layer of mod podge on top of the picture also and it really made it look like canvas.

We hung them in our bedroom today! I love how they turned out and they add a lot to a wall that needed some sprucing up!

What do you think? Pretty cute for $15.77. :) I made some stuff for a baby shower yesterday...will share that with you tomorrow!