Author Archives: Christina

09.04.13

A tasty giveaway...

Posted by Christina // 22 Replies

As if “back to school” season isn’t sweet enough…we have a giveaway to sweeten the deal.

The nice folks at the Gourmet Cookie Bouquet blog are giving away three, yes three, back to school bouquets. I see college kids in their dorms devouring these. I see grade schoolers coming home to the, and I quote, “best surprise ever”. I see me hoarding them on the couch while watching a Law & Order marathon. Oh yum.

Just imagine the brownie points you score with teachers if you send them one of these cute cookie bouquets.

Entering is super easy, and there are lots of entries to be had…good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check the rules out:
*Enter using any of the Rafflecopter choices available for entry below. Any of the options are acceptable, and entries per person are limited to the number indicated in the contest form. Entries will be reviewed and duplicate or uncompleted entries will be removed.

* If you have problems using Rafflecopter, be sure you are running the latest version of your web browser and have JavaScript updated.

NOTE – You must complete the specified entry task in order to be eligible to win the contest. If you click the green entry button without completing the task, your entry will be thrown out.

*Contest is open to all residents of the 48 Contiguous States and only to those 18 years of age or older!

*Winners will be notified via e-mail. You must respond within three days of being contacted. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.

*Sweepstakes ends at midnight EST on September 8th, 2013. The sweepstakes winners will be announced by September 15th, 2013

09.03.13

Sneak Peek: Bathroom

Posted by Christina // 8 Replies

I hope you did something super fun to celebrate the long weekend.

Tim and I spent the entirety of Monday in bed. Literally. We had three square meals in bed. We laughed, watched marathons (yes plural), had pillow fights, stalked Facebook friends, and picked wedding colors…all in bed. Neither of us had the flu, and it was a drop dead gorgeous day outside.

We just needed time. In bed. Together. Doing nothing. It was wonderful.

If you are a Facebook homie, you probably already saw this…. We finally bit the proverbial bullet and bought tile, which is absolutely what we should have been doing yesterday. In ten years though, we aren’t going to remember how fast our tile got done…but you can bet we will still be talking about the laziest day of our lives. Because it was a blast.

I do want to give you a sneak peek of what we picked though, so you can get as excited as us. Tim is very excited to have such a manly bathroom, and no you can’t see yourself in the penny tile. At least from a distance. Now we just have to get it on the walls.

What did you do for Labor Day?
Have you ever had a “day of literal rest”?
What do you think of our tile choice? Be nice, it took us weeks of deliberation.

08.30.13

Friday Favorites...eight three zero

Posted by Christina // 6 Replies

Hey Friday, Hey Friday, Hey Friday, Hey.

That was totally appropriate because this Friday I am bringing the good stuff.

Just look at this gorgeous collection of photographs from Lola’s Room. I want to do a whole gallery wall filled with her soft and colorful photos. They make me feel young and fresh. Which one is your favorite? I love that by looking at those photos you can tell this girl has an eye for detail. I imagine her stopping right in the middle of a carnival to stop and snap a photo of that old dodge…Or walking through fields of flowers to get some lovely bloom shots. If only all of our lives were that beautiful, right?

Wanna know what else I have been crushing on this week… When I was a kid, I always brought my mom in dandelions from the yard. I was like 5 so even weeds were pretty, and my mom always put them in this cute dainty little vase. They were special flowers. Can you imagine me bringing in a dandelion now? Tim would be busting out the yard killer in point five seconds flat. With all the old and empty nail polish bottles I have lying around, I think making cute little vases like Natalie did could be the best idea ever. Shouldn’t finding the beauty in weeds be some sort of deep metaphor….someone help me out with that. A drink is a treat in itself, but I would be so excited if once I slammed it I had a sweet treat to eat. I am putting this in my “cute details for parties I will never have” file. Then I would shove as many gum balls in my mouth as humanly possible and chew until my jaw aches. My idea of a good time for sure. Can we also talk about how insanely adorable Kelly’s photo styling is? I found these dyed bones on Kaelah’s blog and couldn’t help but love them. Sure it is slightly strange to have little deceased critters in your possession, but when they are that pretty how do you resist. Tim has mentioned wanting an articulated skeleton or something, maybe I can pass one of these off as a birthday gift.

Did you find anything great this week?
Would you ever buy dyed bones?
What’s the best tv show you are watching lately?

08.29.13

Holiday Lamp Challenge...rebounding

Posted by Christina // 10 Replies

Yesterday I told you all about my grand plans for an early Christmas victory.

I also revealed my excitement that Lamps Plus and Hometalk got together, gathered some bloggers and gave them each a fillable lamp to make their own. There is nothing I love more than a crafting challenge, except maybe procrastinating….which explains why last night I spent the whole night try to be creative on the spot thanks to that first fail.

I knew I was heading in the gold direction. There is no better time to mix metallics than during the holidays, so I embraced it a little early. When I found some pretty gold fabric I knew that had to be the shade cover. Unfortunately, since I am not a professional photographer I had a lot of trouble showing you how pretty this fabric really is. I wanted to avoid anything predictable for the base, but guess what I fell in love with….the definition of predictable. Throw a quirky quote in and I am sold. I know it looks a little plain in that picture up there, but that’s because you can’t see all the glamour of that fabric. In person, it’s like Jessica Rabbit walking straight through my living room. You know it’s all about the details anyways. I fell hard for the clear ornaments, and ate my words on not wanting to use them. I just love how they reflect the light and sometimes look like bubbles in the lamp. I think I will keep them forever. The gold glitter adds that extra something, the oomph to my oh la la.

The best part is, I can change out the base any dang time I want. This is my kind of ever-lovin-mind-changing lamp. Maybe one day I will figure out the sand, one day.

Do you think I made a good rebound from yesterday’s fail?
Did you get my “bright” joke?
What would you have filled this lamp with?

08.28.13

Lamp fail...

Posted by Christina // 13 Replies

A little while back I got way too excited to take part in a makeover challenge….especially considering I wasn’t on an episode of Jenny Jones Geek to Chic….I was just taking a very classy lamp from Lamps Plus and giving it some holiday glitz. You know how I love a crafting challenge.

The fine folks at Hometalk (have you been there….if you haven’t what the heck are you waiting for) and the sweethearts at Lamps Plus were kind enough to send us a snazzy fillable lamp to makeover just in time for the holidays. What? Don’t tell me that holiday preparation can’t start in August, Scrooge….I say bah humbug all the way to the ornament aisle with that nonsense. I could start Christmas crafts in March if Tim would let me.

So I began brainstorming. I let my Christmas creativity creep all up in my head. I came up with a brilliant plan, no ornaments, no pinecones, no lights. I wanted to fill my lamp with a glorious Christmas scene for everyone in our home to admire. Our dogs are totally into Christmas scenes.

I would put snow in the bottom and take those old Christmas figurines that old aunt Edna gave me and give them the razzle dazzle. Then I would doodle some pretty gold dots for the daytime effect and when you flip that switch BAM…you have snow falling on our little town. It was going to be the Christmas lamp trifecta, well…doublefecta since it really only had two looks.

Here is a sneak peek of us brainstorming our pretty city pre-gold dots. It sort of looks like a Halloween town so I feel like we were killing two birds ya know. We give love to all holidays, no discrimination. So I scavenged for fake snow. Seriously, did you forget it is August. Finally settled on white sand and got to work laying the fancy down on my little people. Then the unthinkable happened, I tried to put it together. How do I put sand in from the bottom and keep my little people all adorable. Well, I left that part up to Timbo.

See we will just glue the people to the foam see. And then see we will just pour the sand in the top see, and then I will just use these here tongs to perfectly place your little people. Oh wait…how will I do that without the sand coming out the bottom? And this long rod will make it very hard to maneuver in there. Well, actually…this isn’t going to work. Come up with Plan B.

Literally, after spending hours hand-painting figurines and taking photos and searching for fake snow…I was told to, ahem, and I quote, “scratch that”. Squeeze me?

If you need me I will be at home, rocking back and forth while I try to think of some sort of Christmas miracle.

08.27.13

The good, the bad, and the ugly...

Posted by Christina // 6 Replies

I have a little good new, a little bad news, and some down right ugliness.

The good news….we have a new baby shark. Meet little Taquito. He was born last week and is already eating and doing just swimingly.

The bad news….he doesn’t have a big brother. Which leads to the ugly….my ugly cry.

Apparently, while I was in Atlanta for Haven, Fajita had an accident. Tim said he walked downstairs and found him lying on the bottom, with a gash on his head. This makes me so sad, because I know Tim tried everything to bring him back. For goodness sake, that shark has been eating out of his hand for almost a year. I can’t even imagine the sadness he felt and I wish I would have been there for him.

He didn’t want to upset me while I was on vacation, so he kept it all inside. Then he didn’t want to tell me while we were looking at wedding venues because he knew how sad it would make me. So about a week after it all went down, I got the news. Ugly cry ensued. It may seem silly to you, but we hatched him from an egg. Watched him grow, and dreamed of building him a shark paradise. Instead he found a home in our backyard, with the prettiest flowers we have. Which are now growing beautifully.

Rest in peace little Fajita…we miss you bud.