Thank you...

As I wrap and ship the last of our orders for Christmas delivery, I was just thinking about how grateful I am for our customers. I would like to say THANK YOU to all of you who support our small family business. It's been a great year and we are so appreciative!
Enjoy the holiday season!

Home for Christmas tour...

Ready for tons of Christmas inspiration? I'm talking DIY projects, home and garden tours! This year's hottest blog party is hosted by Hometalk.com and Countryliving.com. I have one room to share today. Hopefully you will get some ideas from my dining room tour which is the only room I have decorated for Christmas so far. I'm pretty busy working on orders in the studio at this time of year.

The centerpiece on our farmhouse table is very natural and simple. I tied some honeysuckle vine into a wreath and placed it on an old silver platter. Tuck in some greens (I used preserved eucalyptus). I placed a burlap candle in the center and filled the space with pinecones, dried pomegranates and dried artichokes. Simple, natural and rustic.  I've put together more centerpiece ideas using rustic planters and trays HERE.

My favorite addition to the dining room is the chair I just made over in Provence. It was a curbside find and I wanted it specifically for a vignette piece to add a pop of color to our dining room. Here I wrapped an old dictionary in "birch" wrapping paper topped with a basket of collected wine corks. Did we drink all of that wine? 

 The corner tree is done pretty natural this year with grapevine, crystal branches and cotton stems. It's topped with a silver glittered snowflake which now has the perfect vintage patina. Our distressed tray is ready to serve wine and a few accessories make it festive. My favorite vintage seltzer bottle gets a green velvet bow and some old silver is simply filled with some preserved greens and hydrangea.

This little table is always good for a little vignette. I painted this rustic tree on some framed boards, and added some preserved greens and birch twigs to an old cast iron urn.  A preserved Christmas floral adds a pop of red and another birch wrapped book adds a little height. I like to use battery tea lights around twigs and greens.

I do change things up each year so if you want to see how we decorated in 2014, click HERE.

Be sure to visit the many talented bloggers that participated in the party below!

An InLinkz Link-up

A coupon for your holiday shopping.

Today through Monday 11/30/15. 

Use it on our WEBSITE or ETSY shop.

Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving...

Wishing you a very Happy Thanksgiving!!
Enjoy!

New Shop Items, florals, art, decorating

Preserved Florals...long lasting. Can be kept for years if care instructions are followed.

Find them HERE.

New planter design. Find these and more HERE.

Cotton stems! Love them...instant farmhouse style. Shop cotton HERE. 

New photo canvas art mounted on board and framed in barnwood.  Can be found HERE.

Curated Sale at Lavender Fields

I was so excited when Lori from Lavender Fields asked me to choose my favorite products from her gorgeous shop for her first curated sale. How fun it was to "shop" for beautiful chandeliers, furniture and accessories. You can still shop my favorites HERE for 20% off until October 28th!

The Study Lounge

Our home is a 2 story colonial with the bedrooms all on the second floor. One of the bedrooms is pretty small at 9' x 9 1/2'. It has always served as a home office. We had a pretty large desk/wall unit in there that 3 people could easily work at. Instead it was a dumping room with piles of books and supplies on the desk...always a mess. And where did the kids (all 4 of them) end up doing their homework? They would work on the couch, kitchen table, dining room table or their bed! Which meant more backpacks and schoolwork spread all over the house. So, I had an idea to put the small couch from the playroom in the office and relocate the desk....creating a study lounge. They love it!
Come on in!

Since the room is so small I will rotate the photos around the room.  A lounge is not complete without a TV...only for when HW is done:)

I will show you inside the closet in a minute. I think my honey did a great job on the window molding! We may get around to changing the door molding too, but the window was new so we were working from scratch.  One of my favorite vintage folding chairs is a perfect extra seat. Also LOVE the color of the blinds. I will share all resources at the end of this post.

We went with a rustic theme in this room. There are tons of tutorials for plank walls. We used 1/4" plywood ripped into varying widths and lengths and just nailed them up. We did paint the wall behind the planks a much darker grey so any spaces between the boards would not be so visible. I used a combination of stains and paint to achieve the weathered finish.

Planning on a large clock for this blank wall on the right. It's on my long to-do list:)

Not enough room on either side of couch for an end table so we built a small shelf on each side made of pallet wood.

 Perfect for the phone, remote or a drink. And pumpkins too!

I had fun with the gallery wall. A combination of favorite vacation photos, and inspirational words (it is a "study" lounge).  But I also wanted it to be a room the kids could relax in. What's nice about it is that they can come up here, close the door and get their work done without being in the middle of the house during dinner prep and all the rest of the chaos going on downstairs. And for the ones working late at night, we can go to bed and feel better about the kids being upstairs while they finish up their work.

It took a while but we found the perfect picture for over the couch. There was a fine art photographer next to me at a recent art show I participated in. We had a view of this photo the entire weekend and couldn't stop looking at it. The one we saw was about 4ft x 4ft and $3600. We were happy to find a much smaller print of this peaceful shot of a crab farmer in China. My husband made the perfect frame for it and I think it helps to give that relaxed feeling in the study lounge.

I still felt it necessary to have a small desktop for when the kids wanted to work on a computer. The closet was a perfect spot for this and to store all of the supplies needed for getting homework done.

 Shelves above hold baskets of extra supplies and textbooks and study guides. The shelf below the desk holds each of their laptops. Everything has a place...yay!

A charging station is on the left...I never knew these USB outlets existed!

And a custom made shelf/pencil cup holder is perfect for keeping the desktop free of clutter.

This room has been amazing. We finished it just before school began and they've been enjoying it ever since! The couch also opens up to a bed so this room also serves as a guest room. Couldn't do that with the big desk in here before!


Resource list:

Wall and ceiling color: Sherwin Williams Light French Gray

Trim: Benjamin Moore Linen White

Sofa: Ikea

Throw pillows: H&M and Michael's

Gallery wall: Inspirational signs-Hydrangea Home, Industrial Metal number 6-Country Living Fair, Galvanized M-Michael's Craft Store

Photo over couch: John Deng Fine Art Photography

Baskets in closet: Michael's Craft Store

Lighting: Lowes Outdoor lighting department - Portfolio Ellicott Galvanized Outdoor Wall light

Blinds: Home Depot - Home Decorators Collection - Driftwood Flatweave Bamboo Roman Shade

See more of our home improvement projects HERE.

Fall Tablescape Styling Idea

Now that school is back in session, fall will be here soon. Yay! My favorite season! I don't know which I love more, the food or the decorating. So I want to give you some styling ideas for a fall inspired tablescape. This one is set up for a cocktail hour. So fun to create and very simple.

Come on in!

Looks like a lot of work, but it's a very simple menu. I picked up almost all of it at Trader Joe's. 

A small charcuterie board served on slate includes manchego cheese, chianti salami, apple slices, mango chutney, dried cranberries, and farmhouse cheddar with a honey drizzle. 

A few appetizers from the frozen dept....mushroom turnovers, chicken parm pops, pastry bites with carmelized onions and feta cheese. Yum!

I found some delicious pumpkin salsa from my local Fresh Market store, served with blue and white tortillas. 

Some dipping pretzels with stone ground mustard and a bowl of mixed nuts.

I used a box of butternut squash soup for these mini tasting bowls. I love the little spoons! I added a dollop of greek yogurt and sprinkled a little berbere spice for color and a kick!  A grey linen napkin tied with jute and a sage sprig makes the perfect cozy for a loaf of french bread. (from our line of European Linens HERE).

Some wine and pumpkin ale of course! I rimmed these small tasting glasses with a cinnamon sugar mix. So good!

So that's the food, now for the decorating. I always start with my layers...trays, platters, platforms, crates.  I lay it out keeping the flow in mind and the reach. You want it all to be easily accessible. 

You can use tablecloths too but I prefer some linen napkins here and there, I like to see the wood of the farm table (not just because my husband made it ;)  

Now for the the fun stuff! Flowers and props! Keep it simple. I have one large centerpiece down the center and I just coordinated everything else with the green/burgandy preserved hydrangeas.  These pears were the perfect color and I love decorating with produce. You can eat the decorations after! These artichokes are dried however, so no consuming.

Just a few paper mache pumpkins from the shop (because I couldn't find any real ones yet:)

I hope I gave you some ideas for your next dinner party, get together or holiday! Would love to see your tablescape photos. Please share!