pewter+sage

silver + gold + evergreen

2009-12-16T22:30:00.002-05:00

Hi! Got another paper project to share with you...this one is related to the holidays and not weddings:)

One of my readers, Allison (hi, Allie!), got in touch asking if I do other things besides just wedding invites. Of course I answered "For sure!" and then "Thanks so much!". She was wondering if I'd make her and her husband some custom holiday cards. As its just her and him (no kids yet), they don't do the photo card thing (P and I either) and she thought something hand-crafted and unique would be a special way to send warm wishes to their family and friends.

I was super excited to take on this project...I've only done custom wedding paper stuff the last few years, but I've always wanted to branch out into other celebratory life events, babies, birthdays, Christmas! I sincerely want to thank Allison for seeing the potential in my work and trusting me with the opportunity to try something new. Plus, now I've got a brand new internet friend:)P

Allison told me a bit about her holiday style...she loves silver and white with touches of gold, is drawn to snowmen, wreaths and trees, and was looking for something "a bit unexpected and slightly nontraditional, but not too modern". After chatting a bit more, I discovered that Allison and Dan live very close to the shore...he surfs and fishes, she has a side business creating hand-painted nautical infant apparel. It was obvious that the water played a big part in their lives, so why not go for a coastal Christmas?!

After a first round of card concepts, we settled on the idea of sea shell ornaments - in a classic, hanging on the tree, naturally elegant sort of way. A wide border of silver metallic card stock (along with a matching silver metallic envelope) added that holiday shimmer that Allie was looking for. We brought in a touch of seasonal color to the metallic mix by making the tree branch a subtle green.

What do you think? Did we nail a sophisticated nautical Christmas? Would you mind terribly getting this in the mail, with a hand-written note in silver pen from Allie? I sure didn't:)

PS. For some more silver, gold, and green holiday inspiration, go check out this gorgeous holiday dinner soiree photo shoot that Kathryn over at Snippet and Ink posted today...so beautiful!

Holiday Home Tour: Part II

2009-12-13T22:21:00.003-05:00

Hi! Happy Holidays!!! Today I'm psyched to be joining in on the Nester's Christmas Tour of Homes 2009. This is going to be big, people (last year when Boo Mama hosted there were over 900 participants!!)...head over and check it out, then settle in for some great holiday cheer, you could spend all day looking at these wonderful links.

On Friday I posted the first part of our Christmas decorating...spots like the foyer and kitchen. Today I'll show you around the rest of the place...and I'll try not to talk too much:)

******living room*******

{I hung this square wreath from Target over the mirrors above the sofa}

{I love mercury glass for the holidays}

{gotta display the Christmas books...that's The Polar Express on the bottom}

{the mantel}

******family room*******

{the black ledge shelves above the couch}

{more empty boxes wrapped up as presents}

{branches from the yard in a mercury glass vase, DIY art}

{love my new mercury glass ornaments I received from nestie wade-n-maria in the thenest.com Decorating & Renovating Ornament Exchange}

{real pine and white cedar garland on the entertainment center}

{my Willow Tree Nativity Set that I cherish...I love putting these guys up every year, I talk to them as I arrange them!}

******dining room*******

{real 14" pine wreaths on the french doors...I love having fresh greenery around}

{more ornaments and fresh greens}

******downstairs bath*******

{star ornaments from Target hung on the shower...nobody showers down here!}

{fresh winter berries}

Thanks so much for stopping by! (And for having me over.) Lots of thanks to the Nester for hosting us, its been a lot of fun. Hope everyone has a great holiday:)

Ps. Urgghhh...what is up with my centering? I have everything set to centered and its all off - text, photos - its been like this for awhile. Anyone know what could be going on?

Holiday Home Tour: Part I

2009-12-10T22:25:00.003-05:00

Hello! Happy Friday! Christmas is 2 weeks from today!!! Wow, hard to believe. About the only thing I have done is our holiday decorating:)

Julia is having her Hooked on Holiday House Tours over at Hooked on Houses today, so thought I'd join in with some pics of our foyer and kitchen. Can't wait to spend some time peaking in at everyone else's place.

On Monday the Nester is having her Christmas Tour of Homes so I'll post some more pics for that (like our living and family rooms, etc.). I was not part of blog land this time last year, so it's so fun to see how much everyone around here gets in the spirit.

Well, come on in!

{these are the huge lanterns I snagged at HomeGoods last year. Usually they're inside, but I put them outside and lit the candles for our party this weekend and they were beautiful...got lots of compliments}

Don't be a hater, but I just buy my wreaths instead of making them! (What? This is a skill too!) I can't help it, I love fresh greenery. And there's something about boxwood that I am just drawn to...so I treat myself to a fresh circular wreath from the local nursery for our front door every year.

And it goes on our silver engraved wreath hanger from Pottery Barn. (I asked for it one year for Christmas!)

Mini pumpkins came down from the transom window above the front door and up went these silver ornaments on green grosgrain ribbon.

I did a kind of green, brown, silver color theme for the bookcase in the foyer.

My somewhat small but still lovable collection of mini-trees goes on top.

My best friend from college gave me the one on the left. He's got little tin cookie cutter ornaments hanging on him. My mom gave me the Christmas weeping willow (with stars) and the burlap guy with spots of snow.

One of my favorite easy holiday decorating projects to do is to wrap up random boxes as gifts with pretty paper that matches my color scheme. (I love paper and pattern and have a ton of it hanging around, so its free too.)

{I swapped out the fall colored books on the bottom shelf for green and brown ones.}

I've got this garland on the bannister going up the stairs.

I don't really do much in the kitchen, but it took just a second to put some more of my wrapped boxes from last year onto the ledge shelves.

It's become tradition that while I'm at the nursery getting the boxwood, I buy a few real pine wreaths (these are 14") for our inside doors too. I just use wide satin ribbon and a small nail in the top of the door to hold them. Here's the door in our kitchen that leads down to the garage.

Thanks for stopping by!! Check out our holiday mantel here or the centerpieces for our holiday open house last weekend here. I love this time of year:)

Ps. Duh, its Friday. That means its Holiday Linky Friday over at the Inspired Room...I'm linking up to that too. Thanks, Melissa!

Update: My Blue Mason Jar

2009-12-09T15:10:00.000-05:00

Hey there! While decorating for the holidays I finally found a spot for my lucky #13 blue Ball mason jar I got this September at the Brimfield Fair. Figured I'd show you guys where he ended up.

When we first bought and put together our huge entertainment center from JC Penney, I just kinda threw anything in there to fill it up. The bookshelf to the right of the tv ended up looking like this. Kinda blah.

{the before}

Here's the much better after:

{the after}

When I took down the fall mantel to put up the holiday mantel, I was left not knowing what to do with this great photograph I purchased this summer on our trip to Prince Edward Island. I decided it would look good over here on the entertainment center in place of the lantern I had there. But it needed to be a bit taller....insert books in the right color and it was looking much better. Then I remembered my blue jar and how I didn't know where to put it. Bingo! Now this side of the EC has a more coordinated color scheme that really plays off the pale green walls in here:)

Greens, Berries, Burlap and Ticking

2009-12-07T23:37:00.000-05:00

Hi! Well, we had another successful holiday open house at our place on Saturday! We had about 50 friends, family and neighbors over throughout the evening for appetizers, desserts and drinks. This is our 3rd year hosting in this house and then we did it a few years before when we lived in P's 1 bedroom condo. Each year I am slightly more prepared and slightly less like a chicken running around without a head during the actual party. Mostly this is because my sister (you remember, the infamous MOH) comes up from Manhattan to stay with us for the weekend and acts basically as my slave (thank you again, Laura!). I have also been taking virtual lessons from a genius in the entertaining department - the hilarious, generous and super talented Katie of Good Things Catered.

So, as a testament to how much more together I was this year than last year, I actually have pictures to share! Of course, they're not pictures of like everything all ready right before the first guests walked in the door, because well, that happened while I was still doing stuff (oops) but they are of the "centerpieces" I "made" for both the kitchen and dining room tables.

{the kitchen}

We've learned a good set up that works well for our party...all drinks (beer, wine, sodas/waters, both signature punches - one champagne based and one vodka based) are in the dining room. This gets people to actually enter this room and walk around:) The kitchen table is the desert table..since its right in the middle of where everyone hangs out we figure its easy for them to grab a cookie or cupcake. Cold apps on the kitchen island and family and living room coffee tables, hot apps are passed by the previously mentioned slave, the MOH.

So I wanted "centerpieces" for both the kitchen and dining room and I wanted them to coordinate. I don't own that many table linens so I figured I'd rig up my own with some fabric. I ran into Joann's Fabrics one night in search of some burlap and ticking...I wanted a somewhat rustic natural vibe but with a bit of whimsy. I got a big piece of burlap for the dining room (I wanted to protect the table) but didn't think I needed it for the kitchen table as its already a natural wood color and been pretty beat up over the years. I also bought one long piece of red ticking fabric that was wide enough that I could cut it in half and use it as a runner in both the kitchen and dining room.

{the dining room table...see, I told you I didn't have everything out and ready yet. But here's the backdrop for all the drinks. Picture lots of pretty glasses, a big galvanized bucket of sodas, punch in a huge glass container, etc.}

You have probably noticed by now that I love nature, and I love incorporating it inside for the holidays. I also love to pretty much just leave it as it is, let it sort of speak for itself. I had a vision of lots of fresh greens in different containers. I went to the local nursery and got bunches of white cedar and boxwood. And lots of winter berries. I picked pine boughs from our yard. Then I just arranged them in different things...this tall white ceramic pitcher, a galvanized tin bucket, a white tea pot, the mugs from my white beaded dish set, mason jars, glass vases.

I also wanted lots of candlelight. So I randomly placed little mini glass votives (that I've had forever and just put a new candle in each time) and these pretty mercury glass gold and silver votives I found last week at Michaels around all the greens. I also saved, washed and peeled the labels off a few jars of food we ate over the last few weeks and put a votive candle in each of them. Of course I took these photos during the day, a few hours before the party had started, so you don't get to see everything lit and glowing. It was so pretty:)

In the dining room I hung 2 mercury glass ornaments from the chandelier. I looove these ornaments...they are from Crate and Barrel and were actually a gift to me this year from an online friend (over on the Decorating and Renovating board of the nest.com we do an Ornament Exchange every year, these were 2 of the 5 beautiful ornaments I recieved from nestie wade-n-maria - thanks, girl!!).

One of the new menu items I made this year were the Chocolate Candy Cane Cupcakes I found floating around blogland (yum!). I made these little tent signs (in brown script with green dots) for each food item so that guests would know what they were getting themselves into:)

So unfortunately that's all you get to see of our Holiday Kick-Off Open House! But I promise next year that I'll be even more prepared and vow to be ready a whole 10 minutes before the party starts so that I can take photos of everything actually set up!!! Did you guys go to any fun holiday events this weekend?

I just realized its Tuesday and so I'm going to hook this post up to DIY Day at Kimba's:) Yay!

Mood Board Monday: Holiday Version

2009-12-06T23:00:00.004-05:00

Hi! Welcome to the 3rd Mood Board Monday!!! So glad you could join us. The first ever Mood Board Monday was the work of the wonderful Pk over at Room Remix...check out that party here. Then Tracy from Comfort and Luxury hosted the second party...check it out here.

Now we are back for the 3rd installment...and its holiday time!! This week's challenge was to design a room of your choice around one (or more) of these holiday throw pillows:

{Hand-Painted Snowman Linen Pillow Cover from Pottery Barn}

{PEACE Holiday Hemp Pillow from NestaHome's shop on etsy.com}

{Tidings Pillow from Crate and Barrel}

{Present Pillow by Olive's shop on etsy.com}

*********

Here's my Mood Board for the week. I was inspired by the PB Snowman Linen pillow cover as well as NestaHome's PEACE hemp pillow (I love anything with text!). They're graphic style and rustic textures inspired me to design a family room that's soft and airy with pops of dark and fun pattern. It's a comfortable and cozy room with hints of elegance and sophistication. I'd use a ton of natural greenery...nature is one of my biggest inspirations no matter what season it is:)

1. The palette: light, airy and neutral with dark pops of black/brown. Paint color something soft and taupey like Benjamin Moore Edgecomb Gray.
2. Bayside Sofa from Crate and Barrel in Snow (fitting, huh?)
3. Hand-Painted Snowman Linen Pillow Cover from Pottery Barn
4. PEACE Hand-Stamped Pillow by NestaHome on etsy (hand-stamped using antique text printing blocks)
5. The infamous Brickmaker's Table from Restoration Hardware
6. Rustic Wood Accent Tables from Pottery Barn
7. Nautical Stripe Rug from William Sonama in black
8. I'd use tons of natural greenery, garlands, wreaths all around. Maybe even pick it from my backyard, since this room is in a fabulous farmhouse somewhere in the country:)
9. Wire Christmas Village from Ballard Designs
10. I'd also wrap gifts and use them as decor with paper like the Moss Winter Berries and Moss Flourish from Paper Source.
11.Sterling Forest Wall Art from West Elm
12. Chloe Lantern from Pottery Barn
13. Must have tons of mercury glass accents like these Hurricanes and Demijohns from Ballard Designs.

*********

Now its your turn! Here's what you do to join the party:

1. Create a mood board using one of the above inspiration pillows.
2. Write a post about it, including sources (with a link back to this post so others can come look).
3. Add your name and project to the MckLinky here on this post (for example - Sarah's Rustic/ Elegant Family Room).
4. Then add the link to your SPECIFIC MBM POST, not your general blog address.
5. Have fun checking out all the other wonderful rooms.

Thanks so much for joining the party!!!

Our Holiday Mantel

2009-12-04T10:41:00.001-05:00

Happy Friday!!! Thank you so much for all your comments, advice and suggestions for our flooring dilemma. I really appreciate you sharing your experiences and opinions with us, this is definitely going to help going forward. I guess I need to look into each option more, get some quotes for refinishing the floors, etc. I'm terrible at this part of a project, I just want to be doing it!! I'll keep you posted and probably ask a lot more questions:)

*********

Just a quick reminder that Monday (the 7th) is our first Mood Board Monday MckLinky party over here. We're doing a sort of holiday throw pillow theme, here's the original post with the inspiration pieces and rules. Hope a lot of you can join us, its wicked fun! If you have any questions, let me know:)

*********

Ok, and now for some Christmas pics! Most of our decorating is done (our annual holiday open house is tomorrow, please wish me luck), but just had time so far to take some photos of our mantel.

It's mostly the same as last year with the addition of the mercury glass tree I scored at the after Christmas sales last year at HomeGoods. I started "swagging" my garland last year as opposed to just running it straight along the top of the mantel and I'm really liking it.

This is just a fake garland that I strung lights on. I also added these little ice crystal things for some sparkle and some gilded magnolia leaves for some warm tones.

I've been loving mercury glass lately, so I've started myself quite a collection:) More sprinkled around the house that you'll see soon.

Hope everyone has a great first weekend of December!!! Hopefully I'll have some pics next week from the party...if I'm ready in time and remember to take them:)

The Great Floor Debate Part II

2009-12-02T21:55:00.001-05:00

Hello again! Wow, thanks everyone for all your great input on our flooring dilemma! It is awesome to come to blogland and find so many people who share a passion for the same thing, who have different experiences and ideas to contribute. Thank you!!

For anyone just joining in, you can catch up here...but basically we are trying to figure out the best way to solve this problem:

No, your eyes do not deceive you...that's 4 different types of flooring in our downstairs. Yikes! This means we have awkward and unsightly transitions like this between the living room and entryway/kitchen:

And like this between the entryway/kitchen and the dining room:

The great floor debate started because we really need/want to replace the carpet in the living room, family room and stairway (did I mention it's nasty?). First we considered new carpet...these will be play areas eventually when we are hopefully blessed with children (that's a whole other post!). But now we are leaning more towards hardwood for the ease of cleaning and general aesthetic. (Can any of you moms out there chime in on carpet vs. hardwood for kids? We would of course have area rugs in both rooms which would hopefully give us that soft, roll around on the floor with the kiddos feeling.) Plus if we put in new carpet, we would still have the same problem - too many types of flooring in one space.

{said nasty carpet in the living room}

So we assumed the next logical option would be to rip up the carpet and put down the same solid hardwood floors with a cherry finish that the previous owners installed in the kitchen and entryway. We found an extra box of hardwood in the garage, so we had a flooring guy we know search around until he found a supplier who could give us more of the same stuff. What we didn't realize was how expensive this stuff was...seems like the previous owners didn't skimp on their new floors. (Maybe they couldn't afford to continue them into the dining room?!) So, we could put the cherry floors in the living room and family room, it would just cost a lot. Which is totally fine, I completely see the value in this and think its worth it, its just that these are not the floors I would have chosen if I was starting from scratch. I really like them, they're a beautiful color, very unique...but not what I would choose if I had my druthers.

{the kitchen now}

Hmmm. So should we spend a whole lot of money on something we are only 75% happy with? Or should we spend less on floors we really like a whole lot? But then we are back to square one.

Paul mostly goes along with whatever I want in terms of home stuff (he has good taste...for a guy) but he has a strong opinion when it comes to what kind of hardwood floors he likes. He wants a dark finish. Darker than cherry. Like an espresso. I think Holly of Life in a Fun Lane's floors might be slightly too dark for him, but they are alot closer to what he wants than what we have.

{gorgeous, no?!}

So if a darker finish were all we were after, then I suppose we could:

1. install new dark finish hardwoods in the living room and family room that are the same width as the kitchen's cherry floors (3 1/4")

2. sand and refinish the kitchen/entryway floors in a darker stain to "match" the new new floors

3. get the dining room on board by either installing the new new dark wood floors in there or also sand and stain the oak to be darker even though it would be skinnier planks

What are your thoughts on this? Speaking of darker finishes, can anyone out there with dark floors comment on how hard they are to keep clean?

But, besides a darker finish (or maybe we should just say less red!), I would really love a wider board. And something with a bit more texture to it. Remember this pic I posted a while ago from Rate My Space?

I love how the wide floors look. I've been inspired a lot lately by a more coastal, farmhouse, pastoral manor vibe (I have no idea what to call this combo but I like it!). I think wide floors would help this look. (It's ok that we have a colonial, right?)

I found some solid hardwood I loved at Home Depot on one of my recent research trips (and it was a couple of dollars cheaper per square foot than the cherry floors). It wide, medium to dark brown, with a slightly darker variation at the edges of each board, and it has some distressed areas, dips to it that add that look that its been there forever. Then I realized they're pretty much the same floors that Janell of Isabella and Max Room's has! And that confirmed that I really like them, because this woman has style and supremely good taste. (Janell, hope you don't mind I borrowed a couple of pics - thanks!)

So if I had my druthers (at this current moment in time), these are the floors I would choose for our whole downstairs. But that would mean completely ripping up 2 other sets of floors (the old oak in the dining room and the new cherry in the kitchen). That seems sort of sad and that's still alot of money.

Do you think there's any way that we could get these new wide floors and still make our other wood floors somehow work? Sand and refinish both the other 2 sets...so then we would have 3 different width floors with similiar tones? Or we could also put the new wide floors in the dining room, then that would only leave the kitchen and foyer?

Now, completely unrelated to any of the options above, here's something else I'm throwing out there. I have considered...wait for it....don't freak...painting the dining room floor! Ever since I saw this image on design*sponge, I can't get the idea of a patterned painted floor somewhere in our house out of my head.

I know lots of people cringe when you mention painting over wood floors, but obviously in this instance, these dining room floors are going to be messed with either way. It would probably be bad for resale, but we are not going anywhere anytime soon, so I'd be doing this for me/us. Maybe it could be a temporary solution? Maybe I'm crazy?!

Ok, so I should probably stop typing soon and probably just post this already, right? If you are still with me at this point, what do you think about all this? Do any of these options seem viable? Does this post even make sense? What would you do? Have any of you out there had your wood floors restained a new color? Help!!!! Thanks so much, you guys are the best!

The Great Floor Debate Part I

2009-12-01T15:55:00.003-05:00

So P and I need your help with something. The Great Floor Debate. Let me explain. We currently have 4 different types of flooring in our downstairs:

1. Kitchen and Entryway: new solid hardwood floors in a cherry finish (3/4" thick by 3 1/4" wide) that the previous owners installed

2. Dining Room: old hardwood skinny floors that the previous owners left alone when they redid the kitchen floors (not sure if they are oak, pine, etc...any guesses?)

3. Living Room, Family Room and Stairs: very old and nasty cream-colored carpet. mysterious stains seem to pop up daily.

4. Bathroom: lovely (and I mean not so lovely) green tile that we can live with.

Here, look. I made you a visual:)Now that you're caught up on the background info, I think I'll make this 2 posts. Come back tomorrow to help us decide what to do about this debacle. Because we all know how inconsistency in flooring makes a space feel smaller and more chopped up. And nobody likes nasty carpet. Thanks!

Real Rooms: Mom and Dad's Holiday Decor

2009-11-30T13:55:00.000-05:00

Hi!! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and holiday weekend. We did, it was so nice to have 5 days off from work and get a chance to recharge, spend some qt with the family. I'm going to have to go on a diet for the next month to counteract everything I ate over the last few days though!!! I guess its back to the real world/daily grind now, but with Christmas less than a month away, there's that spirit in the air that makes everyday feel a bit more special:)

While we were home at my parent's house for Thanksgiving, we helped Mom and Dad put up their Christmas decor. Thought I'd share a few pics with you guys.

Garland on the stair banisters is a must in our house. To this one we added white starfish and red satin bows.

Mom hangs these faux cranberry small wreaths on every other step. Once it gets closer to Christmas, she'll hang our stockings off the alternating steps since the fireplace doesn't have a traditional mantel.

Larger berry wreaths hang on these wreath stand things, the closer one in the main entryway at the bottom of the stairs, the farther one in the corner of the dining room.

Here's a shot looking back at the entryway once you are inside the house and on your way to the main living area. One of the things I love about my parent's house is that they had all the interior doors in the downstairs painted high-gloss black. I love how dramatic the doors are now..to me they make the house feel like its in the middle of a European estate or something.

I've posted about my mom and dad's living room before...check it out here if you want to see it sans holiday decor. Their tree is gigantic...there are full 2 story ceilings in here, so they make the most of the vertical space. When we were growing up, we would go and dig up a real tree (root ball and all) and after Christmas my dad would plant it in our yard (amazing to watch them all grow there year after year) but now they have this very tall fake guy. Here he is while we were fluffing out all his smooshed branches and adjusting the lights.

And here he is all finished...we only ended up putting up about half of the ornaments we have this year.

Added a couple of holiday candle rings to Mom's collection of candlesticks and its beginning to look a lot like Christmas:)

So, have you started your holiday decor yet?

A Few Days Off

2009-11-24T16:15:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post to say that I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! P and I are heading out of town tomorrow morning for the holiday and the rest of the weekend. I can't wait! I'm looking forward to spending some relaxing time with these guys...

This is the wrong holiday (Easter) and was taken oh around 1985 or '86...but that's me in the plaid get-up, my sister Laura with the bowl cut, and my little brother Tom in the suspenders and bow-tie. When I get home tomorrow I'll yet at my mom for making us dress like this:)

Happy early Thanksgiving, everyone!!! Have a great holiday and see you next week!

My New Pillow

2009-11-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

Remember these grey plaid pillows I spied and wanted while shopping at Target a few months ago? (If not, read this!) I thought they would look great as fall and winter pillows in my family room. They were $19.99 back at the beginning of September.

Guess what? I'm the proud owner of one now...and I scored if for half price, only $9.99:)

I ran into Target one night after work a few weeks ago for some toiletries, and took a quick stroll down the seasonal accessory aisle. To my surprise and good fortune, they were clearing out all the "fall" stuff to get ready for the holiday stuff. They had 4 of these pillows left and they were reduced down to $9.99. I figured it was fate. But to be good, I bought only 1 instead of 2.

This weekend we started putting up the Christmas decor (I wouldn't normally do it this early but we aren't going to have much time once we get back from Thanksgiving and our party is the following weekend). I took down the brown and orange fall pillows, and now the new plaid pillow is sitting on the sofa in the family room...right where I envisioned it.

I love it next to the black pin-striped wool lumbar pillow I snagged a few years back at Crate and Barrel. These two don't scream holidays, but their texture, color, pattern and fabric say cozy winter to me.

********************

Speaking of the holidays and throw pillows...just a reminder that the next Mood Board Monday is 2 weeks from today on Monday, December 7th.

Design a room decorated for the holidays with 1 (or more) of these 4 inspirational throw pillows as your starting point.

{Hand-painted Snowman Linen Pillow Cover from Potter Barn}

{PEACE Holiday Hemp Pillow from NestaHome's etsy shop}

{Tidings Pillow from Crate and Barrel}

{Present Pillow by Olive's etsy shop}

For my original post with all the rules, click here. Hope to see you December 7th for the Mood Board Monday McLinky party!!

********************

If you want to make a mood board and maybe win something (the above is just for fun and to see what we all come up with), check out this mood board contest that Susan of Love Where You Live is hosting. She's pairing up with The Green Plum, a home furnishings boutique, to reward the top 3 designs with fabulous prizes. Head on over to see the 4 beautiful one-of-a-kind pieces that you get to choose from to kick-off your room. Deadline is December 5th. Good luck!!!

Rustic Elegance

2009-11-20T09:30:00.001-05:00

Thanks everyone for your super nice comments on our living room yesterday. It is the room in our house I'm the least happy with, so thanks for the encouragement:)

Phew, TGIF!!! Uh oh though, this means our annual holiday party is going down exactly 2 weeks and 1 day from now! (Usually we have it the weekend before Christmas, but this year we had to change the date and are doing it way early.) That is not much time to get everything done. So, I'm starting today with a holiday decor post..which means I can also link up to Melissa of The Inspired Room's Holiday Linky Party. Head over there to check out lots of holiday projects, pics and posts:)

Here are some inspiration pics that speak to my holiday decorating style. I love using natural greenery and I don't like to do much to it, just let it be. Wreaths, garland, berries, boxwood, branches. I also love using metallic at Christmas time...silver, gold, copper, bronze and especially mercury glass. Mixed with white. And some rustic, organic brown elements. Plus paper, I love paper. With its unlimited possibilities of color, pattern, sheen, texture, its perfect to use at the holidays. Doesn't take much to make me happy:)

{above images all from BHG}

Thanks for hosting, Melissa! And have a great weekend everyone!

The Living Room

2009-11-19T11:59:00.001-05:00

Hey! How's your day going? So I realized yesterday that I haven't shown most of you much of my living room yet. Oooh, goodie, instant new post:)

Our "living room" is the room directly to the right and at the front of the house off the foyer when you come in the front door. Here's what it looked like on move in day. That opening on the left takes you down a step into our "family room", which was part of an addition to the house before we bought it.

You've seen my fireplace. Right now it looks like this for fall. It will change soon for the holidays. (Every year we host an annual holiday open house...its like our thing. Usually its the weekend right before Christmas, this year we have to have it on Sat. Dec. 5th, which is in like 2 weeks!! Yikes. I'm thinking I have no choice but to start the decorating this weekend. Sorry, Thanksgiving.)

The living room has a bit of an awkward layout but we tried our best to work with it. There's 3 doorways and 3 windows and 1 fireplace...lots of things to arrange around. We ended up with 2 club chairs in chocolate brown leather (from Boston Interiors) on either side of the fireplace, facing away from it towards the wall with the sofa on it.

I took most of these pics sometime over the summer (oops), so a few things are different now. Above was summer, below is fall.

If you back up and take in more of the room, it looks something like this. (Not the greatest pic, sorry.)

Turning around, the only place we could see fit to put the sofa was on this wall, opposite the fireplace. (That doorway on the left leads out to the foyer and the front door. There's another doorway on the right that you can't see that leads into the kitchen.)

{the sofa is from Bernie and Phyl's...here's 2 of my favorite things in the room, this hand-made wool throw my mother-in-law brought us back from Ireland and my Pottery Barn little knubby stitched floral pillow covers}

The coffee table and end table are from Target. We bought them 3 years ago when we moved in and before I really got more into home decor/design, started figuring out my style and what I like. So I'm not thrilled that they both match completely and I think they are a bit too much dark brown/espresso in this room with the dark brown leather chairs. But they're not terrible either.

Another issue with this room is the flooring. Right now its this nasty cream carpet. See the foyer in the back left down there? It and the kitchen have hardwood floors in a cherry finish. We are currently debating about what to do with the floor in here and the rest of the downstairs...this will have to be a separate post).

I've painted this room twice now. First I did Benjamin Moore's Danville Tan which turned out to be darker and greener than I wanted. Now its BM Smokey Taupe which I like alot better. The family room on one side a soft yellowy-gray-green (Sweet Spring) and the kitchen on the other side is a warm beige (Barharbor Beige), so I wanted something to bridge the gap in this room.

Does anyone remember the Crate and Barrel Dubois Mirrors? They're square, with a beveled edge and an antiqued look to some of the glass? These were my cheap knock-off finds at Michaels one day, mine were $14.99 each, the C&B ones were $150 for 2!! I flanked them with these botanical prints from HomeGoods.

I suck at window treatments. They totally scare me. They are expensive and permanent. When Layla from the Lettered Cottage made her drop cloth drapes, I loved the color and texture of them. Of course, I don't sew, am impatient and don't have alot of extra time on my hands..so instead of buying the drop cloth panels for $9.99 each and turning them into curtains, I just purchased these lineny drapery panels from Target for $19.99 each. Hee, hee.

I didn't want a lot of contrast between the drapes and the wall, I just didn't realize these were going to be the exact same color as the walls when I hung them. Hmmm. The windows in here are a longer story than just this, so I also think this requires another post.

So for now, this is our living room. There's some things I need to work on, some things I want to do, a whole wall I didn't show you because its frankly just too embarrassing:) But at least now you've met.

Thanksgiving Inspiration

2009-11-17T09:30:00.001-05:00

I know its that weird time where we all start thinking about the holidays and want to get a head start, but we still have Thanksgiving to get through..yum! So here's a few inspiration pics in case you haven't figured out what you're going to do for your table yet:)

{Country Living}

{Country Living}

{Yankee Magazine}

{Yankee Magazine}

{BHG}

{BHG}

{BHG}

{BHG}

{BHG}

{BHG}

{BHG}

Show Us Where You Live Friday: Bonus/Family Room

2009-06-19T11:23:00.001-04:00

Yay! Friday is here again!! Participating in Kelly's Show Us Where You Live Fridays is sure making the weeks fly by:)

This week is bonus rooms, laundry rooms or play rooms over at Kelly's Korner Blog. I'm going to sort of cheat by showing you our Family Room (I hadn't started doing these events yet when they did family rooms). It is a bonus room though...this part of the house (along with the master suite) was added on in 2003. Plus we do play here...and watch tv, eat dinner, entertain, and even sometimes fold laundry. Does that count? (Just nod your head.)

Here's a look at the empty room when we moved in. We love the high baseboards and french doors that lead out onto the front porch.

{the room up the steps is our living room and past that you can see the front door and entry way}

The first thing we did was paint. We love the new wall color, Sweet Spring by Benjamin Moore. This is kind of an outdated picture by now, but its from the same angle as the one above. We already had this smokey gray couch and matching loveseat and white coffee table from our previous condo. I know there are 2 different schools of thought on using an area rug on top of wall-to-wall carpet. I'm from the school of "if it helps define the space and pulls in colors from the rest of the room to help balance it out better than go for it!"

{we decided to switch things up and get black end tables, 2 different styles from the same line. by now we have some accessories on them!}

One of my problems in this room is this huge wall behind the long gray couch. For now I've hung 2 black ledge shelves we already had here but I think eventually I'm going to need something much large and more to scale here. But for now, I love using these ledge shelves as a seasonal decor spot. Here they are are in their various glory over the years:)

{this is how I have them set up now for spring and summer.}

{last fall}

{this past Christmas - see how that's the same weathered wood star I'm using for summer, I love when things are multi-purpose!}

This is how the room looks when you walk into it from the living room. Be careful, there's a step down there!! (Yes, people have fallen.)

{we love our entertainment center. its from JC Penney and is a total Pottery Barn knock-off for about 1/3 of the price. we really really needed this storage. I am still stuggling with how to balance decorating it to look good and storing what i need here. these pics are slightly outdated too, by now i've bought some nice matching baskets and used them to hide some of our paperback books, etc.}

This loveseat is the samestyle as the sofa and chair, we just got in a different fabric. My parents gave me these 6 framed botanical prints for my birthday this year (from Yankee Workshop). I thought they were just perfect for this space. Thanks, mom and dad!!

We tucked our comfy chair and ottoman into this corner to the left of the french doors. I love to read here.

And to the right of the french doors, we hung the signature mat from our wedding. The baskets on the glass and metal shelf hold magazines and our completely sorry collection of DVDs.

{gotta display my full hardback collection of Harry Potter! right now I'm rereading them for like the 5th time to get ready for "The Half Blood Prince" moving coming out this summer!}

We still have a bit to do in this room. We want to get new carpet and we need window treatments (we're thinking plantations shutters). And I need to figure out that big wall...any ideas?

Well, thanks for looking!!! And thanks again to Kelly for hosting! See you next week for Master Bedrooms:)

Show Us Where You Live Friday: Bathrooms

2009-06-12T09:59:00.000-04:00

Thank goodness this week is almost over! Let's celebrate again with Show Us Where You Live Friday over at Kelly's Korner. Today is bathrooms! Follow the link over to Kelly's to see hundreds of real bathrooms from all around the country (world?).

We have 3 full bathrooms in our house, but haven't done anything to the 2 upstairs yet. (Our master bath is ok. Our guest/kid's bath not so much, I think that needs a complete renovation and it scares me.) So I'll show you guys the downstairst bathroom, which we have actually worked on and which is coming along rather niceley:)

Here's a few before pics:

First on the agenda was new paint. (I actually started painting this room like the week after we moved in but only got one coat on one wall done. A month or 2 later P hired a painter to come and finish!! Oops. It wasn't cause I wasn't doing a good job, it was just taking me a little too long. Plus we wanted the painter to do the kitchen, so it made sense.) We choose a soft pale gray green called Nurture by Behr. We didn't love the green tile floor, but saw no reason to rip it up and start all over when it was in decent shape, so we thought a wall color that coordinated with the floor would make the green tile fade a bit more into the background and not be so noticeable. (It was jumping out at you with that lemon yellow color they had before.)

{trust me, you might be thinking this looks exactly like the new paint color in our office from last week's event, but its totally different. this is definitely green, and that was definitely blue!!}

Next up was to get a new mirror, light fixture and hardware. We liked the white pedestal sink, but not so much the oval mirror or previous lighting. We waited until the semi-annual Bath Even Sale at Restoration Hardware and got this new 3 arm sconce with fabric shades and new TP holder, towel ring, etc. (all from the Lugerno line).

Because this bathroom is fairly on the large side (for a downstairs powder room), we thought some architectural details might add interest and help it feel more cozy. P's dad installed this beadboard for us from Lowes.

And did you notice that awkward space to the left of the shower in the before pic? For some reason there was like a foot of space next to the shower with nothing in it. Too small for any cabinet or cupboard that we could find, so P's dad also built us these custom shelves to fit the space. Now we have storage!!! Miraculously, I found 6 of these covered baskets at Michaels that slide into the cubbies perfectly.

{I keep nothing related to the actual bathroom in these baskets!!! I have Christmas decorations, table linens, candles, paint swatches,and a bunch of other random stuff that I needed to put some where in them. That's the beauty of closed storage!}

{This is a page from a calendar about birds that I cut out and framed.}

{Not sure why there's a shower down here, we've only used it twice since we've lived here. But I love this taupey linen shower curtain that I found at the RH outlet and these fun dragonfly shower hooks from none other than the Christmas Tree Shop.}

Thanks for stopping by and checking out our bathroom! Thanks again to Kelly for hosting.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! Cross your fingers for good weather, P and I have an outdoor wedding to go to tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get some good photos to share on Monday:)

Show Us Where You Live Friday: Office

2009-06-05T11:29:00.001-04:00

Wow, Friday is here again? Cool! This week was a bit of a rough one (long work days), but I did manage to take some pics of our "Office" for Kelly's Show Us Where You Live Friday (I mean, you have to have priorities, right?!) If you haven't been over to Kelly's Korner Blog, check it out...last week she had over 400 participants for the Nursery event...that is awesome!!! I'm excited this week to see inside the spaces where everyone does their work. Our office is also my studio. And its not done yet. Very in progress. Here's what it looked like when we moved in:

This room was one of the seller's little boy's bedroom. Even though I love planes, trains and automobiles as much as the next girl, this wasn't exactly the vibe we were going for in our new office. Here's some inspiration images I have saved out of the the color palette I'm shooting for:

So the first step was new paint...and we aren't even done with this yet, so I'm just going to share with you some in progress and detail pics....sort of like a teaser:) Here's the paint going up. We chose Benjamin Moore Woodlawn Blue, a soft grayish/greenish blue because we wanted the space to feel light and bright and relaxing. Looove this paint color!

I guess the previous owners were not very good at painting. Look how much red paint is left on the baseboards (trust me, that is not wall, people, that is trim)!!! Now I guess I'm going to have to go and paint all the trim? Ugghhh. Just not as satisfying as painting a new wall color.

I'm still sort of figuring out how I want to organize everything in here. I need lots of drawers or shelves or cubbies or something for all the paper/supplies I use. My sister-in-law gave me this wall organizer from Michaels for Christmas. It made a dent in some of the little things I had lying around.

I snagged 2 of these large Pottery Barn dry/erase calendars (and some matching cork boards that I haven't hung yet) when they went on sale. Definitely helpful for keeping track of events, due dates, project deadlines and little notes to myself. I want to hang a long line of prints or photos or something evenly spaced out above the calendars on this wall.

I also purchased a few of these storage bins from Crate and Barrel. They are a lovely shade of charcoal gray with a canvas texture and the inside is lined in chartreuse green paper.

I have a couple of white 3 drawered little storage cabinets from Michaels that I'm keeping some of my paper in. The top surfaces of them also make good spots for functional and decorative items.

I still have a bunch of things on the to-do list in here.

finish painting!
figure out a work space (we have a round table and 4 chairs in our basement that I'm considering painting white, it would go against the wall with the calendars)
organize closet with filing cabinets and shipping supplies
hang cork boards
hang some wall art
organize desk
paint bookcase white?, organize bookcase
cover some boxes I already have with patterned paper for storage

I know there's loads more to do, but just making this list is stressing me out, so I'll stop there!! I'm going to leave you with a photo of the place I actually currently do most of my work...the kitchen table!! My loving husband does not mind when I leave in progress projects strewn all over it. Thanks, P!

And thanks again to Kelly for hosting! Hope everyone has a great weekend:)

Show Us Your Life: My Wedding Dress

2009-07-24T11:53:00.001-04:00

Remember Show Us Where you Live Fridays over at Kelly's Korner? Well, we've run out of rooms to look at, but Kelly still wanted to get everybody together on Fridays for some eye-candy and ideas. So today's event is to Show Us Your Life: Your Wedding Dress:) Yay, how fun! Next week's event will be about your flowers and bridal party. PS. next week is also our 4th anniversary!! This time 4 years ago I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off!

I had scheduled one day for dress shopping while I was home at my parent's house in PA over Christmas vacation. Unfortunately, my mom came down with something really serious and wasn't able to go that day...I was bummed, but I did have my sister (the MOH) who has always been there for me and isn't afraid to share her opinions. I also didn't go into dress shopping with any preconceived notions of what I wanted....I just knew I didn't want anything too froofy! I ended up getting the 2nd dress I tried on. Everything after that just couldn't compare.

To tell you the truth, I don't even know the dress' style number or name (how terrible a bride am I?). I do know it was from Forever Bridal and that I loved it:) Simple and elegant, not over the top, comfortable for the hot summer weather, easy to dance in, strapless, with a long horizontal pleated sash (is there a technical term for this?). Here's a pic I found on Google. You could choose from a million colors for the sash, I went with a very light silver. I didn't want a lot of contrast between the band and the white dress, and I had always pictured my girls wearing platinum dresses.

And here's some shots from our wedding day that tell the story of my dress. All the below images were taken by our amazing photographer, Erik Mysliwy of Perfect Wedding Photo.

{I love this triptych of images of my sister Laura carrying my dress from the room where we stayed the night before to the room where I would be getting dressed. Such a cool moment caught on film.}

{waiting to be worn}

{the girls helping me get into the thing}

{my sister-in-law Neeve tying my sash}

{messing around feeling pretty before we head to the church}

{Neeve doing up my bustle before we go into the reception}

{from the back so you can see what the bustle looked like. I spent A LOT of time on the dance floor!}

{spinning around on the golf course...just so you could see the color and how subtle the band is}

Thanks for continuing to host us, Kelly! I've met so many great bloggers through your Friday events.

Speaking of weddings, P and I are headed to upstate New York tonight (we're really into road trips lately) to attend the wedding of these guys tomorrow:

{This is Jason, one of my best friends from college, and his fiance Kim. You can just call him Monkey, I do!}

Can't wait to see these guys and celebrate their big day with them! They are a wonderful couple and we're so happy they found each other. Monkey and Kim asked me to design and make their invites as well, so I'm really grateful to have been a special part of this. (Thanks, guys...see you tomorrow!) And I'll talk to the rest of you next week, have a great weekend!!

Show Us Where You Live Friday: Master Bedroom

2009-06-26T14:46:00.002-04:00

It's Friday! Yay! Hope everyone had a good week. We finally saw the sun here in Boston yesterday afternoon for a few hours after days and days and days of rain and clouds and cold. Of course, its raining again now, so....

want to look at some master bedrooms for inspiration? Head over to Show Us Where You Live Friday at Kelly's Korner Blog. Today's room to share is your master bedroom. I'm slightly embarrassed to show ours because we haven't done very much yet to it and I don't have all that many pictures. But hopefully you'll like it:)

We do have a great space to work with though. The room is really large, it was part of an addition the previous owners added to the house in 2003 along with the family room on the first floor. They didn't add any attic space over this room though, so the ceilings of our bedroom are really high and peaked with the roof line. We have 4 windows, so we get alot of light. And this is one of the only rooms in the house we haven't repainted because we liked the dusty muted denim blue that was here on the walls when we moved in.

We wanted a new bed and mattress when we bought the house because our old bed was a queen and we were ready to upgrade to a king. We didn't quite know our style yet or where we wanted to head with the space, but we needed somewhere to sleep and somewhere to put our clothes right away...so we just went out and bought one of those complete bedrooms sets (with headboard, dressers, end tables, etc) that we liked for a fairly low price. We figured that this would do us fine for a bunch of years and then when we really knew what we wanted and were ready to committ to quality, long-term furniture we would treat ourselves or start building up a collection of replacements or additions over time.

My favorite part of the room is this photo collage we put above the bed. I wanted something a bit dramatic to take advantage of the high ceilings. These are 11 x 14 landscape photos of some of the places we've gone and adventures we've been on together over the years.

{My fave part of the bedroom set we got is the bench that came with it instead of a footboard. Inside I keep alot of my purses and bags, and its a great spot to throw clothes that are clean or sit and put on your shoes, etc.}

Here's the only other part of the room I'm going to show you, "my" dresser. P has his own (that's taller and narrower on the other side of the room - also holds our tv.)

So this room is really in progress. We still need window treatments, bedside lamps, wall art and more accessories. And then of course in a few years we'll probably start all over! If I were to get a new bed right now, I'd want something like this Farmhouse Canapoy bed from Pottery Barn. I think it would add great architectural detail to the room and really take advantage of the room's height.

I would also love to do something with the peaked ceiling. Maybe line it with white boards/planks like this:

or wood beams like this:

Something to add some character and make the grand space (which I know you can't get from my lousy photos, sorry!) feel a bit more cozy and intimate. Any ideas? Has anyone done this?

Thanks for looking and thanks again to Kelly! Hope you have a good weekend:)

Show Us Your Life: Wedding Reception

2009-08-07T12:22:00.002-04:00

Today at Kelly's Korner its another wedding installment of Show Us Your Life....everyone is going to be blogging about their reception:) Head on over there to read about hundreds of brides and how they celebrated on their big day.

Our wedding reception was awesome! Best time I've had in my life. When else do you have all the important people from all parts of your life in one place at one time with really good food, drinks and music?! Oh and I guess my new husband was there, so that part was cool too!

{looking back at the "club house" from the course}

We had our reception at the Ridge Club, a gated community and golf club on the cape (P loves golf, it was not a requirement for him that we have the reception at some sort of club house, it just worked out this way). We loved that the room did not feel like your typical function hall...it had brick floors and the walls were covered in traditional Cape Cod shingles, so you almost felt like you were outside instead of inside. The entire back wall of the room was covered in sliding french doors leading out onto a huge brick patio, luscious gardens, curving stone walls and the rolling green hills of the first hole. This is where we had the cocktail hour, with all the appetizers made on a huge outdoor grille. The bar was under the tent you see below for the whole night...we had gorgeous weather, so there was a great flow from inside to outside the whole evening...and this way, if you weren't into dancing, there was somewhere else to go and hang out.

{the patio, first hole to the left}

{the patio with some of our peeps}

{P playing around on hole 1 - where we had most of our group pics taken - with his niece, our flower girl}

I'm a bit disappointed that our photographer didn't get as many detail shots (of the flowers, signature matte, family photos, tables setup) as I would have liked. I think this was because during the cocktail hour we kept him too busy taking millions of family/friends group pics (lesson learned). But here's one photo of what the tables looked like. Crisp white linens and gold chivari chairs. Our florist was great and let me provide all the containers for the flowers...I collected/purchased a ton of square clear glass vases in different sizes and hot-glued random combinations of white, silver, sage and light blue ribbons around the middle (like a belt for the vase). Each table had 3 different sized and ribboned vases on it... and each vase was filled with only one type of white flower. Simple, slightly modern and a bit quirky:)

{our cake - simple and classic with white dots, real silver ribbon around the bottom of each layer and white and green flowers on top...it sure tasted good too - vanilla cake, white chocolate mousse and fresh strawberries, very summery}

One of my favorite special parts of the day was our favors. Have you heard of English crackers (not the kind you eat)? They are a sort of party favor and our tradition at my house on holidays or other big family get-together meals. Its a long cardboard tube wrapped with pretty paper and inside are several small prizes, jokes and a paper crown (the kind you wear on your head, kinda like the old school Burger King ones). We decided as an added fun and personal thing, to have these as our favors and escort cards, plus we thought they would be good icebreakers before dinner. So we ordered empty crackers from an online site in 3 different silver patterned papers. Then one afternoon we filled them with our own custom favors (a slip of paper I had designed and printed out telling guests how we had donated to a special close to our hearts cancer fund in their name, a yellow Live Strong Lance Armstrong bracelet and some Hershey kisses), tied them up and threaded a little card (mounted on sage green or sky blue paper - DIY) with their name and table number on them through the ribbon on one end. These were lined up on a long table on the patio as you went into the room with a sign saying not to open them yet.

Here's everyone opening/popping their crackers - its a very interactive, get to know the person you are sitting next to thing. I got up on the microphone and explained it to everyone:)

And here's the coolest part - inside each one was the traditional paper crown, in an assortment of bright colors. To our surprise, everyone totally wore their paper crowns for the rest of dinner (my sister even had hers on when she gave her speech)!!! (I had hoped everyone would embrace it, P was a little skeptical and thought people would think we were dorks!!)

{oh, those crazy relatives! see the back wall of french doors and the patio?!}

And so you can see where I spent most of my time, along with a majority of the guests (we were very proud that the dance floor was packed whole night), here's us doing the electric slide, minus paper crowns:)

{taking some final pics at the end of the night outside in front of the Ridge Club}

I think we were also supposed to post honeymoon pics as well for today's event, but I have too many of those (maybe that'll be another post - we went to Hawaii and hit up Oahu, the Big Island and Maui). Thanks for looking and reading! Thanks Kelly for hosting. Hope everyone has a great weekend. I'm headed to Martha's Vineyard this afternoon for a weekend-long bachelorette party for my friend Holly...yay!

Show Us Your Life: Wedding Party, Flowers and Ceremony

2009-07-31T13:10:00.002-04:00

Happy Friday!!! You know what that means! It's Show Us Your Life again over at Kelly's Korner. Everyone is sharing more about their wedding today, specifically their bridal party, flowers and ceremony. Sweet! (Hope you don't mind the overload of wedding posts recently...click here to read about my dress and here for our 4 year anniversary.)

P and I struggled at first with where we should get married. Since I'm from Pa, venues around my home town and the church where I grew up (and attended private elementary school) were obviously in the running. But we currently live in Ma (where all P's family, our current friends, and my Mom's side of the relatives are) so this would make planning easier and we'd have less guests that would need to travel from out-of-town. What tipped the scales for us was that Cape Cod is like a second home to me since I spent the summers there from high school on and am now down there every weekend at my parent's beach house. Since we wanted a summer wedding anyways, we thought this would be a perfect compromise - a great beach-vibe local, close to everyone up here and still personal for me! Yay!

For some reason I always wanted my bridesmaids to wear silver. This might not seem like a summer color, but by combining it with lots of white, sage green and soft blue, we had a light and fresh palette that reminds me a of the water, the sky and the gray wood shingles covering every Cape Cod home. I had 6 bridesmaids (including my sister, the MOH), P had 6 groomsmen (including his best man) and we had one adorable 2 1/2 year old flowergirl (P's niece). I wanted the girls to each wear a dress that they felt comforable in, so I told them to pick any dress in platinum satin from either Alfred Angelo or Impressions Bridal. So glad we did this, they each looked gorgeous! Check out these hotties:

{Linde - my best family friend, Neeve - Paul's sister, Ava - our niece, my sister Laura, me, Jen - my best friend growing up, Kia - my best junior and high school friend, Suzanne - the day I met her at my first job out of college I knew we would be friends for life. Thank you, girls, for being such great friends!}

I know nothing about flowers, so I just talked with my florist about what colors I wanted and she chose the actual blooms we would use based on the season, etc. I wanted the girls' flowers to be a mix of white, pale blue and soft green, so I know they included hydrangeas (these definitely shout Cape Cod), white roses and then some other stuff.

My bouquet was all white with some of those really cute pale green seed pod thingiemabobs. Tied around my flowers was my "something old", a pendant necklace my grandfather had given to my grandmother a very long time ago (they were married for 60 years). It reads (in french) "I love you more than yesterday, not as much as tomorrow."

P wore a white tie and vest with his tux, the groomsmen wore platinum ties and vests, and both our dads wore black. The tuxedos P picked out had a subtle pinstripe running through them, he has good taste:)

{DJ - 1 of P's 3 best friends, our Best Man Kevin - 2 of P's 3 best friends, Paul, Brian - P's brother-in-law, my brother Tom, Brett - 3 of P's 3 best friends, Glen - P's golf buddy. Thanks, guys, for always being there for us!}

And we can't leave out this sweet face! I love this girl to death!! She's now 6 years old, about to enter kindergarten, and has a younger sister and new baby brother. She wore the cutest little white dress with a silver sash to match me:)

We had a full Catholic mass for our ceremony at the most quaint little white church. Two huge white urns with loads of white roses and baby's breath flanked the entrance.

And now, a 4 photo play-by-play of our ceremony!

Thanks for letting me ramble on about our wedding. It was the best day of my life, I could talk about it for hours:) My guess is that next Friday is going to be all about the reception, so stay tuned! Hope everyone has a great weekend.

PS. I was at Michaels last night picking up some paper supplies and they already had Halloween stuff out!!! Please, just let me enjoy my summer, people! It finally got into the 80s here this week, do not take it from me prematurely.

Mood Board Monday

2009-10-12T11:27:00.003-04:00

Hi! Happy Columbus Day!! Ok, I'm crazy...2 blog parties in one day!!! (Scroll down or click here to see the fall decor I put up this weekend and my post for the DIY Show Off Fall Festival.)

And for the second...I'm pretty excited about this. Pk from Room Remix is hosting her first "Mood Board Monday" today. It's a link party where everyone creates their own mood board (for any kind of room) that uses one of the 2 inspiration pieces PK posted earlier. Cool, right?! It'll be awesome to see the different kinds of spaces that all spring from just one (or 2) starting point.

I was immediately drawn to the Michael Miller Floral Gardens Trellis fabric in lime that PK posted. It would make such a gorgeous throw pillow. (I'm sort of obsessed with decorative pillows. Just ask my husband.) So I decided right away to do a living/family room.

I tried to make this a mood board for a room that I would want in my house (as opposed to for a "client"). I also didn't really work within a budget, but I did try to shop stores/places that I would normally go to when buying stuff for myself. I knew I wanted the room to have a light, bright and airy feel, with a subtle coastal/cottage vibe.

1. Palette and wall color: I would do a soft pale greenish/grayish/blue on the walls, something like Benjamin Moore Woodlawn Blue, Pale Smoke, or Sea Foam. I'd use lots of whites, dark browns and gray, with pops of the lime.
2. Love this rug rug from CSN Lighting in fallon gray and ivory
3. A white coffee table to keep the space feeling light and pop of that dark rug
4. A classic, neutral sofa (the Cameron Sofa in Almond Paste Crate and Barrel)
5. The lime trellis throw pillow beauty
6. Gotta have more fun throw pillows like this hand-made one in a Funky Floral from etsy seller Maria's Cosy Cushions
7. Because I love mixing pillow patterns, it would be nice to have a solid to anchor the collection like this one from Pottery Barn
8. I would place 2 of these Belmont Armchairs from Pottery Barn across from the sofa. I love their mix of wood and fabric, and their basket-weave rattan adds to the coastal vibe.
9. On one of the chairs would be this great Vintage Butterfly pillow cover from West Elm.
10. For an end table next to the sofa, I would use this Ara Pedestal Table in Espresso from Grandin Road. It would also help bring dark brown to that side of the room and balance out the chairs.
11. Pebble Table Lamp from West Elm
12. I would put the TV on some sort of refurbished console table, like this awesome one from White Berry Reinvented
13. For wall art, I'd start with this super cool posters from artist Jennifer Hill...Galway and Tuscany would totally add that pop of lime to the walls. (Plus I've been to both Ireland and Italy!)
14. I'd also love to do a wall of these Mirrored Heron Gigclee Prints from Ballard Designs.
15. I'd want to bring in some large glass fun-shaped containers/vases like these from Pottery Barn (but I'm sure I could collect or find some for less money with more history at flea markets, etc.).
16. And add vintage charm with some blue Ball Mason jars like the one I found at Brimfield and the ones Layla is selling at Lettered Cottage Home.

Well, whattya think?! This was really fun to do, though it took me a lot longer than expected. I had trouble deciding on a lot of things for myself, there's just so much out there I like. This was definitely a great experience, thanks for the challenge, PK!!!

Show Us Your Life: What I Make

2009-10-16T11:03:00.001-04:00

TGIF!!! Remember the Show Us Where You Live and Show Us Your Life Friday series over at Kelly's Korner that was such a blast over the summer?! They're still going...sorry, Kelly, I totally slacked for a month or 2 there. Well, I just realized today is all about showing off what you make, celebrating all the hand-made and creative businesses that are out there. There's already almost 300 entries over at the party, so go check them out. Kelly wanted to give us all a central location to shop each other's stuff - there's ton of jewelry, baby accessories, custom artwork, bags, signs, you name it:)

So, I gotta get in on this action. (Sorry to all of you that have been following along and seen my work already, thanks for hanging in there.) To anyone who is new, I design custom hand-made wedding invitations and other paper goods. It's a side thing I've been working on for about 3 years now and I really love it (way better than my day job! Hmmm, I hope no one from work reads this blog.) I'm hoping to take this endeavor to the next level soon, so I don't have a website or etsy shop yet to point you to (yet). I'd also love to expand and do baby paper, custom holiday cards, etc. For now I'll just show you some pics of my past work.

{Julie and John...a custom watercolor pair of lemons}

{Jessica and Michael...summer fun in a rustic old barn}

{Natalie and Dave...a summer beach wedding in chocolate and sage}

{Erin and Josh...rustic and woodsy in moss and cocoa}

{Katie and Tim...shades of blue say coastal wedding}

{Sharon and Jeff...shell illustrations set the tone}

{Mikki and Scott...fun patterns that still say formal}

It's so exciting to see other entrepeneurs/women out there making a go at owning their own businesses. To anyone who stops by from Kellys - congratulations and great work! I would also love to chat with any of you about this journey we're on - tips (on anything from marketing to keeping your finances sorted out, launching a website, etc), trade secrets, advice for me. To Kelly - thanks for being such a huge supporter of your peers and an inspiration to all of us. To all you other peeps - you rock, thanks for reading! Have a great weekend:)

Fall House Tour

2009-10-23T14:34:00.000-04:00

Happy Friday! Today I'm joining in on 2 parties, both about fall decor. I love me some seasonal decorating! Julia of Hooked on Houses is having a Fall House Tour and Kelly at Kelly's Korner is hosting Show Us Your Life: Fall Decorations. So, if you're looking to be inspired, head on over to either of these or preferably both and say hi:)

Sorry to those of you who have been following along and have already seen my fall decor in the foyer, living room and family room. Now might be a good time for you to go get that pumpkin spice latte:)

{pumpkins on the stoop and in the transom window}

{the bookcase in the foyer}

{mantel for fall}

{new hand-made pillows from India on the leather club chairs in the living room}

{new pillows and ledge shelf decor in the family room}

Thanks for coming. And thanks again for having us, Julia and Kelly. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

PS. Want more seasonal decorating tours? Get your home ready for the holidays in time for the holiday open house tours (I can't wait!!!)...Julia is having her Hooked on Houses holiday tour on Friday, December 11th. And this year, the Nester will be hosting BooMama's old Christmas Tour of Homes on December 14th (in 2008 there were over 900 entries....this is going to be awesome!)