mmm... whats baking?

Have you ever walked in to someones house and instantly smelled the delicious smell of something baking? everyone knows that smell... ohh how wonderful it is! well, not everyone has the time {or the appetites!} to have something constantly baking.  With two little ones in the house, lighting a candle means putting it completely out of reach, and remembering to blow it out before leaving the house, and we all know giving birth makes your mind a scatter so good luck with remembering! I could go on and on with all the attempts to make your house have the warm yummy smell of something baking in your oven, WITHOUT the actual baking to be done, but I'll stop here.  All behold: SCENSTY! best.invention.ever.  And we're oh so lucky to have one of my favorite bloggers, Jamielyn @iheartnaptime, giving a full sized Scentsy and 3 scents away! How awesome is that?! Go to her adorable blog here and enter to win!  BEWARE: you'll catch yourself spending hours on her site, she has so many great ideas... I don't know how she does it all!

What?! It's December?

AH! Where has this year gone?! I cannot believe it is December... and I do not have ANY Christmas decorations up yet. How sad is that? :( Being a working mom definitely limits your time to get things accomplished, but this weekend I will be putting "decorate for Christmas" on the to-done list!  We are a young family, but we have decided that one of our Christmas traditions will be to take the family up North to cut down a Christmas tree.  I know... I may not have the prettiest tree every year, but I think the memories it will bring will be more important than how full and luscious the tree was. 



Here are a few shots from our first adventure out there.  He may have been so young that he will not remember anything, but you know what they say... "start 'em young!" :)



That's what Christmas is all about, spending time with family and creating traditions! {ok maybe its about a few other things too, but those are pretty important ones also!} Here are a few things I've been dying to make, and hoping I can at least get a few of them accomplished.

DIY Potterybarn ($149) sign for only $8.  So cute! From Sew Dang Cute Crafts.



Love everything on this shelf! From Lolly Jane



On the naughty list? Perfect! Free Printalbe available from eighten 25

Found this on pinterest. So simple, yet adds so much! Will DEFINITELY be doing this!

What fun Christmas decorations/crafts do you have planned?!

Indecisive? yes.

Remember my entertainment wall? The oh-so-{fabulous}-blue color?  Here's a refresher:

It got old fast.  I thought a pop of color would liven up the room, but boy was I wrong! Don't get me wrong, I still love the blue...just maybe not on such a large wall (16 feet high, about 30 feet long), and not as the wall that carries from the entrance allllll the way to our back sliding glass doors. YIKES! SO..I've really been in to antique white lately and figured the simpleness and clean feeling of the color is what would truly liven up the room.  The boyfriend was replacing all the baseboards in the house this past weekend, so we jumped on the oppurtunity and decided to paint.  I went with Glidden Eloquent Ivory in a satin finish.

BEST. DECISION. EVER.

We still need to finish putting up all the trinkity decorations, but thats on the never ending to-do list.  I've been pinterest-ing it up and finding all kinds of great DIY projects that would complete this wall!  Now if only I had the time to DO all the wonderful projects!  I'm thinking my New Years Resolution this year will be to accomplish more on my to-do list :)  What do you think? better color choice??

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yay for fall :)

Fellow Arizonans will understand when I say that fall doesn't really exist here. BUT its still my favorite!

The leaves (which don't change here), the cooler weather (ya know, 80 degrees in Nov.) and the yummy smells of crisp apples and cinnamon! (courtesy of scentsy or febreeze). Isn't it just fabulous?!

...So maybe we play pretend here a little? But when your freezing your tushes off and I'm enjoying a Christmas on the back patio, you can envy me for a moment. So as I was sayimg, with fall being non existent, you can bet your bottom dollar that when you walk in my house its ever so present! It may only be one small wall but it feels so festive and the scents of fall fill the whole house! I think some subway art may just complete it? I feel a creative moment coming on....

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entertainment wall REVEALED

And here it is!

{Note: the fall stuff was just a filler cuz it needed something ..they've been moved now and its so bare!} 

Of course I still desperately need to decorate the top shelf, but I hear good things take time.

Which means this one will be GREAT, right? :)

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Entertainment Wall

See this bad boy here:

Not my adorable 2 year trying to get in to the DVD player, but the entertainment center.  When I look at this, I see so much potential of what it could be.  With the way it is now I feel like it looks a little outdated for my taste.  We'll hang on to it though for some later DIY-ing!!  Anyways, this picture was at our old apartment.  In our house though, this was placed against an 11'x12' wall.  Talk about disproportionate!! This so-called beast looked tiny and I was sooo over the fat back television that weighs more than I do! So off I went to the drawing board (ok...so maybe it was the wall? I like to call it the lifesize board)

So apparently a 32" TV looks tiny on a wall that large.  Who would have thought?! (I talked him out of the 40"... I said it would look too big. my bad!)  After lots of markings on the wall and lots of internet searches for ideas, we decided to go with something simplistic.  Time to call in the big guns!  Jesse and our wonderful neighbor followed my wiggley-lined sketches and started our entertainment wall for me! WOOHOO!

We purchased L brackets at Home Depot for about $2 each and hung them in the studs in the walls.

Then, we (when I say "we" I really mean Jesse and Shannon, our neighbor) took 3 - 4"x10"x12' pieces of wood and planed them down so they were smooth.  We placed them on the L brackets to make sure we didn't want to make any last minute adjustments to the placements.

##for some reason my computer is sucking and not letting me add the picture.  I'll fix that later...##

After making sure the placement was where we liked it, it was time to stain the wood.  Both of us love the look of stained wood so there was no debate there! Minwax: Deep Walnut.  Perfection.

##insert great photo of the stained wood##

So like I had said before, I get anxious with this whole home makeover project/disaster/cluster we are creating... and, well... it's not actually done yet.  Sorry guys!  The wall is painted a wonderful blue, the wood is stained and hung in place, and thennn... they are empty.  Looks like I know what I will be doing this weekend: creating amazing things to put on the empty shelves!! maybe some apothecary jars? I'll keep you posted on what creations I come up with!

Collage Wall

I am totally in love with photo collage walls! My mom (who by the way is a fabulous designer) came over to my last apartment and put together a perfect one for me.  Well, unfortunately, I wasn't thinking during the moving process to take a picture of it.  So here I am, starting from ground zero!  My last collage wall was all black frames, with color photos.  I'm thinking this time around I will be adding some spray paint to those frames, along with a few more frames I have been collecting along the way, and throw some black & white pictures in the mix.  All this pre-planning got me thinking about what pictures I might want in the frames and OH NO! I realized we had not yet taken a family picture with our 7 month old son.  I've snapped a few candid shots here and there, but I have definitely slacked in the chaos of the move!!  Well I had to fix that fast.  Lauren Brimley, a friend from my childhood, apparently sensed that (ok or maybe she just knew it was about time for everyone to start christmas pics?)...but she posted a reminder on her facebook that she takes photos.  amazing photos.  I totally adore her vintage style and eye for capturing natural moments. We were so excited to have her photograph our family yesterday!  Thank you again :) You can check out her work on her blog here.  It just felt wrong to put anything up before having pictures of our youngest in the mix, so that project has been put on hold.  Plus I have a very LARGE wall to fill, so I think some more frames need to be collected and maybe some cute H's or a cute quote?  What do you think? I'll be sure to document the entire process as I work my way through it!
I'm thinking something similar to this:

but not as closely bunched together.  I like to be able to see part of the wall between the frames, we have a gorgeous blue color as our background!