A few of my favorites!

Hello there! Hope you had a wonderful weekend! Some friends and I had what we think was our 8th annual Christmas exchange – we’ve done it so long we’ve lost track. We also celebrated our grandson’s FIRST birthday, can you believe it? I’ve mentioned before that this month is unusually busy for our family -- that’s because so many people that I love were born in the past two weeks. :)

Have you started your shopping yet? I know so many people who are done. DONE! I can’t even believe it – I’ve barely started but that isn’t unusual. I am a procrastinator all year long, this time of year is no different.

If you’re still looking for some fun, unique gifts we’ve got you covered. Some friends and I are joining today for a quick share of our favorite items:

I seriously love these posts because I love finding new-to-me items, especially this time of year.

I think I’ve shared these before but they are worth mentioning again because they are that fun:

If you have a tradition of driving around to see Christmas lights (even more fun in your jammies) then you will LOVE these glasses. They are seriously so fun – they turn regular Christmas lights into fun shapes. Over the years we’ve had the snowflakes, snowmen, ornaments, reindeer, bells and candy canes.

Here’s what they look like through the camera lens:

We LOVE them! 

This next product is made locally here in Indiana and it’s another favorite (duh, these all are). I found over the years that I’d buy expensive perfumes and the only way they’d stay on is if I doused myself.

I discovered Ambre last year and have only used it since:

The bottle is small and costs less than a fancy perfume – but the thing is, it lasts FOREVER. It was hard for me to pay that for such a small amount but it goes on and on and on…because you have to use so little of it. They are oils that you just put on your pulse points. I’ve had mine for over a year and still have almost half a bottle left, even after using it almost every day.

Eventually you won’t smell it on yourself as much but everyone else will – I get asked about this far more than any spray perfume I’ve ever worn. There are four scents and the brown one is my favorite. :)

This item is one for the person that has everything. Well…the person that has everything and loves popcorn: 

Which is EVERYONE.

I seriously use my WhirleyPop at least once a week, most of the time two. I ask for a new one of these every couple of years because I wear them out. I’m a popcorn fanatic and as I discovered years back – there is NOTHING like home popped popcorn. I will never buy microwave popcorn again. Evahhh.

Here’s how I use it – the tiny little corn kernels are a must. Dump them in, then add coconut oil. Pop and then add sea salt to your liking. It is delish and the only way I make it anymore. I’m eating it right. now.

Here’s another one for the kids – we pick up our Lego Advent calendar every August uhhh…October? 

The kiddo loves waking up and opening up each day in December. It’s a fun little tradition he looks forward to every year. They also have the girl and Star Wars Lego advents as well.

OK, this isn’t a gift idea really but I had to include it because I’m obsessed with these paint colors and they were my faves this year:

 

Both are colors from Sherwin Williams and both are lovely – Analytical Gray is a perfect neutral in my opinion. I have a friend who used it in her home and she finds it has a green tint to it – it doesn’t in our home but the amount of natural light you get will make a difference for sure. It is a great “greige” – a color that isn’t going anywhere soon.

We have most of our main level painted in that color and have used the gray Peppercorn as accents in our family room and master bedroom:

They are definitely my favorite paint colors of 2014. :)

So this one I saw on a commercial a couple weeks ago and I’m a complete sucker for stuff like this. I went right out and picked one up:

You plug your Christmas tree lights into the receiver and then use the Magic Wand to turn them on and off. :) Super, super cute. It makes a fun little twinkling noise whenever you use it. My son LOVES using it and I do too.

I think I’ve mentioned this doodad before but again, worth sharing twice. We use this Open It tool at least once a day:

 

It’s especially handy this time of year when you’re opening numerous packages in impossibly hard to open plastic. It cuts through just about everything and I even use it to cut flowers in the yard. :) It also has little extras at the end like a utility knife and a tiny screwdriver. It is AWESOME – we wear it out once every couple of years we use ours so much.

My final favorite isn’t thrifty but sometimes you want to splurge and this one is worth it. :) Linnea’s Lights are another local product and are simply the best, most fragrant candles I’ve ever burned:

 

They are a soy candle and burn forever. I used the pumpkin scent throughout through the fall and it seriously makes the whole house smell amazing. Because they last so long and work so well I spend the extra money on them. I’ve been burning them for five months regularly and am barely into my second.

There you go – have you tried any of these products? I love and highly recommend them all.

Be sure to check out the rest of the favorites from the rest of the bloggers today:

Chris – Just a Girl

Beckie – Infarrantly Creative

Beth – Home Stories A to Z

Brooke – All Things Thrifty

Rhoda – Southern Hospitality

Roeshel – DIY Show Off

Stacy – Not Just a Housewife

Maybe these ideas will help out your last minute shopping…if you’re a procrastinator shopper like me. Or just want to gift yourself perhaps? :)

 

Some affiliate links included for your convenience.

Quick, easy and under $20 gifts!

Hello my friends!! Now that December is upon us it’s time to start thinking about gifts. Some of you totally-on-it people have already finished your shopping and I bow down to you. This one is for those of us (uhhhh…me) who still need some ideas.

As a part of the Better Homes and Gardens bloggers I’m sharing a couple ideas I came up with – both for under $20 total. I love both of these because they would work for that person that’s hard to buy for, or maybe someone you don’t know quite that well. (I was able to find all of the items online this time so I linked to each one for your convenience.)

For teachers I always add in a gift card, but these would work well for anyone in your life that you want to thank this time of year.

The first gift’s theme was easy – who doesn’t like hot chocolate in the winter? I picked up a couple tall white mugs for less than $4 each:

Then I added in some flavor – marshmallows (duh), a cutie little shaker for a buck with some cinnamon and my all time favorite this time of year…the peppermint kisses:

I LOVE love love to drop one in my hot chocolate. I’m not even a big peppermint fan but I love a little hint of it in there.

This wire basket is adorable and was the perfect way to pull everything together:

Add in a couple hot cocoa packets and you have yourself a really stinkin’ cute gift:

I just filled it in with some greenery to make it more festive. If you don’t have any greenery, tissue paper would look great as well.

Total cost was less than $20 – the basket is $7, the mugs were less than $8, the little shaker was $1 and the hot chocolate was $2:

I had the marshmallows and chocolate on hand but those can be bought and split up into multiple gifts. ;)

I mean, come on…who wouldn’t love getting that? I would. Hint.

The next idea doesn’t inlude as many goodies but it makes up for that in the cuteness department. I found this plug in snowman and could not leave without him:

Oh my. Can you even handle it?

I love that he would last well past Christmas. It was still snowing in April around here last year so he’d be perfectly acceptable till then. Or February…whatever Mother Nature feels like this year.

The wax cubes are only $2 (some are showing $4 online, not sure why):

I kept the same basket for this one – again the total was less than $20: 

The warmer is $10, basket $7 and cubes are $2.

I have to admit…the snowman is staying in my house. ;) I took him out to see him light up, then may have placed a wax cube on his head to see how he worked, then may have decided he was too cute to giveaway. He made my whole kitchen smell lovely!

Here’s the best part for you all -- BHG is hosting a “12 Days of Gifting” Pinterest promotion starting today. Just pin your favorite BHG products to their Pinterest board and they will randomly pick a winner of a $50 Walmart gift card each day and then a winner of $250 at the end of the promotion. Easy!!

But you don’t even have to wait for that! Today I’m giving away a $100 gift card as well! You can use it on anything in the store but some fun stuff for your house is what I personally recommend. :)

This giveaway is now closed!

Whoot! I’ll be back tomorrow with the December before and after link up!

 

I received compensation from BHG at Walmart for my time and participation in the BHG Live Better Network. All experiences and opinions are my own. Follow BHG on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest.

Dining room turned library, finally!

Hello my friends and happy weekend! Hope you have a fun (or just relaxing!) one planned.

We’ve made a big stride in finally transforming the dining room to a library space that I’ve talked about for awhile now. It’s only taken a couple years. ;) Hello…it’s ME.

More than two years ago I got a wild idea to get rid of our dining room and make it into a more useful space for us. We were starting with a very dark, dramatic room:

Keep in mind this was kind of in between – I was painting the chairs and we had just gotten new floors that reeeeeally made the room feel extra dark. The carpet we had in there before helped to lighten it up.

Thing is, we used this room maybe twice a year for meals. That’s it. Otherwise it was fun to dress up for blog posts, but we never ever used it. I can’t stand that – honestly, the thought of not using space in our home makes me twitchy. I’m not one for “fancy” rooms either – most of our spaces are pretty laid back.

Soooo…I started on the process of building the bookcases to transform this space into a “library.” My Dad and I worked on them for months and they made a dramatic difference to this room. Then for awhile we had our old round kitchen table in the space just to fill it. My husband used it as his office in the summer months so he wasn’t down in the basement. (Lately he’s been in the kitchen – I think we need some windows in the basement!)

Speaking of an office – many of you suggested still using a large table in this room so it could be a desk and a dining room when we needed it. I considered that for awhile, but we always came back to the chairs. We don’t need another big table and we’re not the neatest people. :) I really didn’t want papers and the computer to be the first thing people saw when they walked in to our house either. I think it would be lovely for people that are good about keeping surfaces cleaned off but we’re so not those people. ;)

I have been looking for years for chairs for this space! Our plan all along was always to add four chairs in a circle as a conversational area. But four chairs are expensive – no matter how good of a deal. So I looked and searched and scoured Craigslist and couldn't find anything I loved. I found plenty that looked great online but I just can’t pull the trigger on ordering furniture I’ll sit in online. I have to be able to test it out.

My husband had two requests – they had to have arms and they had to be comfy. I finally found something that worked when I was in World Market a month or so ago and stumbled across the Abbott chairs -- they are super, super cozy: 

The bonus is they were on sale down from $300 to $250. Then I got another 25 percent off of that, and then I had a coupon. So I got each $300 chair for about $170 – score!! WAY better than the $300-$400 I was finding online. They only had two in stock so I got those and then did a rain check for the other two.

But when I got the two home I quite loved how they looked by themselves:

It felt nice and open and welcoming…I was worried four would be too tight.

A couple weeks later two more came in so I stuffed them into my SUV and then put them out with these…and it was waaaaaaay too much for the room. My husband loved it and I always try to go with whatever he likes when he has a strong opinion, but it just wasn’t going to work.

These are large chairs but even smaller ones would have been too busy. And they are crazy comfortable – I can curl up in them and still have room, I love that. More than anything we wanted them to be a spot where people would actually SIT.

I lived with the four for a few days, trying to convince myself that they worked, but alas -- they did not. I wasn’t sad about spending half as much, that’s for sure!:

One thing in particular that I noticed with the four chairs is that when you came in our front door you saw the back of a chair…it felt all wrong. And if this room was about four to five feet wider it would have been lovely, but I love how welcoming this feels.

So we took the two back and it immediately felt right again. Ahhhh. ;) It’s a perfect mix – cozy and still open. Awhile back I put a lamp on the shelf for my husband while he worked. It adds nice low light for when we sit in here in the evenings:

Of course the bookcase lights on a dimmer are awesome too!:

A few months back I added this dresser that used to sit in my office to an awkward little spot in the room:

It’s in between the library (I think I can officially call it that now!) and the living room. There was supposed to be a small wall there but I asked the builder not to put it in and I’m so glad! I love this little spot now.

So here’s a look back at what the room looked like a few years ago:

I loved it (mostly) at the time, don’t get me wrong. But I love it so so SO much more now:

Big transformation, yes? I’m so thrilled that we have a spot to sit in here now. And yes, the living room is right next to it but I’ve known all along we’d use another comfy spot. This is more intimate and just adds another area for us to relax or sit and talk.

The ottoman is one I’ve had for year from Meijer and I plan to build a bigger fabric ottoman on wheels to go in it’s place. We also really need a small table between the two chairs. I have my heart set on one of those tree stump kind of tables but they are expensive! I found on at West Elm that is perfect but it’s $200. Uhhh…NO.

So I’ll keep looking till I find one that’s the right price and look. We LOVE this space though!! For the first time ever we actually spend time in here! I sit out there most mornings and eat my breakfast. The kiddo and his best buddy end up sitting there and just talking…I freakin’ love it. And of course, the animals are curled up on one of them every single day.

The great thing about the two chairs is when we host big parties and I need this space for serving, I can just push the chairs around to the living room or by the windows and we’ll have plenty of space. It’s going to work really well I think. My sister pointed out (when I had her come to validate my thoughts on the four being too much) that with two more chairs that would be hard to do.

Getting rid of the dining room isn’t for everyone I’m sure. But it’s going to work well for our family and I’m really excited how the space has transformed! Do you use your dining space or do you use it for something different? So many builders aren’t even including them in their plans now, isn’t that interesting? I wonder if the formal dining room will be a rare find in the future.

Fun Ikea finds

Hey there all! I was hoping to share a big DIY project with you today but the painting is taking for.EVER so it will have to wait till next week. I always way overestimate what I can accomplish in just a couple days time.

A couple weeks back I took the Bub on a mini-excursion to Cincinnati for the day. Our plan was to visit Kings Island and then I realized we could also make a stop at Ikea. Boom -- one for me, one for him. I’m all about compromise. (Even though I think amusement parts are the bomb and the kiddo loves IKEA too.)

Our closest Ikea and is two hours away so I only make it over there once or twice a year. When I do it’s pretty momentous and I have to snap pictures the whole way through. :)

I don’t think I’ve ever been there for Christmas decor and I was SO excited to see what they had in the store. I almost grabbed the cross-stitch pillow on the left for the basement but we already have so many dang pillows down there:

I have to go back to return some stuff so that one may just make it in the cart next time.

They had at least four pillow designs that would work for Christmas:

So cozy and an easy way to add some holiday color! Don’t forget to check out their super cheap feather pillow inserts too!

I always love looking at their fabrics and I fell in love with a few this trip. I thought this log fabric would look SO cool as a runner down a table for Thanksgiving or Christmas:

Or just a funky pillow for the winter – I thought it was different.

The blue botany fabric was really lovely, although I still can’t get there with the bugs on my fabrics. I’m trying:

It’s a beautiful navy blue and so striking. Loved it. The gingham check is a classic any time of year!

This may not be new but I’ve never seen in before – they have Christmas tree fabric. It’s just a print of a tree and I love what they did with it:

My boy took this photo, sorry about the blur. :) They hung tassels and ornaments from the fabric. I just thought that was fun! How perfect for an small apartment space or a kid’s room.

They had some beautiful rugs I hadn’t seen before. These jewel toned/wash rugs are all the rage right now and this one was gorgeous in person:

I should have pulled it out to take the picture but we were hurrying to get to the park. ;)

This one was pretty in person too – it’s actually got more color to it than it looks, it’s just muted:

Here’s a few other items that caught my eye as we walked through:

The Kallax comes in a new mint green color – so fun for a playroom or nursery!:

This cabinet made my heart skip a beat – I am obsessed with gray as you’ve probably noticed lately and this was a beautiful piece:

It’s called the Liatorp -- it was seven feet tall and $500. It would be gorgeous in a kitchen or dining room! Or even full of baskets and towels in a bathroom. Loved it.

This table was more modern than I would pick for my home but I thought the lines were beautiful:

Loved the wishbone chairs too! And $600 was crazy good because it was SO long.

This kitchen island with the butcher block top caught my eye:

Loved the industrial stainless steel shelves combined with the wood top. I’m falling in love with shelves in the kitchen – it seems much easier to grab items that you need daily.

This dresser was new to me – you stack the pieces to make your own customized unit:

It would be SO cute in a kid’s room – each drawer painted a different color? Or an ombre effect with darker on top and lighter as you go up? So many fun possibilities. I couldn’t find a name for this one so took a pic of the tag:

Their lighting section is always one of my favorites. These industrial floor lamps were so cool!:

I LOVE Ikea plates – we’ve had some for years now and they hold up incredibly well. The only time we’ve have them break is when the crazy cat knocks them off a surface. Other than that they stay nick and scratch-free. I thought these designs were super cute and you could easily mix and match them:

Very Anthopologie-esque. :)

What did I get this trip? Well I’m glad you asked! Lots of little things – some Christmas stuff including this polka-dot fabric and twine:

I think they have the fabric year round but it will be extra cute for Christmas. 

I FINALLY found a fiddle leaf there – I’ve looked every trip for years! The price was ridiculously good – only $13. I should have gotten two:

If you have a fiddle leaf from anywhere else you know that’s a GREAT price! This is my second and I love them and their full, pretty leaves. I’ve heard mixed info on cats and these plants -- they are a ficus and I’ve had another ficus for years without issue. That and the fiddle leafs are literally the ONLY plants our cats don’t mess with. They eat the rest. :)

I couldn’t resist this big chunky cable knit throw:

I have a major problem with collecting blankets. And magazines. I can’t pass a good one up.

I picked up one of these bookcase lights to go over the étagère in the kitchen, thinking I’d only want one:

But now I want two and I grabbed the wrong power cord for them. So now I get to drive back! Not necessarily a bad thing cause Ikea is a fun trip for sure:

Do you love Ikea too? I don’t have many of their furniture pieces in our home but I’ve heard good things. Most everything we have from there has held up great and is priced incredibly well! This store is just FUN. If you go make sure to give yourself enough time to eat some meatballs and walk around to take everything in. :)