Noodles on the Wall Blog Feature

I'm so excited and incredibly flattered that Elena from Noodles on the Wall reached out  to feature myself and Lucy + James as her Stick of the Week. Elena's blog shares stories of and features 'creative moms taking on the creative' and her Stick of the Week column features one mama and shares that mama's 'noodle on the wall'.

Launched in March 2012, Elena's blog Noodles on the Wall is "about creativity, inspiring nuggets, mama moments and all things creative. I am especially inspired by Creative Moms Taking On The Creative! They are making the world more fun, a little bit easier and a whole lot prettier for us and our kids. I want to share their talents, ideas and products to the world". I love this blog as it showcases creative mamas and encourages moms to seek out their creative outlet. 


Thank you to Elena for this great opportunity! Check it out here.

Don't forget about the Merci chocolates giveaway. It ends Friday, January 18th at 8pm.

Merci! Chocolate Giveaway

Once the new year rolls around everyone, myself included, makes a resolution to better themselves a little. Be healthier, stay more organized, and be more thankful. Merci means 'thank you' in France, and I was thrilled when a box of Merci Chocolates arrived at my door the other day.

The box included delicious European chocolates with flavors ranging from Milk Chocolate, Cream Truffle and Hazelnut-Almond (my personal choice) to Dark Cream and Praline-Creme. Now I will be the first to admit that I am not a huge chocolate or sweets person. Which is why I chose to show some thanks and share my sweets with my close family and friends by having them out for visitors to snack on when they stop by the house. I love the individual packaging of these chocolates. They were made to share. 

What better way to say Merci! to you all than to share some sweet treats?

As a thank you to my amazing readers, Merci is going to give one lucky person a box of their own chocolates to share. 

To be eligible to win:

1. All you need to do is leave a comment on this post telling me who you'd like to thankfully share your chocolate with! 

2. Also, share a link to this giveaway on Facebook and leave a comment below. 

3. Want a third chance to win? Tweet a link to this giveaway and leave another comment with a link to your tweet. Three chances to enter this contest!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.

Coffee Table Facelift

Do you remember when my mom gave us this coffee table to replace our long, not-so-baby-friendly Ikea one? It was a little beat up from being decades old, but was a great addition to our ever-changing living room. Also the fact that it was given to me by my mom makes it a little extra special in my mind. 

I love the coffee table and the size of it is perfect for our living room. It just needed a little TLC. There were many spots along the side where the wood had worn down or chipped. You can't even see the worst of it in these photos. I guess I tried to hide it when I introduced the table in the previous post.

I purchased this gold liquid gilding a few weeks back as a back up plan for some gold leaf I also bought. My original plan was to use the gold leaf on the table edge to spruce it up a bit and cover the damaged sides. After about 2 minutes and a 15 on the frustration scale, I pretty quickly scrapped my original plan. I have never worked with gold leaf before, so I may not have been doing it properly. Either way, the sheets kept sticking and wrinkling and it took me no time to decide I needed my backup plan. So I brought out the gilding.

I'll admit I made a bit of an amateur mistake and didn't sand the side of the table before applying the gilding. Oops. I had all intentions of doing so and I think I was so frustrated with the gold leaf that I just wanted to cover it up. The end result surprisingly doesn't show many flaws. 

What do you think? I feel like the photos make the gold almost look a bit copper-y. I'm ok with that, but it looks more gold in person. This simple upgrade was really easy to do as long as you do it with some patience and a steady hand. I used a thin strip of green Frog Tape along the top to leave the lip of the tabletop.

It received the thumbs up from Jordan, which is always a plus. He's usually on board with most of my projects. 

PS. Keeping it real. I stole that succulent from another place in the house just for these photos. Our coffee table usually is covered with Lucy toys, coasters with sippy cups and remotes. Makes me realize our coffee table could use some fresh flowers.

 

PPS. I have new pillows beign delivered this week to add to our couch and punch up the color in our living room a bit. Can't wait to share when they arrive.

Kilim and Patterns and Over Dyes, Oh My!

 

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I'm starting to see this trend of bright colors, geometric patterns and over dyes everywhere and I can't get enough. I've purchased a rug and two pillows over the past week and I'm already scouting out what else I can add. While the colors may seem feminine on some, the geometric patterns and textures are enough to get the hubs on board with this trend.

 

I'll admit I was seeing the word 'Kilim' everywhere but wasn't even sure what it meant. So I checked out Wiki (one fact about me, I Google everything). Kilims are flat tapestry-woven carpets or rugs produced from the Balkans to Pakistan, but these patterns and over dyes are popping up on more places than the floor. This Kilim trend goes hand in hand with the Moroccan and Aztec prints everyone seems to be sporting these days. I've selected a few of my personal favorites that I'm eyeing up.

 

What are some of your favorite Kilim pieces?

2013

Happy New Year! Hope you all had a happy, safe and healthy holiday and New Year's Eve.

Last night was one of the most low key New Year’s celebrations that we've had in years. My evening wasn’t surrounded by drunk friends, rich foods, fancy dresses and drinking games. Instead, I rang my New Year in with my husband, in our PJs, eating takeout and drinking bubbly.

Some of you have probably noticed that I’ve been a bit MIA on this blog for the past two weeks. The flu, the holidays and the craziness of this time of year caught up with me and I needed to take a step back and reboot. I have to admit I’ve enjoyed these past two weeks without blogging and it made me re-evaluate what I’m doing with this blog and with my personal life in general. I am exhausted. Mentally and physically. I’ve realized that it’s due to the fact that I tend to overwhelm myself, make too many commitments, pile on too many projects, and I never relax.

Don't get me wrong, I’m not done with blogging, I don’t think I could be. I’m making the decision to not let this blog run my life. I still plan to post projects I’m working on and snap shots of room updates and lifestyle topics I want to share. I want to write quality posts about topics that I’m passionate about and I want to do projects that I enjoy and not scramble to write posts because I feel obligated to fill 5 slots every week. I may have a week where I write 5 posts and I may have a week where I write one or even none. I don’t want to make myself feel guilty for wanting to take a breath.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if I have 5 followers or 500 followers, I want this blog to be something I’m proud to call mine.

That being said, my New Year’s resolution for 2013 is to better myself. It might sound silly to you all, but it’s what I need to do to keep my sanity.

A few points to myself to achieve my goal:

-          Family, health and happiness come first.

-          Take the time to appreciate the moment right now.

-          Let the house be a mess for another day and take Lucy somewhere new. 

-          No more impulse decisions.

-          No more impulse purchases.

-          Be thorough and organized and finish all projects through to the end.

-      Keep our house a home and not a workshop filled with half-finished crafts.

-          Stop caring what other people think.

-          Cut the laziness. Get up for work on time. Squeeze in that work out. Put away the laundry when it’s folded.

-      Be healthier and bring lunch to work. Stop wasting money.

-          Get real sleep.

-          Do something BIG in 2013.

-          Appreciate my real life and how amazing it really is.  I have the best family and friends in the world and I want us all to make more time for each other.

Now I'm off to spend the rest of my day with my beautiful family.

Happy New Year!