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Space Saving Wall Bar

We live in a townhouse, so I am always looking for ways to save space without giving anything up… so when it came time to put in a bar this was heaven-sent. We registered for these wine/bar shelves from Pottery Barn for our wedding because they took care of a lot of needs: It hung all of our stemware so we had didn’t have to waste space in our limited cupboards, it gave us a place to store all of our liquor and wine and it gave us something to fill up an empty wall in our living room. Our oldest family friends threw us a “Grill and Chill” shower before the wedding where they gave us two of the shelf pieces and had every one bring us a bottle of their favorite wine to start our collection. We bought the third piece and completed the bar, which we always get compliments on. Click here to see more pictures and get all the details!

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Packing Up Christmas Trees

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As the holiday season has come and gone, I know most of us have been dealing with the painstaking task of taking down and storing our Christmas trees. I thought it may be helpful for this week’s home tip to walk you through the way I do it  and share some ideas that you may find helpful! To see the tree when it was up and decorated, check out this post from December!

Click here to get the pictures and see how I packed things up!

Baking With Kids

My mom had the day off from work on Thursday so she came into town with my beautiful niece, Madi. We had such a fun day playing games and riding the rides at Chuck-E-Cheese and going to the craft store. Last year my grandmother got Madi a kitchen set for Christmas and ever since then she can’t get enough of “cooking”. My parents got her a grill set for their house and she got a cupcake set for her 3rd birthday and she LOVES playing with them. My brother told me she wanted to bake Christmas cookies this year so that’s what we did, and that’s my home tip for the week- involve kids in your holiday baking! You’ll be shocked how much they can do and we really did have so much fun! Click here to see pics and see what we did!

Coupon Organizing Tip

As we all start finishing up our Christmas shopping, I know that if all of you are anything like me we are using more coupons now than we do all year long. I’m usually pretty good about keeping them organized throughout the year, I keep a plastic accordion style expanding file in my purse and that usually gets the job done. The problem I’ve been running into lately is that the coupons that are coming in the mail seem to be getting bigger and bigger and they no longer fit in my file. Because of this I’ve been just throwing them in my purse and when it comes time to check out at the stores I’m “that girl”… you know the one digging through her purse dumping her stuff all over the counter wasting everyones time and still not being able to find what I need. Well I decided I needed to come up with a solution and I’ve found one that’s perfect and looks very chic at the same time! Click here to get all the details!

Kitchen Aid Deluxe Edition

While thinking about what to do for a home tip this week, this one seemed like a no brainer. A few Christmases ago, my parents bought me my first Kitchen Aid mixer. It’s the silver Professional HD model and to say it got it’s money worth in use is an understatement. A month ago my mom called and told me to turn on the tv… they had the new Kitchen Aid mixers on and I fell in love with first sight! My mom ordered me one for Christmas and was kind enough to let me take it home with me after Thanksgiving so I could use it for Christmas cookies. I used it for the first time while making the Chocolate Peppermint Cookies and I knew immediately it was going to change the way I bake… it truly is that amazing! So this is my home tip for the week: invest in this mixer!! I know they are pricey and it is a big purchase, but I’ll tell you all the ways it will improve your baking experience and make things in the kitchen so much easier! Click here to get all the info!

Tips for Decorating Your Christmas Tree

Now that Thanksgiving is over, I know a lot of your are probably getting ready to start putting up your trees and decorating your houses. We put ours up yesterday and I took a lot of pictures as we went in hopes that I could share a few tips with you! When we were getting our first Christmas tree we went back and forth for weeks on whether to get a real tree or an artificial one. We decided on an artificial in order to avoid the mess of a real tree and not have to deal with issues with our dogs. We looked all around town but actually ended up getting our tree at Walmart. It is an unlit 7.5′ Donner Fir and what we liked about it is that it was so full looking and with the star it is as tall as our ceiling. It’s been really easy to store after Christmas too, we just put it right back in the box it came in and slide it underneath the stairs in our basement. Click here to see more pictures and see how we decorate our tree!

Last Minute Thanksgiving Decor Ideas

By now I’m hoping everyone has their menus planned so the food part of Thanksgiving is taken care of but I know some of you may be looking for quick and easy ways to decorate your home for the holiday! I did a lot of decor projects for this fall but I’ll dedicate this post to the fastest and easiest ones that you all could do today and have in time for tomorrow! Click here to see all the ideas!

My New Home Office

I just want to start out by saying that I cannot take credit for a large part of this room… I follow another blog and fell in love with her desk set up, so that was the seed that inspired this whole room. When we moved in we didn’t give any thought to our extra room- we put a bed underneath the window and bought a small desk from target and added the typical dry erase/cork boards, etc. My amazing husband surprised me with a new iMac desktop to help with the blog and other things. Things snowballed from there because we needed a new desk to fit the new computer and by then I was so inspired that we decided to totally re-purpose the room. We wanted to keep the bed in there still and luckily we had more than enough room for it so we started by moving the bed to where the old desk used to be and put the night stand on the other side. Then we used the half of the room where the bed used to be for the desk and a reading corner. I can’t say enough how in love I am with the desk system. It’s the Ikea Expedit Bookcase with the Expedit Desk (which attaches right to the bookcase). I probably had the most fun while re-doing this room figuring out what to put in all the “cubbies” of the bookshelf! This will be a longer post and I want to make sure to let you know where I got everything so I’ll put the pictures first and the explanations after. Click here to see all the pictures and get the details!

Makeup Vanity

This is one of my all-time favorite gifts I have ever received, mostly because it gets used every single day! My mother-in-law got this for me last Christmas, and I honestly don’t know how I ever lived without one! The vanity is made from Beveled Mirrors and is part of the Hayworth Collection at Pier One. I think the mirror finish gives it a really chic movie-star effect that I absolutely love. I’m not a fan of the big clunky tri-fold mirrors that are meant to go with vanities so I made the one you see here. My parents had a huge square scrap piece of mirror in their garage that’s been there for as long as I can remember and they were kind enough to give it to me. I embellished the border with rhinestones by adhering them with double stick tape. I did it that way so that if I ever want to use the mirror for something else I can simply remove the rhinestones and have a blank canvas! Aside from looking beautiful, this vanity saves SO much space that used to be occupying our bathroom! I get asked A LOT about which beauty products I use and love, so if you’re interested in that at the end of the post I’ll include a list and links to all of that information. Click here to see the rest of the pictures and get all the info!

Perfume & Cologne Cubes

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I am always searching for different ways to “store” things in our home. Now a days, perfume and cologne bottles have a lot of time spent on design and can look really beautiful, so I thought why not put them on display! I had bought a set of 3 wooden square shelves originally to put books and decorative items in before we moved to this house. After we moved in I decided they’d be perfect for putting our favorite scents on display while still making them easily accessible. It’s such an easy project but it makes a really big statement right next to the window in our master bedroom! Click here to get all the details !

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