Lavender Kay

Hi friends!  Happy Wednesday!  Well, it is the middle of the week, and there are only two weeks left until Christmas.  Can you believe it?!  I am spending my days designing, packaging, crafting and wrapping presents in hopes that I can get everything done in time!  But, I have to say, I really don’t mind the Christmas season whirlwind this year.  Every year I do the usual Christmas preparation, but this year it feels different.  I think I am learning to enjoy all the in-between moments leading up to Christmas just as much as the actual event.  Is this a part of growing up?  If so, I will take it!  How has your Christmas season been treating you?

Today I wanted to share with you one of my little fashion secrets for living on a budget.  If I am being honest, sometimes my own wardrobe can start looking pretty shabby compared to all the cute clothes I am buying as Christmas presents for other people. So, today I have a great solution to the “holiday wardrobe blues”.  When I am feeling frustrated with my wardrobe, and get the “I don’t have ANYTHING to wear” feeling, I just log onto J. Crew.  J.Crew.com has an amazing section called Looks We Love where they style different pieces of their clothing into really cute, unique outfits.  Now, this is the fun part – I like to find similar pieces of clothing from my own closet and style them into outfits I would have never thought of before.  This way you can get new outfits without even spending a dime!  I promise, it works!  And, there are many other clothing sites that have similar sections such as Madewell.  The above photo is an example of my one my favorite outfits J. Crew styled for the holidays and the below photo is a fun Christmas party outfit from Madewell!

What are some of your fashion secrets?

Picture sources: J. Crew’s Looks We Love outfit found here and Madewell Looks We Love outfit found here.

Hi dear friends! I hope you are all enjoying this wonderful holiday season. We got our tree set up yesterday, and I love how it looks (and smells!). We are flying to Spokane for the weekend and I am giddy with excitement! We are staying in a cute hotel and spending time with all our wonderful friends. I can’t wait to see the huge Christmas tree they setup downtown!

I wanted to let you all know that I am going to take a few days off from blogging. But, I promise it will just be a few days. We are in need of a vacation so I am going to try and stay away from the computer. Finals are also in full force the first few days of next week so I am going to take some time to prepare for those as well.

Stay tuned because I have some fun things ahead when I come back. You are all so wonderful and I want to thank you for visiting me here. Talk to you soon! And, have a fabulous weekend!

Photo source here

I am so excited because we are entering such a fun time of year!  Jonathan has the day off today so we plan to go Christmas tree shopping and then hang our stockings.  As a newly married couple, we get the opportunity to make a lot of new Christmas traditions together, and it is so much fun!

Last year we decided to only exchange stockings between the two of us.  I had such a great time picking out special, meaningful gifts for him (and it is amazing how much you can actually stuff into a stocking!).  Another one of our favorite traditions is going to New York City in early December for a fun, winter getaway.  Some of the things we like to do while we are there are go Christmas shopping, see all the amazing Christmas decorations and ice skate in Central Park with hot cocoa.  But, this year we decided to do something a little different since we far away from home.  We decided to fly to Spokane to see our friends, stay in a hotel downtown and experience the wonderfulness of a Spokane Christmas since we would otherwise miss out.  I think this was a good choose even though we LOVE New York.  And, there is always next year!

What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions?

Photo Source: Thyme.com and pinned by Amanda Jane Jones

Happy Thanksgiving my dear friends!  I hope you eat lots of yummy food and have quality time with loved ones.

Jonathan and I are in Washington spending Thanksgiving with our families.  I am so happy to be surrounded by so many beloved friends and family.

Ps. I am having a 10% off sale on my PRINTABLE Christmas cards exclusively on Etsy.  The sale only lasts until noon.  You can find them here.

Photo taken by Q Avenue Photo and found on Camille Styles

I saw this cute table setting on Camille Styles, and I thought it was so wonderfully rustic and simple that I just had to share!  Happy baking!

Photo by Q Avenue Photo

It’s Friday!  Wahoo!  I am so happy that it is Friday because it means Jonathan gets a break from the night shift and we get to party!  We are planning on going to a college football game and will be bringing lots of blankets (and drinking lots of hot cocoa!) It is supposed to be cold!  But I think it will be a lot of fun too.  It will be fun to enjoy the last moments of fall outside.  We also plan to go back to the restaurant I highlighted this week.  It was SO good!  What do you have planned this weekend?

Thanksgiving is just around the corning and I am getting so excited.  This has always been one of my favorite holidays because it involves lots of yummy food and family.  And, because there isn’t as much build so it is more fun and relaxing.  Plus, my sisters and I like to get up early and have coffee and shop on Black Friday.  Well, not so much as shop as people watch!  Black Friday has turned into SUCH a crazy day but it is hard to let traditions die and early morning coffee always makes it worth it.  What about you?  Do you take party in the Black Friday craziness?

Happy Friday friends!

Hi!  I am thinking about adding another column to my blog where I highlight different areas of the city we are living in.  I thought this would be fun since  we are new to Corvallis and are loving the opportunity we have to explore a new town.  I think it is important to embrace the city you are living in and find the beauty that surrounds you.  For now, I will be calling this column, Explore Your City.

To start, I wanted to highlight this amazing restaurant we went to the other night in downtown Corvallis.  It is called LUC and you can view the restaurant website here.  LUC’s menu is made from all fresh, local ingredients and they change it every week.  Everything that we ordered was SO yummy.  They also have an extensive drink menu filled with delicious cocktails, beer and wine.  We decided to order their Rye Manhattan and it was perfect.

We were also impressed with the aesthetic/decor of the restaurant.  The food was served on beautiful china and the atmosphere was a perfect balance of modern and vintage.  If you ever find yourself in Corvallis, I highly recommend it.  We already plan to go back next week!

Have a great day!

Ps. I have added a couple new designs to my Christmas card collection and you can view them here.  Let me know what you think!

Have you heard?!  Pinterest has just released secret boards!  I just found this out last week and I am so excited.

Ok, some of you may be asking, what is a secret board and what is all the excitement?  Well, a secret board is a board on Pinterest that only you can view.  You also have the option of inviting other people to view it as well but it is not a public board.  The significance in this is that now you can pin things that only you want to see.  For example, I have plans to use mine for pinning Christmas ideas I have for other people as well for pinning things for projects I am working that I have not released yet.  It is genius because now I can have an internet cork board for my secret projects!  So exciting!

To find your secret boards, you can scroll down to the bottom of your profile, below all your existing boards, and you will see three secret boards.  It will give you the option to invite other people to your board, which I also think is genius because, if it is for a secret project, you can include the other people working on the project with you without showing it to the world.

Happy pinning!  And, happy Monday!

Ps.  If you would like to follow me on Pinterest, you can find me here.

Happy Halloween friends!  I hope you have a wonderful day!  I plan to celebrate with a pumpkin spice late and some yummy chocolate.  What are your favorite Halloween traditions?

Photo Source here

Good morning friends!  How was your weekend?  Our weekend was a pretty rainy, but it was also fabulous.  I finished all my drawing projects which feels good!  And we had a great time celebrating Fall and watching movies.  We went to see Cloud Atlas (staring Tom Hanks!) on Friday.  Have you seen it?  If so, what did you think?

Every once in awhile, from now until Christmas, I thought I would highlight different Christmas cards from my collection for you to see.  I thought it would be fun to explain my thoughts behind the designs and also show you how other people decided to use my cards to make them their own.  Today I am going to start with my Rustic card design.  This card is quite different from all the other designs, but I like how it is unique.  Lately, I have been drawn to modern design and for this specific card, I liked how it combined modern with wilderness.

To view more designs click here.

Happy Monday!