3 Jan
Good morning! I have a January desktop calendar for you today. I wanted to try and fight the January gloom by giving you a bright ray of light for your computer! Enjoy!
To download, right click on the picture and choose to open in a new window. Then when the image shows up in a new window, right click and choose desktop background.
If you need a different size for your computer, feel free to email me and I can send you the size you need!
Photos by Kristen Marie
2 Jan
Here are a few instagrams from our holiday festivities. Jonathan and I had such a wonderful time celebrating Christmas with each other in Corvallis as well as with our fabulous families in Washington. And, one of our favorite parts about visiting our families is getting to see all our sweet nieces and nephews!
The above and below photos are of our Christmas tree in Corvallis. What can I say, I LOVE wrapping presents and decorating for Christmas!
This year, we decided to spend Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas day with Jonathan’s. I am happy to say, it ended up working out great! We had so much fun spending the day relaxing with my family and putting together this epic puzzle!
The above photo is the beautiful Christmas table Jonathan’s mom put together for the family! It was amazing!
Above is sweet baby Hallie and below is my cute niece, Elsie, who turns 1 today! Happy Birthday Elsie!
We spent New Years Eve in Corvallis with some good friends, and we had a wonderful time! I made this party hat for the festivities! And, the below picture is of our fabulous friend, Edie, and her super cute New Years costume!
We had such a wonderful vacation visiting family and friends! I miss them already! But, it also feels good to be home. I am ready to start working hard toward my goals this year, and I am looking forward to starting up school again!
Happy New Years!
1 Jan
31 Dec
Happy NYE my dear friends! I am back to blogging just in time to ring in the New Year! I am sorry for my unexpected blogging break. I had planned a couple posts for this last week, but traveling, family, Christmas and no internet got the best of me. Sometimes I have to remind myself that life happens.
New Years is a great time for reflection so I thought I would share with you a few goals I have for the New Year. I am so excited for 2013, and all the excitement that comes with it! Here are a few of my goals for two thousand thirteen!
1. One of my biggest goals for the New Year is to work diligently on a design portfolio. We will be moving again in 5 1/2 months to Milwaukee, and lately I have been giving a lot of thought to what I would like to do there. And, what I really what to do is design! I am not sure what jobs will be available in Milwaukee, but I would like to have a killer portfolio ready when I get there!
2. Organize, Organize, Organize! Everyone probably says this, but I really what to organize my life. Every single part of it! Since our move date is getting closer and closer, I would really like to make that move as seamless as possible. So, I want to do a major spring cleaning and get rid of all the things we don’t need and simplify our life.
3. I want to start doing yoga again. I miss it like crazy!
4. Another big goal I would like to tackle this year is a major re-design of my blog. I have been brainstorming a new name for my blog for a long time, and I think I have come up with just the right one! I am excited to share it with you, but I am not quite ready to release it yet. It is quite the undertaking to change the name, URL and design, and to be quite honest, I have been scared to do it. But it is a major goal of mine, and I will keep you posted as the release date gets closer!
5. Something I used to be very dedicated to was keeping a journal both for my thoughts and for my drawings. But lately I have let this habit go. I think it is partly because I have transitioned to blogging, but there is nothing like putting pen to paper, and I think it is important for me to get back to it.
What are some of your goals/resolutions for the New Year?
Photo Source here
21 Dec
Ingredients for Sugar Cookies
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for the work surface
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions for Sugar Cookies
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer on medium-high until smooth. Add the egg and beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla. Reduce mixer speed to low.
Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and add it slowly to the butter mixture, mixing until just incorporated (the dough will be stiff). Shape into a flat 1-inch-thick disk. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into shapes and place on parchment-lined baking sheets. The scraps can be combined and rolled out again. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are a light golden brown. Watch the cookies closely because I found the second and third batch baked faster and you might want to take them out sooner. Cool slightly on the baking sheets before transferring to cooling racks.
Ingredients for Frosting
2 cups of powdered sugar
3 to 4 tablespoons of milk (I used 2%)
Food coloring
Trader Joes Peppermint Bark for Baking
Instructions for Frosting
This is a rough estimate for how much of the frosting ingredients you will need. It is best to pour the desired amount of powdered sugar in a bowl and then slowly add milk. Pour in about half the milk and then stir the mixture. If the consistency is still too thick, pour in a little more milk. Once you have the consistency right, add the desired colors of food coloring. I chose to do hot pink because I am obsessed with the color AND to get a good red color you have to use a lot of red food coloring, and I don’t like having too much food coloring in the frosting.
Once the cookies are cooled, use a spoon to lightly cover the cookies with frosting. Don’t try to cover the entire cookie or the frosting will just run off the sides. Once the cookies are frosted, sprinkle the peppermint bark over the top of the cookies. And, voila! So tasty!
*Note: If you are just baking for a couple people, cutting the recipe in half is a great amount.
20 Dec
Happy Thursday! Inspired by Pinterest, I thought I would post a few holiday photos that have inspired me this holiday season. Enjoy!
Photo Source: Camille Styles
Photo Source: Afinidades Eletivas
Photo Source: Designlovefest
Photo Source: Odessa May Society
Photo Source: Kinfolk Magazine
Photo Source: Kinfolk Magazine
Photo Source: Design Mom
19 Dec
Good morning dear friends! Today I have something very random, and very amazing for you! Well, I think it is amazing, but you may feel differently. The other night Jonathan and I were watching youtube videos when we stumbled upon a video from a music festival in Sweden. The band is called Swedish House Mafia, and they put on the most epic performance. I don’t know anything about this band, but I will say, this video makes me want to dance! I just can’t get enough of that beat! So, I thought I would post this video for you to enjoy as well. Hopefully it is just the pick-me-up you needed today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1y6smkh6c-0
Ps. If you are having trouble viewing the video, click the youtube icon to watch the video through the youtube website.
I would love to hear what you think of this beat/song/video?
18 Dec
Good morning! I woke up to snow outside my window this morning! So magical! Now it really feels like Christmas!
Today I wanted to do another budget fashion post for you. For this post, I picked out a popular fashion trend and found were you can get the look for less. I chose the beautiful “Peplum Dress” because it is so elegant and fun. The price tag on this dress can be quite expensive, but I found a really cute version of this dress at Target for much less! This dress would be great for a fun Christmas party or a Christmas Eve service.
You can see the Alice + Olivia dress here and the Target dress here.
17 Dec
Hi friends! Happy Monday! We are quickly approaching Christmas, and I am getting so excited! We did a bunch of Christmas shopping over the weekend. It felt really good to start checking off things from our Christmas to do list.
Do you remember my Holiday Party Playlist I made for you last week? Well, I decided to make a playlist on Spotify for you so you could access it yourself! Hooray! That is another thing you can mark off your list if you haven’t already made a playlist for all your holiday parties. Just click this link Christmas Playlist and it will take you to my playlist. Enjoy!
14 Dec
Happy Friday! I am so happy it is almost the weekend! It has been a busy week so I am excited to do a little relaxing and go on a date with my fabulous husband!
Today I have a basic DIY for you! I thought I would share with you my favorite gift wrapping tricks. First and foremost, my favorite way to wrap gifts is with brown kraft paper. It is a must craft item I keep in my house at all times. I love it because you can make all your gifts look different depending on how you want to accent the kraft paper. Below I have showed you two ways I love to wrap my gifts with kraft paper. There are millions of other great ways to wrap presents, but these are just a couple of fun examples!
Vintage Tags: All you will need for this is kraft paper, a fun type of twine and vintage tags. For mine, I used red and white striped twine, and I wrapped it around the gift three times. Then, I tied a bow with the tag attached to the twine.
Painted Letter: For this gift you will need kraft paper, paint, a paint brush and a stencil of the letter of your choice. I securely placed the letter stencil on the top of the wrapped gift, and then painted the inside of the stencil red. I also accented the red letter with a little bit of gold paint. Voila!
What is your favorite gift wrapping tips?
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