Happy Fall Ya'll!

Since this week is Thanksgiving, I thought I would post pictures of my Fall Decorations! I don't do Halloween since we are in a rural area where people don't trick or treat (don't worry, we go somewhere else, my kids are not deprived of 15 lbs of candy that they don't need). Instead, I do "Fall" and leave it up until the end of November! Though I will admit that this year is a bit different. Because I am hosting a baby shower here the weekend of Thanksgiving and going out of town the following weekend, I decided to start Christmas early! But normally, Fall is up through Thanksgiving weekend! I stopped decorating and tweaking once I realized that things had to change but here is what I did before I had to take it down!

I thought about not showing you my front door because I'm not loving the garland above. It was very heavy and didn't 'swag' very well but whatever, I tried it and it didn't work! Next year I will get something that drapes better, deal with it!

Here are some areas in my entry:

This is living room and dining room areas-I didn't do much in either as I still like clean spaces when it comes to where we spend a lot of time!

Here are pictures from my kitchen:

Even my coffee bar got some fun candles!


I am looking forward to a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and a busy weekend celebrating the pending arrival of new nieces! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

Baby Shower Decor!

I am co-hosting a baby shower this weekend for my new niece! It is not in my home and I am taking what I am doing out of town and mingling it in with another person's decor and style. I hope I won't scare her because I have lots of stuff to take! I'll post pictures next week but wanted to share my diaper cake! The shower theme is brown and pink so I went with that, of course! Yes, it is 100% diapers, except the center which is bottles.

I love doing something totally FUN and cute and since I don't have any girls I am having a BLAST with this shower! OH, and the TWIN GIRL shower that I am hosting for my TWIN in two weeks! Yes, just typing that gets me teary eyed--I mean, how CUTE and UNIQUE is that????? That will be at my house and I plan to have fun so I'll put that up early December!

Home Office in great need of systems!

Here is my newest project! This homeowner is very busy with multiple businesses and 2 children. They just completed an addition to the back of their home in order to gain space! This room is right off their entry and she is a bit overwhelmed, can you tell? I am reorganizing this space as well as setting up the new Play Room. Most importantly, I am merging things together from many different areas to create true "homes" for all items and am creating systems to better manage her busy life! She is very intelligent and juggles more than most and just needs an organized environment and rules to follow in order to maintain a Pretty Neat space!

I will post After pictures next week!

Halloween Drink Bar

I know this isn't really about Decorating or Organization but this blog is also about creativity and making everyday things fun so I thought I'd post it!

I made a Creepy Halloween Bar for my friend's party and had SO much fun!

Here is the bar. I used a basic black bowl and glued the halloween trim to it. All the labels were made with basic scrapbook paper and ribbons that I found. Using halloween inspired sticker letters would have been expensive and time consuming. An easy solution is to download cool fonts instead. All the fonts I used were free. I didn't take a good picture of the wine covers I made but they were quite cute too and are in the background of the bar.

This is the cosmo with Dry Ice and it was so much fun! Dry Ice has several rules that you can easily find online if you want to try it one day. As long as you follow the safety guidelines, it's a blast and really made the bar creepy and cool! The ice popped and bubbled in the ladel.

Yes, gross. That's the point. Isn't it fun? You can see I set it up with some shot glasses but I didn't think anyone would actually drink it so I didn't put out a serving piece. One person wanted to try it and he said it wasn't that bad! Note that if you do a fun gooey shot like this, it's all about the container. This in a shallow glass or colored item would not have looked great--it needed something pretty to make it look all the more creepy!

This is the sandwich I made. It is just crossaint dough wrapped around ham and provolone. Easy but fun! I also made adorable eyeballs for dessert for the kids that were SO easy but I didn't take a picture!

I LOVE crafting things for holidays so stay tuned--it offically is the season! I'm also working on TWO baby showers this month and will have lots of fun with those as well!

House Tour-Red and White 1/2 Bath

This is our 1/2 bathroom which is off our side entrance.

My "pretty" item in this bathroom is the sink and wall mounted faucet. I love vessel sinks but I am not contemporary at all and 90% of vessels are. I spent a long time shopping and found this one on ebay, perfect for our farmhouse! I love ebay!

My something "neat" item is next. This large corner behind the door needed something and these baskets were a housewarming gift from my friend Amy! We are in a rural 'swampy' area and have a pool so it is filled with bug spray and sunscreen along with lotions and, or course, TP!

The funny wire bride on top of the rolled towels is something I made for my wedding and the jar has a bridesmaid boquet in it. I was married in a rose garden and there are little red roses scattered at her neck and waist. I made 3 or 4 of these brides and they were spread out on the buffet table if I recall. I kept one and never had anything to do with it until we moved here. I thought it blended right into the red and white bathroom!

Since this is a house tour and I want you to feel like you are truly a guest here, I should show you what is always a conversation piece when I have company. If you were really here, you would come out of the bathroom chuckling and if you didn't live in our area, you would ask me WHY! It's pretty self explanatory--we have a septic and some don't understand that you can't put a lot down the drain! Every time I had a large group of girls over, we would be calling a plumber days later. SO, I made these and put little bags in them that I found online at a hotel supply site. There isn't one in my bathroom or my kids but the guestroom bath, this bathroom and the pool house all have a color coordinated bag! You do what you have to do right??

I love decorating this bathroom for Christmas and switch out all the smaller red towels with fun, whimsical ones and it's quite cute in here!

I like it when clients go on vacation!

This makeover has been in the works for a few months now. My clients went on a 10 day vacation so we have been planning and discussing and I've been shopping for quite some time in order to take over their home while they were gone. True to my commitment, I spent more time in their home than my own this week and it was well worth it! I have worked in this home before but have not yet done the one thing that I think is truly required when you truly decorate your home--PAINT!

Before I show you the before and afters, I have to give credit where credit is due--the homeowner found the bedding and picked the paints. I was going for a relaxed, spa like feel in the bathroom and my first paint suggestion was a soft green. Well she wanted BOLD!! Which I LOVE! Their past bedroom had tan everything with a white duvet so I didn't expect this drastic of a change, though it totally fits their fun, dynamic personalities. This is a HUGE change for them and I'm excited they decided to make it a true transformation! So get ready for ORANGE paint as well as Green and Brown from the new Ralph Lauren Metallic line! It is GORGEOUS!!!

Master Bedroom

Check out the plain white raised ceiling in the before-it's now orange! They are considering a corner sectional in the right area by the couch. I would like some creamy toned side tables over there and there is a large mirror to hang between this area and the bed if they decide to not change this area but I avoided the furniture cost as well as a large anchor in the wall until the decision is made.

She bought coordinating straight valances for the long window that matched the bedding which I could NOT live with so I asked her to give me just one of them and let me alter it and add drapes and she let me do my thing! That is a favorite trick of mine--altering something simple off the shelf that lacks in 'umph' and make it unique while adding some style!

Master Bathroom

This bathroom is large and quite unique with the tub in the middle of the room and had great 'bones' but was just non descript with the tan walls next to the tan tile. I edited their accessories, added pops of color and created display areas for the things that they needed on the counters. The phrase on the mirror raises your eye and really makes you see how large the bathroom is, though this was VERY hard to photograph with all the reflecting mirrors.

Here are a few areas in the bathroom that helped create big changes. One thing that I LOVE about the homeowners is they have things they truly love and like to see that hold personal value when others would perhaps put them away if they didn't fit into the room. One of those things is a clay tube of toothpaste and toothbrush that the husband made when he was little! It was on his counter so I put up a shelf in an empty area so it had a worthy home. And I love how it looks so great with the paint, which I wish I could say I thought of but I didn't, it just worked! This shelf needs another item which I will figure out on another day.

Guest Bathroom

They owned the beach inspired pictures so I used those and added a few accessories to tie in and look at how easy this change was!

Bar/Pool Room

This room was set up but didn't have much personality. We wanted it moody, relaxed and a great room for parties! ! This paint is SO dark that I couldn't get a good photo of the entire room so below the before and after are two pictures close up where you can see the shimmer and true tone of the wall--GORGEOUS!!!

The bar cabinet was full of alcohol and couldn't be closed so I found the shelves at Pottery Barn and they helped enable us to organize and close the doors. The shelf display can be changed out to focus on a different theme or even drink motif! I used what they had for now but plan to talk to them more about what they love to really personalize this for them. Here are a few ideas to use as a display:

• High end liquors with several old fashioned glasses
• Wine accessories with a gorgeous decanter and cork screw
• Martini glasses with different mixers, a shaker and martini mixing set with a martini recipe book
• Fun shooters (the kind that look like test tubes) with popular shot liquors such as goldschlager or you could display ingredients for a popular shot or shot you are serving like a B52 or Lemon Shot with the recipe displayed in a frame and of course a Shot recipe book which is more fun to read than actually use!
• Unique beer steins with a display of your favorite regional or international beer

The ideas are endless!!


















Dining Room

This is right off of the bar so we chose to paint a niche to tie into the room and I also had to add shades to the chandelier to complete this area! There is also an entry area that we painted green and another bathroom that is also green and an office area that was painted brown but this post is getting long enough!


I enjoyed this week so much and love that they didn't see it as it was being done so they can fully feel the transformation when they walk in. It was a TON of work and their house was a MESS during this process between painters as well as myself working in the same space so I'm glad they were gone for that reason too! I wish all my clients would vacation for a week and let me take over as I think it is a rewarding process for everyone!