Peony Love

If you are tired of hearing about my love for certain plants, I'm sorry.  Maybe you should turn away now because you are about to hear - or see in this case - about my love for peonies; by far these are my favorite flower. 

Tissue Paper Flower Tutorial

I realize I'm ahead of the season, but I can't wait for spring to arrive.  I'm ready for the cold and dreary weather to be over so that I can once again step out onto our deck with a cup of coffee on a sunny morning and be outside with the boys.  I'm also really hoping to build raised vegetable beds this spring and can't wait to get to plant my garden!

Until that first spring morning arrives, I've decided to bring spring inside.  I've add indoor plants and bright accent colors in our house.  Yesterday, I shared my Pink and Green Spring Tablescape (see it here).  Since our peonies are not even near sprouting yet - and even when they are in bloom, they are overrun from ants, how do I get rid of the ants?!?! - I decided to make my own pink "peonies."

Pink and Green Spring Tablescape

Hope you enjoyed your weekend!

Today, I'm joining in on the 6 Day's of Spring link party in hopes of winning a $250 Pottery Barn Gift Card!  I'm linking up at Jennifer Rizzo's blog, and you can check out all of her projects - as well as those of 5 other bloggers - who posted spring projects all week long.

Christmas around our house....

Hope you are enjoying your holiday's!  With my husband off of work for the week, we've taken the time to hang out as a family and I haven't been that into blogging recently.  I do have some ideas going around in my head - for which I just made a purchase today - that I will share over the next several weeks.  In the meantime, I uploaded some pictures from our Christmas celebration(s) and thought I would share those.

If I'm not back before than, have a wonderful New Year!

Winter Entry

This is the first year I've attempted to do anything at all in our front entry:

Until last month, I had no table to speak of for the entry.  So I cleaned and moved this side board which was left behind in our basement by the last owners of the home:

Christmas Tablescape

Today I was inspired by all of the beautiful Christmas images from around the web and decided to continue our Christmas decorating in other areas of our house.  We have already set up our tree, decorated our living room, and created an advent calendar, so I thought I would turn my focus to our dining room.

White Tablescape

We are hosting Christmas Eve this year and I've been thinking about what I would like to do for our table.  Based on the images I find myself pinning, I can tell this year I'm leaning towards whites, silver and gold, glass, and greenery.

When thinking through some items that I already have that fit within this theme, I recalled a table I set for my sister's bachelorette party years ago (in early 2008).  I used mostly white, crystal, and silver.

These pictures are not from our current house, rather, our old condo in Chicago.  Looking through these made me miss it just a little bit!  I put a condo tour up on Rate My Space years ago (deleted now since I didn't visit the account for years) and think maybe I will share some pics in another post.

Onto the party...we had an open concept condo and here is a view to the dining area:

To add some drama to the space and the light fixture, I purchased hanging votives from CB2 and tied them up with fishing line.  I would love to use these somewhere in my house this year, but I have images of little ones swinging from the string...and crashing to the floor.  So we'll see!  I purchased two feather boa's in lieu of a veil for that night, so I decided to use them in the decor before we headed out for the evening.