I know it's too early...

...but I can't help myself! I've been dreaming up a new Christmas Tree theme for this year.

Typically I'm happy with my mini trees all over the house, "MY" tree which is only decorated in white & silver on a tall skinny clear pre-lite tree  (think snowflakes, icicles, stars, birds, etc...) and Bobby and the girls have their multi-colored pre-lite tree with all their misc ornaments.

Sadly, the flooding that got mixed in with our unplugged upright freezer with thawed out frozen food/meats ruined my tree... [cue the sad "awww" soundbite] ...Bobby tells me I can't have a new tree this year.

So, what's a girl to do? Dream up a new themed tree! I want a multi-colored (think the hip pink/aqua/purple/lime colors) candy Sweet Shoppe Tree. I envision a sweet display of  thick color ribbon, sprays of glittery balls spring out from the tree, ornaments of lollipops, cakes, ice cream, popsicles, frosted cookies, gingerbread girls & boys, gingerbread houses and the like.

However, when I popped into the Dollar Tree today, the color scheme I was going to go with went out the window (unless, I do get another tree).

I brought home goodies in bright red and green. I am still going to do the candy theme, but it will be more of the peppermint candy theme.

Let me show you what I got....for $45...

I love these signs, they will add some "bulk" to the tree that is so stylish right now. I bought 2 each of the Joy and HoHoHo but only one Peace, mainly because the coloring was different.

This curling ribbon was so cute with the matte & shiny and the skinny & fat paper ribbon. There are 2 each so I'm going to alternate them and make them part of my tree topper.

What's a candy tree without large candycanes? These will be fun sticking from the tree too!

I'm not a fan of bulky garland on trees, but the shimmering of this would certainly add some glam to my tree with a hip look to it, keeping it on the trendy side.



Finally, the candy! Bring on the candy! :) LOL Here are some "wrapped candies", they have a hole drilled in the bottom of each one, so I guess you could create a garland or hang something from the end. I bought several of these, to have them sprinkled throughout the tree.

Here are some CANDY ornaments made from a resin material. I had planned on making some from Sculpy clay but this is cheaper and hey, it's faster! There are other projects that I can make to get the satisfaction of creating something. So, I bought several packs to fill out the tree.



I also found ribbon candy made from translucent red and white plastic. I'll still make ribbon candy from ribbon and ribbon spirals. I'll add more details on that later when I get ready to make them.

Here's, what I got to work on and I'm probably most excited about this.

The label on the flat round Styrofoam circles (2 in each package) reads 4 7/8 x 3/4". I plan to make two different things from these.

I will print out a peppermint candy pattern and glue to the front and back. then use that handy dandy transparent clear gift wrap (you know, the stuff you wrapped your gift baskets in) twisting the ends to make them look like over-sized peppermints! Much like this :

 

The others, will be turned into lollipops once I pick up some thin dowel rods and cut them down to size. I will insert the stick in and secure it with a little glue to make lollipops! I have several options for the lollipop design but I think I'll go with a glue & glitter option. I do glove my glitter!  Again, I'll share pictures when I make them.
Here is an inspiration piece, you know with Styrofoam, I can carve the design in it easily.

 

The little round balls you see...well, I have two ideas for these, and will have to pick up another pack. These are just white with a little glitter on them (they had gold and silver...but not the look i wanted for this tree) they are made of Styrofoam, I will insert them onto floral wire, add red glitter then I have my glittery sprays to spring from the top of the tree.

But when I got home I realized they would make awesome little lollipops. I can pick up normal lollipop sticks, but I'll insert the stick slightly off center to add the more whimsical look.  I'll add glitter to them of course!



I nearly forgot to share this cute little guy. He'll be cute on the tree too! :)

It's only a car

Last week, I woke up at 2am from Cookie (our puppy) wanting to go downstairs....turns out Bichon's are good little watchdogs. I get up, go downstairs with her, and notice a car parked just in front of mine. I heard a loud grinding noise as if gravel was inside her engine. I thought about going out to see if she needed help, but she was getting in and out of her car (revving the engine, but it wouldn't go), she unloaded the contents of her trunk and tried to take off, again her car wouldn't move (I wondered if her emergency brake was on), when it wouldn't move, she loaded it back up again. I saw the glow of her cell phone, so I figured she was waiting on a ride. I went back upstairs told Bobby that someone was having car trouble outside.

At 6am I had just gotten up to get ready for an Open House at my office but there was a knock on the door. I went downstairs, and it was the police. Never a good sign, you instantly start to worry about who's hurt or what's wrong. Two officers were there and they inform me that my car had been sideswiped. I look outside, and there's a car (what I thought had been pulled in just in front of my car (parked on the street, because I didn't want to park Bobby in) with it's lights still on, but left abandoned. The police officers quickly informed me, that my car wasn't struck on the traffic side, but rather from the sidewalk side.

My Car: was struck from the sidewalk, pushing it further out onto the street,

and swiped the entire way down causing damage from bumper to bumper.

Her car:

The officers said that it looked as if she turned onto our street to fast, lost control went into the median, bounced off a sign, flung her car across the road onto the sidewalk, struck my car until she came to a stop. You can see that her tire rod dislocated from her car, it actually gouged the road.

The police impounded the car, they had the information of who the car was registered to, but it was a male, so they were going to find out who the blonde woman was that I saw at 2am. They would let us know as soon as they could.

Now, we're waiting for the insurance companies to work it out & for the body shop to complete the repairs. Here are a few pictures (with daylight!) of my car. Bobby moved it out of the street and into our driveway, waiting for it to be towed (flat bed) away.

So, for the month of November, I'll be sporting around in our rental car. It's funny, my parents have always owned Fords, but this is the first Ford I've driven since being an adult!

I am so thankful that nobody was hurt. It is a little unsettling to think that if this had happened just a few hours later, Abby would have been standing on that sidewalk waiting for the school bus. It's only a car, it was a stressful morning, it's a little aggravating, but it's just a car, it could have been so much worse.

 

Bobby had flowers delivered to me at work today, which was so sweet. I love him!

 

On a side note: Today would be Teresa's birthday. I love and miss my sister so much. She was truley one of my very best friends. I think about her all the time.

Trick-Or-Treat

Abby in the school parade:

Abby 4th Grade Halloween Parade

Catherine & Bobby just before Catherine's first school dance:

These girls have been friends since kindergarten, here they are ready to leave for their first middle school dance:



We normally have trick-or-treat night on the Thursday before Halloween, but our area postponed it until Monday.

 

Catherine & Abby Trick-or-Treat Night

October 31, 2011

Abby is a {punk} Pixie (there are two rods with wing like things behind her)

Catherine is a bag of Skittles

Even Cookie dressed up for Halloween. She stayed home with me to hand out candy. At first she barked seeing so many strange looking kids approaching...then she realized this was fun, and would just give me a little alert that I needed to go to the door to let her play with some new friends. ((Hey, I never said she was a good guard dog!))



This was the first year that I stayed home to pass out candy and Bobby took the girls around the neighborhood. Normally we get a whole gang pulled together and go around the neighborhood as a group, but it just didn't work out this year. I just wasn't excited for it this year and didn't put a lot of effort into it. [Abby's school carnival is this weekend, so a lot of work is going into it to get ready.]

Abby is eyeing up her loot!

Catherine's stash of candy.

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween this year. Sadly in our area, we were all affected in one way or another by an unfortunate accident. Two boys were struck by a car, one sustained a lot of injuries and one boy didn't survive. Our hearts go out to Skyler Wenger and his family.

Kitchen Inspiration

There are a lot of improvements that I want to do in our kitchen.

I have painted my kitchen countertops a bombay black granite. Which I will share in details on another post. The next project is to paint my cabinets.

I painted the kitchen cabinets in our townhouse (not the best picture, but you can see the white base cabinets. I plan to upload pictures of our townhouse when we had it ready to put on the market in 2009). They were white, which showed every speck of dirt. Bobby requested that I not paint these white. With my love for grey, that is the next best choice.

I want to paint the base cabinets a dark charcoal grey. Then I want to paint the top cabinets either white or a light shade of grey. I love the look of a two-toned kitchen. Grey's are a tough color to get right, so I'm struggling to find the "perfect" grey for the upper cabinets. The backsplash we currently have is cream/off white 4x4 ceramic tiles. I don't want to replace the backsplash until we replace the countertops. I want soapstone or black granite counters that fit flush to the wall, then have the backsplash reach from the countertop up to the base of the cabinets.

Here are some kitchen eye candy photos that give me lots of great inspiration!

This grey color is gorgeous, the glaze is perfect and the moldings are to die fore. I also love the 12x12 mirror set on the diagonal (so Candice Olsen).

Grey & White Kitchen w/dark floor =love

For me, this grey is off. It's to muddy & blue. It would have "sung" if it had a glaze over it. But, I like it because it shows the med grey with a black counter. I want a darker grey with my black counters. I also want the uppers to be white. However, I love how they just placed beefy moldings on the soffit to make them just blend in and look custom.

 My base cabinets may be this dark....these appear to be more of a matte black (not quiet jet black) but it's close to what I want. I just don't want black on black. Again, I love the chandeliers in the kitchen! I want two mini pendants above my island.

Above Photos found here

I love checkerboard floors (especially when they're painted on old hardwoods - so charming)

What I love about this photo:

1) grey floor paired with white cabinetry (lots of molding too)

2) open shelves are nice too

3) you don't notice it right away, but that gorgeous counter to ceiling subway tile on the stove wall is gorgeous!

Here you can see the next corner of the room and I love that little surprise pop of color on the inside of the hutch-like cabinetry. Gorgeous!!!! It's my color too! The island looks brown in the photo above, which I didn't like, but I do like how it looks like it's black in the photo below. I know it's just the lighting on the dark wood grain, but I would paint that baby black!

Above photos found here

Again, the two-toned kitchen is haawt!!!! I love glass front cabinets & open shelves, this is a new little twist that I haven't seen before. I like the color on the base cabinet (& oven wall) but I don't know if I could commit that long to a color on the cabinets...it's more work than just repainting a wall!

Photo

Now, you know I love the Robins Egg color. It's the accent for my kitchen since my living room and dining room have this color. The main floor has to flow! I love the chairs below. I'm thinking I'm going to paint the island saddle stools the robins egg blue/green. This color will also be painted on the inside of my cabinets, especially the ones that we change to be glass fronts, or remove the doors on entirely.

I'm a sucker for a shabby chic...and boy does this have it!

Above photos found here

Okay, that was still pretty wordy with it just being an inspiration post! :) What can I say, I love looking at other beautiful interiors! I look until I can find things that are close to what I envision, that way I can show others, what I "see".

College Football

I never thought I'd say this, but I LOVE watching College Football. A few years ago I started watching the Bama games with Bobby, and I'd watch some Penn State games with Catherine (most of her teachers are HUGE fans). Last year I started really learning about it, which makes watching the game so much more interesting.

 

This year, has been a real exciting season for Alabama. At this point they've won every game they've played. I'm nervous for the LSU game on Nov 5th. For now, I'm enjoying watching my favorite players: McCarron (10), Richardson (3), Maze (4), Lacy (42) & Hightower (30).

We haven't had a real direction for Bobby's man cave in the basement. So I now have inspiration of painting the walls crimson red, he can build his bar in a nice dark wood, I want to get some prints framed and I want to accent with some touches of houndstooth print (made famous by Bear Bryant). Which I love the classic print anyways.

Here is a little inspiration that I've found online:

I like how in this room they used the houndstooth as a border.

 

Everybody loves a barstool with a back on it, so I'll be searching for ones like theses. If I can't find them, I can certainly ulphoster some to make them look chic like these guys;

Of course our littke Cookie would look adorable sporting a cute little houndstooth jacket to help cheer on the team!