Merry Merry Christmas {2013}

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday season. It's come so quickly this year (as it always does). My husband turned to me in the car as we were driving home the other day and said, "I really feel like we've embraced the holiday spirit this year!"
Aside from the two trips to Med Express for my daughter's cold-turned-eye-infection (after all, it wouldn't be Christmas if someone wasn't sick) it's been an amazing Christmas with lots of family and fun holiday parties. I hope yours has been great, too.

Bonjour, un cafe s'il vous plait.

This makes me smile. And has nothing to do with design, but I thought I'd share anyways. A cafe in France charges extra for rudeness! Shouldn't everything in life be like this?

Also, while were speaking French... I give you the new and improved French Provincial Vanity. Sorry for the ugly garage shots. It's too cold to bring it outside for some prettier pictures.

The top and the middle opening have been painted a beautiful, Tiffany blue. 

The drawers are lined with some retro contact paper.

And the base has been sanded to its natural wood.

The vanity is listed for sale on the bedroom tab for $140, but I'll take 10 % off if you say "Bonjour, un vanite, s'il vous plait"! :)

Inexpensive MCM Bucket Chair Review

 People tend to think I'm anti-ikea or anywhere else that has cheap furniture because I'm into finding vintage, quality furniture. That's only partially true. I wouldn't want my entire house to be ikea, just like I wouldn't want everything in my house to be from one era, rather everything in moderation.
I've found Overstock to be pretty great when you're in a decorating pinch. I've been wanting two extra chairs in my dining room for a while, and it's just so hard to find a matching pair in good shape at any given thrift/consignment store that isn't going to cost you an arm and a leg. I've purchased a couple other items on overstock, and when I saw these chairs on their cyber Monday sale, I had to have them. I actually got them at about 40% off the price they are now.
I've ordered a coffee table from them before and it arrived damaged (they sent me a new top at no extra charge immediately), so I was curious to see how these chairs would hold up. They shipped in less than a week, and I finally had time to put them together today (ie. screw in 4 screws). They're shorter than I expected-guess I should have looked at the measurements-but otherwise pretty awesome. I love how light they are so I can just move them around where extra seating is needed, and they're fairly comfortable for being a plastic chair!

They're broken down and shipped in this box! 

Here's the base

And the chair. 

Assembled in less than 2 minutes! 

Here they are in my dining room,
although I might put them in my living room after Christmas.
We'll see. 

Christmas Bulbs Hanging From The Chandelier

Hooray! Christmas is here. I went easy on the Christmas decor this year since my house is STILL on the market (ugh). And by easy, I mean I didn't display my Santa collection. The chili pepper lights have been strung on the mantle, the trees are up (we have one real & one fake), and this year I tried something new: hanging glass bulbs from the chandelier.
My inspiration was from a holiday display in Anthropologie. That store was made for Christmas! They had a bunch of bulbs hanging from white string. Simple. I can do that. So I did. Except I used my chandelier as a base.

I bought my glass bulbs from Restoration Hardware six years ago for a similar project. Here's a throw back pic of me and my then-boyfriend-now-husband, Tony. Can't believe this was six Christmases ago! 

 My project didn't go quite as planned, but I got a husband out of the deal so I guess all was not lost. These are similar bulbs here, but I waited till the end of the season when they went on deep discount. I've used them every year since.
This year we got the most beautiful tree at Lowes (a Scottish fir, I think & only $17.99 for a 6 footer!) and I reused the free string they give you to tie the tree to your car. I simply tied the string to the bulbs and to the arms of the chandelier at alternating lengths. No real rhyme or reason...I just used my eyeballs to eye it up.

 This was seriously one of the easiest projects I've ever done and the end result is really fun. I'm sure it'd look great with some more festive colored bulbs, too. I'm just a sucker for whites and blues (and pinks) during Christmas.

 p.s. I don't know if you've noticed, but I added "Buy Now" buttons to all my furniture for sale. That way you can purchase anything online through Paypal. Also, as an added bonus for this week alone (good through Dec. 9) everything is 45% off! And I'm offering $35 local delivery (just email me if interested in delivery). Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! 

Happy 1st Day Of Advent: DIY Advent Tree Project

This year I tried a simple DIY Advent project made from card stock, markers, and tape (all things I had laying around the house). 

I found this tutorial for the trees here

 and I printed out verses I found from this other tutorial here.

Here's ours lined up along the window seal.

Taliila literally only colored one before she got bored. 

But for the average child I'd say this would be a fun project.

 I think green card stock would have been a nice choice for the trees, but I only had white and didn't feel like running out to the store. Plus, I started it yesterday, and since today was the first day of advent, I didn't have much time to get it done. If you have little ones, white is fun because they can use markers to decorate the trees.

First you just print out the tree template from this site on card stock.

Once colored, I cut them out. 

I folded along the lines and used tape (no glue) to close them.

Then I folded up my verse and put a little piece of candy in the bottom of them. I did this step without Taliila seeing it, lest she want the candy right away... you try teaching a two yr old delayed gratification. 

After church today I told her to find the tree with the number 1 on it. She found it and took it to dadad to help her open it. We read the verse and she happily ate her piece of candy. She tried to get us to open another tree, of course, but she'll get the hang of it soon enough.