Blast from the Past - Girl's Christmas Swap!

I am getting so excited about our Girl's Christmas Swap this year! I found some old pictures from previous swaps - can you believe we have been doing this since 2005? I cannot wait to see everyone at the King's Farm next weekend!

Christmas 2005

Kim with her new InStyle Parties book and new panties!

 



Meghan with her new pumps!

Christmas 2008

Gena Knox: Gourmet Made Simple! I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of Gena Knox: Southern My Way cookbooks this year!

Hollie opening the Magic Bullet - such a cute picture!

All of the girls with our "home items" - the year we discovered that we are getting old!

Christmas 2009



All of the girls at Bonefish last year!



Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone! I hope everyone has a wonderful day with their friends and family, and that you get everything that you wanted from Santa! I can't wait to hear from everyone about their holiday.

There still isn't any snow in Lilburn, but I am crossing my fingers that we see some while we are here!

A Joll{a}y Christmas!

This past Sunday my Dad's side of the family gathered to celebrate Christmas! Mayer and Beau were kind enough to host at their beautiful home . We had such a great time eating a wonderful meal, drinking wine, and playing our secret santa gift swap! I got a book by Vince Dooley and Steve Penley with paintings of UGA gardens, and Johnathan got a Starbucks giftcard and coffee mug!

All of the wonderful desserts!

Beautiful tablescape

Mom with her homemade cake from the Southern Living Christmas Issue

Brother in Law love - nice face Beau!

Mark "The Model" Gray

{Painted Furniture} - Coffee Table

In additon to the chest in the den, I also wanted to update our coffee table in the living room. I like the piece because it helps fill up the room, but I wasn't too excited about the original color.

I used this picture as inspiration from Pottery Barn:

Here is a picture of the coffee table when it was in the large den (this was before I moved in - don't judge!) It t was scratched up pretty bad, and the color was the same color of our wood floors. 

Here it is in our living room after I painted it with the Gripper paint:

And here is the finished product!

I am really pleased with how it turned out - now it coordinates with the other dark accents in the room!

{Painted Furniture} - The Chest

Johnathan and I are very fortunate to have a lot of furniture to furnish our home, but some of the pieces are outdated! I wish we could go out and buy brand new things, but that isn't in the budget right now! So instead, I decided to freshen up what we have.


I originally saw this picture of a painted chest on the blog House of Turquoise. I thought it looked simple and elegant, and also would bring a pop of color to a room!

So, with that as my inspiration, I decided to redo the chest that we have in our den. Here is a before picture:

It had a lot of scratches and the hardware was rusty and outdated!


My first step in the process was to cover the chest in Gripper. This stuff is my new best friend! Its so great because you don't have to sand or strip the furniture, you can just paint on Gripper as your first coat, then once it dries, your coat of paint goes on perfectly! Gripper is normally white, but I had the guys at Home Depot tint it a bit since I wanted the option of doing an antique look.


Here is the chest after applying the Gripper: 

And here is the finished result!

I am so happy with how it turned out. The color is Halcyon Green by Sherwin Williams and I got the hardware from Lowe's. I wish my camera was better to show the true color, but it coordinates really well with everything in our den. 


Check back soon for more furniture updates!

Holiday Decorating {Part 2}

This past weekend I finished up with the Christmas decorations in our house. I had a hard time getting motivated since we are leaving on Friday to go to Atlanta for Christmas, and we won't be back home until the New Year! But since its our first year in the house together, I wanted to do some decorating!


I picked magnolia leaves and some holly branches from our front yard to bring in some green and red on our mantle, along with the mercury candle globes.  

I saw this idea on the blog Hi Sugarplum! and thought it was such a cute idea to display your Christmas Cards. I just took some gold ribbon and wrapped it around the doors of our China cabinet, then used clothes pins to hold the Christmas cards from family and friends!

In addition to the tree in the den, I put up these cute glitter signs on our bookshelves that I found at the Target dollar spot! I added some of the holly behind them to spruce it up a bit. 

To our side table in our den, I added some gold fruit, along with the magnolia and holly. 

Our dining room table is decorated with a mercury candle vase, red glass bowl with silver coated pine cones, and red and green accents! 

Here's a quick glance of the peppermint candy I made for a small Christmas present for my co-workers! I was glad it turned out because this was the first year I made it by myself! The bags were also a Target dollar spot find - I love that place!

Christmas Wish List

 Here are a couple of items on my Christmas list for this year! Some I am hoping to get, and others are pretty far fetched, but a girl can dream, right?! 

Justin Cowboy Boots

Nine West neutral tone pumps

Nine West black boots

Barefoot Contessa Cookbooks

A recipe card organizer

Cute Pajama Pants

Workout Pants

A new chandelier for our dining room

A Lumix Camera

A road bike