Bridal Shower

My friend, Krissi, just got married! Woo to the hoo!

She asked me to be one of her bridesmaids, and I was thrilled.  All of the other bridesmaids live up North, in New York, and they threw her bridal shower and bachelorette shindigs up there.  Since, I am down here with Krissi in good ol’ Florida, I wanted to throw her a party to celebrate with her southern friends.  Don’t be fooled though, we don’t have many friends down here.  We pretty much hang with just each other.  Anywho, I wanted to throw a bridal/bachelorette/girls night/Krissi day for my lovely friend.

Here’s what went down…

I knew I wanted to hang balloons upside down from the ceiling, because I have seen many cool examples on Pinterest.  Here is what I came up with…I bought clear-ish balloons and filled them with pink confetti glitter, then hung them from the ceiling with pink ribbon. I’ll give you a quick fun fact about Krissi, she is a health nut, and she was even more so because of her upcoming wedding. So, I made some cupcakes, which were the weight watchers recipe for red velvet.  I threw some colorful sprinkles on top, since I was going for a colorful “sprinkles” theme. I, also, framed a couple of my favorite photos of her and her hubby to be, Sean.I made another good ol’ mimosa bar, because a Krissi party isn’t a Krissi party without mimosas.I had other bevs for the non-mimosa drinkers as well. Plus, these amazing straws…I picked the dog faced straw for my drink, who woulda thought?To continue with the “sprinkle” theme I found these awesome polka dot baskets and serving trays at Michaels. I made white chocolate and sprinkle covered pretzels and popcorn.  I could eat that popcorn for every meal for the rest of my life.  Seriously, melt some white chocolate and pour it over some popcorn, you will not be disappointed,For favors, I did these cute little succulents in mini pots.  The big guy was for the guest of honor, of course. I found these little pink lanterns, that light up, at the dollar store. Sorry for being a bad blogger because I didn’t get a picture of them lit up at night, but it was really cool. Krissi was pretty pumped about the jello shots… Of course, we got her some goodies for the celebration. I drew her pup, Oliver, and also got her a couple things on her registry.   She, also, received some mula and even some pesos for her honeymoon in Mexico! Just look how excited Charlie was about the pesos! And, look how thrilled he was to be smooshed by me!

We had a blast, and we will miss our Krissi so much when she moves back to NY.  Love you Krissi!

Here are some photos from her fabulous wedding…

 

Family Visit

A few weeks back, my mom, dad and sister came to visit.

I figured you have been dying to see the photos from this little family reunion.  So, I won’t keep you in suspense any longer…

Look at that family!  Couldn’t you just eat them up? I just love them!We had a super laid back visit, we just went where the wind took us each day.We did do the touristy thing and asked a fellow Jacksonviller to take our photo in front of the Main Street Bridge.  Fancy huh?We visited the Jacksonville Landing one day.

Jess got her fortune told by Zoltar.  It was astonishing.We did lots of lunches and dinners with friends. The Slide Into Summer Music and Craft Beer Fesitval was happening while they were in town, so we made a trek to that, of course.  We love us some live music.They had awesome food, music and vendors. The venue was in Fernandina, right on the beach.And, we even got our first family selfie!   The headliner for the festival was Railroad Earth, which we are all big fans of.  My dad left a couple days before my sister and mom, so we got to have a couple days to shop and do things that he would prefer not to.And, lastly we got to catch one of Justin’s hockey games… All in all, we had a blast!

Campin

A few weeks back, we went camping at Santos Campground in Ocala, FL.  We headed down on a Thursday and stayed through the weekend, leaving early Sunday morning.

We met Justin’s family there, they had arrived a day earlier.  We set up camp and immediately went hiking.Santos Campground has, both, hiking and bike trails.  We hiked in the morning with the dogs, and biked in the afternoon(without the dogs).It really is a beautiful place to camp and explore.Char was the protector of our site……But really, I think he enjoyed watching our fellow campers.

At night, we had dinner and hung out by the campfire.

I took a lot of photos on this trip, so bear with me.And, of course, the only biking photo we got…

So, if you’re ever in Florida and looking for a place to camp.  Check out Santos Campground, we totally dig it.

Feel that Air Flow

Since it hasn’t been the usually scorching 90 degrees here in Florida lately, we have been leaving our windows and doors open more often to let some fresh air in.  It is wonderful.  The back porch is completely screened, so we are able to just prop the back doors open and not worry about critters getting in or our little critters(Charlie Bean and Zack Man) getting out, it’s perfect.  However the front door did not have a screen.  Booooo!  Notice how I said DID not?  Well now it DOES! Woo hoo for more air flow!  Here is our door pre screen…

Hi cute little blue door, I love you!

In order to add a new screen door there were a few things that had to be done first.  It seemed that the door Justin purchased wasn’t quite fitting correctly.  He had to add some wood to frame out the door a bit and make it so our new screen door would fit and sit flush with our house. This was not an east task though, Justin’s dad came by to help him out. If we can’t figure something out we usually rely on Kent to make it work! Thanks Kent!

See the new wood that he added?  He also added a piece of 2 x 4 under the bottom lip of the door so there wasn’t such a large gap between the door and the ground.  Since our home is stucco Justin needed to texturize that piece so it doesn’t look so smooth and stand out against the texture in the existing frame.

See what I mean?  Oh and check out those adorable feet and nose! Char man is such a good helper.   Here’s a closer look at the texture on the 2x 4…

We also caulked all of the small creases and crevices, I sure do love caulk.  Once everything was dry it was time for some paint.   I just grabbed a quart of white outdoor paint and went to town.  Here are my finished results…

Here’s  quick before and after…

Can you see the difference?  The white trim should look a whole lot whiter, but I think the only noticable spot from the photos is one little black spot in the top left side above the window.  In person this trim is bright white and looks much cleaner than it did before, so score for me.  The other couple differences you can see are obviously the missing wreath, booooo!  We can’t hang the wreath with the screen door up because it may tear the screen and aint nobody got time for that!  Also in this before and after you can see the added 2 x 4 that is now painted white, I think it gives the bottom of the door a more finished look.   Here is a closer look at the actual door that we added…

We are lovin this screen door, it is so nice because we are able to leave it open and feel all the air flow!

When I was out, Justin sent me this picture after he installed the door…

It’s not a very clear picture, but it’s Zack enjoying the breeze.  And here they are in the back patio…

These dogs are lovin life.  Anyway back to the door.   We love it and we can change out the screen for a glass insert for the warmer months when we are running the AC and then I can put my wreath back up!

Do you leave your windows and doors open?  Are your dogs as spoiled as mine?  Probably not.  Thanks for reading!

Something Blue

Remember our bedroom?  No?  Well here it is…

We have now had our gray duvet cover from IKEA for a little over 7 months and we still love it, but we decided to change it up a bit.  We headed over to Target and found this…

We both thought it would be perfect.  In case you haven’t noticed we are pretty big fans of the color blue, also I am loving anything with a herringbone design lately.  Lastly, it’s a quilt which is nice to have since Florida isn’t known for its low temperatures, so the lightness of a quilt is nice.  We were pretty much sold on this guy.  We however didn’t get the shams because they only had standard size and we need king.  We also grabbed some new sheets while we were at it, yup livin it up on this Target trip!  Here is what we got…

Good old gray sheets and you can’t quite tell from this photo but they also have a herringbone design.  I know what you’re thinking, “didn’t they have gray sheets?” Well yes we did, but they were not very good quality and they did not fit very well.  These were a bit pricier($60) and with that price comes much higher quality.

In the photo above the quilt looks really blue, but it has more of a teal hue to it in person…

See?  Here is everything on our bed…

I think I’m diggin it, but I definitely need some new throw pillows.  My others were a bit too blue for this tealish quilt.  I also hopped online to order the matching shams, but realized with shipping it would cost around $55 for two king shams and I thought nope! So looks like me and the sewing machine will be hanging out soon.  I’ll keep you updated on the pillow dilemma!

Happy Fall Y’all

I seriously just typed y’all, I don’t even say that word.  Florida may be rubbing off on me afterall.  Anyway, Halloween is over and it’s time to plan for the next holiday aka Thanksgiving.  Can’t wait to stuff my face and hang with family, but in the meantime I figured I would throw some fall decorations up to get us pumped up for the upcoming festivities! First off I packed up all of the Halloween decorations, except a few pumpkins that will stay to help celebrate Thanksgiving.  Once I had everything packed away I headed out to the store to get some supplies for some decorations I was thinking about putting together.  I stopped at JoAnne Fabrics and Hobby Lobby and came home with this…

Yup, got a butt load of stuff.  Everything was on sale though, I’m not that crazy, I spent about $25 for everything here.  I got the branchy thing with yellow looking berries from Hobby Lobby for $3 and it ended up here…

To be honest this may hang out here year round.  I am really diggin the way that it helps fills out this little nook area.  Here’s a view from the other side…

I heart it.  I wasn’t finished there, oh no.  I still had a couple other quick crafty projects up my sleeve, oh yes.

I previously had this glass cylinder from Justin’s work Christmas party, believe it or not.  They always have nice little centerpieces and they let every couple take one home each year.  This guy was filled with pine cones and ornaments last year.  I have seen them at craft stores for around $5 though if you’re interested in picking one up.  I also grabbed a cylinder candle from Target, that was on clearance for $4.

Lastly, I picked up some beans. Yes, beans.

Navy beans in particular, never heard of them.  I just liked them because they were white.  You can probably see where I am going with this idea now…

I poured some of the beans in the glass cylinder and then plopped the candle right on top.  I shimmied it around until it was level and centered then poured in the remaining beans.

I really wanted to try to stick with a white/tan theme for Thanksgiving this year, so I went with the white navy beans.  You could also use split peas or kidney beans or even acorns.  Anything your heart desires I guess!  Here is where this one ended up…

On the TV console.  I had one last project in mind, here are my supplies…

See the wheat looking stuff?  I picked that up at Hobby Lobby for $3 also, the ribbon and mason jars I already owned.  I started by splitting up the wheat bunch into smaller pieces.  The bunch was held together by wire, so I had to use our wire cutters to do so.

I was left with this…

All of those little extended pieces are wire, I tossed this guy right in the trash.  Next I plopped a few of the bunches into a clear mason jar.

I thought this was looking pretty good, but I didn’t care for the way the bottom of the bunches looked unfinished in the clear jar.  I then grabbed a bag of white rice we had in our pantry and just poured some right into the jar…

Much better!

I also added a burlap bow on each…

Fancy, huh?  These two went to live on the mantle…

I also put a couple creamish colored frames and a few votive candles up there as well. This project cost me $3 total because I had everything on hand except the wheat bunch. If you had to purchase everything to replicate these I would say it would run you about $10. Not bad for a quick decoration project.

I also purchased a little fall pillow that ended up in the patio…

And I had to get one more pumpkin!

And you know I have fall napkins!

Lastly, I bought a crazy scarecrow guy that ended up on the kitchen ledge along with an acorn dish filled with candy.

Do you decorate for fall?  Do tell!!!

Taking it out back

Justin took advantage of this cool Florida weekend and did some work outdoors. Since this weekend didn’t make it over 90 degrees, we were happy to be outside doing some quick updates.

If you can remember the side of our yard was looking like this…

Well, Justin thought it would be a good idea to add some more plants in this area. He was thinking that if we added some more taller plants we wouldn’t have to look at the air conditioner from the patio. So he headed to Lowe’s and came back with some supplies to make a small garden under this side window.

At this point he had already removed the sod and laid down the gardening fabric that we use when adding new garden beds. Want a closer look? Okay…

As for what plants he chose, he purchased 4 Podocarpus…

Also 4 Aztec Grass.

And 2 Super Blue Liriope.

He went right to it once we decided what the best placement was for each plant.

As you can see we decided on 3 Podocarpus in front of the AC unit and the last one in the corner. The other grasses were just spread out in between, apparently they are ground cover so we are sort of worried that they may grow out of control. I guess we will just have to wait and see. Once he had everything in the ground and the new mulch spread this is what we were left with…

And this is the view from our patio…

We are pretty pumped about our new little garden, fingers crossed that those Podocarpus grow a bit more so we see even less of the AC unit. Here’s one more look…