Christmas garland

So I've always been in love with this garland from Pottery Barn:

It's lovely right? But its also $140 for a 6 foot strand... ugh! Even just to cover my outside columns I would need 4 because six feet really isn't long enough to go all the way around the column more than 1.5 times! So it adds up, fast and P said it was a no go! Clearly the logically decision but I was so sad until I ran across this tutorial for making a DIY version of this garland here! 

Y'all!! This is so simple, I shouldn't have even needed a tutorial but I really just had no idea it would be so simple. Let me warn you though- it is simple but it is definitely time consuming! I'm a little slow and I wasn't totally paying attention, choosing to watch Christmas movies on ABC Family while I did this little project, so each 9 foot garland took me about 2 hours- I think. The first one probably a little longer and the second one went faster as I got the hang of things! 

Just like in the tutorial I picked up two 9 foot pre-lit GE garland from Lowe's and a bunch of ornaments from Hobby Lobby during one of their 50% off decorations week! SCORE! I used only small and medium ornaments, not the large ones and tied them on with some floral wire stuff that looks like green twist ties. 

Here you can see my three tubs of small ornaments- these covered all 18 feet of garland along with 24 (6 packages) of the medium size ornaments that come in 4-packs

This too was in the holiday section at Hobby Lobby on the aisle with their garlands and wreaths. I ended up using two! 

I just cut a bunch of strips of the twist ties into about 3 inch pieces and strung them through the ornaments (do get shatterproof plastic ornaments since these will be outside!) and attached them to the garland. I did all of my larger ornaments first, then came back and filled in space between with the small ornaments. 

I decided to use silver and red like the Pottery Barn wreath AND gold since my front door wreath is all gold- I thought I should bring some gold into the picture! 

Overall I spent about $60 on ornaments and $60 on the two garlands so $120 total vs the $700+ I would have spent to pay for the PB ones. . . while time consuming, I think the 4 hours in "labor" were well spent! 

I'll add pictures of the garlands up outside later when I show you the rest of our Christmas decor! 

House work

In preparation for Baby M we have been doing some work around the house in addition to just planning the nursery!

First and foremost was to replace our worn out/ hollow core doors with some new solid-core pretty pretty doors! I've been wanting to do this for a while and it makes such an amazing difference in the house I can't even tell you! They have so much more character now!

We also painted the office which will become the nursery and finally replaced the large picture window in that room as well! It was the only window we hadn't replaced yet but needed to be replaced with safety glass since it will be in the nursery and it goes so low to the ground!

Before

and after! Yes that's another small sneak of the nursery progress but clearly not how it will end up! (With the printer and extra art hanging around!) 

While we were at it we also painted the shutters on the front of our house. I hadn't realized how terrible they looked until our neighbors painted theirs and I actually stopped to look at our shutters. Such an easy project and WHAT a difference!

Before

After! 

Oh and we finally got a real comforter on our bed after about a year of just using the coverlet! I still want another pillow or two to add to it but we are loving it thus far! 

my new "office"

Well as you know- we are in the process of changing our office into the nursery so we had to find somewhere else for the "office" to go and we are out of rooms! So I knew it would be a corner in some room and after much debate (and at the advice of sweet Holly Mathis) we decided to swap the console table in the guest bedroom for a desk and it's been working out really really well! 

the console table before:

And "office" area now: 

Eventually I plan to get a lateral file cabinet to put on another wall but for now the rolling cart has come  with! 

And since we needed the old office closet and shelves for the nursery I am now keeping extra office supplies in this little cabinet which was previously totally empty! 

This is clearly an old pic- see the corner of the old duvet! 

Even though its smaller and less of an office, P and I actually like it so much better! I have loved this room since we painted it navy and added the new grey and white striped bedding from West Elm so I LOVE sitting in this room! And P loves coming and sitting/ relaxing on the bed to chat while I'm working! 

And the desk/ chair/ whole set up is just prettier! And who doesn't love working with pretty surroundings?? Much more inspiring than an office cubicle if you ask me! 

*The new desk is from Overstock and the acrylic chair is from the Tobias chair from Ikea! I am about to go back and get some for our breakfast room too because it is SOOOO comfortable I can't even get over it! Oh and it took about 5 minutes to throw together! 

Sam's 1st birthday

So in my absence from the blogging world, we've been up to a few things! First and foremost we celebrated Sam's 1st birthday!! It was a very exciting day and we spoiled him rotten!

with the largest rope toy ever- and his current fav!

everybody around here gets the birthday hat! 

 It was so fun that he was exhausted and fell asleep in dad's chair pretty early! Looks like it was tiring for everyone around here!