Christmas Decs: Den!

Hello lovies!  Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  We newly Cornwells are still beat from this weekend's festivities but I'm happy to say that the party was a smash hit and we were so pleased to welcome everyone in to our new-to-us home.  Realized I missed my final Christmas Dec's installment on Friday while we were crazily finishing the stairs - nothing like burning the midnight oil!  So see below for the final gussied up room.  Back tomorrow with deets on the party - can't wait to share!!

The Merry and Bright canvas was my biggest project down here, but I, like many others, I'm sure, pinned this little project last Christmas and I reallly wanted to try it out.  It as actually pretty easy, outside of a little self hatred of my own handwriting, I think it turned out pretty well!

I simply sketched out the letters in pencil.

 

 

Painted over them with gold and silver paint. Flipped the canvas and used an exacto knife to cut tiny slits into the back of the canvas and poked the tiny light bulbs through. 

 

 

 

 I think the type of lights I used really helped make them stick in the canvas - I had purchased 7 strands of tiny tiny globe lights for our wedding to hang in the wisteria a couple years ago and didn't end up using them all.  So rather than having to glue the lights in place, like most tutorials, they stuck there pretty well on their own due to the tiny nubs.

 

all done up, and an unfortunate iphone pic.

 

I also, was totally inspired but this awesome bookish mantle I spotted while popping into West Elm in Chicago a few weeks back.  it totally ties into our sponsored charity for our holiday party this year where we decided to collect books for the local children's hospital.  I'll post more pictures this week, but I set out to several local thrift stores and for around $10 I picked up about 2 dozen red, hard backed books for our mantle.  After a little zhushing, I think it turned out great, can't wait to share!!

 

 

Hope you all had a great weekend!

 

xoxo,

KC

 

 

 

Christmas Decs: Living Room!

Now onto the living room.  This room got some major updates with a brand new tree -  hello skinny tall beauty - and a super fun and super easy DIY.

I actually do have pics from my super simply JOY project.  Picked a  couple pressed corrugate letters up from Hobby Lobby along with some gold spray paint and some gold glitter spray paint.

pre

 

post

 

We also have this new beauty in the corner.

 

i love her.

 

As a bonus, and not styled at ALL, we also hooked up this little dec for the dining room chandelier.  I'm super pleased with how it turned out.  Stole this idea from from Miss. Kristin

 

Who would have thought zip ties could be such a staple?!

 

And if you haven't noticed a theme yet.  I'm totally digging black and white accents to tie this Christmas together.  Sure there's pops of red and green all around, and of course gold (duh!) but for the most part I've tried to tie everything together with some simple black and white ribbons.

 

Last set of decs plans tomorrow as we plunge into the final prep for Saturday's party!  Can't wait to share!

 

xoxo,

KC

 

 

 

Christmas Decs: Front Porch

Onto the Front Porch plan.  You may remember that we unfortunately have a plethora of decorative wrought iron on this house of ours.  Outside of the cagey things on the windows (GONE, btw!! - yay for unrealistic pre party to do lists! pics to follow!) we also have the pleasure of being host to 4 large decorative iron columns on our front porch.  The main objective of the front porch decs?  Frame the positives and block out the negatives.

Here's how I aimed to make that plan a reality:

I got these exact galvanized planters from the Target Privet house closeout sale this past summer and just love them.  I was also able to snag some super tall (think 3+ feet) French flower buckets for the front porch from Hobby Lobby.  Some fun ribbon and several warm LED willow branches add some nice height.  One of my FAVORITE decs that was an "audible" if you will (aka impulse buy) are 3 Douglas Fir wreaths from our 3 big windows in the front.  We're holding out for plantation shutters for this 11 foot stretch of windows, but in the mean time, I've put up some basic white ikea curtains to provide a tiny bit of privacy and frame.  These 3 wreaths are the perfect extra detail and scream a little big more of that "homemade christmas" that I love so much, rather than my prelit, fakey garland.  Can't wait to share some pics of the finished project!

Tomorrow...Living Room decs!!

xoxo,

KC

Christmas Decor: Kitchen!

So I was holding off on posting all my Christmas decorating plans until I had some of the "make this" after shots to share.  Turns out that in the craziness leading up to our party this weekend, all "after" shots are also clogged with fixin's for the party and general holiday craziness.  With the party a mere 5 days away I'll be sure to post a full set of pics of all our decs once the house is gussied up and clean for guests.  Until then, here are some plans I hatched several weeks ago, that I'm happy to say, I've stuck pretty closely to....




I LOVE Christmas!  Every year I try to squeeze it all in!  Decorations, cookies, music, more decorations, holiday parties, gift wrapping and hopefully a little snow!  I thought I'd start a little mini series sharing all my plans to "Christmas up" the various rooms in our new house.

Let's start with the Kitchen.  Often overlooked, but always the hub of any good party, I like to make sure we have a few playful decorations in here that remind us why we're imbibing in all these delicious foods and drinks!

 

 

 

Back tomorrow with our outdoor decs!  Also, full recap of all the CRAZY projects that have been sucking up our time in preparation for this party.  90 "YES" RSVPs later, and my head is still swirling trying to prep!

xoxo,
KC

 

Christmas Party: Invites!

Every year I say, we have to get these out before Thanksgiving and every year we end up failing miserably at achieving that.  This year we missed my deadline (Nov. 15) but thankfully still got them out before Thanksgiving.

Because we finally have a bigger house, we're able to invite more people this year - yiphee!  But with more people comes more planning, so this year rather than hounding everyone to RSVP, I went digital!  Enter Paperless Post.

The idea of a formal digital invitation is so appealing and I couldn't wait to try it out.  The e-version (they also I have the option to print) has lots of freebies built in but it's all based on "coins." You're given 40 coins when you start out and I selected a free invitation and just had to pay for my "envelope" and "envelope liner."

There are tons of great templates to choose from and you can customize all of them.  I also selected a custom envelope insert to reinforce my holiday theme. These were a few of my favs.

 

 

 

But ultimately we had to stick with the festive black labs to pay homage to my little E Bear.

Gross I know.

 

blurred out so no internet crazies show up at my house.

that said, if you want to come, email me!

 

So far, I'm totally pleased with the quality and everyone has complimented Paperless Post's fun digital delivery presentation (it actually looks like you're opening a real piece of mail - hence the envelope + liners)

 

What's your favorite invite tool?  Still sticking with paper?

 

xoxo,

KC

 

PS this is NOT sponsored by Paperless Post, but I do love them dearly!

 

 

Weekend Recap: Den Makeover Part 2

Chalupa Batman! This has been a crazy couple of days! (Extra points if you get that reference!)

I was MIA last week with a quick jaunt up to Chicago for work meetings, but I was also able to sneak in some quick (and much needed) home decor shopping - more on that + some initial Christmas inspiration tomorrow.

This weekend was INSANE.  Looking back I feel a little like I just participated in some sort of HGTV home makeover. Although, to be clear, the finished product while impressive - to me - was still not on par with TV makeover greatness - but it was pretty darn good!

I kicked off the weekend by cleaning the house and getting some fixings for a nice, home cooked meal for my husband. 

This was an effort to butter him up to paint....the fireplace...on a Friday night...this Friday night.

Begrudgingly he obliged and that dark fireplace went from drab to fab with a coat (err coatssss) of white latex paint - more on that later this week.

sweet D in progress - I was helping BTW.

Saturday morning we woke up at 7 to start the final crown and baseboard installation process!  D and my amazing brother in law installed base in D's office and the den while I worked on THE WORST JOB EVER - sucking up leaves.

Our big beautiful backyard is suddenly a huge pain in my side, literally.  I spent the entire weekend sucking up bags and bags and BAGS of leaves and it's still not spotless back there.  At the end of the weekend I counted 18 bags - just from the backyard, and that's full of chopped leaves!  Did I mention that Kirkwood charges $1.50 for each bag? 18 from the back + 12 from the front means I'm officially out $45 for lawn care in two weekends alone!

Rant over.

D and our brother in law D finished up the crown in the den last night and I'm happy to report that the place is looking a bit more like this....

look at that big beautiful crown!

 

So I'll be back with a full look at this before and after + detailed instructions on painting of fireplaces. But I couldn't help by take this crappy iphone pic and send to some of my nearest and dearest in a deliriously proud and incredibly exhausted moment yesterday.  Not sold on keeping the mantle natural but too exhausted and not committed enough (to any color) to paint it quite yet.

 

I cannot tell you how much BRIGHTER this room is now - it's actually pleasant to be in!

 

Other item's crossed off my "do before our Christmas party" list?

o   Remove paint from den window done!

o   Remove paint from guest window pushing till after the party...

o   Fix paint touch ups in bedroom done!

o   Call someone to fix ice maker

o   Paint den doors (4)

o   Sand and stain/paint stairs

o   Caulking all base now there's more of it...

o   Caulking all crown now there's more of it...

o   Paint den  done!

o   Install black splash in kitchen

o   Move den bath mirror up

o   Install sliding door screen

o   Paint shutter in front

o   Remove things on windows in front

o   Sand driveway

o   winterize backyard done!

o   Hem dining room curtains

o   Finish café curtains for kitchen

o   Paint office chair (black ) needs final spray

o   Paint office desk (white)

o   Gold mirror installation in dining room done!

o   Buy fabric for dining room, bedroom and kitchen cornice

o   Order bedroom curtains to match bedroom cornice

o   Sand and paint dresser for bedroom

o   Buy bench for front hall

 

Oh yea, and decorate for Christmas, clean the house, walk the dog, order food for the party...and on...and on...  tis' the season!

 

Are you ready for this week's festivities and all that follow?

 

xoxo,

KC