Around these parts...

Yikes.  Yet another break turned blogging sabatical.  I'm still "fairly" new to this whole blogging nonsense and yet I don't know how people do it on the reg.  There is a fair amount of pressure to be consistent and interesting - but I think it might be brought on by my own delusions?  Regardless, I'm going to try to my more consistent - can't promise interesting - to continue on in the spirit with which this started - to document the home we've started to make in our new-to-us house.


So, for those of you outside of STL, last week I was working from home (God bless my employer) because of some of this nonsense.

note: we got 12 inches, but after several glasses of wine and a few more inches i had no desire to document the event any further.

 

And while this really was quite beautiful....

 

mother nature literally laughed at me when it was 50+ degrees the weekend before, when i purchased that wind chime. bah.

 

It basically quelled any hints of Spring and left D and I housebound for a few days.  There was a lot of this:

 

 

a little of this:

 

getting ready for its debut in the master.  more to come.

 

and LOTS of snow time with this sweet face. She is literally a different animal when it snows.

 

 

In other news, we had some friends over for a Bingo + Wine Night + Make Your Own Pizza Night a few weeks ago.  It was a blast.  I bought this on Christmas clearance a few years ago and have gotten GREAT use out of it.  Also a fun way to clear out your "gift closet" of randoms.

 

 

 

wine rate cards and place settings

 

 

 

 a hint of spring with moss and hydrangeas

 

It was nice to get everyone together and start enjoying our house in the way we hoped we would.  Our Holiday party (one day I'll share, I promise...) was a definite kick off but we have big hopes of having more regular gatherings with close friends and family frequently.

 

I'll be back later this week - planning on writing the post now so no cop outs - on an update to our window treatments.  Riveting I know, but maybe fun for others to see why we went with what we did and how we managed to get them made!

 

What have ya'll been up to in these final days of winter?

 

xoxo,

KC

 

 

My Heart is Beating Like a Hammer

Hi All!  Sorry for what cannot even be called a blog break, it was much more like a blog breakdown.  These past two months have been OUT OF CONTROL - no worries, mostly all good out of control but VERY busy none the less.

I'll share more later but I think I'm finally starting to figure out what the new normal is with a somewhat new job (same company, totes new position!), crazy travel schedule and trying to drive forward the million different house/life projects running through my head.  I am very much feeling that this is not so much my anthem but def my life theme right now.

I'm trying to make a list of all that has transpired between today and Dec. 17 (the last post I had)  and will def catch you all up on whatever was interesting - not to leave out the final Christmas Party decks - ah I loved it all, the full skinny on how to paint a fireplace, some new window treatments I'm working on with my brother in law (hello dentil cornice!) an update to the party closet and so much more!

In the mean time, I'm lusting over a fabulously lush and intimate garden space that I'm hoping I can pinch some pennies for in the very near future.  The piece de resistance for this beauty?  A FABULOUS paver patio with a big ol' French country table.

I need some sun on my face stat, but in the mean time, here's what's fillin' up what little space is left in my noggin!

a few pots of these, that could be moved to new said patio and back inside come next fall.  These were ALL over the villa we stayed at for our honeymoon in Italy.via.

 

 

pavers + stripes and fresh green please. via.

 

 

 

 

a brother in law special on one of these - but 15 ft. long via

 

 

 

4 packs of these via.

 

what on earth have ya'll been up to?

 

 

xoxo,

KC

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!