Friday, December 27, 2013

Singapore & Philippines Travels

Check out the Travel tab for pictures from when I went to Singapore/Philippines. 

Hope y'all have a lovely day!

Monday, December 23, 2013

Merry Christmas From Down Under!

I'll be working overtime this week and won't be able to post, but I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas week! 



Merry Christmas Y'all from Down Under!!

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Loft Updates

I haven't shared any recent nondecorative holiday pictures of the loft in a while. If you follow me on Instagram you can see that I have posted a few. Enjoy!


Thursday, December 19, 2013

Tea Love

I am a huge tea lover and drink tea every day, whether it is hot or cold. During my travels to Australia I have found one of the coolest tea shops ever! I literally spent over an hour in the store and would pop in over the course of my stay in Perth. The store is called T2 and they are located all over Australia.  They have everything from an huge assortment of teas to any tea hardware you could think of. I have purchased quite a few teas and a few tea kits. So even if you never get a chance to visit Australia you can browse online and see all the beautiful things they have to offer. They also have great recipes online. I love chai tea for the holidays and they have really good recipes. They even give you tips on the best practices for using their hardware. I believe they have something for everyone from super modern pieces to the very elegant and classic pieces. So enjoy some pictures from the T2 website of just a few of their products. 


Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Christmas Decorations Continued

I thought I would share some of my last Christmas pictures and updates for the holiday season. I did end up finding some pretty green garland at a local plant shop (post here). It was 8 dollars per yard, and I ended up getting two yards; which ended up being the perfect length for the mantel. I kept is simply and didn't really add anything to it. 
Other holiday additions was a wreath my mother made me out of beautiful red and gold ribbon and mesh material. I hung it up on the door that leads out to the balcony. 
I also finished up all my gift wrapping and thought I would share more pictures. 
And last but not least I thought I would share the tin box of pecans that I received as a Christmas gift from work. Being from the south I love my pecans, which I have mentioned before here

Monday, December 16, 2013

Engaged!!!

Hello lovelies, I am sorry I have missed a day or two, but I have some exciting news to share. I got engaged this past weekend!!! We are so happy and can't wait to share wedding ideas and updates. Unfortunately though I have to travel today to Australia for work and will be missing Christmas. I won't be posting probably the next few days,but I will leave you with a picture of the ring. 


Hope y'all have a lovely day!!

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Travel Photos

I know I have mentioned this before, but I just love to travel. I wish I could travel even more. As I continue to use my phone the majority of the time for picturing taking, I also tend to edit my photos through iphone apps. Some of my favorites are Camera+, Over, AfterLight, and VSCOcam. One of the quickest and easiest apps to use is Instagram, you can see mine here

Well, I stumbled upon this really cool website StickyGram, where you can make your Instagram photos into magnet sheets or use your photos on an ipad/iphone cover. I thought what a cute idea and this made me think about a cool, yet easy way to start remembering my trips. So I made two 3 X 3 magnetic sheets with my Instagram photos taken on each personal trip I took this year, Fredricksburg, TX and New Orleans, LA. I also couldn't resist the urge to make an iphone cover as well. See my creations below. 

New Orleans 2013

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Pretty Purple Paper

With Christmas only a few weeks away I have started wrapping presents. We found this pretty wrapping paper at Marshalls and even some of the twine. I like experimenting with making bows and even did this year with wrapping paper, as you can see with the cream feather wrapped present. I just cut from the wrapping paper small narrow strips (6-8 inches long x 1-1.5 inches wide) and folded the two end pieces together and tapped it in the middle. I did this with 5-8 strips and then just started to stack them on top of each other and it turned out looking pretty good. Enjoy!

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Travel - Perth, Australia

In August I went to Perth, Australia for the first time with work. This was one of the few times I actually got to spend time on land and explore a bit. Australia's seasons are opposite of the United States so as we were in the end of summer there winter season was ending. However, majority of the time I was there the weather was perfect and beautiful. Most of the pictures you will see below are in the city of Perth and of Kings Park taken with my iPhone so sorry if some of the pictures are not the best quality. 


Monday, December 9, 2013

Amber's Before & After Bathroom Redo

My father is the oldest of six kids so needless to say there are a lot of grandkids and people around for the holidays and all the in between get togethers. I am very close to my family and am so proud of everyone's drive and accomplishments. One of my cousins is currently finishing up her last year in college and owns her own photography business, found here. She also recently purchased a home and shared a few before and afters of her bathroom...what a transformation!! I couldn't believe it was the same bathroom and just love the wood wall stained different colors. I hope y'all enjoy these before and after pictures as much as I did. Over the next few weeks I hope to share more before and after pictures of her house. 

Friday, December 6, 2013

Sweet Tooth

I definitely had a sweet tooth this week. I usually don't crave sweet things, but I could not pass up these chocolate chip turtle cookies when I saw them at the store. Every time I see turtle flavored foods I automatically think of my grandmother. Being raised in the south it is hard to turn down anything with pecans. So last night I baked the cookies and they were so good. I highly recommend them. Not a bad way to spend the night eating cookies by the Christmas tree. 


I hope y'all have a lovely weekend!

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

It's a Wrap

A lot of my online gift purchases have been coming in so I started to look on pinterest for gift wrapping ideas. I found some of the cutest and prettiest ideas I thought I would share with y'all. 

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Christmas Time is Here

I have put up all the Christmas decor, but I have still yet to find a section of garland that I want to put on the mantel. I found this one here, but was worried it would come in too late for this Christmas holiday. I will admit I haven't search high and low and really just online. However, the picture of the original inspiration of the mantel garland has a full post on all the beautiful details of that room and can be found here. In the description of the garland she went with a fresh garland. This got the wheels turning in my head and since I have a fake tree I think it would be neat to have a real green section of garland, plus the smells would be amazing. I am going to look around this week at local garden/plant shops and see what they have and hopefully they aren't too pricey. I will have to update y'all on my finds. In the mean time I hope you enjoy the pictures.


Monday, December 2, 2013

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree...

My mother likes to have a "second" Thanksgiving dinner just for the immediate family the weekend right after Thanksgiving. This is always a fun time because we eat a lot of food, play games, and it is just nice being able to all come together since we all have pretty busy schedules. As the menu choices are narrowed down and everyone knows what to bring this gives my mother the opportunity to then focus on the Christmas decorations. Like always she never fails to impress and even out did herself this year with her brand new 12 foot tree in the living room.  I just had to take some pictures and share them with y'all.