mini makeover VIII - cherry tree branches

This is actually a double makeover, first we cut the cherry tree in the front of the house as it was growing way out of control and getting too close to the overhead wires. When it was time to bag all the cut branches I had the idea to bring a few inside and put them in a vase. To make it a little bit more christmassy (is that a word?) I added some fabric mushrooms I bought at Ikea a couple of years back. I thought they were super cute in the store but then they got stuffed into a drawer and never saw the light of day again until now. Still think they are cute, now I just need them to face in the right direction, I want to see their dots in the front ;) Are your homes ready for the holidays or are you not decorating this year?

Have a great weekend and stay warm!

week forty nine

Yes, I am a bit late again...This week I decided to go into hibernation, I have been going to bed basically right after getting home and in the morning after taking a shower I have been crawling back into bed to take another nap. Is there such a thing as hibernating humans? Anyways I feel like staying in bed all day and sleep, sleep, sleep. Anyone feel the same?

Last week I received my Black Friday and Cyber Monday online purchases and of course they are shoes. One can never own too many shoes and I really needed the duck boots for the slushy New York winter, also ordered a pair of shearling insoles to keep my feet warm. On Saturday we had about 30 people over for our Christmas party, we had German Christmas cookies and Stollen, all store bought though, as I did not get the chance to bake some myself and of course there was Gluehwein. We, actually P, made it for the first time from scratch and our guest must have liked it, all in all people drank 10 liters of it! Sunday we went to the Project Market here in Jersey City, which featured local shops and restaurants. Of course I didn't leave empty handed and bought two Jersey City prints for the next gallery wall project and two small porcelain numbers, of course together they form the number 40.

Well now it is already Thursday, hope you will enjoy the rest of the week, the weekend is near!

quick diy advent calendar

P's birthday was a few days before Thanksgiving and this year I had no idea what to give him. Then  it hit me, why not take him out to dinner at Peter Luger, something that was on our list for years. I made a reservation and crafted a gift card but still needed a good idea how to wrap it in a cute way. Because I was able to get a reservation for December 1st I thought giving him the dinner as part of an advent calendar would be fun. With only a couple of day lefts to finish the advent calendar I went to The Container Store for some inspiration and quickly found the kraft paper coffee bags. Initially I wanted to write numbers on them but then I found these tree gift tags and an idea was born. The bags were so easy to make, I just used doubled sided tape to add the trees to the bags. All in all it took maybe half an hour to finish the calendar. As the bags are pretty sturdy I will be able to reuse them in the next years, they would also make cute gift wrapping for smaller items or cookies. Most of the bags are filled with chocolate, some contain messages on these dry erase bubble magnets and some contain wooden animals. I thought the animals would go very well with the woodsy theme of the calendar and look cute if they were added one by one to the "forest on the mantle. 

Do you have an advent calendar or made one for a special person in your life?

PS. In case you are wondering but this post has not been sponsored by The Container Store, I was on crutches and was only able to visit one store so I needed to choose wisely ;)

PPS. No need to worry P does not read the blog and I won't spoil it for him with this post...

week forty six through forty eight

So many things happened in the past three weeks. The backyard was finally finished (yay!), we painted the fence in front of our house black (not so fun), although first it got a coat of brown rust inhibiting primer, I tried out a new gadget (mat cutter. love it!), hung a gallery wall (finally), sprained my foot (I still have two big bruises), had to walk on crutches (exhausting), made an advent calendar for P's birthday (last minute), made a cake and decorated a tree. I am still a bit flabbergasted that Christmas is around the corner, like every year it sneaks up on me but this year we have already decorated the tree, bought most of our presents and are hopefully not feeling stressed out by the holidays. What about you? Are you guys prepared for the upcoming holidays?

house industries and uniqlo

As of lately I am always a step behind and I did not even realize one of the companies I have a crush on collaborated with Uniqlo and created a series of t-shirts with their numbers, lettering and patterns that arrived in the stores in August. Did I mention I was a step behind, after writing this it sounds more like two or three steps behind. Have I ever mentioned that I love fonts and symbols? Well I do and if I had found out about the collaboration with House Industries sooner I might have been able to pick up one of the tees with an ampersand on it, big fan of the yellow ampersand print and the striped arms. When I finally realized that the collaboration was out there the store was pretty much picked clean but I managed to grab the first tee in the collage below. There are still some designs left online in case you are in interested, they are on sale too. What are your company/store crushes you cannot get enough of?

week forty three through forty five

Hello! Do you still remember me? The past two months I was so busy at work that I put my life on hold and only wrote this blog once in a blue moon but hopefully now that my workload is back to normal I will be able to ease back into blogging. Besides work other exciting things happened, I volunteered at Open House New York again, our backyard remake is almost finished etc. There will be posts on everything that happened very soon. Oh and there are a couple of things I want to cross off my to-do list before the end of the year, which will give me lots of material for posts as well. One thing that needs to be crossed off my list is creating a gallery wall in our living room, the frames have been piling up for years, now it's time to change that...Hope you had a great weekend and have a great week!

happy halloween

Happy Halloween! I am not that big of a fan of Halloween decorating but in the fall I like having pumpkins on my front steps and this year I added some Halloween decor that I found at the Dollar Tree. Those stores are usually a treasure trove when it comes to buying cheap items to decorate for the holidays. The crow already lost some feathers, I think a neighborhood cat thought it was real and tried to wrestle with it. One morning our stoop was covered in black feathers and on top of that a bird pooped on the crow as well. At least I took the photos before this happened. Are you guys going all out with decorating for Halloween or are you not even acknowledge it? Whatever your plans are for today/tonight, have fun!