dear valentine.

dear valentine,

i want you to know that i love you today, just as much as i love you every other day.  thank you for making reservations at my favorite thai restaurant for dinner (even though i think secretly you don't adore it as much as i do), i have been looking forward to it all week.  of course i'll be wearing red to our date...cliche i know, but you won't judge me.  you'll probably say it looks cute and offer to take pictures so i can share it on my blog...i love you for that too :)

happy love day mister.  i'm so lucky we get to celebrate it every day.  xo.

sixteen degrees.

the chill is in the air today...a high of sixteen degrees so far.  still the sun is shining the prettiest of rays and the snow is sparkling bright.  we ventured out for a bit,  but i think it's time to get cozy by the fire with a book in hand...maybe a cup of hot cocoa too!  happy weekend.  XO, lindsay

snow scene mason jars and a pomegranate on top!

i finally took out all of our antique blue mason jars and clear mason jars from our wedding and decided to put them to decorative use around our home. i went to pinterest for some inspiration and fell absolutely head over heels in love with the mini snow scenes and decided to recreate it...pronto!

i headed over to joann fabrics and found a set of 21 village snow trees in varying sizes (for 60% off) and also bought a bag of "snow."  some other things i had on hand were stems of red berries from hobby lobby, candles, and white rice and beans - for other mason jar fillers.

i started creating and thought having some different height variations would be a good idea as well...i wanted to use vintage books, but didn't have any on hand so opted for something a little different...anthropologie wrapped books.  i knew saving those monthly catalogs would come in handy :) i fired up the candles, added a pomegranate for some color dimension and tada...all done :)

i'm happy with how it turned out and am excited to change out the scenes each season...i'm thinking terrariums for spring :)  XO

painted birch trees & a few small details

the best kind of decorating is the "free" kind...don't you think? matthew and i were lucky enough to get a lot of antique family pieces handed down to us...furniture, mirrors, china, pictures things like that.  the last few weeks we have been going through  our basement finding little treasures that we had completely forgotten about...it's like opening presents early :)

recently,  i have become particularly fond of the popular wallpaper "woods" available at anthropologie but with a $200 price tag i just couldn't bring myself to fork over that kind of money.  instead i grabbed a pencil, black acrylic paint and a tiny paint brush and went for it...

6.5 trees later (with 8.5 trees to go) this is what our kitchen wall looks like.  i haven't touched it for a week...perhaps the 2-4 hours it takes per tree tired me out a bit, i'm hoping to finish it up by january...i'll keep you posted :)  matthew and i laugh because he was just talking about how he really misses his annual trips to colorado...i told him now he can just look at the wall and pretend he's there!

it does make a pretty backdrop for indoor pictures too :)  XO, lindsay

decking our halls...

happy monday!  i hope you all had a wonderful weekend :)  saturday matthew and i woke up to snow and decided that it was a stay at home kind of weekend.  we started the fire (and kept it on at all hours!), lounged around and added some finishing touches to our little tree...who doesn't love a little extra holiday cheer in the home?

this year we decided on bold jewel tones...to my surprise my mister picked out the sparkly star on top...isn't it pretty?  it's a nice finishing touch if you ask me, but i am particularly fond of our "tree skirt" it is one of the most beautiful fabrics that i ordered several months ago from india.  i had not had an opportunity to use it, but this beauty was calling my name :)

oliver, the little kitten that we rescued (from my in laws front porch) seems to really admire it...i'm still waiting to find him swinging from the branches!  XO, lindsay

p.s.  thank you mom for the pretty owl ornament!  he is my favorite :)