Happy Holidays!!

Cole and I finished decorating the tree last weekend! I love a good old family tree with colored lights and crazy ornaments. No fancy trees in our house! I tried to capture just the right lighting to show the bright lights but still have enough natural light to have clear photos. It kind of worked but some of the photos are a bit more grainy than I would've liked. Overall, I'm very happy with how the decorating turned out. With a little shifting and rearranging of furniture, we were able to fit our first full grown real Christmas tree!

Photos by me & Cole

Starting Friday, Cole and I will have two full weeks off together!! I'm hoping to complete some house projects and maybe even take some outfit photos. Plus, on the 27th Cole and I will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary!!! It feels so crazy to even be typing that! We might head up to Duluth for a few days to celebrate, but we haven't quite planned anything yet. We're such procrastinators!

I hope everyone has an amazingly happy and safe Holiday Season!! Wishing you the best!

xxMaria

Winter Wonderland

This past weekend we got over a foot of snow within 24 hours. It was so gorgeous to wake up to a blizzard of fluffy white stuff. It reminded me so much of all the nor'easters we used to get in Boston! Man, Cole and I used to love those crazy storms, especially when we lived in the little coastal town, Marblehead. I hope the snow sticks around for the holidays so we can enjoy a magical white Christmas!

I was so excited to take photos that I ran outside wearing long johns!

I took the following iPhone photos the next day:

Photos by me & Cole.

Be sure to check back next week to see how we've decorated for the holidays!

xxMaria

Christmas Tree Hunting

This past Sunday, Cole and I went on a little expedition to Wisconsin to find a tree. One of our lovely neighbors told us about the St. Croix Valley Trees farm and it sounded pretty perfect. So off we went, on a cold foggy day, to hunt down the perfect Christmas tree!





I made a goofy little gif out of some iPhone photos. You can see how excited I was when we found our tree!

Photos by me & Cole.

xxMaria

A Dash of Paisley

To compliment yesterday's post on A Beautiful Mess, here's a little photo shoot that Cole and I did while snapping pics of our kitchen! I'm really loving the contrast of my bright outfit with the simplistic background. I still can't believe it's been sooooo very long since I've done an outfit post. Come to think of it, this is the first one for my new blog! Yay! Hopefully this will be the kick-in-the-pants I need to get back in the swing of things.

Photos by Cole. Thanks, darling!

Dress and boots: F21
Tights: Target
Vintage belt: my mom's

xxMaria

The Great Kitchen Reveal!

While the kitchen might not be fully finished, I finally have a great excuse to show it off. A big Thank You to the lovely girls at A Beautiful Mess for wanting to feature my little house!

Before & During:

the real estate photo; our first walk through

dark wood and beige everywhere; there was a weird desk under the window

after I painted and ripped off the back splash; with new walls, counters, sink and faucet!

xxMaria

DIY Woven Throw Pillow

Ever since I completed the chair, I've been in search of the perfect pillow. I looked at new pillows and old and still couldn't find what I wanted. Last week, I was at my local Savers and found this vintage piece of woven fabric. It was marked at $.99 and I got it half off! A ridiculous steal. After giving it a good cleanse, it became clear that it would make a wonderful pillow for the chair.

-the fabric before; -a mock size test

-old chambray cut to size & pinned the right sides together; -sewed a straight stitch on all edges; -cut the extra fabric

-left a gap near the bottom corner for turning right side out; -old stuffing used to fill the pillow and then hand stitched the gap

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving!!

xxMaria