Pieces of a day-Christmas edition

The pieces of Christmas day.

I spent Christmas eve celebrating with my dad and little brother. Since Adam is 9, his tastes change yearly so I'm never without ideas of what to get him.   This year it's Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Both things I approve of and both things that are easy to buy for.

After Christmas eve I came home to Virginia and Shaun and I spent Christmas day with his family. First at his parents house and then at his aunt and uncles. It's hard to believe I've been a part of his families holidays for five whole years, my how the time flies. Every year I enjoy getting together with his family and sharing hugs, laughs, food and gifts. They always remark about how much they love my gift wrapping and as much as I am humble about it I really do appreciate the compliments. I love wrapping things. I think presentation is equally as important when you are sharing something with people as the actual item! Shaun's dad even made an excellent suggestion! (He is really really amazing at anything business related and both of his parents have been so sweet to take such an interest in my etsy shop and encourage me to keep going with it!) His dad said why don't I offer a gift wrap option on the etsy shop? It's easy, quick money and adds a whole new facet of business to what people can do with the treasures they buy! I think this is probably a genius idea seeing as the first item I sold was a birthday present for someones sister!

The key now is to stock up on pretty ribbon and paper, wrap boxes and photograph them and then figure out pricing. The weather has been too crazy the past couple days for me to even think about braving the cold and stopping at Michaels but Friday on my way back to Maryland I'll stop and stock up on all the holiday items for next year and see what other pretty wrapping things I can stock up on.   The more I think about the idea, the more excited I get!  I do love to present things in a nice, pretty way. As un-utilitarian as it is, I think it's important to add things to life that exist simply to look nice and put a smile on someones day. It's amazing how much a pretty wrapped box can brighten someones day!


1/2/3. Shaun's sister and her fiance got a brand new black lab puppy named Sampson. Needless to say, the first thing I photographed after opening my amazing new camera from Shaun, was this little sleeping angel!
4. Shaun also hooked me up with the coolest 300mm telephoto lens and all night I kept telling him to go far away so I could take pictures with it.
5/6. This is their other dog, Lola. The fluffiest, chubbiest husky you will ever meet. (also the hungriest, she will sit her face on your lap until you give her food when you're eating)
7. Every year Shaun and his sisters get their mother a nice present that's from all the kids. This year he picked up a macbook air for her. I remember getting a little dizzy in the apple store when he bought it, I might have laptop fever and as much as I say I hate apple, I might need to get myself a macbook!
7/8. Shaun's youngest sister, Sam with little Sampson. I was incredibly proud of the action shot I got of the puppy!
9. Getting ready to leave for Judy and Ricks house
10. Shaun's dads best of a car.  I'd be a little bitter that I haven't gotten to drive it yet if I wasn't so scared of losing control and ending up in a ditch somewhere.  So amazing!
11. The wreath on Judys door
12. Shaun's sweet southern Grandma, Grandma Whitt. She no longer grabs my face and tell me to behave, so I think she is starting to like me ; )
13. Their huge Christmas tree. This one wasn't as huge as last year, but still a monstrosity!
14. Aunt Judy and Shaun's Momma in the kitchen, cookin up some delicious food!
15. Little Christmas town
16. Shaun's cousin, Tim, posing like a supermodel in front of the fireplace.
17.  Someone looks a little suspect of my shutter fever
18. Family shot of Shauns sister, Stephanie, her fiance Jason and the newest puppy member Sampson!
19. a close up of the sweet pup
20. The fire is finally roaring
21. Setting up the dinner table with Steph and Jason canoodling in the background
22. Everyone sitting down to dinner
23. Shaun's sister Sam, cousin Tim, cousin Alicia and Sampson
24. Playing with my awesome new lens!
25. snuggling up to the fire after dinner.
26. puppy kisses!
27. little reindeer at Momma Hicks' house. I cannot WAIT to have a mantle of my own to decorate!
28. Grandpa Whitt petting the Lola
29. Shaun and his dad sharing a bro hug ; )
30. Momma Hicks and Shaun
31. a little leftover pile of holiday ribbon from the unwrapping.

oh and did I mention Shaun's mom gave me vintage pyrex for Christmas! She is the sweetest! I can't wait to go on many antiquing adventures with her while she's here from Singapore!

Happy Happy holidays to you and yours!

Pieces of a day

This post brought to you by the windy Virginia winter weather and a last second java chip frapucino.

This is my first official theme post. I'd like to capture more pieces of my day as I continue along with this blog and make it a running theme at least once every 2 weeks. (Once a week if I'm feeling a bit motivated).  This one is actually pieces of 2 days because, quite frankly, not much has happened the past couple days. After the whirlwind of excitement and stress of the holidays, a quick bout of the flu and accomplishing cleaning the house, I've finally been able to sit and do absolutely nothing.

and it...is...nice.

Although I'm already feeling restless, I'll have plenty of time to do things the next few days. Tomorrow I head back to MD and I'll be doing a bit of rock climbing at the gym, possibly dinner with some friends and also stopping by my neighbors house to do a little gift exchange and say hello. Saturday morning I pick up Aiyshen and we head down to North Carolina to visit Kristi at her new house! We'll be back Sunday night (hopefully) and then it's NYE in Baltimore to see Louis C.K. with Kim, then back to work followed by girls night and Shauns work Christmas party next weekend. Yep. After this nice little break of 2 days doing nothing but taking baths, listening to brazillian jazz, reading the latest Martha Stewart Living, watching Property Brothers and baking and cooking things with my shiny new green mixer and crockpot, it will be back to the craziness of life again. Hopefully I'll be able to get a little thrifting, staging, photographing and listing in the etsy shop once again since I've been totally slacking in that department this past week.  I'll admit it took me a bit longer than it should have to get up off the couch to run the few errands I had today since all these amazing house shows are on and with our recent house hunting I've been having the itch to move into my own space.  But I'm sure waiting and being patient will pay off in the long run and we will find the perfect house for us, and the 2 new dogs we'll be getting quite soon after! : )


1. I got a little possessed by the holiday spirit when I first got wrapping paper this year and ended up wrapping the paintings behind the couch. I never liked them much anyway
2. After Meatwad smelled all the puppies on us from Christmas he was extra jealous and cuddly yesterday.
3. bins upon bins of Christmas stuff to be put away fairly soon. I'm trying to delay the process as much as possible due to laziness and also the sadness of the end of the year and holiday
4. I finally managed to clean the house and realize that there is basically no room for any of my stuff here. Can't wait until we'er in a bigger space.
5. My boo came home around 6 last night and we ate Christmas leftovers and vegged in front of the tv. It was quite nice.
6.Bed time. It will be sad no longer seeing the Christmas tree aglow in the living room when we wake up in the morning
7. Shaun hiding from my camera under the covers. He bought me a brand new Nikon 5100 which I've been using to snap photos of literally everything around me.
8,9,10.  A new day and a decision whether to sell or give this wonderful vintage childrens book to my neighbors. It's so sweet it's hard to part with either way.
11. a chubby, fluffy, grumpy bunny.
12, 13. A grey, blustery day. Not a good one for thrifting but I did discover a couple new places today and at least one of them I will be visiting again soon!
14. Found this pretty mug, listing it in the shop although I think it would probably make a gorgeous birthday gift for someone special.
15,16. Having serious house/life envy from this gorgeous european woman and her amazing house/adorable baby/insanely good looking husband. I'm in no rush to get married and pop out some kids but I am definitely nesting and dying for a larger, craftier space that I can actually decorate to my liking soon



Happy Holidays! I hope you get to relax a bit as I did, it's good for the soul.

Updating the etsy shop

Woohoo!

I  love the feeling of accomplishment when you finally do something. Especially something productive.  I'm not knocking those little victories like finishing a load of laundry, doing the dishes, taking the dog for a walk, cleaning out junk email. In fact, I think those can be some of the most cathartic events.

I'm having a mini victory in terms of my etsy shop! It has been a slow, procrastinated process mainly due to my lack of a nice camera for pictures, working during all the good daylight hours and the excuses that I make, like the first 2 ones I just made.  But since Kim and I are interested in doing this as a joint venture, we collaborated for one of our typical cook and be crafty nights. Where Kim spends the night or I go to her house and spend the night, we collaborate on creativity and brainstorm brilliant, crafty ideas for the shop.  This usually involves me cooking or baking a lot as well. So there's a lot of laughing, epiphanies, planning and eating involved.

We ended up only taking pictures of eachother and a few of the milk glass vases I have for sale, which you can see here. But I'm still trying to decide if I want to paint/glaze them a pretty teal color as an alternative to the standard milk glass you see everywhere. Either option is  gorgeous as a standalone decoration or for a pretty dinner event.  With all the house-shopping we've been doing lately I am SUPER excited to finally have a place to put all of my thrifted treasures! Anyway, here are some photos from our day.

Kim flipping through a fashion magazine to gather some inspiration on a cluttered counter while cupcakes are being baked



making some lemon-mint ice cubes and for some reason a picture of my butt. I like those pants, so who cares.

frosting the strawberry cream cheese cupcakes. Looks like we have a cupcake bandit in our midst!

setting up a backdrop for the milk glasses that we ended up not using.

my treasured box of milk glass and new plates ready for their big moment. Not selling those plates, too in love.

I was also considering selling these beautiful juice glasses but could not bring myself to do it. I need to use them a few times for a brunch before I can part with them.

Finally snapped some pictures before the clouds rolled in and storms began. 

 It was also getting late in the day and Kim and I agreed that next time we would try to get out early and take some good fashion photos for the clothes and accesories I'll be adding to etsy and blogging about soon. Can't wait for more productive days like this! Hopefully next time I'll be able to get even more done!