Fire Heaven

This is seriously fire heaven for me.  I've always loved a good pink/purple combo; ever since I rocked my pink & purple nikes in second grade.  They were awesome let me tell you...the pink faded into the purple & other kids made fun of me b/c they said I sprayed painted them.  Of course, I knew how awesome they were & paid no mind.  I bet those kids are super tools now too, but I digress...

This fireplace resides in Scottsdale, AZ at the Saguaro Hotel.  Read about it's story HERE.

Now go and find YOUR fire heaven!

Rewind

I'm pressing rewind here to highlight one of my favorite things about the Holidays: Gift Wrapping.

I seriously love doing this to the point that I should be making some extra dough and helping people; if feel like so many dread the wrapping part.  Another source of pride is that I've gotten 'scouring the web for free downloads' down quite nicely.  In the following images, the only purchase I made was on the ribbon.  This, this and this to be exact, all from Paper Source. They were the perfect accents to my free downloads!

The mountain paper is from a favorite blogger of mine, Poppytalk.  This is the 2nd year I used this paper; I just adore it.  After printing a bunch in color to use with the black ribbon, I realized how great a black & white version would be with the teal ribbon.  YAY, the teal wasn't a waste -- sometimes things can be so exciting [ie: ribbon from the paper source] I buy now & think later.  The gift tags are from this Designer.  How wonderful of her to share these!  She certainly shoots to the top of my list of favorites!  

Notes:

The photos are very rough, I know, so I will be mindful of that in taking pictures of my wrapping in the future.  In printing the paper... I did so on a regular printer using letter sized paper, so it was quite a task in taping it all together, but so well worth it.

Paper download HERE.  

Gift Tags downloads HERE and HERE. 

Sound Familiar?

It should.

Wedding Dresses under $500

It's true!  And they aren't too shabby...  

Option 1:

 Nordstrom, $278

Option 2:

 Nordstrom, $388

Option 3:

 Nordstrom, $178!

Option 4:

 J. Crew, $495

Option 5:

J. Crew, $425 (Currently On Sale, $298)

And what makes them even more exciting is that (with the exception of Option 1) they are basic.  

Basic = blank canvas // Blank canvas = personalize // Personalize = unique

Catch my drift?  For instance... 

Take Option 2 & swap out the white sash for a pop of color (i'll take neon!)

Take Option 3 & add a thin sparkly belt

You can do the same with Option 4 & 5.

I'm totally fine with being no where close to my nuptials, but it's good to know there are some affordable options out there so cheers to that!

MY DIY

My 9-5 (an investment firm) is celebrating its 30th Birthday this coming weekend and I have had the pleasure of creating some of the decorations.  I pulled an easy DIY from the The Queen herself.

These will sit in groups on all the tables as the centerpiece.  We are using electronic candles for piece of mind.  (no worrying about candles that have gone out or a possible paper fire)  I plan to take more photos once they have been placed, before the party, on Friday.

How To Here

ps: my right tricep is getting ripped and i still have lots more to punch.

Your Rainbow Panorama

Wow, check out this addition on the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum created by Icelandic designer, Olafur Eliasson.

Read all about it on Fresh Home -- love this site!

Amazon Rant Update

To follow up from my previous post, I do commend Amazon for refunding my money.  It was a very small amount, but we all know this is about principle here.  BonitaFlores' ratings have dropped significantly in the last month.  It's now at 14% positive.  I'm convinced those that have rated this seller anything higher than one star are in fact people working for seller, but that's of course just my crazy theory.

I wonder what it takes for Amazon to simply kick this seller our of their program, but whatever protocol is, I'm sure it consists of lots and lots of corporate trudge to sift through first.  I wish I did not take things so personally and could just chalk it up to one bad seed, but I guess I just feel the world is becoming over populated (with bad seeds).  An outlook I'm working to change...

That said, it's a wonderful Tuesday here in Chicago and I'm excited to complete my 7th semester later this week (and of course the warmth of the Holidays always helps!)

CHEERS!

This weekend, I discovered my neighborhood has its very own Christmas Tree!