Housewarming Party Ideas

One of the most fun parts of buying a house? Having all of your friends over to celebrate! We are holding our housewarming party on December 15th which is in the thick of the holiday party season so I want to incorporate some holiday spirit into the decor. I don't want it to be overkill but a little holiday cheer never hurt anyone! Obviously, this is where Pinterest becomes quite helpful. Not all of the photos below will be alike because I'm still inspiration gathering! I hope you aren't put off by the holiday-ness I'm about to unload on you in this post!

Here are some photos that are helping me envision what I'd like the housewarming party to look like:

Mini candy canes as food markers {via}

Good idea for a healthy holiday party snack {via}

Grinch Punch! {via}

I can't tell you how much I love stars and the color gold! I'm thinking I need to make these gold star stirrers! 

{via}

I'm anticipating that a lot of guests will have minis in tow so I'm thinking I'd like to have some snacks just for them {via}

Love this for the red wine bottles but would probably change the colors! {via}

I think the snowflakes add a nice subtle winter/holiday theme {via}

And because I do love the holiday season it would be ideal to sport something like this Devon Baer tunic!

Any housewarming party/holiday ideas you want to share with  me? Spill!

Friday by the Numbers

Happy Friday! 

Here's some insightful/funny articles for you to enjoy during those remaining hours on a Friday when you semi-pretend to be doing work but then again you don't really care if anyone notices:

15 Ways to Stay Married for 15 Years

by Lydia Netzer 

#14 is the one I think is most important

25 Little-Known Facts about Mean Girls

#12 Glen Coco I would love to meet him!

25 Things You Need to Forget About

I'm so guilty of #1 and #22

32 Things That Are Worth Caring About

Amen to #29

32 Mistakes We're All Going to Make

I can't even count the number of times I have made mistake #13

I hope you all have a lovely weekend ahead! We're having our first dinner guests over and I'm so excited!

For Halloween, I'm dressing up as someone who is on vacation and can eat copious amounts of candy without gaining any weight.  That's what Halloween is all about right? Pretending to be something you're not. Tonight, I'm giving you pretty pictures of places I want to visit because I'm bone tired and like I said, I'm dressing up as someone who is on vacation. If you live on the eastern seaboard, let's be honest, vacation sounds pretty good right about now. We just dealt with Sandy and its only going to get colder and Lord knows what the winter is going to be like this year!

Curacao

Antigua

Maldives

Bermuda

Bora Bora



So dolls, I think its safe to say I would like to travel to a beach. Tell me, what did you dress up as this year and where are you dreaming about going??

Hurricane Sandy Day

image via

As I'm sure you've heard, the East Coast is bracing for a huge storm that is supposed to be of epic proportions. Its pretty bad out right now but apparently its going to really hit us between 5pm and 2am. I'm taking the opportunity for some QT with the husband and puppy today as we are both off of work! Planning on eating some not so healthy food and watching Homeland (so good!) 

I hope everyone in the path of the storm stays safe and dry!

My Very First Ikea Hack

I'm not sure if you've heard but you can buy cheap Ikea furniture, paint it, add some knobs and voila it looks like you spent more than $35 on a bedside table! I know, I know you're shocked. If you haven't had enough of the Ikea hacks floating around the internet, I'm here to bring you one more. It is not an original idea. I'd seen plenty of Ikea hacks and knew I would follow suit for the new house but wasn't totally sure what I would do until I saw Kirsten Krason's (of 6th Street Design School) take on the Ikea Rast dresser from a model home master bedroom she recently designed. I absolutely love her version of the Ikea Rast! 

Here is her version:

(Jylare Smith Photography via 6th Street Design School)

Here is what I started with (please excuse the crappy phone pics I  started to put this post together after a few glasses of wine last night, at which point I considered using my DSLR to be operating heavy machinery):

Kilz 2 Latex Primer and Behr Premium Plus Interior/Exterior Hi-Gloss Enamel Medium Base in some color like Serious White or Super Bright White, I honestly can't remember. Also, sorry for not taking a pic of this stuff before I used it. The links should clarify what the stuff looks like. Amateur blogger, right here.

Untouched and ready to be painted Ikea Rast dresser. Yes, that is a strapless bra on my dresser. Among other things. 

 Here is my end result:

Ta-da! Hardware from Lee Valley Tools

 I read a couple of different blog posts about painting Ikea Rast dressers. Some people primed it, some didn't. In the end, I decided to prime it because I wanted the dressers to look nice and was worried about the paint seeping right into the wood.  Some people chose to put a top coat on, which I decided against and instead used a durable paint that will wipe off easily.

I'm still waiting on these to be delivered, at which point I will spray paint them either Orange of Navy Blue, still undecided:

DeeDee Overlays from O'verlays by Danike & Cheryle LLC


As you can see, I copied Kirsten's design completely with the exception of the colors. I'm so glad creative people like her exist on the interwebz because I never could of come up with this myself. I would like to tell everyone out there who is scared of this type of thing, don't be. I was worried I was going to royally screw it and decided to just go for it. It was super easy and I'm really pleased with the end result. Once the house is semi-finished I will put up pictures that I take with my real camera!

So tell me, have you hacked an Ikea piece recently or planning on it?

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday, friends! I am thankfully off work today and have a full day of errands and such ahead of me but wanted to stop by and say hi! Life has been busy (with a side of family drama, both good and not so good, thrown in for good measure!) which has kept me away from the blog but hoping to get back soon! I hope you all have a lovely weekend ahead of you, I'm looking forward to relaxing and dinner with good friends!

Getting It Right

Have you all seen the Google Chrome commercial, "Jess Time"? It had me in tears when I saw it for the first time last night. I think it is great that they highlighted the relationship between fathers and daughters. I personally think my father is the greatest in the world and we have a fantastic relationship. There is a huge emphasis on the mother/child relationship in advertising and while that is obviously an incredibly important relationship, dads need credit too! 

Watch below and try not to cry!