Decorating for Christmas

This year for Christmas we decided to do clear lights on our tree - I love the way it looks, the photo from my phone does not do it justice.

I saw something similar to this for decorating a mantle on Pinterest so I decided to give it a try. I really LOVE the way it turned out...the red glitter ornaments and the apple green ornaments look great.

Lastly I wanted to share with you something I have done two years in a row now...an ADVENT Calendar.  I used metal tins and got magnets to put them on this black board I found at Michaels.  It is by far one of my daughter's favorite things about Christmas.  Inside each tin is a little Christmas themed gift or a paper for a special thing we will do that day.  These have included things such as Christmas earrings to a piece of paper saying we were going to make and decorate Christmas cookies.  A few of the best events from last year's Advent Calendar was watching A Christmas Story while eating popcorn and Christmas M&M's with the family and going to look at Christmas lights around town with a run to Starbucks.  Consider doing something like this for your children and making Christmas last the whole season.

 

I hope all of you are enjoying your Christmas season so far! 

Fresh Paint for the Lloyd home

I know I have been posting a lot of recipes lately - that's because I have been busy painting!  We have lived in our house four years and it's long overdue a fresh coat of good, quality paint.  Thanks to a great sale last month at Sherwin Williams we purchased enough paint to do our kitchen and our family room / front hall.  Here are the colors we are painting.

Independent Gold for the Kitchen

Outerbanks for the Family Room and front hall.  

Of course the colors look a bit different on our walls than on this blog.  I like them...A LOT!

Happy Fall

I hope all of you are enjoying this Fall season - this is one of my favorite times of the year!  Not only are the trees starting to turn but here in Kentucky there is that little, wonderful nip in the air.  I wanted to share some little things I have done to decorate around the house to celebrate Fall.

 

I just love the white pumpkin! 

And here is what the Fall Coasters look like that I recently did, encase you missed my blog post on how to do this click here:  Tile Coasters

Pantry Redo

Thanks mainly to my new obsession with Pinterest - I recently got the urge to redo and organize my pantry.  I have never had a grip on this pantry since we moved into this house (mainly because it's really small.) The kids went back to school a few weeks ago so I started looking around and getting ideas.  If you are in the mood to organize anything I highly suggest you get on Pinterest and take a look, it's flowing with GREAT ideas!  Earlier this week I went shopping for my glass containers to use for things like sugar, brown sugar, white rice, brown rice, breadcrumbs, etc...I had great luck finding what I wanted and I even picked up seven containers from Goodwill (I felt like I hit the jackpot there!)  Lastly I used some existing storage baskets we had to organize snacks, oatmeal and lunch items.  I just love it and I am amazed at just how pleasing it is to look at!  I also might mention that since I emptied the shelves to reorganize I also painted the pantry a great shade of Tent Tan from Sherwin-Williams.  Here's the before and after photos!

BEFORE

AFTER

And here's two close up photos of the glass container details:

So, I hope you like my new pantry...there's one more addition I need - a decent trash can.  I have looked around a little and I am shocked that the one I want is actually around $100 - now I have to find something cheaper than that!