Free Christmas Gift Tags!

Now I know there are lots of free Christmas gift tags floating around (like

these

, and also

these

from last year), but the ocean lover inside of me was in desperate need of some Christmas-y ocean love. Yep, you heard (read) me right. 

So I bring you some sharks with antlers, an octopus with lots of jingle bells, and a turtle pretending to be Rudolph.  It totally works, right?  

Right

?

We tend to stick with neutral kraft paper with hints and black and white for Christmas wrapping, so I continued the theme with the gift tags.  

To download, click

here

!

Image is sized already to print on an 8.5 x 11 in paper (standard printer size). 

I had so much fun doing the tags that it stemmed into some new illustrations.  I've been digging the whole antler thing for awhile now (if you couldn't tell by my Pinboard

Oh Dear, Fix Your Antlers

), and well..I just went with it! 

All prints can be found

here

if you are interested in purchasing any. 

Now it's offically time to put the work away and start enjoying the holidays! I will catch you in the new year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (and Happy Friday!).

xo, Laura 

Wedding: Christmas Card!

Well..we knew this would be the only year we could get away with making our Christmas card a wedding picture, so we took the easy approach and did just that!

The colors are not true here to as they printed (the printed versions are much prettier!), but the card definitely had the vintage feel I was looking for.  And yes, the back was intended for some lovely Christmas-y messages, but yep, that didn't happen!

Oh well. 

I'll be back with the rest of the

real

wedding pictures after the New Year! 

xo, Laura 

Oh and of course the beautiful image is from our lovely wedding photographers

With Love & Embers

. 

Christmas Crunch Time

It's officially Christmas crunch time at our house, even though we have been decorated around here since before Thanksgiving (don't hate). 

The living room is officially bombarded with gifts. 

There is glitter everywhere. 

The packing begins.

The gifts continue into every nook and cranny of the house. 

Hey, it's fun having a house at Christmas time! Hooray.  

Yep, this week is going to be full of Christmas (and next week...duh!). And I am

loving

it. 

xo, Laura 

Home Tour: Studio

This is probably the room I am most excited about and that's mostly because I have never had a designated space just for me and just to make art. Yay!

Plus, it's a space that is all my own input when it comes to decor.  All I know is I wanted it very white and very neutral.  This room gets the most natural light of the whole house, so it's just perfect. 

I've got everything I need, including my adorable puggle and her bed.  Hey, a girl's got to sunbathe. 

Big YAY for Friday!

xo, Laura 

Home Tour: Master Bedroom

This room isn't

exactly

finished yet, but since I showed the master bathroom last week, I figured I should show the master bedroom this week. 

The most important thing for us was to have a bedroom that felt fresh and airy - a place that made it very easy to relax and well, sleep. 

This is from right where you enter - you can see the start of the master bathroom to the left (the stripes).

And yes, that is a jumbo size print (

another engineer print

) of us from our wedding.  

Overkill? Perhaps. But at least it's in our own private sanctuary. Right?

Happy Friday!

xo, Laura 

Wedding: Portraits (2)

This post is particularly special because this weekend marked six months of marriage.  It has definitely been the best six months of my life.  I lucked out with the best husband in the world. 

Happy, happy, happy :)

xo, Laura 

And of course all photos are from the awesomely talented

With Love & Embers

.  

Oh and pay close attention to that last picture.  It will pop up again later this week! 

Home Tour: Master Bathroom

Our master bathroom was

huge

compared to all of our past bathrooms, and even though we were impressed and excited about it when we looked at the house, it was, well, boring.

Very

boring. 

The bathroom gets the most beautiful natural light in the late afternoon. It's wonderful. 

Oh happy house, you're finally feeling like a real home. 

xo, Laura 

PS Above the bathtub was screaming for a light pendant, but unfortunately, it was a single recessed light above it.  Well, I thought it was unfortunate until I discovered

this

! Mind blown. 

My Work: Update

I've been trying to wrap up a few things before the holiday season begins, so things have been very busy and I'm loving it.  

I've been working (and finally just finished) a piece for a fundraiser at the gallery.  

It will be at

Firefish Gallery

for the

Hope Legacy

show! Hope Legacy is an equine rescue non-profit located in Central Virginia, so I am super excited to be part of the show.  I had so much fun doing this piece because I've never painted so large scale.  I tend to love miniature things, but this painting was far from that, measuring about 3 ft x 4 ft (maybe a little bigger). 

I've also

finally

 reopened and updated my

Etsy

shop and

Society6

.  Neither have a lot going on, but

a lot

more is on its way.  Soon enough (I hope!). 

It is a dark and rainy day here -- perfect for getting things done.  Or perfect to curl up on the couch with a good book.  Hmm..decisions, decisions. 

Happy Tuesday!

xo, Laura 

Home Tour: Guest Bedroom 1

We have two guest bedrooms in our home (for right now) and one acts as more mature guest bedroom and one is more of a fun guest bedroom.  With both rooms, our main thing was we wanted people to feel comfortable and look forward to getting into bed at the end of the day.

Here's our first, more "mature" guest bedroom. 

This room was all about budget (as every room in our house is), but here, we actually spent very little.  The huge art on the wall are

my photographs

, printed on engineer prints from

Staples

.  I think the total cost was about fifteen dollars.  They are put on the wall with duct. Yep, that's right.  First with yellow to add a little pop of color, and then with black.  Then I outlined the entire statement wall (it's white and the other walls are grey) with the tape.  I was initially inspired by the idea that duct tape could look nice by

this

.  Impressive, right?

The other budget friendly DIY in this room is the light fixture.  We took down the old fan (which had no light, therefore the room had no light), and after seeing a few samples online, we made this light fixture out of zip ties and an old wire fruit basket.  I will probably eventually add more zip ties, but for now, this project cost about $10 (that's how much the pack of zip ties were). 

The other photographs on the (almost) done cork board are three of my favorite photographs by

Eltiott Erwitt

.  I've always been a super fan of his work and these three images haved moved from spot to spot around our home, but finally found their permanent place here.  

Now, who's ready to come stay with us?!

xo, Laura

Wedding: First Look

This was, by far, my most nervous moment of our wedding day - waiting for my man to tap me on the shoulder with all cameras around me.  My stomach was FULL of butterflies all bouncing around. 

One of the funniest (and probably most shocking) moments of the day was hearing someone say "Hi Laura" during our first look.  Yep, I guess my handsome soon to be hubby didn't realize it was meant to be an intimate moment and brought along his brother (the best man).  I literally had no idea he was there, so when he said hi, I started laughing hysterically.  Yep, he's the one with the sunglasses on and arms up! 

I love that last picture.  It's currently my desktop picture and makes me very happy every time I open my computer.  Thanks again

With Love & Embers

!!! 

xo, Laura 

Fashion

Major confession is .... I bought stuff.  Argh! But I did go a few months without buying anything, and I do intend to still try not to splurge on clothes/shoes/etc. 

But yes, these past few weeks I bought (2) jackets (1) blouse and (1) pair of shoes.  Guess what, though?! I love them all. 

Oh well! Happy Monday!

xo, Laura 

Home Tour: Powder Room

Six months in and we are

finally

done with house projects -- for now.  

So now it's time for a home tour! 

Yay! First up - the downstair's powder room. 

Our home projects have been (for the most part) on a tight budget.  There's only so much money we could put towards our home to update because it's money we won't be seeing again if we decide to sell.  So most work is a simple as paint, changing out faucets, and decor, but anything else, we really have to sit down and decide if it's worth it. 

I made this shelf for the powder room from a single piece of hardwood flooring that was left in the garage.  I used some hooks (sideways) and some rope to add to the nautical-ish decor.  This bathroom was done two times before we got to this final step.  It's a hard space to work with - small and no natural light.  Most people would run away from painting it black, but hey, we like it. 

Oh yea, and in case you didn't already know this, I really like polka dots. A lot! And yes, there were lots of snowman here when we looked at this house, and no, it wasn't anywhere close to Christmas!

Happy Home!

xo, Laura 

Nature Nerd: Fall Love

For some reason, this fall seemed to have come and gone before I even had time to notice.  Even though there are still a few leaves clinging to the trees, I can feel the bitter cold as the wind blows.  

I wanted to be sure to take a few moments to fully take in the fall before it was too late. 

Even though I'm missing the warmth, I am very excited for the holidays :)

Happy Monday!

xo, Laura 

Wedding: Getting Ready (1)

It's hard to believe our wedding was already five months ago, but things have finally settled down and it's time to start sharing pictures! Yay! I really would not have changed a single thing about our wedding - it was perfect and it was very us, which is all we really wanted. 

So to kick it off, here's a look at us getting ready.  Yay for beautiful images! Thank you, thank you, thank you

With Love & Embers

! You guys rock. 

With the wedding being in New Jersey, we both got ready where we grew up (both within a few minutes of each other).  The boys were at Anthony's parents house and the girls were at my father's house, which yes, consisted of Oh!s (best cereal ever!) and lots of puggle time. 

Before we got dressed, Anthony's brother took my gift to Anthony and dropped his off to me.  I went the bling bling route and got Anthony a watch he's always wanted, and leave it to him to go the sentimental route - he framed our very first guitar lesson (yes, that's how we met - he was my guitar teacher).  It was ridiculously sweet - yep, those are my friends reacting to the gift in the bottom picture.  He also got me new underwater housing for my camera - but that one I knew was coming.  Still...awesome. My man knows me! 

And that's that.  More to come next week! 

xo, Laura 

Wedding: Our Wedding in Manhattan Bride!

Our wedding was featured in the past issue of Manhattan Bride and I've been waiting to share it! It's up online now too, so you can all see it

here

! 

We really were thrilled with all of our vendors (the lovely images above from

With Love & Embers

) and had the best time of our lives.  I'm so excited to finally start sharing some images! I can't believe it's already been five months! 

Hope you're having a great day!

xo, Laura 

Phoodle: Overindulgences

It's true.  I have been phoodling all of the things that I desperately want, but am trying not to buy.

And yep, it's all things fall - boots, jackets, sweaters, blouses - all in neutral colors.

Hey, maybe if I can draw my overindulgences, I won't cave.  And yes, that even includes you donuts.

xo, Laura

And PS I did not design any of these articles of clothing.  They all exist in real life - I am just trying not to buy them.  I simply drew what I wanted.