Happy Things

Hy husband got me these awesome colored pencils for Christmas and they make me oh, so happy in my

good morning

mug.

Pretty pantone swatches on my lovely 2014 planner (Sugar Paper from Target).

Stripes, slippers, and some colorful canvases I'm working on.

Have you seen this

video

of the little girl experiencing rain for the first time? Holy happiness! Seriously makes you want to go out and play in the rain.

And this

video

of animals behaving like humans is too good. I mean that frog! Come on!!

Happy Monday!

xo, Laura

Happy Things

1. Who doesn't love a color called "Ocean Whisper"? Yes, I am one of those people. Well, I mean I like the color initially because of the color, but when I see a good old name on it, I'm sold. For sure. 

2. Just my favorite new product ever that shines beautifully in the sunlight.  I bought mine from

Target

 (doesn't look like you can buy it online there yet), and haven't seen it at a lot of places, but let me tell you, oil on your face isn't such a bad thing! I love this stuff.  I keep telling my husband, "My face smells like a spa!"

That's all I got for today! 

Did you guys read

Mandee's post

from last week? 

I

totally

related to it and am in the midst of going through it right now (example: redoing the basement, the laundry room, the guest room, all while organizing all of the drawers containing any sort of nail, screw, hammer, or tool in general). 

I should take that

personality test

and see what I come up with. 

Speaking of which, have you taken

this test

to determine what career you should have or

this one

to tell what kind of dog you'd be? 

I was pretty surprised with both of mine - Astronaut and Corgi. 

Oh well! Now I totally feel like I'm not living up to my potential.  Space, here I come. 

Happy Monday!

xo, Laura 

52 Week Project: Week 4

It was my birthday this past weekend, so my apologies for not posting yesterday. 

I was loving myself a lazy day (I'm not a big birthday person...at all - but I do like balloons in photo-shoots!). 

Plus, the house is a mess with some on-going projects I have started. 

Every time I think the house is finally done for now, I think of new things to tackle immediately. 

Oops.

Our home tour will continue in a few weeks as I'm finishing off some of the last spaces of our house!

Enjoy your day!

xo, Laura 

Wedding: Details

And here's the last portion of the wedding - the details!

The sad part of the details (at least in my experience), for all of the hours and stress you put into them, they tend to just blend into the background of the day. 

Oh well!

Thanks again for all of our lovely pictures

With Love & Embers

. 

Best wedding photographers ever!

Some of my favorite details from our wedding:

-my $18

Urban Outfitter

ballet flat wedding shoes

-the flower girl books with heart confetti (with our vows written on the confetti)

-our In Loving Memory table (we had each person place a piece of sea glass in a jar with a wish for those we love - we now have it display in our home)

-our bubblegum bar. yum!

Happy Snowy Wednesday!

xo, Laura 

Home Tour: Guest Bathroom

This is another room I painted..twice. 

Ooops. 

Trial and error, baby. Trial and error. 

This room has no natural light, so I felt like I had to go light with the color - and this sandy color is perfect. Sometimes it looks gray, sometimes beige, sometimes purple.  

I love it. 

And I also painted the cheap vanity a dark plum/eggplant color. 

And of course, a new faucet, like

EVERYWHERE

else in the house. 

Oh, and note to self, never choose a paint color for a bathroom based on a shower curtain you love. (sorry husband!)

xo, Laura

And Happy Friday!!

Fashion Confessions

This originated as just a fun "braid" photo-shoot, but I realized it was more of a fashion confession. 

Yep, that's because that beautiful jacket up there was one of the things I bought a few months ago that I shouldn't have.  

I'm back on not buying, though. For real. HA!

xo, Laura 

Wedding: Reception

We seriously had

THE

best

time ever dancing and singing the night away. My legs were ridiculously sore the next day getting around the airport.  Every time I look back on the pictures from the reception, I get a huge smile on my face. 

So, so, so thankful to

With Love and Embers

for being able to capture such an amazing time.  It's something we will always look back on and remember what a

fantastic

night it was. 

And yes, one of the pictures is me sneaking in a back room to take a shot with my best friend in the entire world!

xo, Laura 

Work and Blog Update

If you haven't noticed yet, I've done some major refreshing to the blog. There are still a few things to work out, but I feel so much better about this cleaner layout!

Other than that, I've posted a few more things to

Society 6

if you want to head over in check them out. 

It's new series I'm working on called

I. Sea. Love

. 

Hope you enjoy!

And there will

definitely

be more of these coming. 

Enjoy the rest of your day!

xo, Laura 

Home Tour: Kitchen

Ahh. The kitchen.  I had many sleepless nights and painful headaches trying to figure out what to do with the kitchen. 

Here it is before..

I went through the major dilemma of whether or not to paint the cabinets white (we have

SO

many cabinets), and I finally concluded not to do it for two reasons 1) It would be such a

big

job and probably wouldn't come out as perfect as I would like it to (we're on a budget people - as in not hiring painters) and 2)

EVERYONE

has white cabinets and as much as I love how clean and organized it looks, once they're white, there is really no going back to the original look and who knows if the white trend is here to stay.  

Hmm maybe three reasons.  3) All of our appliances are black and in very good condition, and well, I just can't do the whole black appliances against white cabinets.  And I certainly can't do the whole buying new appliances thing. 

I also debated for awhile about a backsplash/hardware for the cabinets, but I really haven't found anything I am in love with.  So for now, cabinets are staying as is.  And you know what..they are growing on me. 

Here was a weak attempt at our kitchen in the very beginning..

That weirdish above cabinet wall was giving me lots of trouble.  I had never seen it before in another house, and I had no idea what to do with it.  It always just stuck out to me.  I figured if we were going to keep the wood cabinets, we should try to bring more woody warmth (yep, that's right - woody warmth) into the kitchen.  So, to convince the man, as I always do, I did a quick photoshop job of what I was hoping for (at a very low cost). 

Sold on it, we got to working.  The grey chair we had already had in our bedroom, but never used it, and it was the perfect size for next to fridge.  We went hunting for an antique table.  Added a pendant light above it.  We opted for stripes at the breakfast bar, but didn't go with it on the backsplash in case we ever actually do a real backsplash (I'm thinking white subway tile - original, I know). And we painted above the cabinets a much lighter color with blank wooden frames.  And the best part of it all is we have a little kitchen nook, which I always wanted!

So here's the before and after. 

And some of the details:

PS We did also buy a new faucet for the sink, which I love :)

Although it's somewhat hard to tell from the pictures, the kitchen has been a drastic change at a little cost. 

Happy Friday!

xo, Laura 

Wedding: Ceremony

The wedding posts are actually almost finished as our one year anniversary is now only months away (

SERIOUSLY

time

FLIES

). 

Our ceremony was definitely one of my favorite parts of our wedding. It was so us and so perfect (not that we are perfect). Even over-pouring our sand during the sand ceremony gave us the perfect little giggle. I love that man of mine. 

Thanks again to our photographers

With Love and Embers

who beautifully captured the ceremony. 

xo, Laura 

52 Week Project: Week 1

As noted yesterday, my 52 Week Project is majorly inspired by Heidi Lender.  If you missed yesterday's post, check it out here!

Let's hope I actually finish this year! It feels a lot less intimidating actually having a focused subject each week (my legs!). 

Happy Tuesday!

xo, Laura