Valentine's Day Decor 2015

Hi there! I finally had a chance to put up my Valentine's Day decor and thought I'd share it with y'all today. :)

Get ready because there are a ton of pics coming up...

Still loving this garland I made with hearts and baker's twine from the dollar spot at Target. 

I added in a few pink and red touches to the living room. 

Here's a close up of one of the framed Valentines on the mantel. 

And here's the other one...

The chalkboard is just a Dollar Tree silver tray that I painted with chalkboard paint and added the glittery heart with a dot of hot glue. 

I JUST put those red pillows up after Christmas and now they're making a return for Valentine's Day. I should have left them out the whole time. :)

I totally forgot I had this pink Wood Wick candle, so out it came as part of my Valentine decor. 

This isn't really "Valentine decor" because I keep it out year round, but I thought I'd include it because of the little chalkboard heart. It sits on the sofa table in my foyer. 

Wow, I can't believe I was able to keep the talking to a minimum! Usually I can't keep my mouth shut. :) Hope y'all have a great weekend!

~Lisa

A New Look For My DIY 3-Tiered Tray and Book Bub

Hello! Did y'all have a nice weekend? I sure did. I bought about 10 new books for my Kindle and read a lot. I think the only things I accomplished one day were reading and changing the wallpaper on my Keurig! #lazy. :) And if you're curious, I changed it to a kind of reddish color, you know, for Valentine's Day. ;) Speaking of books, do y'all know about Book Bub? You can sign up for free and you tell them which genre of books you're interested in and they'll email you daily deals on Ebooks. Most of the books are either free or between $1 - $3. I bought a set of four cozy mysteries the other day for only $1.99! My aunt told my mom and me about this site and we've all bought tons of books from them. You can click HERE to sign up with your email. 

You can even tell them which authors are your favorites and they'll notify you if they get a deal on one of their books. There's a search button where you can search for authors. For some reason, it couldn't find one of my favorite authors, and if that happens, there's a box where you can request them. And you know what? Within 24 hours, they added that author to their site. So cool!

So anyway, today I wanted to share the new look for my DIY 3 tiered tray...

I liked the idea of keeping it in my bathroom and filling it with lots of girly things. :) 

Below is what it looked like back in December when it was decorated for Christmas...

You can click HERE for the tutorial on how I made this for only $15. 

After Christmas, I just kind of plopped it down on the side of my tub and wasn't sure what I would do with it. Then I had the idea of filling it with spa-like items. I also wanted to keep the colors mostly grey and white to match my bathroom.

So, off to Walmart and Target I went. :) I purchased some sea sponges, lotions, wash cloths, soap, a candle, loofah, pumice stone, and a grey scrubber sponge. I was so happy to find a grey one! 

Here are some pics of the top, middle, and bottom trays...

So, the cat soap above was actually purchased at a craft fair last summer. My hubby bought it for me when I wasn't looking and surprised me with it later. :) 

Oh, and I did add some soap we brought home from a hotel stay. Love those little soaps!

That little candle in the fresh cotton scent was only $1.

I also moved my cotton stems into my bathroom. Here are a few more pics...

Below is a little collage I put on IG to show some close ups of a few things. And yep, that's Holly in the bottom right corner. These were taken before I bought the stuff for the trays. 

I'm really happy with the new look!

So, I guess that's it. I'll be back soon with my Valentine's Day decor. Hope y'all have a wonderful week!

~Lisa

Dining Room Changes

First of all, I have to share a family milestone with you all...we officially had our last orthodontist appointment the other day!!! Yippee! I feel like I've spent half my life in that waiting room. Lol! My oldest needed braces a little late and my youngest needed them a little early, so they were in them at the same time. Luckily, they could schedule most of their appointments at the same time, but I still logged in countless hours there. Thank goodness they had THE most comfy leather sofas and a coffee bar in their waiting room to keep me company. Ha! I also read through countless books while waiting, so at least I accomplished something. :) My youngest actually needed braces twice (phase one, at the same time my oldest had them and phase two a couple of years later) So yes, we only have two kids, but paid for three sets of braces. ;) 

Anyway, they've had their braces off for awhile now, but we just finished up the last big retainer appointment. My 15 year old had one stubborn 12 year molar that hadn't come in yet and we've been waiting on it so they could make a new retainer to accommodate the new tooth and it finally appeared! So after about 8 years of braces and retainer appointments, I'm so glad to be done! :) I think there was only about a 6 month period during the last 8 years where we weren't going to regularly scheduled appointments. 

 Okay, here's the deal...every year in September, I take pics of my whole house in its "normal decor mode." Meaning I just photograph how everything looks on a regular basis, without any holiday decor. This helps tremendously in January after the holiday decor is put up and I'm trying to remember where all my "normal" decor went.

Then as usual, as soon as I get everything back in its proper place, I start switching things up. :)

This year, the dining room was the recipient of my constant changing mind. 

I didn't change too much, but it was still fun to pull out a few rarely used items. 

This side table pretty much stayed the same. That clock will always be one of my favorite purchases from Pier 1 and those pillows and slip covers from Walmart are still a favorite of mine. 

Here's a couple of wider shots... 

I moved the cake plate over to this kidney table and added a few pieces of my mom's crystal she recently gifted me. The rest of my mom's crystal and china is stored inside the kidney table. 

Here's a closer look at the crystal. It really doesn't do it justice. It's such a pretty pattern. 

Over on the sideboard, I added my sugar and creamer, along with my yellow soup tureen and the little caddy from Homegoods. I've had that soup tureen for years, but never displayed it until now. I kind of like the pop of yellow it adds to the dining room.

I love this caddy. I just filled it with some silverware, yellow napkins, and a few napkin rings. 

The foyer stayed exactly the same. Still loving the botanical prints. 

 Oh, and stay tuned because we have some exciting projects in the works. I think we're finally ready to start the subway tile backsplash in the kitchen and I just convinced my hubby to make me a shelving unit for the living room (which will cause another round of musical decor as I move things around to accommodate the new shelves) As usual, everything will be done on a budget with us doing all the work ourselves. :)

~Lisa

Around the House

So, I'm back with another round of "around the house" pics. Basically, a mish mash of pics pulled from my phone that are totally unrelated to one another. :)

I really love this time of year when all the holiday decorations are put up for another year and everything's back to normal. It just feels so fresh and clean. 

I put this pic on IG recently. I was getting ready to get caught up on some magazines and catalogs. Love lazy days like that!

Okay, have y'all tried the Jack in the Box version of the Cronut? Remember when the cronut was sweeping NYC? People were going crazy for the combo croissant/donut. Well, I have to tell you, Jack's version is pretty good! Kind of crispy on the outside and soft and yummy on the inside. :) 

I had to share a couple of things my boys got me for Christmas. My oldest got me this meteorite necklace. Yep, an actual meteorite on a chain. So unique and fun! I love it. I thought it was very "Howard Wolowitz-like." Lol! I have to tell you that when I first opened the box, I was like "You got me a piece of coal???" Ha!

My youngest surprised me with this mug with Holly's pic on it. He kind of tricked me though...when I opened it up, it was just a plain black mug. I was all "Wow honey, thank you for the umm...mug." Then he said to put hot coffee in it. When I poured the hot liquid in the mug, the baby pic of Holly slowly appeared! So neat and just like him to do that. ;)

Notice the Millionaire candy too? Oh my. A friend on IG posted a pic of them and I had forgotten all about how much I loved them, so I "had" to go buy a box. I don't think I'd had one in about 10 years and they were just as good as I remembered. Needless to say, my elliptical has been working overtime since the holidays. :)

I just had to document these gas prices. I snapped this pic the other day. I mean, how long has it been since we've seen it below $2??? Wow. Just wow. 

 In my boys' baby books, there's a place to document how much things cost when they were born. A gallon of gas, a loaf of bread, etc. Apparently in 1994 and 1999, gas was around $1.08! I can't believe it's back down to $1.89 now. Good stuff. :)

~Lisa

A Few of My Favorite Things

Okay, so like I promised, I'm back with a handful of my favorite things. :)

Let's get right to it with this Enjoy hair straightener.

I buy it on Amazon for about $10-$15. It's a gel consistency. I just wash my hair and towel dry it. Then I put the Enjoy on and blow dry it straight. I'm always looking for new products to help straighten my unruly curly hair and this one works great!

Speaking of hair, I've never spent a ton on shampoo. I usually buy Suave shampoos and conditioners. I guess I'm old fashioned because I still subscribe to the idea that it's good to use a "clarifying" shampoo every two weeks or so to strip your hair of all the product build up. 

So, this is what I've been using...

As you can see, it's still Suave brand. :) You can get it pretty much anywhere for under $2. I just buy it at the grocery store. Sometimes I use a lot of product in my hair and I feel this helps to kind of give it a deep clean. 

Now for the cat lovers out there. Santa brought Holly this spray cat nip for Christmas and she LOVES it! 

We've always used the dried catnip, but this is so much easier to use and less messy. I can spray it on any toy of hers and she goes wild. :) I even sprayed some on her scratching post and she LOVED that! We, I mean SANTA got it at Petsmart for $6. 

The last two are things we enjoyed at Christmas. I know, I know...you're wondering why I didn't share these BEFORE Christmas. Well, just think of it as being super early in planning for NEXT Christmas. :) 

This is hands down the best gingerbread house kit we've used. Here's what the box looks like...

Here's another pic of the one my son made that I put on Instagram...

You can probably see it's made exclusively by Wilton for Michael's stores. My youngest son built it and he was impressed with how well the icing "glued" everything together. Apparently the icing REALLY held the roof and sides together and made it easy peasy for the candies to stick to the roof, etc. In the past, we've had problems with the roofs sliding off, but not with this one. Another thing we liked with this one was the variety of candy. All in all, we gave it 5 stars. :) We bought it at Michael's for $5 (with a 50% off coupon)

Last, but not least is our Christmas ham we bought at HEB this year. If you're not in Texas, they probably have this flavor at other stores too. Or at least something similar.

Did you see that? TEXAS PECAN PRALINE AND VANILLA MAPLE!!! I mean, you can't go wrong with that flavor combo, can you? Yum!!! I'm making a note to try and find this flavor next year too. Everyone loved it (even my picky eater) :) And if you ARE local, HEB has $10 off these hams this week.

Well, that's it for now. So tell me, have you tried any of these things? What did you think?

~Lisa

Firecracker Recipe

Just popping in on this rainy weekend to share a quick recipe with you. I posted this on Instagram (@texasdecor) but wanted to have a copy here too. I made these last night and they were a hit with the family!

I'm posting the recipe, but you can also click HERE for a link to the original recipe and a printable version. 

They're called "Firecrackers" and they have a little bite to them. 

Ingredients:

Four sleeves Saltine crackers

One cup canola oil

One packet dry ranch dressing mix

Two tablespoons crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

First line crackers on ends (like dominoes) in a gallon ziplock like this:

Then mix up all ingredients and pour over crackers. Keep stirring to keep the peppers from settling on the bottom of the bowl. I just used a soup spoon to drizzle it over the crackers. They'll look like this when you're done:

Then seal the ziplock and flip it over every 5 minutes for 20 minutes to evenly distribute the flavors. Store in a ziplock for up to a week. Yum!

My whole family loved them. My hubby was surprised that the crackers didn't get soggy. They stayed crisp and delicious! Have y'all ever made these? We'll definitely be making them again. 

I'll be back soon with some "favorite things." :)

~Lisa

Around The House

Hello!!! Wow, it seems like it's been forever since I wrote a blog post. I've just been spending tons of time at home with my family while everyone is off for winter break. I don't think I even cooked dinner (other than Christmas dinner) over the last couple of weeks. We just did take out every night and boy, was it nice! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We sure did. It was so relaxing and just about perfect. :)

So, I picked up a few things on sale after Christmas and I thought I'd share them with you. First up is this set of metal canisters...

I just love them! Now I finally have a place to store all those bio-degradable pods for my new Keurig. :) Here are a couple more pics...

I got them both for about $10!

I also found these darling little cable knit sweater nesting bowls...

Love the detail and the red on the inside! Not bad for $5. :)

 They go quite well with my cable knit pillows and cable knit mug. ;)

I have to share one of my youngest son's Christmas presents. He somehow found out they made these...

Yep, it's an entire bag of nothing but the marshmallow charms from Lucky Charms cereal. Ha ha! Our dentist is going to LOVE us!!!

The only other thing I recently bought was some windshield wipers for my car, but I'm sure you're not interested in that. :) The dealership where we bought our vehicle sent us a Christmas card with a $25 gift card in it good towards service, parts, apparel, etc. I was needing new windshield wipers anyway, so I put the gift card toward that. Exciting stuff, no? :)

I exercised restraint and waited until a few days after Christmas to take down all my decorations. Usually I'm itching to take everything down bright and early on the 26th. It felt SO good to get back to my everyday decor...

I got out my Fall decor in September, then we went straight to Halloween decor, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas, so it's been almost 4 months since I've seen my "normal" decor. I kinda missed it. :)

Well, hopefully I'll get back into a regular habit of blogging soon. I already have one more post lined up that includes a few of my "favorite things" that I can't wait to share with you. I thought instead of doing a big post with a ton of my favorite things, I'd just do more frequent posts that will include a handful of things I've been enjoying lately. Sometimes I wait so long between my favorite things posts, that I forget to include some stuff, so hopefully doing these smaller more frequent posts will help. 

Wishing each and every one of you a very Happy New Year and a healthy, happy, and blessed 2015 and beyond!

~Lisa