Product Plug: Tyler Candles

Hey y'all!!!!

I know, I know, I said I would post this blog days ago, but we;ve been busy getting ready for our New Orleans trip this weekend! We are so excited to get away. I have never been to New Orleans so it's a bucket list check off for me!
Now for the product plug......


I have been buying Tyler Candles since I was a junior in college. A realtor i used to work for always bought them from a place in Texas and them shipped to her, i followed her lead. These candles are so amazing, the last so long and will smell up a house in seconds. Its taken me a while to find my favorite scent, actually years.
Some of my favorites include: High Maintenance, Cashmere Elegance, Diva, Beach Blonde, Mulled Cider and of course any Christmas scent. This fabulous company also makes car fresheners as well! Every one of their candles has a unique scent to them, and typically (unlike other candles) burn all the way to the bottom of the jar.

I buy these 6-8 at a time so I am fully stocked for months!


I've started to see small little boutiques carry them, but I've always bought them from "The Old Prague Market" in Texas. The owners of this store are so sweet and always send my package out same day. Every once in a while they throw in a few surprise goodies for me too!
Below is their card!

*W.C. and Barbara* - my in-laws are moving to Austin this fall. I hope to make it out there soon and come visit y'all!!!



Well it's off to New Orleans for me!
Until next time, here's to sleeping in and being lazy:)

Dressers (Ikea/blog hack)

Hi everyone! Sorry its been so long since I've posted anything on here! I've been quite a busy girl between weddings, birthdays and getting our place to look the way we want! On that note, as most of you know I am quite the blog stalker of a few design/life blogs. They were all my inspiration to start my own. I follow a set of twin sisters blogs, one is an interior designer, Erika and the other is a stay at home Mom of 3 beautiful children, Darby. They each have totally different lives but as you get to know them through their blogs, they are a lot alike!
When I first started following Erika, she had just blogged about an Ikea hack she saw on Aubrey and Lindsay (another blog I stalk). Aubrey and Lindsay bought these plain, ugly wood dressers from Ikea, and turned them into the most amazing night stands of all time. On their Ikea hack post, i also fell in love with their bed, I searched high and low for that thing and after months of looking for it, it had been right under my nose the whole time at my "go to" store, Crate and Barrel. SO, i told myself once Adam and I bought this bed, we would duplicate the night stands.
That time has arrived my friends! Adam and I are the proud owners of the Colette bed from Crate and Barrel! We've had it for a few weeks now, and can't imagine life with out it! And as promised, we did the night stands this weekend!
Here are some pictures of the process and how they turned out, Enjoy, we certainly do!!!!!

Here is how the wood looked before . . .


then I painted the drawers while Adam stained the exterior (i've never stained in my life, now if something went wrong, I could blame it on Adam)





after 24 hours of coating and drying we put the dressers together...


I also bought these amazing knobs at Anthropologie . . . .


because these are what the Ikea ones looked like ..... YUCK


We are extremely pleased with how these turned out and how wonderful they fit in our room... here is a peek . . .








and i must applaud Adam's amazing stain job... i am so proud!


and if you are wondering, like i am sure my Mother is, "why we stained so dark?" The dresser across from our bed and the legs of our bed are dark walnut . . .






Until tomorrow, have a great Sunday evening, and Happy Mother's Day. To my Mom: You are the best Mama in the world! you're strength and passion for your children is amazing! I wouldn't be the person I am today without out you. Thank you for ALWAYS being there, no matter what.

Tomorrows posting... a product post... one you can spy somewhere in this blog post!!!
xx

Our HOME

Hi all!
I am so sorry that I haven't blogged in a month! We have been busy with wedding events, traveling and purchasing our home!
Enjoy the pictures of us purchasing our home!
I will be catching up this blog later in the week. You all have to hear about our crazy/fun trip to San Fran and Lake Tahoe!!!!

Adam signing our lives away . . .



HOMEOWNERS!!!!!






xx

TOMS ARE HERE!!!!

We received our TOMS shoes and shirts today! We are so excited! i don't have time for a long blog, as I have to go pack for our little weekend getaway to Amelia Island this weekend!
Will blog on Sunday when we return!!!

The day of LOVE

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

The Princeton definition of love is: a strong positive emotion of regard and recognition.

So, I want to recognize a company, that I believe deserves a little extra attention for their mission...
This year for Valentines Day, instead of buying each other gifts, we both purchased something we've been eyeing for awhile, something that gives back to others. For those of you that know Adam and I very well, you know we both need another pair of shoes, like we need a hole in the head. HOWEVER, Adam and I heard about a shoe company last summer, called Toms Shoes, when we saw this commercial for the shoes, we knew we had to have a pair.


The TOMS SHOES company, long story short, gives a pair of shoes to a child in need every time a pair is purchased. Their movement warms my heart and I hope it does yours too.

We each bought a pair last week, so 2 pairs of shoes were given to children who need them. We also each bought a TOMS shirt, that says "Drop TOMS not BOMBS". Each of those also qualified for a pair of shoes to a child as well. So total, we sent 4 pairs of shoes to children in a developing country.


Our packages arrives on Thursday! We can't wait!!!!

While you spend time with the one you love today, think of those need a little bit of your love!

until next time . . . keep your eye on the prize . . . .

My Past 24 hours

My past 24 hours have been miserable. Thursday night before I went to bed, I came down with a really bad sore throat and fever (hubbs had this earlier in the week, I was bound to get it). For those of you who truly know me, you know I NEVER go to the doctor, for anything! But after a sleepless night and not being able to swallow, I made an appointment for 11:15 to see my doctor, to hopefully get something to knock this out of my system.... well, I got something alright ....

Rewind 3 weeks before my wedding in November . . . . . I went to see this doctor (Dr. Jessica Valenti) for the first time for an all around physical, and do get an antibiotic for Adam and I to take to Mexico, just in case any of us came down with anything. She received my file from my old doctor, and saw that I was diagnosed with an irregular heart beat in high school. She asked if she could do an EKG on me right then and there. I kindly declined, as my wedding was 3 weeks away, and again, for those of you truly know me, know how anxious that would make me.

Fast forward to Friday, at my 11:15 appointment . . . Dr. V looks and my throat, yelps at how swollen it is, does a strep test, and finds it's a viral infection (viral=they can't give me anything for do anything, it will just go away). She asks me how everything else is, and if I was ready for her to look at my heart. I said sure, while I was there I might as well kill two birds with one stone and get it over with and I had been experiencing little flutter in my heart for the past seven days that were making me dizzy. Enter, EKG machine. My EKG is done, and she says the machine threw up a few codes, but what she could see everything looked to be good. As everyone knows EKG's only show a 10 second interval of your heart, so she tells me she is sending me next door to the cardiologist to do a 24 hour halter to monitor my heart for 24 hours. She said it was very small and no one would notice I even had it on. (this would turn out to be untrue).

I walk into the cardiologist office (still with a terrible sore throat, fever, and bad mood) I fill out paperwork, and I'm seen right away. Long story short, they plug this thing onto me, that is anything but discreet. I leave the office, call hubbs and tell him to cancel dinner plan for the night, as I looked like I had a bomb strapped to me, and there wasn't a chance I was going into a nice restaurant looking the way I did. (we were suppose to go to Aquaknox, a new restaurant in town for our Valentines dinner)

I go back to work, but leave early, because I feel awful. Here are the pics of what this thing looked liked on me, you will understand now, why I was not up for a big night . . .






Enough said . . . .
But Adam and I still ned to go to get something to eat, we decided to head to GrillSmith, a little more casual, where I could get away with wearing something to cover my monitor. Thanks to my abundant wardrobe, I pulled it off . . .



SO that's that. I was able to take my monitor off today at 12:30, I did it at 12:28 :) after another sleepless night, I will be spending the whole day on the couch!


On to prettier things . . . here are the flowers Hubbs sent me at work on Thursday....



Until next time, here is to relaxing ....!

Spreading my blogging wings

This posting is dedicated to introducing my blog and reasoning behind it.....

I decided to start a blog after my brother and sister started one. I love keeping up with them, and hearing about all of their random thoughts, which leads me to the purpose of this blog.
I am using this blog to document my life and be able to share my thoughts and experiences with family and friends. I come across things in life that I believe are worth sharing, whether it be something I've had weighing on my mind or a big event in my life or even plugging a company or item i've found that i believe is worth giving some extra attention to (an example of this will be posted this weekend)


The reason behind the name of this blog.....

I have struggled, literally, for months over a blog name and reason behind a blog. My brother, Tanner, has been helping me with the name of this blog since December when I got the urge to start this. I wanted the blog to intertwine my life, my love for life, my passion for fashion, my life as a newlywed and the random rolodex of ideas that pass through my brain.
Here were some blog title ideas...
"The Threads of My Life" (already taken, this one was my favorite!!! and actually the girl that took this name hasn't even made one post on her blog as of yet.
"Smiling...One Size FIts All"
"Words Are The Dress of My Thoughts"
"Carpe Denim" (another favorite,that I am actually leaving WIDE OPEN for one of my girlfriends Kim, who is a fashion buyer for Macy's,.... she has my dream job)



I also turned to the help of my husband, who had no feedback for me what so ever. What he did contribute, however, was my new Canon Rebel, that I LOVE LOVE LOVE! This gift was a total surprise at Christmas. I have wanted a really nice camera for a long time, and have wanted to enroll in photography classes. Adam (my husband, commonly referred to as "Hubbs") said, if i was going to start a blog, I need a good camera to document with! He's the best!



So, with now incorporating my life, passions, and my new camera, I have lead myself to a title for this blog called: "Through My Eye's Lens" sort of a before and after pun phrase.
well, that's all for now...
until next time...... ENJOY!