Wednesday, January 30, 2013

{Life}: Date Night to the Grizz Game.

Last Friday I got a text from Jake that he had won tickets from the Memphis Flyer to the Grizzlies game that night. All of a sudden our fun night of dinner with the parentals got upgraded to the 13th row of the Forum.


To make it a total Downtown date night, we hit up South of Beale before the game for dinner:


The game itself was a lot of fun - Jake was very excited to go to the game and I was glad to be able to see the players' faces (especially Kim Kardashian's {ex}husband!!).



And to top it off, the Grizzlies won!


My guy is a HUGE Grizz fan and he had so much fun. Thanks to the Memphis Flyer for hooking us up!

In grit and grind,

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Friday, January 25, 2013

{Life}: Anniversary Weekend.

Last Thursday was our four year anniversary (like I mentioned here). We decided to stay in town and do relaxing but fun things staycation style. I am so glad we did - it was tons of fun and very low stress.

Friday night I got back in town from a conference and we went to my parents' house for steaks - a bourdelaise recipe my dad makes that is my favorite by Pierre Franey. I did find a copy of the recipe from an old newspaper, linked here - it is on the top right of that first page linked.

Saturday we walked around the neighborhood before going downtown to do an appetizer crawl. It was a beautiful day - look at that blue sky!


We went to the Flying Saucer first for their soft pretzels with rotel:




Before walking down over to Local for their bar fries:




We ended the tour de' carbs by meeting up with Jake's brother and sister and their friends at South of Beale, where we had their famous Jack and Coke bread pudding.


Then it was home to recover and digest... and sneak in some quality time with the pups:


Before going out for our big anniversary dinner. We ended up going to Paulette's, which has moved downtown to the River Inn at Harbor Town. The lobby was so cozy and had the piano player just like the old place.


I got my favorite - Chicken Sicilian and of course got the Hot Fudge Crepe. What a classically good dinner.


Sunday we went to church and then spent some time with family and friends. Sunday night was Ellen's birthday so we went to Local (this time the Midtown location):




Monday was spent resting, crafting, and watching the Grizz play. All in all, a great anniversary weekend! I sure am grateful to have this guy by my side.

In love,

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Thursday, January 24, 2013

{Browser Window Shopping}: Antique Warehouse Mall.

Every once in a while I do a post on finds that I see but don't buy at the Summer Avenue Antique Mall, sometimes called Antique Warehouse. Here's the last time I did this, back in April.

The other day I hopped over to Antique Warehouse to spend a bit of time wandering amongst the antiques, just having a little "me" time. I spotted some fun finds to share.

When you go to the antique mall the first place to check out is the outside part - that is where the best furniture hides (can't believe I'm giving away my secret). It is totally junky and a treasure hunt but that is part of the fun. For example, check out this fun bed:



And see this yellow dresser hiding behind things? I love this dresser. Tried to think of an excuse to buy it...



Also I found this fun mirror laying around outside. I love it gold but you could also spray it something funky like turquoise or hot pink.


After making my way inside I found this hall tree. I am semi-obsessed with hall trees. This one isn't too frilly - almost arts and crafts-esque. I think the center could be neat with a memo board mounted on the back or something.


There's a booth right by the side door that is my favorite. She always has the best pyrex and kitchen knick-knacks. Here are some of her things:


There also was this fun vintage kitchen table - I love this style:


Making my way towards the back of the store I saw these fun blue Ball jars for $8 each - those are so hot right now. I loved the Pyrex orange juice container too.


On the right side of the store are the most styled booths - they are super vintage fun. The 50's kitchen always has great items. These chicken dishes were so adorable. If there had been more than 3 plates I would have snagged them. Come to think of it, how fun would those be mixed in with red plates? Hmm... And that butter dish? Adorbs.


This booth always cracks me up - it is one of the last on my stop around the store and always makes me smile. While I don't know that I would have any of this in my house, I think it is just way too cool.



So there you have it - browser window shopping at the antique store. See anything you like? Summer Avenue Antique Warehouse is definitely a place to check out!

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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

{Craft this}: Wreaths for the Beeline Bazaar.

Y'all know I love to craft - it is an outlet for me when I'm feeling stressed or low on energy. I've made wreaths for some time and finally decided to try my hand at having a booth at a craft fair. My friend Rachel and I will be having a booth at Hutchison's Beeline Bazaar on March 1st.

Over the long weekend I went ahead and started crafting to build up my inventory. Here are the three wreaths I have made so far. I am planning on making about 20. These are 12 inch wreaths but I bought 10, 12, and 16 inch forms.





I also found some antique frames so I cleaned them and spray painted them. I'm going to mount them with chicken wire and make them into memo boards and jewelry organizers.


I also tried out making kitchen towel/apron holders out of antique silverware. These can be mounted on a wall (they have sawtooth hangers on the back).


So what do you think? I'll post more of what I make as I do it. I'm also thinking I'll make an etsy store for the wreaths. I'll link when I do!

In crafting and creating,

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{Make this}: Pioneer Woman Chicken Soup.

Last week when it was so so cold (we got ice), I was craving soup. Pioneer Woman had just posted about her Italian Chicken Soup and so I knew that was going to be a great recipe to try out.


We didn't have ditilini so I just substituted it with my favorite pasta, wagon wheel pasta. Any shape pasta would do.

I highly recommend this recipe! A very tasty chicken noodle soup - it has some flavor and heat. It made enough for leftovers for days - I'd say probably about 8 servings. Try it out for yourself.

In pasta and (and in) soup,

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Saturday, January 19, 2013

{Life}: Happy Wedding Anniversary!

On Thursday Jake and I celebrated 4 years of marriage. We're spending this weekend together, doing things in Memphis we love while enjoying each others' company. Four years has flown by and I'm happy to say being married is the most fun thing ever!

Here are two pictures my dear friend Eric took on our wedding day that I unearthed a few weeks ago...



Here's to many more years!


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Thursday, January 10, 2013

{House}: Simple Hall Project.

Living in an older home, one of the things that I love is the character. In our front hall we have this cute little nook on the wall that used to be for a phone (remember when they had to stay in one place? when you had a home phone?). It even has a little place under it for a phone book (who uses those anymore?).

Here's a picture of the hall nook before we painted the hall, back when we first moved into the house in 2009. I caught Tyson hanging out there:


And post-painting the hall and adding art (on clearance from Pottery Barn kids), here is a poorly lit picture of the hallway:


And while I love that little nook, something was bothering me. The back of the telephone holder was wood but not the molding wood like the rest of it - a fake laminate wood. So for a while now I had been planning on painting it (and wondering why the heck we didn't paint it yellow when we painted the hall). But that would have meant dragging out paint cans, brushes, and pans.

Then the other day, I was cleaning and saw my craft paint and it was like "hello!" and I was all like "oh yeah..." and then it happened:


I took my craft paint (called sky blue but really is more of a vintage turquoise) and squeezed the rest of the bottle in a plastic bowl and went to town with a sponge brush. I taped the back with painter's tape and just went for it. Above is one coat in. That was when I was thinking "did I do the right thing?".

Here's two coats:


Looking better.

And here is the finished product:



It is like a little surprise. You don't notice it at first. I love how it ties in the turquoise in the art and also the turquoise in our hall bathroom:


(The hall bathroom is painted "Drizzle" by Sherwin Williams. And yes, I picked it partially because of its name.)

In simple projects to update our house,
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Wednesday, January 9, 2013

{Life}: The rest of Christmas Break.

 After Christmas we were graced with a wonderful amount of time to just hang out, relax, and spend time together. It started on the 26th when we woke up to a (thin) blanket of snow...


Later in that week we went to a Grizzlies game with my family. Jake is a huge Grizz fan and we love going to their games. 



We spent a lot of time hanging out with the pups.





We also got to see my cousin's baby yet again - Layla is absolutely perfect and I love when I get to see her!



Then it was time for New Year's Eve! For the past few years we have gone to A-Tan, our favorite Chinese place in town, for dinner with my parents and brothers. This year was extra fun, as we had Elise come and Jacob brought his girlfriend. We sat at our back round table in the special room and had lots and lots of food!




We also added a few ornaments to our tree after Christmas, including this precious basset hound in a tutu that Jake's aunt gave us. Harley thinks it is her toy...


Speaking of toys, we keep all the dogs' toys in their basket by the back door. One day we noticed Beamer had started picking toys out of the basket to play with so I waited and grabbed a picture of it as he was doing it the next time. He's a funny guy.


After the new year I knew it was time to get in gear for school so I spent some time transferring my old planner information to my new planner and adding in new dates. I love my Erin Condren planner!


Then the day before we went back from break I got to do something SUPER FUN - go wedding dress shopping with Elise!! We went to Low's Bridal in Brinkley, Arkansas.



It was so wonderful to be there with her as she found her dress and it made me so excited for September!!


On Sunday we celebrated the end of the weekend and the start of the semester for Jake. We went to Aldo's Pizza Pies with friends - their vodka pie really is my favorite pizza in Memphis.


Then we came home and took down all our decorations (on Epiphany, so Episcopalian).


It was hard saying goodbye to our decorations.. especially my favorite button wreath.


But the house looks so clean and open! We put a new wreath above the wall by the back door and added my new art to the hutch:


 No more tree!

No more stockings on the mantle:

And with that, we were done with Christmas. Ready for the spring now!

In breaks and new beginnings,

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